- Tonight, on "The Proof Is Out There."
Was a legendary Birdman caught on camera?
- [Ken] The Birdman was a supernatural deity
that was much revered.
- [Tony] Is an ancient alien satellite orbiting earth?
- The Black Knight satellite is a UFO theory
that's been bouncing around since before the internet.
- [Tony] Is a behemoth crying out
from the bottom of the sea?
(cry resounding)
- This is a really eerie sound
that reminds you of something a deep sea monster would make.
- [Tony] And does this UFO footage from Germany
help explain a mystery of World War II?
- Nothing in the sky should be moving like this.
(dramatic music)
- [Tony] Around the globe are videos...
- [Eyewitness] What are those things?
- [Eyewitness] It's moving.
- [Tony] Photos and sounds that defy explanation.
(electric static hissing)
- [Kathy] We don't know where they come from,
who made them, or how they operate.
- [Tony] What are they?
- [MJ] Some sort of bizarre mutation.
- [Marc] What's exciting is nobody really knows.
- Extraordinary claims need extraordinary proof.
- I'm Tony Harris,
and as a journalist for more than 30 years,
I've followed the facts where they take me.
Now, I'm bringing that spirit of investigation
to the world's strangest sounds and images.
We'll analyze each one with top experts.
- It's a credible case, it's a credible video.
- [Tony] And pass a verdict on what it is.
- This video was clearly faked.
- The proof starts now.
(dramatic music)
Good evening and welcome to "The Proof Is Out There."
More than 40% of homes in America
have some kind of surveillance camera.
And while the majority are installed for security reasons,
we have been able to take advantage
of another added benefit,
recordings of strange creatures in the night.
August 27th, 2017.
It's just after midnight in a quiet,
residential neighborhood near Youngstown, Ohio.
Suddenly, a motion detector camera
is triggered by a movement in the driveway.
Let's take another frightening look.
A strange creature races past a parked car,
then disappears into the night.
It appears to have a white head,
dark body, while running on two legs.
According to field researcher Ken Gerhard,
no one, including the homeowner, knew what they were seeing.
- When this footage came out,
I remember it created a bit of a stir
in the cryptozoology community.
The owner claimed that this thing
was some type of bipedal, bird-like creature
with black plumage, a white beak, and very long white legs.
She estimated it was about three to five feet tall,
but what's really remarkable
is how fast this thing is moving,
about 15 feet in only two seconds.
The owner ultimately claimed
that she saw this creature multiple times
making clicking noises.
And she even claimed she found some massive piles
of what looked like bird droppings.
- [Tony] A birdman or bird-like creature
roaming the streets of Ohio?
It may not be as farfetched as you think.
Gerhard says this type of creature
has been part of Native American folklore for centuries.
- There is something known as the Cahokia Birdman,
a carving in sandstone of an anthropomorphic,
half-man, half-bird-like creature
found in East St. Louis in 1971
and dated to be about 900 years old.
- [Tony] Another theory online is that
this was an escaped exotic animal like an ostrich.
Ohio has seen that before.
In 2011, a Zanesville man made national news
when he released his massive collection
of 50 animals into the wild,
including 18 tigers, 17 lions,
8 bears, and 3 cougars.
Why couldn't a renegade ostrich be running the streets?
There's apparently been no shortage of strange creatures
spotted in Ohio over the years.
The Loveland Frogman is supposedly
a four-foot-tall cryptid
that has been spotted numerous times in Loveland, Ohio
since the 1950s and even inspired a musical.
Could this alleged birdman
of Youngstown soon be heading to Broadway?
Let's check in with the experts to see what we've got here.
(tense music)
If it's not a Birdman, is it just a man?
Could this just be an elaborate prank?
Biologist, Stephanie Manka explains the footage.
- I don't think this is a human in a costume.
It doesn't seem to have the head shape of a human.
The legs are too tall and the torso's too short.
And overall, it's small compared to the car here.
- [Tony] Okay, so Manka believes
we can definitely rule out the man,
but what about the bird?
- It does look like a bird.
The fact that massive, bird-dropping-like things
were left behind makes sense.
