(quirky music playing)
John Wilson: Hey, New York.
If you're like me, you spend a lot of time indoors.
Most of your favorite things can be found
within the four walls of your apartment.
And some days, you forget to leave at all.
This is why it's important to force yourself outside
every once in a while to get reacquainted with nature.
But, when you finally get out there,
(clears throat)
you may not know what to do or how to enjoy yourself.
Most of the time, your eyes are focused on the ground,
uh, whenever you walk around.
But, once you start to look up,
there's a whole other world you didn't know about.
There's danger,
scandal,
and suspense.
Onlooker 1: No, no, no, no, no.
-(car horn honks) -No...
-(crowd gasps) -Oh, my God!
(applause, cheering)
John: But most of the time when people are looking up,
they seem to be fixated on birds.
You never really cared about birds.
You're not even sure what they do.
But, there must be something magic about them
for so many people to devote so much time to looking at them.
So, instead of spending another afternoon
staring into space,
or feeling cooped up inside,
stick with me and I'll show you
how to escape your old routine
and start, uh, just watching birds.
First thing you're gonna wanna do
is get a little guide that h-has all the birds in it
so you know what you're looking at.
This looks like a cardinal.
That might be a hawk.
And that's a pigeon.
But most birds are very far away
and you can't really see them very well.
Seems like birders have a lot of gear they use
to see better with.
So, go to a store that specializes in stuff like this
to pick something up for yourself.
What kind of stuff do you got here
for, for long-range surveillance?
You got binoculars. If you're into hunting.
Deer hunting, bear.
-John: Okay, yeah. Maybe some birds, too. -Clerk: Birds also.
We also have GPS trackers
-uh, if you like to track your-your spouse. -John: Oh, okay.
You can track your employee.
John: Can you track animals with this?
Clerk: Uh, no, that would be a different type of, uh, GPS.
John: Who are your biggest customers?
Well, my biggest customers are mostly women.
Women sometimes are smart,
and they know how to lie
and do things more than, um, men.
Uh, men, I guess, sometimes they're-- easily get caught,
because, sometimes, they get too involved with the other person,
and they just forget about-- They just don't think straight.
I think a woman thinks a little bit more,
uh, than getting caught than a man.
John: Do you ever go bird watching?
Bird watching. Mm...
You know, clients ask me to do a type of work,
to, to do a surveillance,
that's kind of like bird watching, but really not.
It's really, uh, actually watching people. (chuckles)
That's what I do.
-John: Yeah, me, too. -Okay.
John: So, now that you have your new binoculars, or whatever,
you try to join a bird watching group
to get a better idea of where to look.
What's going on up there?
-Birder 1: Well, those are parrots. -John: Oh, wow.
(parrots squawking)
-Look, there goes the Cooper's hawk. -Birder 2: Yeah.
We do something on our walks where we exaggerate and go,
"Wow! Look at that!" And I don't know,
but, just when I said that right now, I felt,
"Oh, wonder if something's happening."
And that's one thing we can do during bird walks
is if we don't happen to see much,
just go ahead and go "wow" anyway,
and train yourself to be amazed at what's here right now.
John (flatly): Wow.
Birder 1: Those are the English house sparrows.
-John: I don't see it. -Oh, look at there!
-Those are black-headed gulls. -John: Where is it?
There's the Cooper's hawk again.
John: I don't see it. You see it?
Yeah, yeah, I've got him. That's why, why I'm not moving.
-John: Wow. -Birder 2: Oh, my gosh!
Birder 1: This is a merlin!
John: A merlin? How can you tell?
They wrote everything down that they saw,
but you're not sure what they do with that information.
(birder speaking)
John: A life list?
John: How do you know, like, uh,
like, if someone is telling the truth that they've seen a bird?
(birder speaking)
And, it's, it's the honor system. Right.
-John: Really? -Mm-hmm.
John: It seems like the world of birdwatchers
is a trustworthy community.
If you say that you saw something,
other birders will just believe you.
Yeah, I saw like a Blue Jay, I think.
Well, this would be the time of year to see 'em
-'cause they're migrating through. -(birds squawking)
John: You like to be naturally trusting of people
but as you kept talking to other birders,
you met someone who actually knew about a scandal
that violated the birders' sacred code of ethics.
Swallowgate is a story of a young,
up-and-coming, enthusiastic,
and well-liked birder,
who found the very first violet-green swallow
in his state,
and he became a birding hero.
