WILLIAM SHATNER: Ferocious monsters from the deep.
Hellish hounds that prowl the night.
And ancient dragons that rule the skies.
Since the dawn of time, there have been tales
of monsters that live among us.
Creatures of myth and legend that lurk in the shadows
and hunt us like prey.
But are these fantastic beasts
merely figments of our imagination?
Or could they actually be real?
Well, that is what we'll try and find out.
♪ ♪
For centuries, mankind has told stories
about fearsome monsters
that inhabit our world and can strike without warning.
What is it about these strange creatures that terrifies us?
Monsters are found everywhere, in all cultures,
in all, uh, locales around the world.
If you look at monsters from an anthropological sense,
they are very often wild and dangerous and aggressive.
And very often inescapably evil.
They have humanlike motivations
and humanlike or even godlike abilities.
And this reflects a lot of real, um, issues, fears.
And as well as encounters of the most fantastical kind.
KEN GERHARD: Monsters have been with us a long time.
In Australia, the ancient aboriginals would
talk about the Bunyip, which was a swamp-dwelling creature
that would rise in the moonlight to slaughter its victims.
The Native Americans talked about horned serpents
and thunder beings with wings that would roam the skies.
In Norse or Viking mythology,
there were a number of monsters as well.
You had trolls, elves, ogres.
So we have all manner of horrible,
strange monsters lurking the planet.
They are the embodiment of evil.
They represent the mystery in our world, the unknown.
What a lot of people don't realize is
that at least some of these monsters have stepped
from beyond the veil of mythology
into our reality.
SHATNER: Is it possible that some monsters are
not merely fictional characters
but, rather, flesh and blood creatures?
There are those who believe the answer is yes.
And as evidence, they point to a beast
that has been reported in England for centuries.
As thunder and rain pounds St. Mary's Church,
the worshippers inside gather in silent prayer.
Suddenly, a monstrous doglike creature
with glowing red eyes crashes
through the church doors and attacks the people inside.
Dozens are wounded, and two parishioners
are killed in the unexpected rampage
caused by one of England's
most feared monsters...
the hellhound.
MARK NORMAN: The hellhound of Bungay is one
of the best known of the monster stories
in the U.K.
It kills two parishioners in the church
as it makes its way through.
It then goes off to the town
of Blythburgh, which is about 12 miles away.
And it kills two more parishioners
and a young boy, as well,
before scrambling to get out
of the church and leaving its claw marks in the church door,
which you can still see as black scorch marks to this day.
It's a really important story,
especially for the local area.
The black dog is seen on the weathervane in the town.
It's on the coat of arms.
Hellhounds are abnormally huge black dogs.
They are thought to be an omen of death or a harbinger
of ill fate, mishap, misfortune, and death.
Sometimes they're as large as a full grown cow,
heavily muscled,
with glowing red eyes,
as though embers of hell are emanating
from the creature.
These traditions and stories of hellhounds
date back centuries in England,
all the way back to the 12th century.
All over England, you have different regional
aspects of these black dogs that are considered
to be the manifestation of the devil himself.
They're known by a variety of different names,
the most popular being the Black Shuck and the Hairy Jack.
There are still people even to this day that report encounters
with these strange, ghostly dogs.
Whatever they represent, we can't deny
that the black dogs are here to stay.
SHATNER: The hellhound has clearly frightened
the people of England for centuries.
But there's another monster that's
believed to dwell in the country
that has inspired even greater fascination and fear.
It's known as the Beast of Exmoor.
While trekking through a field
in a former royal hunting preserve,
two hikers capture video footage
of something no one would ever expect
to see in the backwoods of South West England.
The video shows a large black animal
slinking through the grass.
There was a video filmed of a mysterious
catlike creature roaming the moors of Exmoor.
It's about seven feet long,
two and a half feet high at the shoulders.
Coal black in color,
green eyes.
It's very strange.