- [Tony] Some speculated this could be a wild turkey,
with an estimated length of up to 49 inches
and droppings nearly three inches long.
There are 160-180,000 of them in Ohio.
- I don't think it's a wild turkey,
because the legs look too long to be a turkey,
the head looks too thick and too light,
and the body doesn't look round enough.
- [Tony] However, Manka does see similarities
to another type of bird,
albeit not native to the United States.
- Ostriches and emus can run fast like this,
but it's not big enough.
And then I looked into rios, which are smaller ground birds
that can run pretty fast, and I was thinking it was that.
- [Tony] But wildlife biologist Floyd Hayes
thinks we're looking at another kind of creature altogether.
- This animal cannot be a bird.
Instead, it is a mammal.
It looks like it's running on two legs.
Possibly because of the angle from the camera
and the low resolution,
they're not really seeing the front limbs
of a four-legged animal.
- [Tony] But what kind of four-legged animal?
Hayes notes the coloration eliminates
typical nocturnal predators.
- Foxes and coyotes and wolves
tend to be relatively uniformly colored.
In this particular animal,
it looks like we have a white-ish head,
a black-ish body, and white-ish legs.
- [Tony] Instead, Hayes believes this is an animal
much more likely to be roaming suburban neighborhoods at night.
- To me, this looks like a medium-sized dog that's running.
We're not able to see the tail very well,
but I think I'm seeing glimpses of it
as it's moving through the video.
- [Tony] But Manka has her doubts.
- I can't make out any of the front half of the animal.
I can't see four legs or paws or anything.
So I don't think this is a dog.
(tense music)
- Our verdict, we're going with unidentified mammal.
Hayes's analysis convinces us this is some sort of mammal
and not a bird running through the driveway.
But exactly what kind, we're not sure.
In the meantime, we're still on the lookout
for evidence of the Loveland Frogman.
So, Ohioans, keep those cameras at the ready.
Now for one of our favorite kind of stories,
the kind you send us.
History's first satellite, Sputnik,
was launched into orbit almost 70 years ago by the USSR.
But there's a group of UFO theorists who insist
there's a satellite up there that's older.
In fact, ancient.
And one hardcore proof fan thinks he caught it on camera.
It's November 2018.
Nicos Vouris is walking with his daughter Nika
along the beach in Cape Town, South Africa.
Around 7:00 PM, Nika spies something strange in the air,
something that may have been watching us for centuries.
- [Nicos] This is a UFO of some sort.
- [Tony] Look closely.
A strange, malleable, black shape hovers high above Nicos
and his family.
It seems to float without obvious direction,
silently, holding position.
- We thought, "Okay, this can't be like a normal drone."
And it's just hovering there.
It did weird, wonderful maneuvers like that,
like by going vertically,
then horizontal, then vertical again.
It was just amazing to see.
- [Tony] But while many, at first sight,
would think this is a drone or possibly a spy balloon,
Nicos believes it's something much more extraordinary.
- I'm an untrained observer.
But in terms of what I saw,
it was very much reminiscent of the Black Knight satellite.
- [Tony] What is the Black Knight satellite?
Writer Amy Tietel explains.
- The Black Knight satellite is a UFO theory
that's been bouncing around since before the internet.
- [Tony] Believers say the satellite
is an alien surveillance and communication device
that has been in a polar orbit for thousands of years,
inserting itself into human history when it sees fit.
- Some people have even gone so far
as to say that this satellite
is what Nikola Tesla was communicating with
during his radio experiments in Colorado Springs in 1899.
He heard some kind of frequency
and some people believe
that he was actually speaking to the Black Knight satellite
and it was communicating with him through math,
using numbers as the universal language.
- [Tony] For years, this remained
a science fiction theory that was kind of cool, kind of scary,
but still just a theory,
until a strange object was spotted
about 200 miles above the Earth.
- In 1998, during the STS-88 mission,
astronauts photographed something
hovering above the Earth's horizon line.
And this became a big mystery.
Some people have used this photograph
as definitive proof that there are aliens
interacting with our planet.
- For many, what makes the Black Knight satellite
so compelling is the logic behind it.
