- Tonight on "The Proof Is Out There."
We investigate a classic case from the 1960s.
Is this a UFO flying next to an airplane?
- It's got fins on both sides
and then the fins kind of retract into the body
and it disappears.
- [Tony] A terror beneath the waves.
What are these grinning beasts in Brazil?
- If there are undiscovered creatures
anywhere on the planet, Brazil is where we would find 'em.
- [Tony] How did this ancient Roman artifact
wind up in Mexico before the conquistadors?
- There are many people who believe
that it may have been possible for Romans
to have made that transatlantic voyage.
- [Tony] A real life haunted mansion.
Could this be the ghost of a 19th century Aristocrat?
- The figure's legs are missing, and as it happened,
Lord Combermere suffered a severe carriage accident.
- [Tony] And a Bigfoot in Alabama?
These guys say they got close, too close.
[monstrous growling]
- Made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.
[dramatic music]
- [Tony] Around the globe are videos,
[witness screaming]
photos,
and sounds that defy explanation.
[electric whirring]
- [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.
- [Witness] It's coming towards us.
- [Tony] 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, everyone,
and welcome to "The Proof Is Out There."
You know, some of the best UFO footage
comes from airline passengers.
A recent in-flight sighting
near New York's LaGuardia Airport made headlines,
but one of the most famous clips from coach class
comes from way back in 1966.
Take a look.
April 2nd, 1966, 9,000 feet
above Staffordshire County, England.
It's Joan and Tom Oldfield's first time on an airplane,
in this case a British Dart Herald turboprop.
The couple captures the moment with their home movie camera
by filming out of the plane's window,
when they catch a glimpse of something otherworldly.
The original eight millimeter film has been digitized
and marked with a logo,
but the anomaly it shows remains clear.
Slowing down the footage, we see a long, sausage-shaped UFO
on the right side of the screen.
It appears to have two prominent fins
on it's left and right sides.
After a brief moment,
the object seems to rotate on its vertical axis
before zipping away from the plane in the blink of an eye.
- This film became known as the Oldfield Film
and was sent to the British Air Ministry for investigation.
It became very popular with British UFO enthusiasts.
It even made news headlines in the United States.
The Palm Beach Post published an article
saying that it might be a return of a mysterious craft
that had terrorized a small English town in an incident
called The Warminster Thing.
- [Tony] The Warminster Thing refers to a swath
of UFO sightings in Warminster, England,
in the summer of 1965.
- There were a number of witnesses
who saw different types of shapes.
Some saw a cigar shaped alien craft like the one
in the Oldfield Film, and others saw what they described
as twin red hot pokers hanging down one on top of the other.
- [Tony] It was a mass sighting.
More than 400 people claim to have seen
and heard what appeared to be a flying saucer,
but officials remained up in the air
about the object in the sky.
- There are a number of military installations
around Warminster.
The government said they weren't doing any experiments
at the time that could explain what the eyewitnesses saw.
To this day, all of those Warminster sightings
are unexplained.
- What's fascinating to me about the Oldfield Film
is the way the object spins and disappears
in the blink of an eye.
See how it just vanishes there?
Could the Oldfields have seen the same craft
that appeared during the Warminster Thing
and not known it?
Or was their UFO another kind of aerial vehicle?
[tense music]
Since this footage was shot in 1966,
staging an event like this would have been extremely tricky
because all effects would have to have been done in camera.
- Now, it doesn't appear to be something that's affixed
to the window because we see the edge of the window here
and we see the object itself changes shape.
So I don't think there's any way
that you could actually fake this video.
- [Tony] So if it's outside the plane and real,
what could it be?
We wonder whether the Oldfields could have captured
a dirigible, flying alongside their plane.
- The problem with dirigibles
is that they would not keep up with the speed
of the Dart Herald aircraft.
They would've been actually outpaced very quickly.
And here, it's moving at exactly the same speed as the plane.
- [Tony] Given that they were filming through a window,
what's the possibility
they accidentally filmed a reflection?
- Window reflections often cause UFOs,
but the only things that reflect in windows are lights.
Here we're seeing something that's dark.
- It looks like it's right along with the plane,
and I think that's because it's on the plane,
part of the plane.
