- Tonight on the Proof is Out There, we're back.
An all new supersized season
with more amazing videos of the unexplained.
What's behind these mysterious lights in Norway
that have baffled scientists for decades?
- These videos are astonishing and unbelievable.
- [Tony] Why is this girl crying tears made of glass?
- We've never seen anything like this before.
- [Tony] Is this footage proof of a living African dinosaur?
- Although it's described as being an herbivore,
a vegetarian,
it's hyper-aggressive and territorial.
- [Tony] And what was that in the skies above London?
- It seems to be morphing.
It kind of narrows and then expands again to a ring shape.
(suspenseful music)
- [Tony] Around the globe are videos.
- [Woman] What the heck is this?
- [Man] It's moving.
- [Tony] Photos and sounds that defy explanation.
(air whirs strangely)
- [Man 2] Is it some kind of unidentified object?
- [Woman 2] Are we looking at something that's CGI?
- [Tony] What are they?
- [Man 3] 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.
(suspenseful music)
- It's a credible case.
It's a credible video.
- [Tony] And pass a verdict on what it is.
- This video is clearly fake.
- The proof starts now.
(suspenseful music)
- Good evening and welcome to this brand new season
of The Proof is Out There.
If you live in a Scandinavian country like Norway
you often get a front row seat
to the famous Northern Lights.
But while that dazzling site has a scientific explanation,
we found some other lights in the Norwegian skies
and they're leaving us
with many more questions than answers.
For more than 30 years.
computer science professor Erling Strand has been traveling
the Hessdalen Valley in his native Norway,
spending countless hours and investigating a mystery
that no one can explain.
It's a phenomenon so rare
that not many have ever captured it on film.
But when it happens, Erling's camera and tripod
have been there to record these eerie images.
One of Erling's videos taken on December 4th, 1999
shows a pulsating, flickering light
that appears above the horizon.
Another video shows what appears to be
a single mysterious pulsating light.
When we zoom in, the
shape, size, and intensity
seem to be fluctuating
as these lights travel
high above the mountains.
- There was no natural thing which could make these lights.
I found that very little scientific information existed.
- Close-up photographs reveal
what appears to be an amorphous, gas-like substance.
But what are they?
The lights have been observed since the 1930s.
But investigative journalist MJ Bonias
says it was the period between December 1981 to mid 1984
when the scientific world really took notice.
- What makes Hessdalen very interesting
is we don't know if
this is some sort of a naturally occurring phenomena,
we don't know if this is a manmade phenomena,
and we also don't know if this could have
some sort of other worldly answer.
- [Tony] While sightings of the lights
are not as frequent as they once were,
this has not stopped ufologists from believing
that the lights are signs of extraterrestrial activity.
- Some people believe that due to mineral deposits
or the location of a specific mountain or valley
that UFOs are drawn to it,
or that valleys and mountains
play host to some underground
bases for UFO pilots.
- [Tony] But researchers have recently
come up with a more earthly explanation.
The unusual lights
may be caused by a natural battery buried deep underground
created by metallic minerals reacting with sulfur
in the river running between them.
- The area itself is very rich in minerals.
For a very long time, mining operations
have existed in the area,
predominantly for minerals like copper and zinc.
And these lights could be somehow connected to
the mining operations that occur in the valley.
- Researchers are so determined
to figure out this phenomenon that in 1998,
a permanent station called the Blue Box
began monitoring the valley with a magnetometer,
two black and white cameras, and one color camera.
Clearly something strange is going on there, but what?
We asked our experts to weigh in.
(eerie music)
Physics professor Matthew Szydagis
says that since teams of scientists
have been studying this phenomenon for decades,
they've had plenty of time to eliminate several
of the more mundane explanations.
- We've already ruled out car, (car engine runs)
airplane, (airplane engine roars)
helicopter (helicopter blades whirring)
because those objects don't fit
the description of these lights,
which have different behaviors blinking on and off,
changing shape, changing color.
- [Tony] While Szydagis says that the natural battery theory
makes sense, it's still just a theory.
- The natural minerals in the area may develop
positive and negative charges naturally
like in your everyday battery.