If an alien race wanted to study the Earth,
why wouldn't they send a probe?
The same way NASA sent Voyager I
to explore other planets in our solar system.
So what is this thing?
ET satellite, balloon, or something else?
(tense music)
Astrophotographer Andrew McCarthy
is a Black Knight skeptic.
He says the most famous piece of evidence,
that 1998 NASA photo, was more a visual trick
than proof of alien spacecraft.
- It's outside of the window of the space shuttle
that was not in direct sunlight
so appears dark against the bright contrast of the Earth
and the surrounding space.
Seems to be just a normal piece of space debris.
- [Tony] Astronaut Jerry Ross,
who took part in the STS-88 mission,
confirms the object from the 1998 photo
is a wayward thermal blanket that broke loose
while his team tried to attach an American module
to a Russian module on the ISS.
But just because the 1998 picture can be debunked,
we still have to ask,
could Nicos's footage be of a genuine alien satellite?
We take that question to video analyst Mick West.
- I don't think this is a satellite.
We simply wouldn't be able to see a satellite
at that distance.
But the closest satellites from Earth
are about 200 miles up.
The International Space Station
is the largest satellite that's up there,
and you can only really see that as a dot of light
and you can't see it at all during the daytime.
- [Tony] Could the object Nicos captured be a spy balloon?
- It could be a spy balloon.
Typically, a spy balloon
would have something dangling underneath it,
but it could be a type of spy balloon where the the payload
is actually attached to the balloon itself.
- [Tony] In February 2023,
US military jets shot down a suspected Chinese spy balloon.
The 200-foot tall balloon had multiple antennas
and a solar array that government officials say
was capable of capturing imagery and signals
from military sites
and sending them back to China in real time.
Did Nicos see one over South Africa?
McCarthy has his doubts.
- This object doesn't fit the profile of a spy balloon
because it's way too obvious.
Those balloons are much higher altitude
and usually white to blend in with the sky
and to reflect the sun's energy back out and not overheat.
- [Tony] So if it's not spying on us,
could it be another type of balloon?
- A solar balloon is a type of hot air balloon
which uses the heat of the sun to warm up a balloon.
And they do that by making the balloon out of black plastic.
- [Tony] Because black absorbs heat,
the air trapped in the balloon expands, creating lift.
- But I think we can rule that out
because the shape of this object
would be consistent if it was,
as as the air heats,
the material around it becomes taut
and can no longer change its shape.
- [Tony] So while it might not be
a functioning, inflated solar balloon,
couldn't Nicos's Black Knight satellite
simply be a deflated balloon
or even airborne trash caught in the air currents?
- Pilots are always seeing things like balloons
or wind blown debris, things like plastic bags.
This is one of the big problems the UAP Task Force had,
which was dealing with airborne clutter.
(tense music)
- Our verdict, a trash bag or balloon
caught in air currents.
Sorry, Nicos.
This might not be the sexiest answer,
but because of its size, movement,
and through process of elimination,
that's what we have to conclude.
- Germany has its own history of UFOs
going back at least as far as World War II.
This next puzzling footage
is a much more recent sighting out of Deutschland.
And whatever it is,
we know it's not one of the 99 luftballons.
September 29th, 2014.
It's a beautiful day in Berau, Germany,
a rural southern village near the Swiss border.
A photographer sets up his camera
to film the perfect sunset.
But when he watches the footage back,
he has captured something else entirely.
A bright, streaking orb jetting across the sky.
Suddenly, the object seems to zigzag violently
before continuing downward.
Let's see that again.
Journalist Eric Grundhauser is intrigued by that hard turn.
- [Eric] The way that it moves,
it doesn't look like the behavior
that any earthly vessel could possibly undertake.
- [Tony] Much of the online speculation
centers on the location of a sighting,
a place considered by some to be the birthplace
of the modern UFO phenomenon.
It was 1944, behind German lines,
the elite 415 Night Fighter Squadron reported
strange phenomena in the skies over Germany.
- The incident involved a Bristol Beaufighter crew
led by pilot Edward Schlueter and his crew mates
who were flying over the Rhine Valley near Strasbourg.