RICK MINTER: The people who took the video seem
to be low to the ground,
And it's so difficult to judge the perspective.
But the interesting thing about this video, I think,
is, this cat was seemingly
a big black panther-like animal
and it was walking through a field
and looking confident.
SHATNER: A black panther?
In England? According to the U.K.
government's organization for rural affairs,
there is no cat species native to England
that resembles a black panther.
But some researchers believe it's possible that
the enigmatic creature was, in fact...
...the Beast of Exmoor.
NORMAN: The Beast of Exmoor is a supernatural
or phantom cat that lives, according to legend,
around the Exmoor area,
a national park in Devon.
GERHARD: The Beast of Exmoor is described as a very large,
powerfully built cat.
There have been hundreds of sightings
dating back centuries, but it didn't really
become ingrained in the local fabric of the culture
and folklore until there were
a number of mysterious livestock attacks and killings
in Southern England that hit the newspapers in 1983,
when a sheep farmer named Eric Ley
reported up to a hundred sheep
had been killed in a very violent way.
Typically the throats were ripped out,
they were eviscerated, disemboweled.
So it certainly has really become sort of
the local monster, if you will.
SHATNER: After the attack on Eric Ley's sheep, the British
tabloid The Daily Express picked up the story
and offered a substantial reward for anyone
who brought in the notorious beast, dead or alive.
Many reward-seeking amateur hunters staked out the hills
of Exmoor in search of the monster.
As reports of livestock deaths and sightings of the beast
reached a fever pitch, the British government decided
to send military troops to investigate the matter.
In North Devon the Royal Marines are on the trail of a mystery
black beast that's killed 60 sheep in the past month.
People just don't know what it is.
Rogue dog, wild cat, or indeed something else.
NORMAN: The Royal Marines are dispatched onto Exmoor
to search for this animal to avoid
any more killings taking place if possible.
Some of the Marines report possibly seeing
something through night vision equipment.
But ultimately they stood down
because there's a danger that if they do
see anything and shoot at it,
the chances are, it's going to be one of the many amateur
photographers who are also out on the moor,
trying to capture evidence of this beast.
And so that hunt really comes to nothing
at the end of the day.
The evidence is inconclusive.
It's very hard to pin down for certain
what a lot of these sightings actually are.
And therein lies the mystery behind it.
If it's true that phantom cats and hellhounds do,
in fact, exist, then it begs the question...
could there be other monsters from myth
and legend that are also real?
Well, if a recent discovery in China is to be believed,
then it could be that we share our world...
with dragons.
SHATNER: In a rural community 120 miles from Beijing,
residents make an extraordinary discovery
in a local field.
They find a 60-foot-long set of bones
belonging to a highly unusual animal.
STEAVU: The remains unearthed in Zhangjiakou had antlers.
It had prominent claws. It had a long serpentine body.
So this created a huge buzz and a lot of fascination.
SHATNER: A video of the strange bones went
viral on the Internet, and researchers were
baffled as they attempted to identify the bizarre creature.
But many local villagers
insisted that the bones were the remains...
of a dragon.
Dragons are a huge part of a lot of Asian culture,
particularly Chinese culture.
They are a tremendously important symbol
for many, many people
STEAVU: Dragons are perhaps one
of the most defining elements of Chinese cultural lore.
And they have been for thousands of years.
Dragons symbolize knowledge,
wisdom, uh...
otherworldly power even.
A lot of the early imperial families
drew their authority from associating themselves
with dragon blood or portraying themselves
as descendants of dragons.
So dragons are a very, um...
present creature in Chinese cultural imagination.
SHATNER: Mainstream scientists
remain skeptical as to whether or not the skeleton
that was discovered in 2017
belonged to a real dragon.
But the media frenzy sparked by its discovery
suggested that many people, not only in China
but throughout the world,
believe in the existence of dragons.
TINA BOYER: We have dragons everywhere
in time and in different cultures.
And it is fascinating, because some of these
cultures never met, they never had contact within history.