So if you have a strong enough electric field
you might end up with what look like lights in the sky.
The downside of the natural battery theory
is these minerals are not necessarily next to each other.
They're separated by the river in the area.
- [Tony] Astronomer and video effects designer
Mark D'Antonio says another leading theory
is that the lights are literally generated by the earth.
- The theory is that the lights are generated by
some type of electrical energy
coupled with some magnetic influences
that ends up becoming visible in the air
as naturally caused lights,
in the same way that you scruff your feet on a carpet
and touch something metal
and you see a little spark between your finger
and that metal thing.
That might be able to occur on a larger scale.
But I think that we're lacking information
to say definitively what they are.
So we don't know for sure
exactly what we're seeing here.
But it is a rather compelling video nonetheless.
(eerie music)
- Our verdict,
we're calling this an unexplained phenomenon.
While the theory that the geology of Norway
is causing the Hessdalen lights is compelling,
it is still only a theory.
And it begets the question,
why don't we see this battery effect
around other similar geological areas?
One thing is certain, more research is needed.
And if you want head to Norway to do it,
they'll leave the lights on for you.
We turn now from the skies to the seas
and another puzzling piece of footage.
We normally think of great white sharks
as the apex predator of the ocean,
and that's often the case.
But in this next video, as you'll see,
a massive great white shark
looks like it's been attacked by something even greater.
But what?
December 2021, photographer Jalil Najafov
is on a dive in Isla Guadalupe, Mexico.
Conditions are ideal, sun in the sky,
and visibility excellent.
Suddenly, he spots and photographs a huge shark.
The estimate is 15 feet long.
That's as long as a canoe.
But look at this.
As you see here, the shark looks like
it's been attacked by something else with massive jaws.
Let's take a closer look.
Field researcher Ken Gerhard
tells us that there are a few potential suspects here.
- So this is a fossilized tooth
from a shark known as otodus megalodon
that supposedly went extinct over 2 million years ago
during the Pliocene Epoch.
This was a large predatory shark
that scientists estimate could have gotten
as big as 40 to 60 feet long.
In terms of whether megalodon might still be alive,
there are some interesting accounts.
For example, in 1918,
several fishermen off the coast of Australia
described seeing a monstrous ghostly white shark
a hundred feet in length.
So is it possible that something like megalodon
could still survive into modern times?
And certainly if it did,
it would be capable of inflicting a wound this large
on this very large shark.
Pretty terrifying.
- There are also some intriguing stories
of giant sharks in fisherman's tales.
In 1959, Robert Pamperin was killed
by a great white shark near San Diego.
Another diver claimed he saw Pamperin
waist-deep in a 20-footer's mouth before the shark,
in one gulp, swallowed the rest of him whole.
Supposedly, this shark was as big as a killer whale
and fisherman days later reported seeing a shark
20 to 40 feet long in the same area.
That's even bigger than Jaws.
There are, however,
other possible culprits for a bite like this.
Perhaps one of the world's most notorious sharks?
- The largest great white shark ever photographed,
which was given the name Deep Blue,
was a female that was about 20 feet long.
And that particular shark was photographed
in a similar region off the coast of Mexico.
So it certainly opens the door to the possibility
that this bite wound was inflicted by Deep Blue.
- This isn't the first time
we've seen a shark's wound that has frightened seamen.
We investigated this fisherman's catch,
a mako shark weighing at least 250 pounds,
that looked like it was bitten in half
by something much bigger.
So we know sharks can go from predator to prey.
But exactly whose jaws are responsible for this attack?
(eerie music)
First we turn to marine biologist Shea Conger
to tell us just how hard it would be for something
to inflict a bite this size
on a shark like this.
- Shark skin is incredibly tough,
it's actually a series of plates.
So to have bitten through an animal like this
would take a large amount of force.
This injury is actually very well healed
so we can only imagine what it looked like
when it was fresh.
- [Tony] Okay, so it's got to be big,
but how likely is it that something this big
could be lurking in the deep without us knowing?
- There's some theories
that this injury could have been caused
by the extinct megalodon.
We haven't found any evidence of it.