The crew described 8 to 10 orange orbs
flying at high speeds off of their left wing.
- [Tony] The lights appeared from nowhere
moving at erratic angles, dancing around the planes.
The puzzled squadron could not shoot them down.
They also never appeared on radar.
The pilots dubbed the bright light bogies,
allegedly captured in this photo, "foo fighters."
- Since the foo fighters caused no damage,
the American crewmen doubted
that they were actually German secret weapons.
German pilots claim to have seen foo fighters as well,
and they were just as baffled.
- [Tony] But there are other modern instances
of similar bright orbs descending on planes too.
On a previous episode,
we analyzed this 2020 sighting from the Mexican skies
where veteran military
and commercial pilot, Captain Eric Delgado,
recorded this footage.
- [Eric] Oh man, that is phenomenal.
And you saw it dropped out of the sky
and just stop?
- [Tony] The UFO paced Delgado's plane
before shooting off at a sharp angle,
generating G-forces no human could withstand.
It's the kind of inexplicable maneuver
we've come to associate with UFOs, from foo fighters
to those encountered more recently by Navy pilots,
to this very video.
Both the foo fighters legend
and the modern footage shot by Captain Delgado
remain mysteries.
How will this German orb footage
hold up to our experts' scrutiny?
Time for our team to dig in and find out.
(tense music)
Is it possible all these highly maneuverable UFOs
are a single type of craft and this is one of them?
First, physicist Matthew Szydagis
dissects the motion of the object.
- It does seem to be going extremely fast
and also at one point, executes a remarkable turn.
- [Tony] That single hairpin turn
might match foo fighter reports,
but Szydagis is quick to point out
the object doesn't repeat the impressive move
the way alleged foo fighters did.
- The object appears to move in a straight line.
It doesn't do anything particularly spectacular.
Foo fighters were known to track aircraft
and I don't see this ball or circle tracking any aircraft.
So, I don't think that this is a foo fighter.
- [Tony] So if it's not a foo fighter, could it be a meteor?
Szydagis says timing is everything.
- This is a time-lapse video,
which means that we're looking at the sun
setting over a long period of time.
If that's the case,
this is way too slow, actually, to be a meteor.
- [Tony] Most meteors are visible for seconds,
burning up in a flash.
So the revelation that this is a time-lapse video
rules that out altogether.
The skip in time from the time-lapse
could also explain the erratic movement.
So, it's not a meteor or an alien spacecraft.
Could it be a non-alien spacecraft like a satellite?
- This could not be a satellite
because it's still way too bright
to see even the brightest satellites.
Satellites do come out at sunset,
but only after the sun goes down.
- [Tony] Instead, astronomer Marc D'Antonio
thinks the object is something inside the camera.
- Here's the thing with cameras,
whenever you point them into the sun,
you're gonna get things you don't expect or don't want
because the sun is immensely brighter
than anything else in the field of view.
So if this is something up in the sky,
as soon as it starts to go down toward the horizon,
it should slow down.
To your eye, it's not.
It stays the exact same speed.
That tells me that it's probably a camera artifact of some kind.
(tense music)
- Our verdict, lens flare,
or another kind of camera artifact.
We wish we could say this video
brought us closer to an answer on the foo fighter legend,
but not this time.
Those mysteries continue.
- Now, we go from the air to the ocean.
On this show, we love nothing more
than a good, deep sea mystery,
especially when there's a very large creature involved.
And this next video is so mind-bending,
it would have Jules Verne himself saying,
"Come on, Monsieur."
2017, the Mediterranean Sea.
A team working a debris sweep along ocean pipelines
comes across what at first
looks like just another deep sea carcass to be cleared away.
But closer inspection reveals this is truly something unusual.
What appears to be a 90-foot-long, dusty spine
sits undisturbed on the bottom of the ocean.
A remote controlled crane reaches out
to investigate the skeleton,
turning over one of the vertebrae, which disintegrates.
British podcaster and investigator Debbie Hatswell
was one of the first people to see this intriguing film
after a member of the pipeline maintenance team
reached out to her.
- He said, "I've seen a lot of carcasses on the sea floor.
And I've seen whale carcasses and all fish and all that,
and it just doesn't fit.