So the pervasiveness of dragon myths in cultures
across many folkloric contexts is probably no accident.
Dragons are one of the more fantastic
creatures to study in mythology and folklore and legends
because they're so widespread.
They're a big part of our Western culture.
Satan is described as a dragon in some
passages in the Bible.
They're one of the most powerful animal
gods in Aboriginal mythology.
We have dragons in Ethiopian iconography.
And one of the fascinating things is,
representations of what a dragon is supposed
to look like remains remarkably consistent over time.
What's really remarkable is that, if we consider
all of these different influences that may have
contributed to the dragon legends,
they're all typically portrayed as being reptilian
in nature, having scales and claws, often wings that are
very bat-like or membranous in nature, a long reptilian tail
with a strange structure or a spike or a stinger on the end,
very sharp teeth, the ability to breathe fire.
And so we have to consider the possibility
that at least some of these dragon legends could be based on
some type of extraordinary and perhaps unknown animal.
SHATNER: Is it possible that the many dragons described
in legends throughout the world weren't
just fictional but were actually real?
Perhaps the answer lies in examining some
of the historical accounts in which people have
claimed to have had encounters with actual dragons.
In bygone centuries, encounters with dragons
were not considered to be fables or tall tales.
They were written down and documented
as historical fact.
They were told as real stories of encounters
with mysterious flesh and blood animals.
In the eighth century, there's an example
recorded by, uh, St. John of Damascus...
...where the Roman army is immensely surprised
when a large creature described as a dragon
rises up behind them.
They fight and ultimately slay the creature.
And they skin it and they send the skin back to Rome.
BOYER: People took this extremely seriously
up to the early modern period.
A city in Germany called Worms
is famous for its dragon fighter.
In the 16th, 17th, and 18th century,
they hung up dragon bones all across the city
to prove that dragons are real.
SHATNER: Do the many historical reports of dragons prove
that these legendary beasts were, in fact, real?
Perhaps, but if so,
then it naturally begs the question...
could giant, winged serpents
still exist today?
According to some researchers, the answer is yes.
And as evidence, they point to numerous sightings
in the early 20th century of a flying creature
that was known as the Van Meter Visitor.
In the early 1900s, a town in Iowa,
the small town of Van Meter, Iowa,
was plagued by a giant eight-foot, bat-like creature
with huge leather bat-like wings,
and it had a horn on its head that could project light.
For five nights, it terrorized this small town.
And on the fifth night, during thunderstorms,
it appeared with a smaller version of itself,
perhaps the female gender or the offspring,
before descending back into the coal mine and disappearing,
never to be seen in Van Meter again.
SHATNER: What was the mysterious dragon-like creature
that terrorized the residents of Van Meter, Iowa?
Some researchers believe a clue can be found
in the fossil record.
Beginning in the Triassic period 220 million years ago,
there was an animal out there that actually
looked like a dragon.
So-called pterosaurs, which were these winged
reptiles that endured for 150 million years
and ruled the skies of our planet
and then went extinct at the end of the Cretaceous.
But isn't it interesting that we have modern accounts
and sightings of something that looks like a living dragon?
A reptilian creature with a long tail,
presumably scales, leathery wings,
sharp teeth.
As improbable as it seems, if, in fact,
pterosaurs had managed to endure
throughout history up until modern times,
their existence would most certainly explain
the dragon legends of the world.
Is it possible that the numerous accounts of dragons
throughout history were actually encounters
with dinosaurs that somehow survived extinction?
It's an incredible notion.
But no more extraordinary
than new evidence which suggests
that a fearsome monster might be lurking in the ocean.
A beast known as...
the kraken.
SHATNER: Deep in these cold, turbulent waters,
located south of Japan,
live some of the most mysterious marine species on Earth.
And at approximately 9:15 a.m. on September 30, 2004,
scientists monitoring a digital camera more than a half
a mile below the ocean's surface
captured images of a creature
that had never been photographed underwater before.
