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[English]

Queensland-based yowie researcher

Dean Harrison and his team

are testing out infrared cameras

at Springbrook National Park.

They picked this spot because they believe

they've seen traces of yowie activity among the brush.

And that night, they capture this mysterious footage.

The thermal imagery seems to show a solitary figure

hiding behind, or even hugging, a large tree trunk.

[Harrison] This is doing what yowies do.

They hug a tree,

pretend they're part of it because of a human in the area.

They just blend. So it seems he's putting his head in.

[Harris] Minutes later, the image changes.

Now it looks like there's a couple.

[Harrison] Two giant creatures emerge from the foliage,

and one is bending down to pick up something.

[Harris] As it bends over, you can also make out

what looks like one of the creatures' heads.

It looks cone-shaped.

The figures are large,

with wide shoulders and ape-like proportions.

Field researcher Cliff Barackman,

who has been to Australia to study the yowie,

says the footage aligns with descriptions

from indigenous peoples going back centuries.

[Barackman] All the Aborigines down there have drawings

on the walls of caves depicting these things.

They're prevalent in their storytelling traditions as well.

But then the settlers came in the late 1700s,

and they, too, started running into yowies.

Which is another very strong indicator

that they're a real, biological animal.

Now, Bigfoot-like creatures are part of folklore the world over.

Nepal had the yeti, Mongolia has the alma.

One theory is that they all descended

from a single Asian ancestor,

some of whom made it to Australia

while others crossed the Bering Land Bridge,

came to North America, and evolved into Bigfoot.

If this video is real, it could help prove that theory.

But that's a big if.

There's some sort of subject, creature, person, if you will.

It's something that's emitting a heat signature.

And as we go through different FLIR filter rays,

this object's movement is consistent.

There's something happening in here that's moving around.

[Harris] Look at the footage with this filter.

Now the head comes into better view.

It appears to have a pronounced sagittal crest,

a ridge of bone along the top of the cranium.

It's similar to what's seen

in the skulls of the early hominid Australopithecus,

which some believe to be the common ancestor

of Bigfoot, yowie, and other similar creatures.

But Primeau is cautious.

Although we have not found any evidence to support

that the recording was fabricated,

we have no idea what is being depicted here.

Next, our zoologist, Roxy Furman,

analyzes the anatomy of the figures.

What we can see clearly at one point

is that there are two animals pictured.

It also looks like it's a bipedal animal,

which means it walks on two legs.

[Harris] That might have you thinking primate.

But here's a key fact:

there are no known primates native to Australia.

In fact, the only bipedal animals

are the cassowary and the kangaroo,

which look nothing like this.

So how do we explain the heat signatures

and those head shapes?

Furman thinks she may have the answer:

People wearing headlamps.

That would explain why the head's a slightly strange shape.

[Harris] That means the people were misidentified

or participants in an elaborate hoax,

maybe Australia's version of The Patterson-Gimlin Film,

if that was a hoax, too.

But anthropologist Kathy Strain says that in this case,

size does matter.

The research team went back to the spot in daylight

and measured the tree,

matching the thermal footage as best they could

to get a sense of the size of the figures

in the infrared video.

[Strain] Whatever it is is more than eight feet tall.

The possibility of them being human is highly unlikely.

I came to the conclusion that what this video shows

are two real yowie.

I think it is one of the most significant films taken

in at least 50 years.

So yes, there's a possibility that this is a hoax.

But based on Professor Strain's estimate

of the creature's height,

we're going to say these are possible yowies.

It's 2011 in a small village in Russia.

A local farmer reports that his home is 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 its in is even more puzzling.

It appears petrified.

The way this finding is displayed in the video

is also quite intriguing.

What's very interesting to me is that they're drying

some corn at the same time.

And I wouldn't think you'd want to put something

alien next to a food resource.

TONY HARRIS: 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.

Journalist Erin McCarthy says local legends

could explain why.

In Slavic folklore, there's Baba Yaga,

a witch who lives in the woods, in a shack that has

chicken legs and chicken feet.

She also steals and eats children.

TONY HARRIS: Baba Yaga has become

the equivalent to the boogeyman for kids in this region.

Some locals may have believed, this creature

was her handiwork, but McCarthy says

there could be another slightly less creepy explanation.

Permafrost is melting in Russia.

And with that melting, all kinds of extinct creatures

are popping up like mammoths and rhinos.

So potentially, this creature is something

that's extinct that we just don't know about yet.