And in fact, when we study large sharks like this,
in the fossil record
often the only thing that we have
to know about them are their teeth that survive.
The last known fossil record of a megalodon
was over 20 million years ago.
- [Tony] Congers says if megalodon were still around,
we'd have some newer teeth.
- The idea that a species this large
and this predatory would survive for so long
without us noticing is really unlikely.
Also, a megalodon's bite was extremely enormous.
Meaning if this were a megalodon bite,
the shark would either be bitten in half
or completely consumed.
- [Tony] In fact, megalodons may have been
even larger than experts suspected.
According to a new 3D model created by scientists,
these sharks may have been up to 65 feet long
and weighed over 67 tons.
At this size, its jaws could consume
a 26-foot orca in a few bites.
Those figures don't match up with the wound we see here.
So if it's not a megalodon,
could it be something a little more familiar?
- Some possible candidates
for the bite marks on the shark
could include a killer whale.
- [Tony] It's not so hard to believe.
In South Africa, scientists have observed a pair of orcas
serial killing big, great white sharks
over a period of five years.
However, Congers says the bite simply doesn't match.
- [Shea] I think this is unlikely because killer whales
have really round, tubular-shaped teeth
and we would see a lot of really defined teeth mark here.
- [Tony] Next we turn to biologist Floyd Hayes,
a shark enthusiast who thinks
he might know what happened here.
- This is a female great white shark.
We know it's a female
because the males have long extensions of the pelvic fins
called claspers, which are kind of like penises.
Because no flesh appears to have been removed
it doesn't look like it's a predatory bite.
It's very possible that Deep Blue could have done this
or perhaps from a male during mating.
- The shallow nature of this scarring
rules out a predatory attack.
Sharks that attack their own aggressively,
sometimes known as cannibal sharks, leave deeper wounds,
often ripping their prey apart completely.
(eerie music)
Our verdict?
This was an injury sustained at the jaws of another shark.
While Deep Blue would be large enough
to make such an impression,
she's also a female,
so it's unlikely that she could have been responsible
if the injury were sustained during mating.
So that begets the question,
is there a male out there that rivals Deep Blue in size
swimming undetected?
- The force of a punch is a function of muscle mass,
but also of leverage and precision.
But one girl seemingly has a punch so powerful,
some wonder if she could be a real life member of the X-Men.
It's March, 2018, in Voronezh, Russia.
12-year-old Evnika Saadvakass is stretching
and apparently prepping for a workout by shadowboxing
in the woods.
But as the camera keeps rolling,
Evnika shocks everyone by really kicking it,
or punching it, into high gear.
(Evnika grunting)
She begins throwing a series of vicious jabs and hooks
on the trunk of a nearby tree.
(Evnika grunting)
And as her gloved fists strike the wood,
it begins to splinter away.
"Mental Floss" editor, Erin McCarthy is amazed.
- Is she literally a video game character?
I mean, she is just destroying that tree.
- [Tony] After less than a minute,
the young boxer successfully shatters the tree
with only the power of her two fists.
The video of Evnika's astounding feat soon goes viral
and viewers take to calling her
the "World's Strongest Girl".
- She's actually been training since she was four years old
with her father who was himself a boxer.
She is punching at the tree because apparently
that improves her speed and accuracy.
Then she decided that she wanted to take the tree out.
- [Tony] And it's not the first time Evnika's skills
have been filmed.
A year earlier, she's seen punching down a tree
without any gloves.
And in this video, she hits a metal door
until she dents it and then knocks it in.
Some question if she was born with a genetic mutation
that makes her super strong.
One possibility is myostatin related muscle hypertrophy.
- Myostatin is a protein that the body produces
and essentially it represses the growth of muscles.
So people who have this genetic disorder
don't have as much of that protein,
which means their muscles can grow.
And we saw this in a mere toddler.
He actually had 40% more muscle mass than kids his age.
- Whoa!
So is it possible that we have a team of super kids
running around whose strengths far exceed those of adults?
And if so, how did they get this way?
Let's have our experts weigh in.
(mysterious music)
First, theoretical physicist, Dr. Michio Kaku analyzes
if this feat can be attributed to a genetic condition
or abnormality like myostatin related muscle hypertrophy.