Other birders were pretty suspicious
of some of his reports,
which led to a multi-month investigation deep-dive
into his original violet-green swallow report.
And it was found to have been, uh, not legit.
John: Did he think that no one would just notice
or care to investigate?
I think so. I think he thought he was too clever.
-John: Mm. -Ultimately.
John: You were troubled that
some people lie about seeing birds,
but New York is filled with dubious claims.
Businesses try to make themselves
seem better than they are
by using clever language.
You can understand why they would stretch the truth
to get a competitive edge,
but birding seems like something
you only really do for yourself,
and it's unclear why someone would make something up
they saw in the sky.
In 1975, I was working
with a crew of six other men in the forest.
We encountered a large glowing object.
One of the men yelled out, "It's a flying saucer!"
I mean, it was, it was not some vague,
uh, glowing cloud or something.
I was practically under it, looking up at it, uh,
when I was knocked unconscious.
John: And then what happened?
I woke up on board the craft
in a great deal of pain.
I saw these beings standing over me
and I just flipped out and lashed out at 'em
and, and fought, fought 'em off.
John: Why did people think that you made this up?
Well, people were, uh, very reluctant to believe
that such a thing could happen.
And, uh, so, naturally, the immediate, um...
thing was to assume that there was--
Hell, they come up with any sort of excuse they could
not to believe it, you know?
"These guys must be hallucinating on drugs."
-But, seven people don't have identical hallucinations. -John: Hm.
So, they had taken lie detector tests
from the state police and passed.
John: Seems like even if your story is farfetched,
taking a lie detector test is solid proof
that you're telling the truth about what you saw out there.
-UFO Witness: This is the total? -John: How much do we owe you?
UFO Witness: It's 1,500.
-John: Oh, okay. Um-- -So, this is 500 plus...
-20... 30... -John: Okay. We have, we have the rest in the car.
-I think I got, I think I got the wrong envelope. -40.
John: So, you go to a polygraph specialist
to make sure your story is convincing.
A polygraph is a psychophysiological technique.
It's, uh, it's an aid to an interrogation
or an investigative interview.
-Alright, just try to relax. -John: Okay.
Specialist: Test's about to begin.
Did you ever see a bald eagle?
-John: Yes. -Mm. Passed that one.
Have you ever seen an egret?
John: Yes.
-Telling the truth. -John: Mm.
Did you ever see a raven?
John: Yes.
-Okay. Passed that. -John: Really?
Have you ever stolen anything from a store?
John: Yes.
Have you ever lied to someone on your show?
-John: No. -That's a lie.
Are you a competitive human being?
-John: No. -That's a lie.
Have you ever lied about seeing something that you didn't see?
-John: No. -That's a lie.
John: Do people drink a lot of water when they're lying?
Yes. Uh, the reason being is that, uh,
you often get a dry throat when you, when you lie.
Did you ever betray someone you love?
-No. -John: That's a lie.
John: Fuck.
Truth is most important thing, always, man.
More, more important than anything else is the truth.
It's the only way we can...
we can all work out things in this world.
John: Maybe you're not as honest as you thought you were.
♪ ♪
Whenever you shoot stuff for the show,
you take a lot of pride in the fact that it's real,
and that people always believe what they're seeing.
But, sometimes when you go out,
you don't see anything good at all
and your hunger for rare images only grows stronger.
When you were making the first season of the show,
someone showed you a video,
uh, that they took of a bathroom
-overflowing with sewage. This is the video. -Onlooker: No! No! No!
-(splashing) -(screaming)
John: You were so jealous that they had the good fortune
to witness it,
and you couldn't bear the thought
that this image wasn't yours.
Then you remembered that you needed to have
at least one day on a stage
in order to get a tax credit for the show.
So you rented a studio and had them rebuild
the whole bathroom from scratch.
Then, you hired pyrotechnics people
to create a volcanic eruption of fake poo
to imitate the initial video
and made them all sign NDAs.
It eventually made it into an episode later.
You thought that people would be really excited about it,
but after it aired, the only response
was people asking you if it was actually real.
You kept telling them that it was even though
you knew in your heart that it was a fabrication.
(vacuum whirring)
John: People also started to ask you if you actually bought
the building from your landlord in that, that one episode,
which was a ridiculous question to you.
