-[Mireya] Oh, my God. -[Russell] That's weird.
[narrator] Previously on Expedition Bigfoot...
There is a tree stuck in the ground upside down.
This could be what we're looking for.
To find proof that Bigfoot does indeed exist.
[Mireya] Get that drone up in the air
and see if we can establish some kind of a pattern.
What's that right there?
What?
Hey, Mireya. This could be a pattern. Holy [bleep].
[Russell] Look, look, look!
I'm following something, I know that I'm close.
If what I've been chasing is back here,
we're gonna have a meeting.
Holy cow!
[Russell] Wow!
I don't know if this thing is volatile, if it's stable, or any of that.
We need to back outta here.
Be careful.
[narrator] After trekking a creature toward the peak of Gray Mountain,
Russell has discovered a mysterious abandoned mine beside a raging waterfall.
I wanna go inside there, but we have to get some tech,
there's no way I'm gonna go in there
without knowing what we're breathing.
[narrator] Prince of Wales Island
has an extensive history of mining.
Including precious metals such as gold, silver, and uranium.
But while the mining industry has slowed since the 1970s,
the extraction process can leave behind long-lasting hazardous contamination.
Now, I know better than to go into an old mine like this.
The dangers inside here are numerous.
Everything gets approached with caution out here,
especially with a confined space like this.
I'll tell ya what, let me get hold of Bryce
[phone beeps]
[cell phone ringing]
Hey, Russ. What's going on?
Hey, Bryce. I've been tracking something all day long.
This thing's been moving out in the brush in front of me,
and it's definitely taken me on a run.
I found a waterfall,
right beside the waterfall is an old mining claim.
Are you able to get inside?
Without knowing what I'm breathing
and if the integrity of these walls and ceiling are okay.
Um...
I have a contact,
he might have just the thing that we need.
Excellent. Look, I'm gonna
Yeah, please do.
And stay safe, I'll talk to you soon, man. Bye.
[Russell] I think he's got a solution for us.
But for tonight, let's put a couple trail cams up.
If I get a couple trail cams
and anything moves here tonight, we're gonna capture it.
Let's go to work.
[Mireya] I can actually see your light from here, I'll head right there.
All right, sounds good.
[narrator] Outside the target zone,
while investigating the areas surrounding two mysterious upside down trees,
Ronny has discovered an additional tree 2 miles from the originals.
-[Ronny] Hey. -[Mireya] Hey, man.
[Ronny] Check it out.
[Mireya] Oh, wow!
Smaller that one.
Height is similar, but a smaller version of it.
[Mireya] So strange.
[Ronny] But same terrain.
-Yeah, no obvious cut marks. -[Ronny] No.
[Mireya] This has also been here a long time, it's got moss on it too.
-[Ronny] Exactly. -Hmm.
And they're in close proximity to each other.
So, to me
this is significant.
This is a major breakthrough for us,
to find an additional tree.
There seems to be a pattern.
And the fact that there's all this Bigfoot activity
I believe that there is some connection.
[Mireya] These upside down trees are unusual.
Because it's not easy to see
how they could have possible been placed there.
What we need to do is figure out what did this, what placed them there?
What is its purpose?
I just think we have to be really careful
in assigning any sort of meaning to something that we're finding like this.
Because at the end of the day we don't have the connect.
We're missing the piece of knowing what made it, or why.
[Ronny] Well, let's keep searching this area.
Then we can send our findings to Bryce and head back to basecamp tomorrow morning.
[Mireya] Sounds good.
I'm just plotting that additional upside down tree,
that Ronny and Mireya found, on our map.
I just can't stop thinking about it. I feel like it has meaning.
You know, a lot of researchers think that tree structures
or tree manipulations serve as guideposts or signs.
It could be marking Bigfoot territory. Nesting sites. Food caches.
Who knows?
So right now, I'm seeing if a pattern emerges.
So this is the lake, where we first started our investigation, right here.
Here's the mountain, where we're been operating out of,
where our witness thinks these Bigfoot are hiding out.