The giant squid.
When the picture came out, we, we as a scientific community
were very excited because we've only had
all these myths and legends and sea stories before this.
So, to get photographs was really exciting
because that was actually the first time
that we have seen images of a live giant squid
in its natural environment.
It was a big deal.
SHATNER: In 2019,
another team of marine biologists
recorded stunning video of a giant squid
for only the second time in history.
The footage, filmed at a depth of 2,500 feet,
shows a 12-foot long giant squid
attempting to devour a lure shaped like a jellyfish.
It was the best insight thus far into the behavior
of these elusive creatures that remain shrouded in mystery.
Because we have such little information about them,
one of the major ways they were finding
evidence of the giant squid out in the oceans is actually
from the stomach contents of whales.
Giant squid have eight arms, two tentacles,
and at the end of those tentacles, there are clubs,
and those clubs will bring in prey towards the mouth,
which is this beak-like structure
that has these little rasping little
teeth-like structures inside, called the radula, that help
break food down that the squid is bringing in to digest.
We believe they get to be about 40 to 45 feet long,
about the size of the traditional yellow school buses.
SHATNER: Modern scientists continue to search
for giant squid lurking in the depths,
in hopes of learning more about these massive predators.
But for centuries, sailors from around the world
told stories of a mysterious squid-like monster
that was much larger and more ferocious.
It was known as the kraken.
LEWIS: If you've ever seen old sailing maps, and you see the monsters,
you would see a representation of the kraken,
a giant squid-like creature that would not only capsize
and sink boats but would devour the crew
and had an insatiable hunger for human flesh.
The kraken was believed to be the most diabolical
and evil of all the sea monsters.
In 1555, the Swedish cartographer
Olaus Magnus first began to write about a multiarmed
sea monster that lived off the coast of Norway,
and would often attack boats,
pulling sailors off of ships.
And it was even described as creating
such a massive whirlpool
that it would actually suck ships deep into the ocean.
We have some accounts from whalemen
from the 1840s and 1850s reporting things
floating by that were over 100, 150 feet long.
And then, in 1861, a French Navy vessel,
the Alecton, actually spotted
a large kraken,
or what they believed to be a kraken, floating at the surface.
They didn't want to launch a small boat because
they were afraid that the tentacles
would endanger the sailors.
And so, they got as close as they could.
They started to shoot the animal.
They harpooned the animal.
They got a noose, and they tried to lift it out of the water.
But then the animal just sunk.
GERHARD: If we consider that these kraken accounts from
centuries past were taken as historical fact,
what could these animals represent?
And, although we've scientifically documented that
these giant squids can obtain lengths of up to 50 feet,
it is not beyond scientific possibility
that they could get much, much larger.
So, it's certainly possible that somewhere out there exists
a squid of kraken-type proportions.
SHATNER: Is it possible that the kraken does, in fact, exist?
And if so, could it be a bigger and more monstrous
relative of the giant squid, as some believe?
Perhaps the answer may be found by examining
a modern encounter with what may have been
a real-life kraken.
The Pacific Ocean. 1978.
The United States naval frigate the USS Stein is on patrol,
when it is suddenly attacked from beneath the waves.
In 1978, the U.S. vessel the USS Stein
was out patrolling the waters...
...when some unknown creature disabled its sonar dome.
They had to go into port, and they discovered
that the heavy rubber coating
of the sonar dome was torn to shreds.
There were giant claw marks on the rubber,
the longest of which was over four feet in length.
Even more puzzling, researchers found
hooked sharp claws
embedded into the rubber coating.
GERHARD: We know that squids actually have these types of teeth,
or claws if you will, lining their suckers.
And so, for a squid claw of this size,
we could imagine that the squid that created
this damage on this sonar dome
must have been monstrous in proportion.
KING: So, they took it to the naval biologist
and they tried to identify what this could be.
But this was a much larger claw and
not easily connected to a current known species.