It doesn't fit with what they are."
He's saying this is an anomaly.
And he's felt that it was a very, very old animal
of some kind.
So I reached out to a number of marine biologists,
and nobody really got back to me with it as to what it was.
- [Tony] Field researcher Ken Gerhard
explores the idea that perhaps these are the remains
of a long extinct ocean predator, the dreaded megalodon.
- In 2022, the Atlantic Shark Institute out of Rhode Island
was deploying sonar
when they encountered what they believed to be a shark
of unbelievable proportions.
Perhaps 50 to 60 feet in length.
Now, if so, this would be the best account
of a modern megalodon.
- [Tony] The megalodon,
a nautical nightmare that experts believe
could weigh as much as 50 tons,
has been thought extinct for nearly 3 million years.
Have these Rhode Island researchers
uncovered a modern day version of this historical monster?
And if so, could we be looking
at the remnants of one in this video?
- This would certainly fit within the paradigm
of what we know about megalodon.
- [Tony] Gerhard also sees a connection
between this discovery
and the classic mythology of the region.
- In Greek mythology, different sea monsters
like Cetus, Charybdis, the Lernaean Hydra,
were said to live throughout the Mediterranean Sea.
- [Tony] And while there are many suspects,
there's one sea dragon sighting in particular
that Gerhard thinks could be connected.
- In October 1907, fishermen on the island of Corsica
claimed that they were terrorized
by a horrible, 200-foot sea dragon
that actually ripped apart their nets.
And the fishermen were so scared to go back out and fish
that they actually called on the government
to bring in a torpedo boat in order to kill the monster.
And that just happens to be the location
where we've got this footage of a 90-foot spinal column.
- Sea dragons can be found
in all sorts of ancient texts and tales
dating back thousands of years.
From Norse mythology's Midgard serpent
to the ancient Babylonian's saltwater dragon Tiamat,
who many say was rebranded
as the Leviathan in the Old Testament,
is there a connection here?
Let's see if our experts can help slay this oceanic mystery.
(tense music)
Marine biologist Dr. Shea Steingass strongly doubts
these are the remains of a sea dragon of ancient myth.
- It's been hypothesized that this might be a sea dragon.
That's probably not the case
'cause we really don't have any scientific evidence
of these creatures existing.
- [Tony] Steingass also points to the fact
that we can see what appears to be a pelvis,
something not found in the numerous depictions
of these serpent-like creatures.
- What we're actually seeing here
is a very old skeleton of some kind of modern animal.
- [Tony] But the only documented modern marine animal
that could possibly grow to this length would be a whale.
Could that be what this is?
- I would say the chances that this
is a really large whale skeleton are really slim
because we would likely see other types of large bones
like a skull, if we were to see a spinal column.
These remains aren't like anything
I've really seen before.
- [Tony] With Dr. Steingass at a loss,
we checked with wildlife biologist Stephanie Manka
to see if this could be a modern megalodon
like the one thought to be discovered near Rhode Island.
- If it were a megalodon,
I wouldn't expect to see the bone as intact as this.
Megalodons, like other sharks, instead of bone skeletons,
they have cartilage skeletons which don't fossilize well.
Bone contains minerals, whereas cartilage doesn't.
Bones are much harder.
And if you think about your ear,
this part where it bends, is the cartilage,
and that's what shark's skeletons are made of.
- [Tony] When cartilage breaks down,
it turns into a jelly-like substance
that dissolves into the water,
which is why the only proof we have for megalodons
are their teeth.
And as for that alleged megalodon spotted
by the Atlantic Shark Institute of Rhode Island,
further research indicates this sonar image
is more likely a large school of Atlantic mackerel.
So with all of our theories ruled out,
what is Manka's best guess?
- I believe that this is a whale.
What is probably going on here is the whale skeleton
has been on the ocean floor for so long
that organisms have eaten away at the bone
and there are fin whales in the Mediterranean,
which are the second largest whale species.
They usually don't get up to 30 meters,
so there is a little size discrepancy,
but everything else seems to elude that it is a whale.
(tense music)
- Our verdict, unknown sea beast.