It looks like they were looking at something attached
to the plane itself.
- [Tony] What we're seeing could be a plane appendage
that's warped by the convex edge of the window
to look like a free floating object.
- [Marc] We're talking about the Dart Herald aircraft.
I think it's probably the horizontal stabilizer
in the back of the plane.
[tense music]
- Our verdict, this is a part of an airplane
that was distorted by the window
and misinterpreted by the witnesses.
In fact, one television crew even recreated the journey
in the exact same seat on the exact same aircraft.
And what do you know?
They saw the exact same UFO, or rather,
the same horizontal stabilizer.
Now I am going to show you some of the freakiest video
I've seen in a while.
A smile can convey warmth, humor, and happiness,
but in a sinister setting, it can have the opposite effect.
From the Joker, to Jack-o'-lanterns,
to the pirate flag known as Jolly Roger,
menacing grins can induce fear.
Just look at the mysterious smirking creatures
in our next story.
May 2024, Mato Grosso, Brazil.
A fisherman is on a quiet late night trip in his canoe,
when he feels eyes watching him.
He looks over the side of his boat and sees this.
The video captures glowing red eyes,
peering out from grinning faces
lurking just below the surface of the water.
Take a closer look.
Those eyes seem to hover in place,
smiling eerily at the fishermen as he tries
to placate the creatures with some snackable fish.
It's a spooky site,
taken in one of the world's most exotic locations.
- The Mato Grosso is an extremely dense
and unexplored region of the southern Amazon River Basin.
And really, if there are undiscovered creatures anywhere
on the planet, the Mato Grosso, is where we would find them.
Looking at this video, I'm immediately reminded
of a legendary Brazilian creature known as the Boiúna.
Typically depicted as an immense serpent
that's very dangerous, able to topple boats.
It's also a shapeshifter
and a protector of the Amazon rainforest,
capable of taking the form of a human.
And when we look at the human-like grin
on these two creatures, one can wonder,
are these Boiúnas attempting to lure this fishermen
beneath the waves?
- [Tony] Besides the Boiúna,
a menagerie of real life monstrous serpents
is well documented within the area.
- There are many accounts of gigantic snakes
from the Amazon River Basin,
and perhaps the most celebrated involves the famous explorer
Colonel Percy Fawcett.
Now, back in the year 1907,
he was at a place called the Rio Negro
when he encountered this gigantic triangular head
in the water and quickly realized
that it was an Anaconda.
He fired one shot into its spine,
which killed it instantly.
And when he and his companions were able to drag
most of its body on the shore, they measured it
and determined that it had a total length of 62 feet.
So we're talking about the mother of all anacondas.
Could these actually be giant anacondas here in the water?
- In a popular story from one of the Batman comic books,
the Joker poisons all the fish in Gotham Harbor,
leaving them with a menacing grin,
not unlike what we see in this footage.
And while I doubt any Smilex gas was used
to create these critters,
let's see what our experts have to say.
[tense music]
Some have speculated that this is nothing
more than some creepy looking catfish, but think again.
- Whatever this is, is very, very large
and there's no known catfish species here
that would make sense for that size range.
- A catfish mouth is actually downturned,
and that's because they scoot along the bottom
and scavenge a lot of food.
The mouth on this fish looks like
it's maybe an ambush predator.
- [Tony] Could these be predators,
protecting the rainforest, like the legendary Boiúna?
- The Boiúna is actually known to hypnotize its victims
using its red glowing eyes and then drag them underwater.
Instead, the person seems to be bringing these creatures
to him by feeding them.
And you're not actually supposed to see anything
of the Boiúna except for its eyes.
And we can tell this is some kind of an animal.
- [Tony] If it's some type of animal,
could this be one of the area's infamous anacondas?
- If I was looking for a very large snake underwater
like this, you'd probably see something called periscoping.
You would probably see the neck coming outta the water.
And in addition, the head of this thing is massive.
If I was to see an anaconda with a head that big,
the anaconda would have to be 80 plus feet.
- While this may not be an anaconda
or other kind of monster,
what this is, is maybe equally terrifying.
- I think this is most likely an arapaima.