Biologists don't know for sure, but they do believe
that it's quite possible that there are large squid species
that we have yet to identify.
Could there be giant squid that are
100, 150 feet long?
We just really don't know.
Could colossal, 150-foot-long squid
actually be lurking in the depths?
Perhaps. And it turns out there may be
an even more powerful creature
dwelling in our oceans.
A giant whale
with a taste for revenge.
SHATNER: In the middle of the Atlantic Ocean,
about 850 miles from the coast of Portugal,
lies a tiny chain of islands known as the Azores.
The Azores are famous for being one of the best places in
the world to witness the breathtaking sight
of massive sperm whales leaping out of the sea
and crashing back beneath the waves.
Sperm whales are just extraordinary animals.
They can get up to 65, 70 feet long.
They're the largest predator on Earth.
They can make the loudest sound
of any living organism on Earth,
this clang that they make
that can be heard over 12 miles away.
They can go over a thousand feet deep.
They can stay underwater more than two hours.
Most of their life is spent in the dark, underwater,
and yet they're breathing, warm-blooded mammals.
SHATNER: The largest sperm whales are estimated
to weigh an astonishing 80 tons.
And while these massive creatures
may seem quite passive today,
in the 19th century, sperm whales were actually
hunted all over the world,
and sailors considered them to be powerful
and deadly monsters.
The whaling industry, uh, for a while,
was the big industry in the world,
sort of like the petrochemical industry of its day,
because streetlamps ran on whale oil.
And so, the whaling industry had
a huge impact in global history.
KING: In the mid-1800s,
there were over 650 American whaling ships sailing
all around the world in every single ocean
to hunt sperm whales and burning the blubber out
into oil to put into barrels,
and then bringing it home to light lamps,
to lubricate small machinery, to create candles.
THOMPSON: It was a very bloody operation to be a whaler,
to be chasing these things.
And during that time period, we have various legends
throughout the world as sailors and shipmen would come across
these fantastically large creatures
that sometimes would destroy boats.
They would swallow people.
They could become wild and dangerous
and aggressive.
SHATNER: Perhaps the most famous story
inspired by legends of monster whales
is the classic American novel Moby-Dick.
Written by Herman Melville in 1851,
the novel told the story of Captain Ahab,
a maimed whaler obsessed with hunting down
and killing his nemesis,
a giant white sperm whale
known as Moby Dick.
Moby Dick is possessed with human intelligence and cunning.
It's vengeful.
It wants revenge at the whalers
and Captain Ahab that went out looking to hunt
and kill this monster.
KING: In the novel, Melville makes it clear that
Moby Dick is intelligent,
he's malicious,
he's devious, he's malignant.
Moby Dick will sort of lure sailors along
and then quickly turn around and smash their boat.
As one of the great American novels, Moby-Dick,
uh, has received a lot of attention
about the great white whale.
Most people see this as an allegory,
but it demonstrates the fear that people had of whales,
and many believe it was based on actual sightings.
SHATNER: Is it possible that Moby Dick was based on a real whale
that would attack 19th century whaling ships
in an act of revenge?
Perhaps the answer can be found by examining actual
historical accounts from the 19th century which suggest that,
during this period of time, monstrous whales
were more than just fictional characters.
In 1819, the whaleship Essex leaves
out of Nantucket Island with about 20 people on board.
One day, the first mate
sees an exceptionally large male sperm whale
actually coming towards his ship.
He estimates this whale to be over 80 feet long.
And the whale actually comes and hits
the hull of the whaleship.
It goes underneath and aims for the ship a second time
and this time rams the Essex so hard
that it actually puts a hole in the hull,
and they watch their ship go down.
At the time, there was another real story
of a whale called Mocha Dick,
that Herman Melville was certainly well acquainted with
and was the inspiration for the name Moby Dick.
Mocha Dick was another whale
that, uh, supposedly had turned on humans,
attacking them and destroying several ships.