Stephanie Manka thinks it could be
an abnormally large whale,
but our marine biologist, Dr. Steingass, says no way.
Until there is further investigation
of the skeleton itself beyond this video evidence,
these bones will remain a mystery.
- Imagine you're in the open ocean.
Visibility is good and there's nothing to see for miles.
Then, out of nowhere, you hear a massive, guttural cry
like some giant sea monster
waking from a centuries-long slumber.
Scary, right?
Well, take a listen to our next story.
It's March 1st, 1999,
and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration,
or NOAA, is continuing its deep sea research
along the frozen waters of Antarctica.
As they record audio of the water
using an autonomous hydrophone array,
an unexpected sound emerges.
(cry resounding)
We hear a strange, otherworldly moaning sound
emanating from the bowels of the deep.
(cry resounding)
If some sea beast is making this noise, it has to be huge.
The sound is loud enough to be heard
over a range of 3,000 miles,
but where it's coming from exactly, no one knows.
(cry resounding)
Journalist Erin McCarthy says experts
were confounded by this underwater roar.
- It's believed to have originated
between the Bransfield Straits and Cape Adare in Antarctica.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
nicknamed this seriously loud noise the "Julia" sound.
The Antarctic is home to plenty of wildlife,
so one theory is that maybe a known creature
created this loud sound.
(cry resounding)
- [Tony] In fact, the Antarctic waters are home
to the largest and loudest documented animal in the world,
the Atlantic blue whale.
Weighing more than half a million pounds,
the blue whale calls can be heard for hundreds of miles
and can reach decibels louder than a jet engine.
But according to Erin McCarthy,
theories began to emerge that the sound was made
by something more monstrous.
(cry resounding)
- Some have wondered if the Julia noise
is actually the sea monster, possibly the Kraken.
- [Tony] The Kraken,
one of the most legendary monsters of the deep,
was a giant, multi-tentacled, squid-like creature
that dominated the nightmares of sea folk
since the 12th century.
And while many consider the Kraken
to be nothing more than a myth,
recent discoveries of ichthyosaur dinosaur bones,
some found right here in Antarctica,
suggest something killed these 30-foot marine beasts
by crushing their chests and twisting their necks
by using large tentacles.
- Could this be a Kraken?
- Cape Adare is the site
of the first documented landing on Antarctica.
Norwegian explorers arrived there in 1895
and later built two huts there,
the first known human structures erected on the continent.
More than a hundred years later,
what could be causing the mysterious sounds
emanating from the depths of the continent's remote waters?
(tense music)
Marine biologist Shea Steingass vetoes the Kraken theory.
- The Kraken, which is an incredibly large,
squid-like sea monster,
wouldn't even have the right organs or anatomy
to make these sounds.
Squids are just cephalopods.
Cephalopods don't even really have vocal cords and lungs,
because they're actually just ocean dwelling invertebrates.
- [Tony] While all marine mammals
can communicate with sound,
as can certain fish and even loud clicking crustaceans,
cephalopods remain stealthily silent.
- So there's nothing on a Kraken or squid or octopus
that can even make this kind of a sound.
- [Tony] In any case,
we checked with forensic sound expert Rob Maher,
who first tests the Julia sound against the blue whale.
- Comparing the frequency range of the the blue whale
to the Julia sound,
the blue whale is at a lower frequency
than the Julia sound.
(deep resonating)
(cry resounding)
The characteristics of a biological sound underwater
don't match what we would see in the Julia sound.
- [Tony] Maher also rules out mechanical sounds
like deep sea drills,
since those tend to be regular and rhythmic.
This thing sure isn't.
(machinery whirring)
(cry resounding)
So what does that leave us?
Maher thinks there's only one remaining possibility
that makes sense.
- It's likely from geological sources.
(ice rumbling)
We also have ice and glaciers that are entering the ocean.
And the motion of the ice rubbing against other ice,
or against the ground, or the ocean surface,
will create sound.
- [Tony] Icebergs make sounds?
Turns out, we only discovered that in the past 25 years.
In fact, these sounds are some of the loudest in the ocean.