- There is a gene that actually makes you bulk up
and makes you look like a superman.
But the strength of the muscle is proportional
to the cross sectional area.
The thickness of the muscle,
that's what gives it its strength.
And the cross sectional area of her muscles is normal
for a girl that age.
She does not have that muscle mass, but she has technique.
But that's not enough.
- [Tony] Since she's not that bulky,
it's also not performance enhancing drugs.
But Kaku describes another anatomical theory.
- Every time you hit something,
your bones get jostled a bit.
Sometimes there are microfractures
that you can't even see.
But when it heals over, nature overcompensates.
- [Tony] Conventional wisdom says
that broken bones heal back stronger.
So maybe Evnika fractured her hand bones before,
giving her fists of stone today.
Well, not so fast.
Any extra firmness only lasts temporarily
at the point of fracture while the bone is healing.
So if there's no evidence of natural
or juiced up superhuman strength,
is this simply a demonstration of superhuman skills?
We return to Dr. Matthew Szydagis who says biomechanics
and the angle of attack can make a difference.
- Breaking something is about pressure,
and pressure is force per unit area.
You can create a huge amount of pressure
with a small amount of force,
if that force is applied over a small enough area.
So what I think we're seeing here
is this young girl is strategically applying her fists
in the right places to deliver
the maximum amount of pressure in the same way
that martial arts masters break through blocks of wood.
- [Tony] Knowing how to use her arms like levers
and her joints like the fulcrums of a machine
helps her maximize the force even more.
Still, Kaku thinks there's more going on here
than just being a talented boxer with the right technique.
It's important where the trees fall
on the Janka Hardness Scale,
which measures how resistant wood is
to denting and basic wear.
- If that tree were a hardwood tree,
it wouldn't splinter like that,
but it's splintering left and right,
not just at the impact point.
That means it's probably an older tree,
perhaps eaten by insects.
And so that contributes to the weakness of the tree.
- [Tony] As a tree decomposes, the wood cellulose
and lignan turn into carbon dioxide and water.
This can be caused by wounds,
which lead to infection or fungi that feed on the lignan.
Yet Szydagis says the tree's relative hardness
takes nothing away
from the girls' innate abilities and skills.
- It's probably a dead, dry tree,
which makes it easier to break.
But even if she doesn't know the mathematics herself,
she's instinctively applying her fists at different angles,
allowing her to completely take out that tree.
(mysterious music)
- Our verdict, the footage proves
that though she may not have the muscle mass,
Evnika is a very strong and highly trained boxer
who has the technique to apply maximum force
using her arms biomechanically as levers.
Her skill against a tree in a seeming state of decomposition
with a lower Janka Hardness Rating
makes it a TKO for this boxing prodigy.
- The dinosaurs in the "Jurassic Park" franchise
have thrilled audiences for decades,
but of course they're complete works of fiction.
Or are they?
According to the findings of a crew in Africa,
life may have found a way.
(birds chirping)
It's 1992.
A Japanese expedition travels to Lake Tele
in the heart of the Congo Forest.
(birds chirping)
There they capture video that's been sparking debate
for the past 30 years.
Soaring high over the African jungle,
they roll on what lies below.
And as the crew reaches Lake Tele,
their camera shifts focus to the water,
when they find this.
What appears to be some type of large creature
swimming just below the water surface.
The crew claimed they'd captured a prehistoric creature.
Take a closer look.
When we freeze and push in, many have said
this looks like the head and back of a dinosaur.
Field researcher and author Ken Gerhard says,
this is alleged to be a famed beast
known as the Mokele-mbembe.
- Mokele-mbembe is an iconic cryptid,
so this footage is rather significant.
- [Tony] Wait, a dinosaur alive in Africa?
(dinosaurs squawking)
The locals say yes.
- [Ken Gerhard] The natives describe the Mokele-mbembe
as having a long flexible neck,
with a snake-like head attached,
a huge brown or gray body with forced-out legs
and a long powerful tail.
Although it's described as being an herbivore
or a vegetarian, it's hyper aggressive and territorial.
And it's said to overturn canoes, drowning people,
as well as killing hippos.