There was a belief that this one whale
took it upon itself to attack these whaling ships.
KING: Whalemen were recognizing that sperm whales were adjusting
their behavior based on hunting.
The whales got harpooned, they were afraid,
they were terrified, they responded, and they
smashed these whaleboats to bits.
SHATNER: It certainly makes sense that whales defended themselves
when they were hunted by humans trying to kill them.
But is it possible that, in the 19th century,
there was a whale that actually possessed the intelligence
to methodically stalk and attack whaling ships
in a premeditated fashion,
like in the story of Moby Dick?
There's no question that sperm whales are intelligent animals.
We've observed them teaching their young.
We've observed them learning things
over the course of their lifetime.
They can communicate with each other.
They can recognize individuals.
About a third of their body is their head.
They've got the largest brain on Earth,
17 pounds of brain.
Now, whether a sperm whale
can feel emotions like hate or vengeance,
it's certainly something that Melville explores in Moby-Dick,
and it's a question that will continue to fascinate people
as we're learning about animal behaviors.
The notion that an 80-ton whale could suddenly decide
to attack a ship is certainly terrifying,
but there is another elusive beast
who lurks beneath the water.
Not in the ocean but in a quiet lake
in the Scottish Highlands, and it's known as
the Loch Ness Monster.
SHATNER: On a blustery winter afternoon,
military historian Ricky Phillips
is walking his dogs along the misty shoreline of Loch Ness,
when he spots a strange disturbance
in the murky waters.
I was walking along the line of the River Oich.
The River Oich runs down into Loch Ness.
It was absolutely lovely, and I went and I stopped
and I took a photograph over it.
I was sort of one eye on the phone, one eye on the dog.
There was a strange noise, and my dogs went crazy.
As I looked down, there was something in the photograph.
SHATNER: The grainy image appears to show a sinuous figure
rising from the dark gray waters of the loch.
It's unclear what type of animal the photograph reveals.
But many researchers analyzing the photo believe
it could be the latest evidence that confirms
the existence of an infamous creature
from lore and legend that is known as
the Loch Ness Monster.
The Loch Ness Monster, or Nessie,
is without a doubt the most famous or iconic monster
that has been reported around the world.
Stories go back decades, there have been
thousands of eyewitness accounts.
We have compelling photographic evidence,
so it certainly has built
a strong reputation
in the world of fabulous monsters and creatures.
Through the years, there have been hundreds of sightings.
For example,
on July 15, 1965,
nine eyewitnesses observed the animal
moving around for up to an hour.
This involved a veteran Loch Ness investigator,
as well as a local police sergeant
and the local county surveyor
and six other eyewitnesses.
And what they all described was identical
from different vantage points around the loch.
SHATNER: Since that mass sighting in 1965,
researchers, scientists, and even ordinary people
have journeyed to Loch Ness
in search of the famed monster.
SHATNER: Could there really be a monster
living in the waters of Loch Ness?
Many researchers believe it's possible.
And, as evidence, they point to recent sonar scans
which reveal something enormous
moving beneath the waters of the loch.
The best evidence we've ever had from Loch Ness
was a sonar contact
taken by Ronald Mackenzie,
who operates a boat called the Spirit of Loch Ness,
and three years ago, he got a sonar contact,
crystal clear sonar contact
about 600 feet down,
and it's there. You know, it wasn't there an hour earlier
when he went past it on the boat,
it wasn't there an hour later. It was there,
then it wasn't. It's one solid object,
the size of a transit van.
Photographic experts came back and said,
that is probably an animate object.
SHATNER: If it's true that there's something moving deep
within the waters of Loch Ness, then what could it be?
Over the years, researchers have put forward
many theories, from shapeshifting spirits
known as kelpie found in Scottish folklore,
to a giant, mutated eel,
to a surviving prehistoric snake known as a Basilosaur.
But perhaps what's most fascinating
about the legend of the Loch Ness Monster
is that there are reports of similar creatures
all over the world.