It's also where we got unusual readings
with our gas detecting drone on our very first night.
It doesn't have an official name,
we've been calling it Gray Mountain.
And then, over here is where we found those upside down trees.
Hang on a second here.
Oh, weird.
Okay. So I'm just drawing a line from the peak of the mountain
to that additional tree that we just found, right there.
And then, I'm gonna draw it to the work site.
Where those loggers left in a hurry
because something was driving them out.
And then, I draw a line from the peak of the mountain to the work site.
That's an equilateral triangle.
Look at that.
All sides are pretty much equal.
That's insane.
You know, that sticks out to me
because there are places on this planet, hot zones,
like the Bermuda Triangle,
these spaces known for anomalous activity
that happens to be in the shape of an equilateral triangle.
This tells me we're on to something.
And the fact that that mountain,
and those upside down trees, and this worksite
make an equilateral triangle.
Strange things happen, but I don't believe in coincidences.
This is significant!
[Ronny] It's quite in here.
Not really seeing anything unusual here.
[narrator] Unable to determine the origin or the purpose of the upside down trees,
Ronny and Mireya have returned to their base camp
near the foot of Gray Mountain.
-A lot of tree fall here. -Yeah.
-Big ones too. -Yeah.
[narrator] They're picking up their investigation near the location
where a gas detecting drone found compounds
that give off smells commonly associated with Bigfoot.
[Ronny] I mean, one thing I don't understand is, you know,
just recently this was all covered in snow a couple months ago.
And those upside down trees would actually be hidden from the snow.
So I'm curious, they would probably only go there certain times of the year.
-I don't know. -I mean, animals will leave an area
once they've depleted resources.
But they're also known to return to areas
that they know they have a very reliable food source.
So you would imagine that then the predators
would also start moving into this area.
The Native American tribes out here do believe
that Bigfoot's more human than animal.
And that they're maybe coming back to that same spot to bury their dead.
So maybe it's almost like burial mounds?
When you're talking about mourning
there is actually quite a few examples
of animals that will mourn their dead.
Very much like humans do, in that same emotional way.
Elephants will, generation to generation, return to where one of theirs had passed away.
Chimpanzees, same thing, it's always really social, highly intelligent animals.
[Ronny] If it was just one of these things,
the upside down trees,
these stories from the Indigenous communities,
or that triangle, I wouldn't be so sure.
But the fact that we have all three of these things,
tells me that we're on the right track and we need to keep looking.
[Mireya] What are you seeing?
It looks like a...
upside down tree.
-[Mireya] This here? -Yeah.
Definitely resembles it.
I cannot believe what I'm seeing.
Last night, we found upside down trees
and now, there's another right in the middle of our target zone.
To me, this has to be a pattern.
Doesn't that look like it? In the middle?
I'm not really sure, Ronny.
-[Ronny] Hmm. -This is definitely just...
-[Ronny] Natural? -Yeah.
I don't know, Mireya.
Maybe it's not exactly an upside down tree,
but this looks like some kind of tree manipulation.
And when it comes to Bigfoot, where there's smoke there's fire.
I just don't wanna leap to big conclusions,
based on upside down trees
and assign all this significance.
-But-- -I just wanna keep an open mind.
-'Cause a lot of things are possible. -It's an interesting theory.
I'm just saying, be careful with that. Like, the big leaps.
I know Ronny puts a lot of stock in these upside down trees and tree manipulations.
But just because we find these anomalies in the forest
doesn't mean that they are markers for anything.
So I'm willing to keep and open mind,
but this, to me, is not definitive evidence of what we're looking for.
[Ronny] Well, let's just keep going on this path.
If there's anything to this we're bound to run into something else.
[Russell] All right.
[narrator] Six and half miles from Ronny and Mireya,
Russell has made his way from the mine entrance
to the only access road near the mountain.
-You John? -Yes, sir.
Awesome, I'm Russ.
-Nice to meet ya. -Nice to meet you.