The equivalent of 200 super tankers
on par with undersea volcanoes and earthquakes,
and can be picked up thousands of kilometers away.
- If we compare this sound shown here
of an actual iceberg event...
(ice rumbling)
(cry resounding)
The characteristics of this tone
are similar to what we see in the Julia sound.
(tense music)
- Our verdict, icebergs.
Such a massive sound like Julia
requires a massive force behind it.
And in Antarctica, nothing comes bigger.
As for our Kraken,
he will just have to stay dormant for now.
- On this show,
we've told you about rocks that grow, rocks that sail,
and even rocks that look like encrypted alien messages.
But have you ever heard of rocks that sing?
Well, you're about to.
It's July 2020, outside Butte, Montana.
Photographer Nickolas Warner has traveled to Dry Mountain
to witness one of the strangest natural wonders
in Big Sky Country.
His drone footage shows a massive pile
of rust-colored boulders
that seem oddly out of place in contrast
with the drab gray of the rocks lying nearby.
And when struck lightly with a hammer...
(metallic ringing)
Each boulder produces a bell like tone.
- Some rocks, depending on where you hit them,
they come up with a different sound.
(metallic ringing)
I'm still kind of baffled
by how it was able to make such a loud,
distinct ringing sound.
For whatever reason, this specific pile of rocks
has some sort of strange quality to it.
(metallic ringing)
- [Tony] What's especially strange
is that when rocks have been removed from this site,
they no longer ring.
Nickolas says the whole area
has a kind of creepy feeling to it.
- It was that feeling where someone is watching you.
It felt very uncanny.
I would say that there's definitely
some sort of mystical qualities to the area.
- [Tony] The bell rocks of Montana
aren't the only ancient stones
to produce this unique brand of rock music.
Many civilizations believe these areas,
where rocks ring like they are hollow,
were special places of great mystical
and spiritual significance.
Ringing rocks and gongs of various types
and with differing sounds are found around the world
at sites in the US, Mexico,
Europe, Africa, India, and Australia.
But where did these massive,
seemingly out of place stones come from?
Author Jason Martell says some think
sound helped build the Egyptian pyramids
and maybe move these rocks as well
- Around the world,
there's theories that using vibrational sound
can actually levitate large stones.
I think that perhaps they were moved here
using some type of a sound frequency.
- [Tony] Experiments have proven it's possible
to levitate objects by using high frequency sound waves
to create a standing wave
that acts as a force to counteract gravity.
But can it work for something as big as boulders?
There may be several sites around the world
known for their ringing rocks,
but there has been less investigation
into the special property of these stones
than you would expect,
especially considering that humans have used them
as musical and ritualistic instruments
since before written history.
So what's going on here?
Our experts leave no stone unturned.
(tense music)
We take the footage
to our forensic audio analyst Dr. Rob Maher
and deduce if the rocks were put here intentionally.
First, he compares them to church bells.
- The ringing rock have this characteristic here,
which is loud and then it dies out as the ring goes away.
(slowed metallic ringing)
And for the church bells here...
(bell ringing)
We can see the same characteristic of the sound.
We can see the start of that, and then the decay.
So the two sounds are distinctive.
Our ear can tell the difference,
but they share many of the same kind of characteristics.
- [Tony] So maybe these rocks were placed here on purpose
to designate a spot as sacred as a church?
But while the bell rocks share similar properties
with a church bell, Maher says
they don't show signs of being intentionally arranged.
- The orchestral chimes will ring
for a much longer period of time.
(chimes ringing)
They're designed very specifically
to give that sustained sort of quality
so that they will have a longer duration of vibration
and give us a different sound quality
than the random collection of minerals in that rock.
- [Tony] So if nobody put these ringing rocks here,
where'd they come from and why do they ring?
NASA geologist Dr. Bob Anderson weighs in.
- It looks like a pile of rocks that somebody
might have dropped off, it's not.
What it is, it's an old, what we call a plug or a batholith
from a volcano that has been exposed
and is breaking apart into all these pieces
because of weathering.
- [Tony] A batholith is a large mass
of intrusive igneous rock,
which forms from magma that's cooled
after rising into the Earth's crust.