♪ ♪
And then when you went on "Late Night,"
the host asked you if something else in your show was real,
which made you feel like people
just don't trust you anymore.
Okay, the guy you meet in the, in the supermarket.
-Yeah. -Was he just in the supermarket?
-Yeah. I mean, he was in the Stop & Shop. -(Jimmy Kimmel laughs)
-And I had no idea about the Mandela Effect Conference. -(audience laughter)
John: Maybe birding is the wrong hobby
if everyone thinks you're dishonest.
And even if you do see a rare bird,
nobody will believe what you saw anyway,
because they're all just waiting for you to trip up
and make a mistake.
-Get outta here! -(seagulls cawing)
John: Hey!
Maybe the only place you belong
is somewhere with other people like you.
It could be that you're making the wrong kind of movies,
and maybe it'll be good to make a documentary
that's backed up with a lot of historical evidence
that no one can disagree with.
Supposedly, the theory is
that they used less than high-quality rivets
-on the hull. -John: Of what?
-The "Titanic." -John: Okay.
So, so that when it hit the iceberg,
it just had like a zipper effect,
-and that's why it went down. -John: Oh, okay.
Seems like people are still really interested
in the "Titanic" these days.
So, you hired a camera crew and found an expert
to get you started on your new project.
-Sound Mixer: Sound speeds. -John: Hold it there.
Assistant Camera: Scene 71, take one.
(majestic music playing)
The "Titanic" was the most opulent ship ever built,
and it was supposed to be unsinkable.
Well, it turned out that it wasn't unsinkable.
As a matter of fact, on its maiden voyage,
it hit an iceberg, and it went down
in two hours and 40 minutes.
-(music stops) -John: Um...
-Okay, great. -Well, the wealthiest person on the ship
was John Jacob Astor.
John: Okay. Wait, can you look at that camera?
-(music resumes) -First were pretty much wealthy people.
-(music stops) -Second class was kind of a professional class.
John: You could just-- Wait, can you look at that camera?
-(music resumes) -There were, there were, um, uh, uh, clergymen.
There were, uh, professors.
-Could we stop a minute? -John: Oh, sure, sure. Yeah, go ahead.
You want some water or something?
-(car honks outside) -(indistinct chatter)
The two sister ships
were the "Titanic" and the "Olympic."
And this one that looks very much like the "Titanic"
happens to be the "Olympic."
John: Wait, sorry. That's not the "Titanic"?
Expert: No. This is the "Olympic".
But it was the "Titanic" that went down.
John: Wait, there are people that think the "Titanic" didn't sink?
There was fake news right from the beginning.
The theory that the "Titanic" did not go down
because it was "unsinkable," that the ship that went down
was its sister ship, the "Olympic."
But it, it-- that's what it is.
It is fake news,
and it had to do with people collecting, um, insurance money.
-And by the way, they did collect insurance money. -John: Hm.
You were surprised that there were conspiracy theories
about the "Titanic" that you had never heard about.
And when you start to dig into the archives,
it turned out there was a $5 million insurance policy,
uh, that was paid out after it crashed.
But it was hard to find more information about the "Olympic"
in the midst of all the other news, uh, of the day.
Big news.
You go on the message boards
to see what other people think,
but no one wanted to engage with you.
♪ ♪
And at one point, you notice that there was a white van
that was parked outside of your apartment
that was there for a few days.
You eventually found an obscure book that talked in detail
about an "Olympic" conspiracy theory.
It felt like you were on to something.
So you contacted the author, this guy named Bruce Beveridge.
He agreed to talk as long as you drove to meet him
close to his home, uh, all the way in Tennessee.
The switch theory goes that the "Olympic" was involved
in a very serious accident,
and her keel was permanently damaged
in September of 1911.
So the damaged ship was actually brought out into the open ocean
as the "Titanic," and sunk on purpose.
The idea was to cash in on an insurance policy
and to scuttle the ship. Unfortunately,
-the plan went wrong. -John: Mm.
Is there anything else that's inaccurate
that people don't know about?
You know, in the James Cameron movie at the end,
you see Rose floating on a piece of lounge panel,
and she's holding onto Jack's hand,
and she's rescued by one boat, you know,
that was commanded by, by Officer Lowe.
I said, you know that's fictitious
in the fact that there was a 16-year-old girl
floating out there, but the piece of wood floating
-with a passenger on it, that was true. -John: Hm.