[narrator] It's his rendezvous point
for the hazardous site expert Bryce has sent.
[John] Take a look at this.
[Russell] Oh, wow!
-This is a robotic dog. -Oh, my God!
I'm excited to see this thing work.
The piece of technology that Bryce had sent up
is something that you only see in sci-fi movies.
It has four legs and stands up
and walks like a dog.
[narrator] This highly agile, mobile robot is equipped with sensors
to detect dangerous gases,
and can move autonomously with the help of lidar.
It's used in mining operations, space exploration,
and by the US Military to sweep for landmines.
[Russell] If the robotic dog tells me that it's safe for me to go inside,
I'm hoping I'm gonna find answers inside this mine.
That's incredible.
Let's do this.
[Mireya] You see that opening over there?
[Ronny] Oh, wow!
That looks pretty travelled, huh?
[Mireya] Yeah, looks like something big could get up and down there.
[narrator] Four and a half miles from the abandoned mine,
Ronny and Mireya continue their search in the area where, two days ago,
possible Bigfoot scent was detected.
[Mireya] Oh, wow!
There's a bunch of trails over here.
[Ronny] Oh, yeah.
[Mireya] There's a river just down here.
This is sorta new for us.
-[Ronny] Yeah. -A swampy area.
Usually these areas tend to attract a lot of wildlife.
There's nutrients that animals get from these swamps
that they can't get from anywhere else in the forest.
I see it with gorillas in Africa all the time.
They were getting these trace elements
that they couldn't get from food anywhere else.
That's interesting, 'cause there's been a ton of
Bigfoot sightings in and around swamps.
So the fact that this is here, we got all these trails.
I think the chances of us seeing something
moving around here is pretty good.
Yeah, I like this a lot.
Gonna go over here where there's some mud, see if there's any tracks.
[Ronny] Anything?
[Mireya]
You know, something's been feeding down this area there.
[Ronny] Oh, yeah.
[brush snapping]
[Ronny]
[Mireya] We know there's something in the swamp with us.
But we've lost all signs of it.
The muddy terrain coupled with these multiple trails,
makes it really difficult for us to follow anything.
But whatever is out here, it's clear that we need to get eyes on it.
All right, so this is a really good area.
So I think we should set camp here for tonight.
And also, let's set up some trail cams
we've got this swampy area,
and we just had something moving...
-Yeah. -...almost directly across from us.
-So I'd really like to set up the trail cams here. -Okay.
One thing we noticed, all this skunk cabbage which is starting to come out
a lot of it along the trail, you can see it's been bitten off.
So I wanna put a trail cam facing over here.
This place has all of the earmarks of these hot spot locations.
And the added benefit of having our base of operations here
is we know that Bigfoot is curious,
and so this is something that is gonna draw something like a Bigfoot in.
[Mireya] I'm gonna put the trail cam here.
Because we've got a trail
that heads right over the hill to where animals would come down.
[Ronny] Yeah, let's set up the motion detectors too.
[Mireya] Setting up this perimeter
with a motion detector is incredible useful,
because it's at an intersection where anything
that wants to get in and out of that swamp would have to cross.
So this is a great position
to capture anything that's coming in or out of here.
[John]
[Russell] Oh, wow!
[narrator] Near the mouth of the abandoned mine,
the robotic dog is prepped for its mission
to determine if it's safe for Russell to enter.
So, are we ready to go?
-Yeah. -Let's do it.
[Russell] Wow, that is fast.
[John] We're gonna understand the geometry of this mine.
It's sensing the oxygen levels as it moves forward.
On the front if it, it has this lidar mapping
it will actually see everything in front of it.
What is it doing? Why did it stop?
[John] Well, it looks like we hit an intersection here.
Yeah, let's start with the right and see how far we can go.
-[John] Okay. -And then, we'll circle back to the rest.
Is that a hole? Or is that a pit?
Oh, okay.
Yeah, so, I'll turn it around, bring it back.