- [Tony] The description kind of matches
what we're seeing here.
Plus, remember, the Congo Basin is 500 million acres
of rain forest.
New species get discovered there all the time.
And we know the legend stretches back hundreds of years.
- The reports go back to the 16th century,
but perhaps the most remarkable story,
it dates back to 1959.
The local pygmies set up a series of spikes
sticking out of the ground .
And allegedly one of these Mokele-mbembe animals
actually impaled itself on these stakes.
And the pygmies finished the job
by hacking the animal to bits with their machetes.
And afterwards there was a celebration
in which they ate the meat of the Mokele-mbembe.
- Mokele-mbembe means the one who stops the flow of rivers.
And this thing certainly looks big enough to earn that name.
Let's go to the telestrator here.
Look at the leading edge here.
Doesn't this look like it could be a neck?
A couple of humps here.
Here's the bigger of the two humps.
That's the first one.
Here's the second one.
And this certainly looks like
the wake behind the creature as it heads in this direction.
A Brontosaurus?
I mean, could this African creature really be a holdout
from the Cretaceous period?
We return to our experts now for a closer look.
(mysterious music)
Wildlife biologist, Stephanie Schuttler weighs the options.
If this isn't the long lost Mokele-mbembe,
could it be a watercraft mistaken for the famous beast?
- I don't think this is a boat,
mostly because this dark, curved shape in the front.
People in this area with boats,
it's just basic dugout canoes,
so you wouldn't see anything extending like that.
- [Tony] Schuttler also examines the hydrology,
the movement, the water.
- [Stephanie Schuttler] The water trail is so dark,
that suggests there's mud or something.
If it were just wake from a canoe,
I don't think you'd be able to see it from the air.
- [Tony] So whatever is making this wake
is moving along the muddy bottom
and that's how marine biologist, Shea Conger,
eliminates the possibility of it being a downed tree.
- This definitely isn't something like a log,
because it has a wake behind it.
And you can see in the footage that it's moving.
So this is definitely a biological animal.
- [Tony] So could it be the legendary lost dinosaur?
(dinosaur roaring)
- Mokele-mbembe is thought to be a lost sauropod,
however, this doesn't fit the body structure of a sauropod.
This would have to be the long neck
and you don't really see a head on top.
Sauropods, although their heads were small,
it didn't disappear completely.
Also, just the body shape here is wrong.
They didn't have this double hump feature
so it just doesn't fit
with what shows up in the fossil record.
- [Tony] Still, new dinosaur fossils
are discovered all the time.
In fact, on average over 45 fossils have been found
per year since 2003.
But Conger sees another possibility
for what's wading in the water.
- What people think is a neck
looks a whole lot like an elephant's trunk.
So this is probably a forest elephant,
which live in the jungles of the Congo.
The idea that a forest elephant would spend a lot of time
in water isn't that bizarre.
Elephants are able to hold their trunk above their head
while they're swimming as a snorkel,
and I think that's what we're seeing here.
(mysterious music)
- Our verdict, the trunk was key.
We'll say elephant,
though some will argue it's perhaps a dinosaur
that hasn't been seen yet in the fossil record.
The preponderance of sightings by local populations
is really fascinating.
And now that half a billion Africans have smartphones,
if this thing exists we should hope to see
some new footage soon.
- NASA's Planetary Defense Coordination Office
keeps a close eye on asteroids,
due to the threat of one crashing into earth
and ending life as we know it.
But while scientists around the globe
were checking out one of these huge flying rocks,
they may have made another startling discovery.
It's May, 2000, in outer space.
NASA's Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous spacecraft
known as NEAR Shoemaker,
is on patrol when it trains its gaze
on the massive asteroid known as Eros,
approximately 221 million miles from Earth.
In the process of its surveillance,
it captures some startling images.
If you look closely at the satellite photo,
there appears to be a strange object that's lit up
at the center of a crater.
Compared to its surroundings,
the object has a distinct square and angular appearance
which seems to indicate it's not a natural feature
of Eros's surface.
NASA catalogs it as a large rectangular boulder.