Arapaimas are massive fish found all throughout the Amazon,
and these things get over 400 pounds.
They can in fact cause injury
and have been noted to cause injury in humans all the time.
- There have actually been circumstances
of people being knocked out by these fish
jumping out of the water.
- [Tony] The natural shape of the arapaima's mouth
makes it appear to have a smile.
And as for those glowing eyes...
- They have a tissue on the covering of their eyes
known as tapidum lucidum.
And what that tissue does is actually reflect more light
into the eye itself to pick up more visual imagery.
- [Tony] On top of that, these aggressive fish
can even survive outside the water for as long as 24 hours.
- And they can also bite.
They've been known to grab things like bats
straight outta the air, or eat small mammals
that are on the banks of the river.
So I would say it's best to steer clear of these animals.
[tense music]
- Our verdict, these grinning jokers are arapaimas.
As our experts explain, they can be quite dangerous.
And don't think you're safe
just because you're not in Brazil.
In 2021, the carcass of an arapaima was spotted
in Florida's waters, leaving some to wonder
if this non-native species has found a new home in the US.
- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is best known
for creating the iconic character of Sherlock Holmes.
And like his fictional detective,
the writer was a bit of a sleuth.
Tonight we're looking at a paranormal photograph
so compelling, Conan Doyle himself considered it
a true mystery.
It's 1891 in Cheshire, England.
At St. Margaret's Church, a funeral service is underway
for the second Lord Combermere.
Meanwhile, back at the late Lord's estate,
a guest takes a photograph of his empty grand library.
When the picture is developed,
it reveals something unseen to the naked eye.
At first, it seems there's nothing out of the ordinary,
just a richly furnished room
with an impossibly large bookshelf.
But take a closer look to the left
and you'll notice what appears to be a ghostly figure,
seated on an ornate chair.
It is the unmistakable outline of a man.
Note the suited upper body and the curve of a bald head.
However, the legs on the specter
seem to be completely missing.
The current owner of the estate,
Sarah Callander Beckett, believes it's clear
who we're seeing in this photograph,
a man who was supposedly dead and buried.
- When the photograph was developed,
there was Lord Combermere sitting in his chair.
And it is really remarkable.
And if you see prints of him, it absolutely is him.
I think the spirit was coming home to sit in a place
where he would've always sat.
- One detail that makes the story more compelling
is that the figure's legs are missing.
And as it happened, Lord Combermere suffered
a severe carriage accident in which his legs were run over
by a horse-drawn carriage.
He was rendered partly paralytic,
and the trauma contributed to his death
at the time this photo was taken.
- [Tony] The photo became an object of public fascination
when it was released in a newspaper article in 1926
by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
The subject of that piece:
something known as spirit photography.
- At the time, Americans and Europeans were obsessed
with talking to the dead, holding seances,
capturing evidence of the unseen world.
And one of the efforts was called spirit photography.
In spirit photography, the photograph was taken,
but upon development, a ghostly apparition appears.
- So-called spirit photographs were a thing back then,
and so were spirit frauds.
One of the most famous was the Englishman, William Hope.
He was once caught tampering with photographic plates
in order to manufacture a ghostly effect.
Could our Combermere ghosts be another such forgery
or could we be looking at the real deal?
Let's ask our experts.
[tense music]
- One of the more common processes that photographers
and other professionals began to utilize
to fake situations in the 19th century
was called a double exposure.
- [Tony] Double exposure is when you take two photographs
and overlay them to create one image.
Like this photo of Harry Houdini sitting across
from the ghost of Abraham Lincoln.
Houdini took an existing plate
with the image of Abraham Lincoln
and using that same plate, he photographed himself,
positioned as though he were right next
to the late president.
Is that what's happening here?
Well, maybe, or maybe not.
- I didn't detect any artifacts of that double exposure
in and around some of the details like the books.
But it doesn't necessarily mean
that it didn't happen that way,
especially because this particular subject appears
to have a different visibility than the rest of the image.
- [Tony] However, there's another key photographic detail
that could account for what we're seeing.
- This camera required a very long exposure time,
and that's because of earlier cameras
having less sensitivity to light.
Long exposures open up the possibility of people, objects,
and things crossing the field of view of the camera
and showing up as ghostly figures
through a partial exposure.