[Russell] Let's check out the next chamber.
-Yeah, it's another dead-end for us. -Yeah.
Doesn't continue very far.
Can we see if there's anything off to the left there maybe?
Absolutely.
Here's the third tunnel and this one looks significant.
Oh, wow.
[John]
-Boy, that goes way out there. -Yeah.
-I mean, I can see timber on the left it looks like. -Yeah.
Those are logs, supports for the mine there.
-Yeah, looks like they're quite old too. -Yeah.
We may wanna turn it around at this point,
I'm not confident enough to let it go much beyond this.
Seems like the air quality is pretty good.
[John] Yeah, air quality looks great.
So it stands to reason that something could live back here.
We have a water source, we have vegetation,
we have good oxygen levels all the way back here.
You talk about seclusion, if something wanted to stay out of the human eye.
Yeah, that's right.
Wow.
I've been cleared to go inside this space.
It looks like it goes back
quite a ways from what we're seeing on the mapping.
And there's a couple different shafts that go off to the side.
We were only able to go so far with this robotic dog.
What's beyond those boundaries...
...I need to see it for myself.
It's time to go in.
I'm glad we were able to link up tonight, man.
Yeah, happy to.
Tonight, I'm meeting with Jeffrey Sheakley,
who's a member of the Tlingit tribe.
Tlingit have a long and robust history
regarding creatures like Bigfoot and the Kushtaka.
So, Jeffrey's information could be invaluable to our investigation,
because what he has to say is so personal and sensitive,
he asked to speak with me in the privacy of my car.
Jeffrey, I know this is difficult to talk about in public.
I'm sure there's a lot of superstition and secrecy
around this subject.
It's not talked about really very much.
Well, like I said, I really appreciate you talking to me.
Our team's been investigating these upside-down trees.
Do you think we should be going into those places
where we see these types of structures or indicators?
That's a good question. I don't know.
-You definitely want to be cautious. -Yeah.
Because when I saw you talking to my dad about
Bigfoot and the Kushtaka,
he had sat me down and told me his story
about his father
and his father's brother.
This is back in the 1950s.
They went hunting,
and they were at the bottom of this mountain
and they both blacked out at the same time.
What?
And when they came to, they were on top of the mountain.
No recollection of what happened.
-What the hell happened? -Their clothes were tore up.
They had blood on 'em.
-Their blood? -No.
-Whose blood was it? -They don't know.
Three days had gone by,
and it felt like a minute to them.
That is so wild.
Yeah, and my grandma talked about the Kushtaka
and how it could have taken over their bodies
and used them for something.
-Really? -What, we don't know.
So, your grandma said that the Kushtaka
could take over their bodies and do who knows what.
-I think it took over their bodies for three days. -[whispers] Wow.
That's really scary and horrifying.
Jeffrey's story takes the possible dangers of these encounters
up to a whole other level.
I've heard of Bigfoot trying to lure people into the forest.
But if the Alaskan version, called the Kushtaka,
is taking over somebody's body,
that's something entirely different.
You get that gut instinct,
and you hear something out in the middle of the woods
-that don't seem right. -Yeah.
Don't keep pulling towards it.
[Jeffrey] Whatever it is out there that did that,
is still out there.
There's things out there in this world that we just don't understand.
[Mireya speaking]
[narrator] With trail cameras and motion detectors
set up in the swampy terrain near their base camp,
Ronny and Mireya are exploring the surrounding area
to see if they can pick up evidence of anything moving through it.
[Mireya whispering]
[Ronny whispering]
[Ronny speaking]
It's really strange, the record button's not working
because I think I got a heat signature.
-It's a heat signature. -[Ronny] Really?
You know what, I'll just take a picture.
It looks good. It definitely looks good.
[Ronny speaking]
No, I think it's just a little bit higher.
[Ronny speaking]
[Mireya speaking]
All right, let's just go towards it and see what it is.
Anytime you pick up on a lead
like a thermal heat signature, you have a choice.