But George Haas of the Cydonia Institute
which advocates theories of ancient Martian civilizations
doubts it's a shape that would ever occur
like this naturally.
- Now, if anybody's ever seen pictures of these asteroids,
they're very highly-textured, organic shapes.
But then there's this cubic, metallic, flat,
smooth feature on here, which is totally out of place.
This is a structure that's sitting on this asteroid
and it shouldn't be there.
- [Tony] Haas says this photo has gotten
an incredible amount of attention and raises questions
about whether this could be evidence
of an extra terrestrial colony.
- [George Haas] Some believe that this structure
on this asteroid is the remnants
of an ancient mining operation.
And a lot of these asteroids are full of copper.
Coppers is very scarce now.
So if we were to find an asteroid full of that,
it would be well worth the trip
to set up a mining operation.
- [Tony] Before you write that off as absurd,
bear in mind that today, right here on Earth
there are companies developing robotic
and satellite platforms to enable the exploration
and extraction of off world resources,
including from asteroids.
Yet Haas suggests that aliens could also be up to something
far more sinister.
- The Eros asteroid is located in and around
the asteroid belt.
Which is a perfect location if someone was to place
a spy station.
It's just far enough from Earth not to be detected
and it's close enough to come in and leave their satellites
in this area for monitoring what's going on on earth.
- Eros was the first near Earth asteroid discovered.
It's about 10 miles across,
five times bigger than the asteroid
that wiped out the dinosaurs.
Based on the size of Eros,
NASA estimates the mysterious rectangular structure
to be about 148 feet across.
That's a pretty big mystery.
Let's see if our experts can help solve it.
(mysterious music)
First, astro photographer, Andrew McCarthy
takes a look to see if this could be an issue
with the way the camera captured this part of the asteroid.
- I used a suite of tools and my photography workshop
to analyze the photo for any kind of optical anomalies
that may have shown up due to pixels inside that sensor
that were not behaving properly.
My conclusion is that what we're seeing in these photos
is entirely authentic.
- [Tony] So since McCarthy says the image is accurate,
could this really be an alien structure?
Astronomer and visual effects analyst,
Marc D'Antonio is not convinced.
- There's bright spots on this asteroid
for a number of reasons.
They could be water ice spots or just brighter soil.
And when you take a photograph that looks normal
for your eyes, for the camera,
you overexpose really, really bright things like this.
- [Tony] NASA geologist, Dr. Bob Anderson, explains.
- When you first look at it, you go,
"Wow, that does look kind of strange, it's out of place."
But if you blow this image up,
you will see that there's multiple craters around here.
Asteroids are very violent.
These asteroid bodies are floating in that area
and they hit.
(rocks exploding)
And so you get these boulders thrown out of them.
Now because of the lighting angle here,
it looks like as if it's structure,
when, in fact, it's just sitting on the surface there.
- [Tony] So Anderson says the boulder
is actually more rounded than it appears.
The way the sun is hitting it is playing tricks
with the shadows in creating this optical illusion
that the rock is rectangle.
(mysterious music)
Our verdict, this is most likely
a naturally occurring boulder that just appears
to be more rectangular than it actually is,
due to the angle and the source of light.
It only looks lit up because it's brighter
than the rest of the rock.
Still, NASA hasn't responded to inquiries about this image,
so there's a chance there's still more to it
than meets the eye.
- Getting something as small as an eyelash stuck
in your eye can be agonizing, but this clip
we're about to show you takes it to the next level.
The video has people suggesting it documented
some sort of miracle.
But caution: this one's not so easy on the eyes.
It's October 1996 at Lebanon's Bekaa Valley.
A young Muslim girl claims she's experiencing
an unusual ailment and the news media comes to investigate.
A video filmed by a TV crew shows the girl sitting sullen
in a chair surrounded by her family.
Then suddenly, her father reaches over
and pulls up the lid of her eye.
The 12 year old looks down
and slowly sheds what appears to be a crystal tear.
As the camera crew keeps rolling,
she miraculously produces
at least three more of these sharp tears
with her eyes seeming to remain unscathed.
Journalist, Erin McCarthy, is amazed
at the preteen's composure.