GERHARD: The lake monster phenomenon is not just
relegated to Loch Ness.
There are, in fact, similar lake monsters
that have been reported around the world.
Something known as the lake monster belt,
which is lines of latitude between 40 to 60 degrees north
in the northern hemisphere.
And if you plot these across a map of the world,
you'll find famous lake monsters
all fall within these same lines of latitude.
That is very compelling evidence.
LEWIS: What we're finding is, these different
lakes are very similar.
Many of them are very long, relatively narrow.
You have Champ of Lake Champlain,
the Ogopogo monster of Okanagan Lake
in British Columbia,
you have the Lake Brosno creature of Russia.
So, it's led researchers to believe
that maybe there's something with that latitude
that has the perfect conditions
for such lake monsters to exist.
The idea that there are monsters living in lakes
all across the northern hemisphere is unsettling,
but what's even more chilling is that some believe
there is a monster that walks on two legs right here
in North America.
It's a terrifying creature
that is known as the Dogman.
SHATNER: Late one night, 16-year-old James West
heads out to the snowy woods
behind his property to hunt coyotes.
He settles in beside a mound of gravel to wait
when he sees something terrifying.
I turned the light on, and approximately ten feet away
is this thing on all fours,
sniffing the ground.
My first reaction was, "Man, that is the biggest coyote
I have ever seen in my life."
I mean, huge, massive head
and long body.
And then it looked up at me.
And it lifted itself up onto its hind quarters.
It was between seven foot, ten inches tall and eight foot.
The snout was, I would say, a good six to eight inches long.
But also massive upper arms,
huge pectorals, like a werewolf.
It took one step towards me, and I shot it in the chest.
It let out a yelping sound and took off.
And at that point I just said, "I'm out of here."
It's been approximately 20 years since I had my encounter.
I still have flashbacks, even though it's been 20 years.
It made me more aware that
there are things out there that we don't understand yet.
SHATNER: James West is just one of hundreds of people
who have reported seeing the monster
that has come to be known as the Dogman.
THOMPSON: Dogman, or Dogmen,
they're a little bit different than a werewolf.
Usually, the idea of the werewolf is
that they transform, um, maybe with a full Moon,
uh, between human form and, uh, the wolf form,
at which point they become wild and dangerous and aggressive.
Well, Dogmen, they are Dogmen their entire lives,
uh, so this is just who they are.
GERHARD: Dogman really burst onto the scene
in the late 1980s, early 1990s,
when a creature from Wisconsin was seen feasting
on roadkill and chasing cars on a lonely country road.
Since that time, the Dogman phenomenon
has blown up around the world.
SHATNER: Is it really possible there's a half-man, half-dog monster
roaming the wilds of North America?
Many researchers say the answer is yes.
And as evidence, they point to the fact that similar
monsters have been reported
all over the world for centuries.
THOMPSON: We have many reports of Dogman going back
to European folklore.
A really important thing to understand
about why people believe in monsters,
um, is that people see them.
And I have talked to many, many people who have affirmed
that they have seen the Dogman.
SHATNER: So far, there's been no indisputable evidence
found that proves the Dogman's existence,
which is also the case with many other monsters
of myth and legend.
But for people who claim to have witnessed
one of these creatures firsthand,
seeing is believing.
THOMPSON: People have experiences
that can be very, very powerful
and can completely change their own belief systems.
This brings to the front
a really important fact about folklore.
Saying something is a legend does not mean it's not true.
What it means is, it hasn't been accepted
by scientific discourse.
So, saying something is a monster
doesn't mean it's not real.
Is our world full of monsters lurking
in the shadows, waiting to be discovered?
It may seem far-fetched, but consider this.
We once thought creatures like the giant squid
were mere legends, too.
So, for the moment, we have no choice but to accept
that the truth about Dogmen
and lake monsters
and dragons will remain unknown
and unexplained.
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