You can either stand back, or you can go towards it
and I'm always gonna push to going towards it,
because I'm out here for a reason, and I want to find it.
[Mireya whispering] Ronny?
Whatever it is, it's still there.
It's straight that way.
[bleep]
[Ronny whispering]
[Mireya talking]
[Ronny] Gone?
-[Mireya] I didn't even hear anything move. -[Ronny] Me neither.
-I mean, it really looked like it was just up here. -Yeah.
[Ronny] I mean, it could be below, like these root systems.
I feel like I could tap down.
Just too many places to hide, really.
Animals don't just disappear,
but they are very comfortable in these surroundings,
and they know how to, very stealthily, move and hide.
We know that something was there.
As soon as we get there, it's gone.
And as we're looking around, we realize
it could have hidden just about anywhere.
-[Mireya] There's also all these trails... -[Ronny] Yeah.
...that just shoot off.
[Mireya] For us, this terrain is really challenging.
but for them, it's their home
and they know exactly where to go.
All right, I'm not picking it up anymore.
Let's start walking that way,
and see if we pick it back up.
[Ronny] I think I might be a little lost.
[Ronny sighing]
[Ronny] And I feel like I'm just walking around in circles.
[narrator] Just a quarter mile outside their target zone,
Bryce has returned to where Jeffery's grandfather had an encounter
with a possible Bigfoot more than 60 years ago.
[Ronny] Oh, man.
Jeffrey told me that there's still something mysterious
in these woods.
Whatever is out there that did that, is still out there.
So I'm at the same location
where his grandfather had his experience
to see if there's any evidence
that points to Bigfoot being present in this area.
[deeply sighing]
Everything feels very disorienting here.
[Ronny whispering] Can you hear that? It sounded big.
Check this out.
I mean, these look like they were placed here.
Let me just get my camera out. Hold on here.
Oh, wow.
So, I'm just documenting this,
what it looks like...
East.
Look at this right here.
Oh, that is so weird.
Here we go.
I've never seen these sort of balancing branches before.
I almost don't even want to touch it.
And then, right here,
I mean, this just catches my eye
like it was placed here.
What does it mean?
Do you see that?
Seeing these balanced branches woven together in the middle of the woods,
to me, that just screams Sasquatch.
What the hell is that?
This is definitely constructed.
Something made this.
We are definitely in some sacred space,
because this territory feels marked out.
All right. Let's see if we can find anything else.
Watch your step.
[narrator] Seven miles away,
Russell has been cleared to explore the abandoned mine
he believes could be a Bigfoot shelter.
[Russell whispering] Okay, let's see where this place goes.
We've got the go-ahead to go in this space.
And it's... It's spooky.
What I'm looking for is anything that might have scraped these walls.
If you have something that's nothing but hair on its shoulders,
it's gonna leave hair behind.
Anything on the ground
that might look like a footprint.
Anything that is DNA
that I can get my hands on in this cave
will be really valuable to me.
Look how something's stepped right here.
[Russell speaking]
Shh, listen.
It sounds like they were...
Did you hear that?
Geez.
[cracking]
[whispers] Be quiet.
[cracking]
[Russell whispering]
I wanna see what's down each one of these tunnels.
[Russell] According to the LiDAR detection of this dog,
I learned there's a cross section
where it goes to the right,
straight ahead, and to the left.
I wanna do this tactically, methodically,
I wanna go in and go to my right.
[Russell speaking]
And I don't wanna miss anything.
[exhales deeply]
We've hit a dead end, bud.
Okay, let's back outta here.
[crashing]
It's a bit of... Shh-shh.
Just one.
Here we go.
Shh-shh-shh.
[Russell speaking]
Let me check down this way.
[Russell speaking]
[breathing heavily]
This mine's like a frickin' labyrinth.
-[Ronny] Hey, I think we're back near our camp. -[Mireya] Yeah.
Hey, Ronny...
Look, the light was triggered. The motion detector went off.
-[Ronny] Really? -Do you see the red light?