But also these older cameras
are not gonna pick up every single motion during that hour
or whatever length of time the exposure was.
- [Tony] And that inability to pick up on motion
might also explain the missing legs.
In 2018, French photographer Mathieu Stern
recreated the Combermere photo using long exposure
and some simple, if silly, leg kicks.
And here's the resulting photo.
On long exposure, the camera can't pick up
the constant movement of the subject's legs.
- It's possible that you actually have intentional fakery
where you create a ghost-like image on purpose.
So I'm not convinced here that we're seeing a ghost
or anything paranormal.
[tense music]
- Our verdict, camera trick.
We think someone sat in the chair and moved their legs
back and forth really fast,
just long enough to create that image.
But the owner of Combermere Abbey tells us
there are other ghosts roaming its halls.
Let's just hope they're not camera shy.
- The national UFO Reporting Center has cataloged
more than 13,000 sightings of triangle shaped UFOs,
many going back decades.
These alleged craft have been spotted all over the world,
but the best evidence ever may have come
from the great state of Kansas.
April 16th, 2014, Wichita, Kansas.
Amateur photographer Jeff Templin is in his lakeside
community, testing out a new camera lens,
when he notices something strange flying overhead.
A crisp edged triangular craft soars across the sky
with a two-pronged smoke trail stretching out behind it.
As we increase the photo's contrast,
we can see that the craft is like gray
with the front edge making a stark V
and the darker body almost blending
with the blue sky behind it.
This triangular object falls into a new UFO classification
system established by the UFO Investigative Group,
Sky-Watcher.
Out of the nine UFO types, this would be a tetra,
but it turns out Jeff's photo is only the beginning.
- A second photo surfaced online
depicting the exact same object.
And after this image surfaced,
a lot of people began making inquiries to the military
to ascertain whether this was a military craft.
But they've not responded to requests for comment.
- [Tony] With no word from government officials.
The rumors begin to fly.
- Netizens began to speculate
as to what we could be looking at here.
One of the speculative theories out there
is that this is actually a B-2 stealth bomber.
- [Tony] The B-2 is a unique platform
in the American arsenal,
which played a central role in the 2025 American airstrikes
on Iran, blending stealth and aerodynamics
like never before.
It's considered one of the most feared aircraft
in the world.
- The B-2 bomber is essentially designed
to travel over an adversary country
and deliver a payload without ever being seen
or heard or tracked.
It's essentially invisible,
but when it flies close to the ground, it's very obvious
as a very large sort of black triangular shaped object.
- [Tony] But what if it's something even more secretive?
Some suspect this object is actually an infamous triangular
spacecraft only alleged to exist.
It's known as the TR-3B.
- The TR-3B'S story begins at Roswell
when the US military allegedly recovered the debris
of a crashed flying disc.
The project ever since
was to essentially reverse engineer it
into something that a human can fly.
- [Tony] Rumor has it the engineers who unlocked
that alien tech were Nazi rocket scientists
sheltered by the United States after the war
in exchange for research.
The resultant TR-3B is said to use nuclear
accelerated mercury to generate plasma
that creates an anti-gravity field around the craft.
- The TR-3B exists in this mythical land
of, perhaps the government has secret planes
that we don't know about and they've been
quietly building them without public awareness.
- It's not publicly known exactly
how much money the government sets aside
and what is known as the black budget
for its secret military programs.
But some estimate that it could be around $100 billion.
Did Jeff photograph proof of your tax dollars at work
or something else?
[tense music]
Given that Kansas is home to three military installations,
could we be seeing a known delta wing stealth bomber
like the B-2?
- The B-2 aircraft looks like a flying wing,
and it is designed to blend in, especially at nighttime.
But for training exercises in the daytime,
usually they would fly at an altitude
where they wouldn't leave a contrail
so that people wouldn't see it.
And the fact that they have not come out
and said anything, would leave me to believe
that this is some kind of aircraft
that somebody was experimenting with other than a B-2.
- [Tony] If it's not the B-2,
could this whole thing be a hoax?
Well, maybe in part.
Remember that second photo that mysteriously emerged online?