- I would expect for her to be incredibly uncomfortable,
crying, trying to get whatever it is out.
And she just seems totally calm.
There's a little irritation, but certainly not
what I would expect from something like this in the eye.
- [Tony] What's even more remarkable?
Apparently this isn't the first time this has happened.
The girl allegedly produced solid glass crystals
seven times a day for eight months
without any evident injury.
- There were doctors who had various theories about it,
but her father believed that it was a miracle from God
and the girl actually said that Imam Ali came to her
in a vision and told her to give glass shards
to people who were sick.
Imam Ali is the cousin of the Prophet Muhammad
and the first spiritual leader of the Shiites.
- [Tony] When the news breaks, the girl becomes a sensation
and people visit her daily to take home
what they believe to be sacred glass.
- Shortly after this started happening, she went to stay
with an ophthalmologist who tested the shards.
She also saw some doctors from Saudi Arabia who tested them.
In both instances, they declared that the shards were real
without saying what material they actually were.
So there's a lot of mystery surrounding this even now.
- According to one study, getting something caught
in your eye is the second most common form of ocular trauma.
Foreign objects can cause abrasions
and even some serious damage to the cornea.
So what's really going on with these tears?
If they're actually made of crystal,
how is the girl's eyeball remaining unscathed?
Let's see if our experts can clear this up.
(suspenseful music)
Catholic miracle expert and trained engineer,
Michael O'Neill, says if it's some kind of miracle,
it's a new kind.
- We've heard of stories of icons of the Virgin Mary weeping
tears of blood,
weeping human tears, in fact, or tears of myrrh.
Or there have been cases of stigmatics
or other mystics weeping tears of blood like Therese Neumann
from Germany in the first half of the 20th century.
And we've never seen anything like this, though.
- [Tony] Of course, O'Neill specializes in Catholicism,
not Islam, but there is no mention of glass tears
in the Quran or the Bible.
O'Neill doubts that what we're seeing here is miraculous.
- We see cases of stigmata, people bleeding
from their hands and their side and their feet
and that connects to Jesus and his crucifixion on the cross.
Although this is a remarkable phenomenon,
I would not consider this to be a miracle.
I don't see where faith might come into play.
- [Tony] So did the girl get some broken glass in her eye
she's now shedding?
Biologist, Dr. Floyd Hayes, dives into that theory.
- If this resulted from some sort of an accident,
we would likely see some tears and some bleeding
or some scarring.
It would most likely be impaled into the tissues
and not just simply resting there harmlessly
inside of the eye.
Her eye looks like it's slightly pinkish down in here,
so it may be irritated to some degree,
but it doesn't look like it's causing any major damage.
- [Tony] So if it's not broken glass, is the girl's body
somehow capable of producing solid crystalline tears?
- Tears are basically a clear liquid that are formed
by the lacrimal glands
and they have several different nutrients
and substances in 'em.
They're basically like salt water.
Glass is formed of silica or quartz
and the human body doesn't really form it.
There are rare examples of lacrimal gland ductal stones
that have formed.
They are formed mostly of calcium carbonate,
but they're darker in color and they're more bumpy.
So that is not what is happening here.
- [Tony] So if it's impossible for tear ducts to make glass,
then could this all have somehow been staged?
- There was a gentleman named Joe Nickell
and he was able to demonstrate that he could do
the same thing by placing a piece of quartz
underneath his eye there by lowering the lower eyelid
and then when he manipulated it, he was able to get
the piece of quartz to fall out just like that.
As you can see, there is ample space between the eyeball
and the eyelids for objects to be placed.
But please don't try this at home.
(suspenseful music)
- Our verdict?
This is a staged incident.
She's likely using small quartz crystals that have
smoother edges than you'd find on shards of broken glass.
In the meantime, we'll keep our eyes peeled for evidence
of true miracles.
Did you know the United Kingdom's Royal Air Force was
once responsible for recording all UFO sightings
across the UK?
That effort was shut down back in 2009,
but the recent release of the records has confirmed
that London is a bonafide hotspot
where the most UFO reports
of anywhere in the UK.
Don't believe it?
Look for yourself.