-[Ronny] Holy [bleep]. -Something triggered it.
[Mireya] As we're searching the swamp
for any signs of what made that heat signature,
something had triggered those motion sensors right by our tents.
Something is at our camp.
[Ronny] Oop. [bleep] Are you all right?
[Mireya] It looks like two of them that triggered here.
[Ronny] I found the water on that side, right by the tents.
We need to be on guard.
[Mireya] If it was just one of them that had been triggered,
I'd question whether it was working properly or not.
But the fact that they were both triggered,
-seems to me, like, something came through here. -For sure.
I don't see any prints around this one.
There's no wind, so we know it's not a branch or anything triggering it.
[Mireya] We searched all around the camp
to see if we could find any prints or signs
of whatever it is that came through here.
But we couldn't find anything.
[Mireya] There's a huge population of bears and wolves on this island.
And while an attack isn't likely,
the danger to ourselves and our crew,
it's real and immediate.
[Mireya whispering]
Let's keep looking, though.
I don't know what triggered our motion sensors,
but we're definitely gonna have to be on high alert tonight.
[Russell speaking]
Check this out.
What the hell was that? [bleep]
Is that glass?
What the hell is this?
Holy [bleep].
[narrator] Obsidian, also known as volcanic glass,
is formed when lava cools rapidly
after being exposed to air or water.
It's hard yet brittle nature causes its edges
to be sharp enough to be used as surgical scalpels.
[Russell speaking]
This does not belong here.
This is crazy.
On the ground were some shards of obsidian
in one concentrated place.
[whispering] Look at that.
[Russell] That doesn't sound like a big deal,
except that obsidian doesn't exist on this island.
So, you're talking about something
that is completely out of place.
What is it doing in this mine?
[Russell] Now, the miners wouldn't need obsidian,
they had metal tools to use.
Who would need obsidian in this space?
Something brought this material in to use
that has to have opposable thumbs,
and I can only think of one thing besides man
that would have used this.
[Russell] I collected every piece of that obsidian I could
because if anything grasped that,
there should be some DNA we can pull from that.
Oh, man, this is another dead end.
We've explored all these passages.
That's the end of the line.
[Russell] During an investigation like this
you don't always find what you're looking for,
but I think I found the next-best thing.
Let's get out of here.
This obsidian could be a really amazing find.
[Bryce] Are you guys still rolling?
Check this out. I wanna show you something.
Okay, so, do you remember how last night
Russell was investigating that abandoned mine,
and he felt like he heard something coming
from right behind him,
but he didn't see anything, right?
Well, I wanted to go back and see
if there was possibly something we missed.
And I think I might have found something.
So, what you're looking at here
is the LiDAR scan that the robot dog took.
So, as you can see, it's sort of a cross intersection here.
This is where Russell is,
and this is where he thought he might have heard something.
But check this out.
This is the camera on the robot dog,
so, this is the actual cave, right here.
So, this is that same corridor, looking upwards.
So, this actual angle from the robot dog
is staring at that pile of rocks.
Do you see right here there's nothing there?
But look at what the LiDAR captured.
What is this?
Watch this, right there.
If I rotate this LiDAR,
do you not see a humanesque form
sitting on these rocks?
Because that's what I see.
But look at this.
If you look even closer, watch this
as we slowly start to peel away the LiDAR.
What is that?
What the [bleep] is that?
I see a head right here.
I see a large back, arms...
Here's the question, right?
How come we don't see it on the camera,
but yet we see it on the LiDAR?
So, I wanted to go back through Russell's footage,
to see if there was something I missed.
And I found something.
This is the footage that Russell took
when he was moving from this corridor to get out.
Here we go.
Right there! Did you see that?
I'm gonna go back,
because if you don't slow it down, you miss it.
But watch this.
Right behind Russell's cameraman,
right there, right there,
you sort of see this amorphous blob move behind him.
I don't know what the hell that is.
That could be a video distortion or something,
but to me, I think we just captured a cloaked Bigfoot.