- This one is just a perfect triangle.
When I looked at this one before, I thought,
how is he getting such a deep projected shot on this?
Was that maybe a hoaxed image?
- [Tony] Since the person who shot that photo
never identified themselves, we're leaning that way.
But Jeff's photo doesn't show any indication of fakery.
Then are we looking at proof the legendary TR-3B
really exists? Not so fast.
Remember, that craft was allegedly reverse engineered
from a UFO.
- UFOs don't typically have engines like we've created here
on the earth that would produce a contrail like this.
It looks to me like these are twin contrails
from very real human engineering.
We can't see all the details on this,
but I think it, at the very least, it's a new kind
of aircraft being tested, but we can't tell what it is.
[tense music]
- Our verdict, unidentified test craft.
Without clearer confirmation from the US military
or some private entity, it's really up in the air
as to what Jeff photographed.
- Famous sounds from the state of Alabama
include everything from the roar of the Talladega Superspeedway
to the southern fried rock of Lynyrd Skynyrd.
But now, we may be able to add Bigfoot's growl
to the state's greatest hits.
August 2024, Talladega National Forest, Alabama.
With two individual cameras rolling, YouTubers Matt Graham
and Darrel Smith head deep into the dense forest,
a spot they've explored countless times
for their channel.
The night has been uneventful, when suddenly...
- Whoa, stop. - What was that?
- [Tony] A rumble can be heard
coming from deep within the woods.
They try to locate whatever it is with their flashlights
and hear it again, louder now.
[monstrous growling]
- Dude, that is a growl. - It is a growl.
- [Tony] Let's hear that one more time and we'll turn it up.
[monstrous growling]
- I'm not gonna lie, it caught me off guard
and we were hurrying back to the vehicle.
So we don't know what it is,
but I need to get video proof and actually see it
and know it's real before I'm gonna say,
"That was Bigfoot."
- [Tony] And it turns out, Alabama Bigfoot sightings
actually go back centuries.
- The Alabama Coushatta people describe a wild man
called the Eeyachuba.
The way they describe it, it comes out at night.
It's hair covered.
It follows hunters when they're carrying small prey.
- [Tony] Like we hear in this video,
many believe that these creatures will ferociously roar
to mark their territory
and to freeze potential threats in their tracks.
- They will bang on the ground, roar, scream,
just to get you out of an area.
And when you leave, they will make sure you leave
by escorting you out, even if that means chasing you out.
I've spoken to several witnesses that claim that,
"Oh, that thing was gonna kill me."
- One story from the 1800s claimed
that early Alabama settlers encountered a giant, hairy,
bipedal creature about eight feet tall.
Someone allegedly shot the beast
and a posse followed the blood trail,
which eventually disappeared at the edge of a cliff.
It's quite a tale.
Could a descendant of that creature
be what made this sound?
Let's see what our experts think.
[tense music]
Could this ferocious growl come from an Alabama Bigfoot?
- There's quite a variety of sounds
that have been attributed to Sasquatch,
which range from grunts, and hoots, to screams,
and roars, and growls.
- [Tony] The sound has a guttural roaring aspect
similar to a black bear.
But while this forest is home to some black bears,
there are only about 200 in the entire state.
- 200 is a very modest number.
You talk to people who are avid outdoorsmen in Alabama
and they rarely encounter black bear.
- [Tony] So let's do some comparison testing, shall we?
First, we match our Alabama growl
with what many believe is the closest thing
to a legitimate Sasquatch recording,
the infamous Ohio howls recorded in Columbiana County,
Ohio, in the fall of 1994.
- So when I compare the characteristics
of the Ohio Bigfoot howls,
they have more frequency variation.
[monstrous growling]
The growl sound to me does sound kind of like
it might be a bear, but there were a few features
that seem a little unnatural to me.
An animal making a growl ordinarily would be moving
or having some variation throughout the sound.
[bear growling]
[monstrous growling]
This particular growl recording stays at one pitch,
in one frequency range throughout the sound.
[monstrous growling]
My subjective impression would be
that the growl was produced by playback
through a loud speaker at the scene.
- [Tony] That might help explain the mild behavior
of our eyewitnesses.
- Their reaction was rather minimalist.