That was factual, but it wasn't a 16-year-old girl.
-It was a Chinese man. -(dramatic sting)
John: He also told you about
a life-size replica of the "Titanic"
that also had a museum inside of it,
and he absolutely insisted
that he drive you over there. In your car.
Bruce Beveridge: I'm now a maintenance man which-- at a, at a hotel.
And I do that by choice.
Because, being an ex-police officer,
I should be doing security work
or being the head of a security at some college somewhere.
John: So, is this, like, based off the "Olympic" or "Titanic"?
-Oh, no. This is "Titanic." -John: Oh, okay.
But the difference, you know, you can tell
because it's got the enclosed A-deck promenade.
There was a time where I was gonna move down here
because I was going through a divorce,
and I got a hold of the own-- one of-- the curator, Paul.
I said, "Paul, I'm thinking about moving
to, uh, Sevierville or Pigeon Forge."
I go, "If I come down here, can I get a job at the museum?"
And he told me no. (laughs)
-They wouldn't hire me here. I don't know. -John: Oh, geez.
-How's it going? -Good morning.
It's a reproduction of the grand staircase.
You know, they actually used oak.
-John: This is a very romantic scene here. -It is, from the movie.
John: What does Anne Frank got to do with this?
-Bruce: Nothing. -John: Oh, okay.
There was damning evidence everywhere you look.
But, all the employees still seem to be in denial.
Have you heard about the theory that, like, the "Olympic"
and the "Titanic" might have been switched at one point?
As far as I know,
-there's no factual proof to that conspiracy theory. -John: Oh.
And after the tour,
you went down to the souvenir shop.
I said, look at the money that's being made
off of this, off of a tragedy.
-John: Right. Yeah. -Bruce: A lot of profit. But, you know,
is, is it tasteless?
I know it's been 110 years.
John: Right.
You went back to the hotel after the museum to relax,
and when you opened your laptop,
you got a cryptic email from an anonymous sender
which made you feel like you were still on to something.
The next morning,
Bruce said that he had some more to show you.
So you spent the afternoon with him.
-Bruce: Cher? -John: No, that's Katy Perry.
-Bruce: Who is this? -John: This is Tom Hanks.
(Bruce groans)
John: Oh, Cameron Diaz.
-Bruce: She got a great ass. -John: Yeah.
Bruce: If what I saw on the Internet was actually her ass.
John: Do you think he did good in "Titanic"?
No. I think he's a lousy actor, to be honest with you.
♪ ♪
John: Whoa. No one's gonna believe I saw this.
-(monkeys squeaking) -(John laughs)
And right there. There we go.
What are you chewing at?
-John: They picked your scabs? -Bruce: Well, either they do it
or I do it. It doesn't matter. I pick 'em, too.
John: You're covered in blood.
Employee: Welcome to the Salt and Pepper Shaker Museum!
John: Ooh, "beverage." Just like you.
Nah, spelled differently, though, isn't it?
Oh, my God. There's Bozo. God bless you.
John: You want any, uh, salt and pepper shakers, Bruce?
-Popeye. -John: You want Popeye?
If there's a Popeye one in here, I want Popeye.
Well, he was my favorite cartoon since I was a kid,
but because of the whole sailor thing.
I was a sergeant, was a police sergeant.
John: You ever see anything you can't forget?
Uh-huh. I've seen a lot of things I can't forget.
(quiet restaurant chatter)
Any kind of a death scene is really kind of traumatic,
whether it be a suicide or murder
or a little kid gets killed, gets murdered. That's not good.
But it's-- to see the faces of the dead,
the dead faces,
and th-they'll never leave me.
I can remember every one of 'em.
You know, I-I've seen people,
you know, that have had heart attacks
on their toilet in the summertime
and there, there's no air conditioning in the house.
And you go in there and it's been two weeks.
John: Yeah.
Bruce: That's not good.
John: Um, I-I think we're good for right now.
-Okay. Alright. -John: Thank you.
-You're welcome. -Thank you.
The smell...
The smell stays in your nose for two, three, two weeks.
-Three weeks sometimes. -John: Oh my...
Bruce: Who's your favorite Beatle?
-John: Who's my favorite Beatle? -Bruce: Yeah.
John: I like George.
What do you think? What does that mean about me?
-It means you and I are alike. -Oh, really?
Yeah.