Perhaps the most famous batholith
is Half Dome in Yosemite National Park.
Anderson says the secret behind the ringing
is most likely a combination
of the mineral composition of the rocks
and the way joining patterns have developed
as the rocks have eroded.
That's why they only ring here.
The resonance depends on how they are connected.
- Most of these rocks are basalts,
And basalts are igneous rocks
that come up from the underground.
What happens over the years, the rocks are breaking apart.
Each of those rocks, as long as they're in connection,
has that resonant standing wave that'll ring as a unit.
But when you start seeing all these little pieces,
now you're making up the orchestra.
And so all the little pieces
have a different pitch and different tone
as they break apart and weather away.
(tense music)
- Our verdict, this is a natural geological phenomenon.
But we still can't explain why people feel
a mystical presence around the ringing rocks.
If you make the trip out there, maybe you'll feel it too.
Just make sure you leave the rocks as you find them.
- In an earlier episode,
we brought you a story of a ghoulish,
unidentified creature that left us baffled.
But thanks to our loyal viewers, new information has emerged
that may help us solve this rather grotesque puzzle.
While it remains uncertain where this footage was taken,
the story supposedly first unfolded
in a small village in Russia.
We're told a local farmer alleges
that his home has been shaken by a large explosion nearby.
While looking for the source,
the farmer stumbles upon this.
Some remains that look nothing like the usual local wildlife.
Take a good look.
The creature has a strange head
and an even stranger torso and limbs,
and the state it's in is even more puzzling.
It appears petrified.
According to the source who gave us this video,
the cause of the explosion was never found
but residents of the town were more frightened
by what this creature could portend for their village.
In our first go around,
journalist Erin McCarthy suggests
that the answer may tie back to climate change.
- Permafrost is melting in Russia
and with that melting,
all kinds of extinct creatures are popping up
like mammoths and rhinos.
- [Tony] Melting permafrost has revealed a plethora
of long forgotten life forms,
from a 3,500-year-old mummified bear
to potentially deadly ancient viruses.
In fact, many think a deer carcass thawed in Siberia
caused an anthrax outbreak throughout a remote village.
Could this creature be the latest reveal
from the permafrost?
We turn to our resident biologist, Dr. Floyd Hayes.
- It's possible that this is an extinct species of animal
that formerly lived in Russia that is no longer there today.
- Our experts were stumped when they first saw this clip.
But after running this piece,
we got word from our most important armchair experts:
You.
And that changed everything.
(tense music)
After our first story aired,
Joyce Driscoll, one of our eagle-eyed viewers,
reached out to share some much needed intel.
- The first time I saw that episode,
I said, "I know what that is."
I remembered this shop called The Witch's Shop in Bolivia.
One of these things was hanging from the ceiling.
It was a llama fetus.
- [Tony] Wait a second, a llama fetus?
And from Bolivia, not Russia?
- They look exactly like that
because they're actually hung by cords
at the back of the neck,
just like the one in your show is,
and they're hanging all over that shop.
The things in there were used for good luck
or, you know, good harvest, bring rain,
traditional, native-type stuff for the the local people.
I don't know how a llama fetus could do all that,
but that's what they said. (laughs)
- [Tony] We checked back with Floyd Hayes
about this surprising revelation.
And after this second glance, he concurred with our viewer.
- As it turns out, the creature was a llama fetus.
Llamas, they're preserved and kept by Bolivians.
- [Tony] But Hayes feels no shame in being corrected
by one of our audience members.
- I was pleased to learn
that the true identity of the animal
was provided by a viewer of the show.
- [Tony] As for our viewer Joyce,
the respect is more than mutual.
- I did not mean to one-up your experts.
They do a fantastic job on your show
and that's one of the reasons I watch it,
because I like that expert opinion.
(tense music)
- Our new verdict, llama fetus.
Our intrepid viewers may have solved this one
and raised serious doubts
about where this footage came from.
Russia? I don't know.
Bolivia seems much more likely.
This much we do know,
we couldn't have explained this story without your help.
And that's our show for tonight.
If you have any tips for us, we'd love to hear from you.
So drop us a line and keep those cameras rolling.
(dramatic music)