So maybe this experience was a contrived one.
[tense music]
- Our verdict, we're calling this one a well executed hoax,
one that fooled thousands online.
Don't blame yourselves.
Not everyone can have a forensic audio analyst
at their fingertips.
That's what we are here for.
- It is widely accepted that the first European
to land in modern day Mexico was the Explorer
Francisco Hernandez de Cordoba,
who arrived in early 1517.
But our next story features an artifact that casts doubt
on that fact, and the entire history
of exploration in the Americas.
Take a look.
1933, Toluca, Mexico.
A group of archeologists is excavating Calixtlahuaca,
a 16th century Aztec city.
Digging in a grave site
that dates between 1476 and 1510 AD,
they come across several Aztec relics from the era.
And then this.
It's a small terracotta head that stands out
because it looks nothing like the other Mesoamerican
artifacts found here.
The man has an expressively stern look,
sporting a beard in what appears to be
some kind of head covering.
Geologist Peter Schaaf says, the head left experts befuddled
because it seemed like something from ancient Rome.
- This kind of cap and the beard and so on,
there were not features which you would've expected
from a colonial ceramic.
So I was also convinced it is some kind of Roman thing.
- [Tony] But what's a Roman sculpture doing
at an Aztec archeological site?
- There are many people who believe
that this is a genuine Roman artifact
and that Romans actually made their way
to the so-called New World more than 2,000 years ago.
Norwegian adventurer, Thor Heyerdahl
took a transatlantic voyage in 1970
in a boat built according to ancient Egyptian
boat building techniques.
His boat was called the Ra II,
and it sailed from Morocco to the West Indies
showing that it may have been possible for Romans
to have made that transatlantic voyage.
- [Tony] What's even more shocking?
This head may not be the only Roman artifact
to have made an epic journey across the Atlantic.
In 1982, underwater archeologist Robert Marx
made an intriguing discovery off the coast of Brazil.
- Marx discovered barnacle covered amphorae,
which are large jars that the Greeks and Romans used
to transport things like wine, oil, water,
and grain on long voyages.
His theory is that there was a Roman ship
that was blown off course and was wrecked on shoals
or coral reefs during a severe storm.
And if that's true, that completely upends
what we know about the history of exploration in this area.
- In 2016, an archeologist discovered a handful
of ancient Roman coins within the ruins
of a 12th century Japanese castle.
There was no known trade between these two civilizations.
No one knows for sure how this currency got there.
But can our experts figure out how this ancient Roman relic
crossed an ocean?
Let's find out.
[tense music]
There's debate over exactly when the head was carved,
with one source suggesting
it dates to the second century AD.
But the experts agree on one point,
this artifact was not made locally.
- Because of how it's constructed, its size,
this cannot be made in Mesoamerica.
We have not found any other example like it.
This is not pre-Hispanic type of pottery.
- [Tony] Then how did it get across the Atlantic?
The burial site dates to before the Spanish conquest
of Mexico.
And our artifact might predate all of this by centuries.
Did the Romans make the trip after all?
- We know that the Romans were seafaring
and that they were able to sail all the way
to what's now Great Britain and Ireland.
But it's always about show me the artifacts.
And really if they made it across the Atlantic
in any substantial way, we would expect Roman artifacts.
And we don't have that.
- [Tony] But what about the jars found off the coast of Brazil?
- In the end, those supposed Roman ceramics
turned out to be planted there by a man
who claimed he intentionally submerged them
to allow them to collect barnacles and look old.
So questions of authenticity came up.
- [Tony] Those jars may be an archeological scam,
but our ancient head was confirmed by multiple studies
as a genuine artifact from antiquity.
So then what explains its presence in Calixtlahuaca?
Could the dating of the burial site be off by a few years?
- The excavation evidence said that the objects
around this little bust were somewhere in the late 1400s
or early 1500s,
which is not very far off at all from Contact Period,
which would mean that it's a more likely case
that this was deposited during the Spanish Entrada
and not much, much earlier in the Roman period.
- [Tony] Or in the end, could this all have been
just an elaborate joke?
- There are stories among the archeologists of the time
that one archeologist was playing a trick on another,
putting something in the excavation
to make him think he had found something amazing
when in fact, it was just a plant.