John: It seemed like you were really starting to connect with him,
and you felt like he would understand
if you told him about that stuff
that you faked for the show.
But then, when you were finishing up,
you checked your phone, and you saw
you got another email from the same address.
(mysterious music playing)
You didn't want Bruce to feel like he was in danger,
so you asked him to just drive you to the Best Western,
uh, to pretend to take care of something.
I want my own building, a large building,
hopefully my own hotel. I want a big one.
I wanna be in charge of people because that's what I do.
-John: Yeah. -And then, I want to retire.
John: Turn right.
-Bruce: Turn right, go this way? Want me to park? -John: Yeah.
Yeah, yeah. Just park it now, for, just for a second.
You could tell he was getting suspicious,
but while you were waiting,
there was something you finally wanted
to get off your chest.
Do you ever have a hard time knowing what the truth is?
There's a lot of absolute truths that you would hope
that everyone would agree on, yeah.
The sky is blue. You know,
anybody who doesn't agree with that,
you know, has got some serious issues in the head.
John: Is there a way to, like, make something up,
and for it to, like, not be a problem?
(phone ringing)
I don't, I don't understand what you mean.
Hold on. I'm sorry.
(phone ringing)
-John: Who's that? -My mother.
-John: Oh, okay. You gotta get it? -(answers phone)
-Hello? -Mother (on phone): Hello?
-Yes. -Mother: What are you doing?
I'm l-- right in the middle of being interviewed.
Mother: Oh, okay. Well, I'll talk to you later. Gimme a call.
Why don't you call Michelle? Michelle's got her phone on.
-Mother: Okay. -Alright. Yeah. Bye-bye.
John: (awkward laugh) It's okay.
I, I don't-- I don't know what you mean by that.
John: Well, it's like, uh...
you know, it's like I made up, like, uh...
I think I-- I-I faked a shot
in one of my documentaries, you know?
And I told someone that it was real,
and I feel kind of guilty about it, you know?
But, i-it-- I-- (stammers)
It feels like kind of a victimless thing...
Yeah, well, sometimes, you know, we gotta do stuff like that.
You know, I used to be a police officer.
I know what that means.
John: How do you mean?
Well, sometimes you gotta fake some things,
because if you don't,
it could turn into a worse situation than what you have.
-John: Yeah. -(foreboding music playing)
See, this was the deal.
If you ever do anything like that, this is the rule.
And I swear to God, you need to follow it.
-Never tell anyone. -John: Mm.
Because, I mean, you told me about it.
But, I mean, I-- I'm not involved with your life.
I'll probably never see you again.
-John: Uh-huh. -So it won't have any effect.
But, you never know. Because this is the thing.
There's only two people can keep a secret--
-John: Uh-huh. -As long as one of 'em is dead.
-(church bell tolls) -John: Mm-hmm.
And that's a fact.
-I'm gonna smoke. You mind? -John: No, no, no. Go ahead.
Stay, stay in here. I'm gonna get out for one second.
-I'm just gonna go check something out in the motel. -Okay.
John: It seems like even if you do tell someone the truth,
you may only be left with one option
if you want your secret to be safe.
You went up to the room that the email told you about,
and the door was slightly ajar.
You walk in, but there doesn't seem to be
any signs of life anywhere.
It was really nice getting to know Bruce,
but it seems like it was finally time
for you to part ways.
You weren't looking forward to the long drive
back to New York City,
but maybe what you really need now
is just a little time to your--
-(explosion blasts) -John: Ah!
Fuck!
(flames crackling)
(dramatic music playing)
(sirens wailing)
(fire truck idling)
Was there anybody in the vehicle?
John: Um, yeah. My, uh...
my friend Bruce.
Okay. What's Bruce's last name?
-John: Beveridge. -Beveridge.
(water hissing)
♪ ♪
(clicking)
(presses pedal)
(playing soft melody)
John: There are times when you may know the truth
but the world might not be ready for it.
(piano music continues)
It may be painful trying to keep it a secret...
(lever clicking)
John: ...but at the end of the day, it'll all be worth it.
Oh...
Oh, God.
(water splashing)
John: Oh, no...
Oh!
Because the world needs its illusions.
And who are you to take that away from them?
So the next time something seems too good to be true...
just enjoy that you live in a world
where something like that is possible.
(piano melody ends)
This is John Wilson. Thanks for watching.
(classical music playing)
♪ ♪
(music fades)