June 2011, it's a partly cloudy day in London, England
when suddenly a commotion in the streets has
one pedestrian pulling out a camera to film this.
(suspenseful music)
Did you see that?
Let's take another look.
Five glowing orbs pass from one cloud to another.
Then, a larger oval-shaped UFO hovers above the city
and suddenly darts away.
It's a sight that seems to shock the London pedestrians
as well as author and blogger, Amy Teitel.
- What's interesting about this video is
that it seems to be morphing.
It kind of narrows and then expands again to a ring shape.
So what could this possibly be?
- [Tony] The UK has reported over 5,000 UFO sightings
in the past 20 years.
In fact, 7% of Britains say they've seen a UFO
and some of them are aviation professionals.
- This sighting is somewhat reminiscent of the story told
by Captain James Howard.
In 1954, he and a crew were flying a Stratocruiser to London
and they saw an oblong or an elongated black object
with kind of upturned ends that were curved.
And as they watched it, it morphed, it changed shape
and became a flat object with a pointed wing
almost looking like a shark's fin.
This video bears some similarities
to this commercial pilot's sighting.
And in both of these sightings,
the main body seems to morph.
In this video, it's a circle that squishes into an oval
and then goes back into a circle again.
- [Tony] Even before the media sensation
of Captain Howard's sighting, the British government was
well aware of UFOs in their airspace.
In fact, in 1952, Winston Churchill himself wrote
a letter asking for an official report on flying saucers.
It's a short letter, let me read it to you.
"What does all this stuff about flying saucers amount to?
What can it mean?
What is the truth?
Let me have a report at your convenience.
WSC."
So are they back?
We take that question to our team of experts.
(suspenseful music)
First, we talk to aviation expert, Tim McMillan,
to find out if there's any known aircraft
that matches this object.
- So, it's definitely odd if it was,
say your normal conventional aircraft, we would see wings,
we would see a tail stabilizer,
and it needs to have forward momentum.
And in this case we see it hovering.
- [Tony] So if it's not a plane,
what about a craft that can hover?
- Is it a helicopter?
A, it doesn't look like a helicopter.
And B, it does a couple of maneuvers
that are really inconsistent with a helicopter.
It rather suddenly darts one direction,
appears to dip in altitude, and then go back up
in altitude to form a stable hover.
Not really what you would see
with even military helicopters.
- [Tony] Okay, the shape doesn't match
any typical aircraft.
What about something that does match the shape
like a balloon?
- You can see a lenticular-shaped, large,
different atmospheric balloons, but yet we're left
with the fact that it doesn't maneuver like a balloon.
- [Tony] It's the quick starts and stops that don't fit
for McMillan.
- If a balloon is caught in the air flow
of the upper atmosphere, it's gonna go with that.
And that's not really what we're seeing here.
So we're seeing something that appears to be
under controlled flight.
- [Tony] Without any conventional explanation,
we turn to forensic video analyst, Michael Primeau.
So could this be a fake?
- Typically, multiple witnesses viewing something is
sufficient to be able to verify that there's something
upward in the sky that they're all looking at.
(wind blowing) (people speaking indistinctly)
- [Tony] Primeau says a thorough examination
of the metadata reveals a crucial clue.
- In the macro block analysis, we see
all of these different colors.
And when something is created in a software program,
these macro blocks are random as you see here
because its goal is to shrink the file size
as much as possible so the actual pixel content
that goes into the video
when it's created have all been changed drastically.
- [Tony] For Primeau, that's all he needs to know.
- The gradients that were used to blend the sky
with these UFOs was compelling.
This is probably the most convincing hoax
that I've ever analyzed, mostly because
at the preliminary level of the examination,
it even had me fooled for a brief moment.
(suspenseful music)
- Our verdict?
Hoax.
Credit where credit is due.
The multiple apparent witnesses did give this video
a sense of realism, but in the end, these UFOs are
nothing more than a digital creation.
But we still don't know what Captain Howard
and his crew saw that day in 1954.
If you happen to have any real proof,
be sure to send it our way.
And that's our show for tonight.
It is great to be back.
Thank you so much for watching and remember to keep
those cameras rolling.
(mysterious music)