That, of course, is a story.
And all the folks that were involved in the excavation
in the 1930s have passed away years ago.
So we really can't verify that story.
[tense music]
- Our verdict, looks like we have a split decision here.
Our experts can verify that this is an ancient artifact,
very likely of Roman origin,
but exactly how it ended up at a Mesoamerican grave site,
for us, that remains unexplained.
- Bloodsucking vampires are a staple
of horror movies and Halloween.
But centuries ago, people thought vampires were very real
and some believed strongly enough
to commit monstrous acts of their own.
September 2024, Chelm, Poland.
Workers are removing tree roots
for a garden renovation at a cathedral,
when they unearth something grisly.
Two children's skeletons dating to the 13th century
are found in a shallow burial pit
where no grave sites are marked.
But what's truly shocking is that
one of the children was decapitated after they died,
the severed head turned to face the ground.
Why would someone do this to the remains of a child?
- In Poland, in the medieval era,
people were mortally terrified
that the undead could feast on the blood of the living,
both humans and livestock.
And measures were taken, some of them really grisly,
to bury the dead in such a way
that kept them from rising.
- [Tony] That's right.
In medieval Poland, fear of vampires was very real
and it endured for centuries.
- In one famous tale in 1674,
a Polish man rose from the dead
and he was going around sucking the blood of his neighbors.
His nocturnal wanderings only stopped
when the body was decapitated.
- Belief in vampires ran riot throughout ports of Eastern
and central Europe.
Imagine how terrified you have to be to do something
this gruesome to a child after death.
- This isn't the first time we've investigated supposed
vampire skeletons in Poland, like this woman's remains
found with a sickle around her neck.
The question is, was this practice really nothing more
than medieval superstition?
Or did these bodies pose a real threat?
Let's ask the experts.
[tense music]
Could this be a real blood sucking vampire?
There's a reason the locals decapitated the dead body.
- You're severing the head from the body
and it's upside down in the grave
so that he's confused then if he comes back alive.
- [Tony] But there's another theory
behind the widespread belief in vampires.
It has nothing to do with the supernatural.
Instead, it's tied to one of history's darkest periods.
In 1348, the black plague spread across Europe
and wiped out half the population.
And it turns out dead plague victims,
were sometimes mistaken for the undead.
- The black plague really did inspire
a lot of the tales about vampirism.
And it was widespread in Europe
that something, you know, was evil walking among you,
can kill you, drain you of blood.
And these superstitions, of course,
arose from a lack of understanding
of how diseases are passed from person to person.
- [Tony] Hang on, though.
The black plague didn't start until a century
after these children died.
But there were other diseases
that would have been just as scary.
- We know that the time period that this child died
was around the 1200s.
And that was a time where wave after wave
of what we understand now as pandemic diseases
were sweeping through and there was a lot of fear
and superstition of how people got sick.
- [Tony] It's also possible these kids were afflicted
with a very specific disease, one with symptoms
that definitely would make these children appear vampiric.
It's called porphyria.
- Porphyria is a rare hereditary disorder
where individuals are unable to metabolize protein
that comprises our red blood cells.
Individuals with porphyria cannot go out into the sunlight
because their skin is so sensitive
that it might blister up and it may scar.
And some individuals with porphyria
can have receding gum lines,
which can make your teeth look longer
and maybe pointier, like a fang.
- [Tony] Whatever disease was responsible,
it's clear it scared the villagers to their core.
And at a time when they couldn't explain the concept
of a virus, they turn to their legends for an explanation.
And the way to stop the diseases spread.
- These two children may very well have been
because of their age, more susceptible to diseases
and may have been the first to get the disease
that spread into the village.
And so for the village, the only way to rectify that
and their own superstition is then to bury them
in this special way so that they can continue
with their lives.
[tense music]
- Our verdict, unknown disease.
Even today, public health concerns
have spawned vampire myths,
like the wildly inaccurate online rumor
that the COVID vaccine will turn you
into a blood sucking monster.
You just can't make this stuff up.
And that's our show for tonight.
Thank you so much for watching,
and keep those cameras rolling.
[dramatic music]