Now, there are some conditions on Earth that could instantly

mummify a living creature, like the super alkaline waters

of Lake Natron in Tanzania.

But there's no evidence something like that

currently exists in Russia.

So before we determine if this video shows

an undiscovered dinosaur or even a child-eating witch,

our experts will dig deeper.

First, video forensic analyst Mick

West examines whether the specimen

could be some kind of hoax.

I think the only way you could have done that is

to have modeled it from life.

And that means that you actually had the real thing

to start off with.

So I think the simplest explanation

here is that what we're seeing is what we're getting.

This is, in fact, a dead animal that has been

partially or fully mummified.

TONY HARRIS: If this is indeed some kind

of animal, what kind of animal?

Just in terms of the morphology,

something about its face looks quite birdlike to me.

It looks like it could have part of the beak that

had formed off or not been preserved

in this mummification process.

But it's got a really big eye socket.

Birds tend to have quite small eyes.

So for me, that would kind of rule out a bird.

TONY HARRIS: That Xes out it being

one of Baba Yaga's chickens.

Biologist Floyd Hayes is thinking mammal.

FLOYD HAYES: OK, right here, it looks like there

may be some teeth in the jaws.

To me, the skull looks much more like a mammal.

It does look like there may be a wing.

It could potentially be a fruit bat.

There are some large species of fruit bats called flying foxes.

TONY HARRIS: Furman sees some merit in the bat theory.

They also do have that similar large nose

that we can see in this fossil.

In terms of their skeleton, they do have a long neck as well.

And going right to the end of what looks like it could have

been wings, they have what looks like it was a claw

or a hand of some sort.

TONY HARRIS: So it kind of looks like a large fruit bat.

But here's the problem.

They don't live up in Russia though.

They're more characteristic of the tropical islands

in the Western Pacific Ocean and Indian Ocean and

in Southeastern Asia.

TONY HARRIS: Floyd says, until this family

comes forward with the specimen, we can't be certain what it is.

The process of mummification could

take a long period of time.

It's possible that this is an extinct species

of animal that formerly lived in Russia,

that is no longer there today.

So I know we're going out on a limb here.

But for now, we're going to say this is

an unidentified extinct animal.

Of course, it would take proper scientific examination

to know for sure.

But with the Arctic warming two times faster

than the global average, we may see

more strange creatures thawing out from the permafrost soon.

And we'll do our best to identify them.

On a Friday evening in 2008,

geology professor Heinrich Frank

is homebound on the freeway

past the town of Novo Hamburgo, Brazil.

Something catches his eye at a construction site

on the side of the road.

Take a look.

The first tunnel I found was very, very small.

And when I entered, I see immediately

the claw marks on the walls.

(Host) Look closer.

Dr. Frank focuses on this,

grooves dug into the tunnel walls

and slashes in the surface.

What could have made these marks?

Dr. Frank's research dates the caves

to be about 12,000 years old.

And there's reason to think

they aren't just natural formations.

Taken a close look at them from a scientific point of view,

they don't appear to be natural caves

based on the types of rocks that they're being cut in.

Some of these rocks are much harder.

The easy rocks can be broke by water.

They also have a really weird shape,

that they're more horizontal than they are vertical.

Which tells me that something carved these tunnels out.

When you consider all the megafauna,

you have only two animals

with the necessary claws to build tunnels.

The armadillos and the sloths.

(Host) We're talking now about the Pleistocene era

which ended 11,700 years ago.

It was the age of megafauna,

gargantuan mammals like mastodons,

and in this case perhaps the famous giant sloth.

Could Frank have discovered some sort of ancient burrow?

Or could such an animal, believed to be extinct,

still be living there today?

(Frank) When you go inside the tunnels,

sometimes you feel like the animal

is on the next corner.

(Host) The fossil records show that Megalonyx sloths

were the size of present day bull elephants.

But throw in there massive claws on each forearm

used for defense, they roamed the Western Hemisphere

when humans first arrived.

One can only imagine how terrifying it must have been

to try to hunt these giant ground sloths.

In fact, there has been evidence found of these

giant ground sloths, the Mylodons,

that were actually trapped in a cave in Argentina

and corralled and kept as a food source

by primitive humans.

Giant sloths and humans together?

If it sounds like something out of a horror film

instead of history,

a recent find will change your mind.

At White Sands in New Mexico,

archeologists uncovered the prints of a giant sloth

being followed by humans.

They were stalking it.

So could these giants still be around?

Did they dig the Brazilian tunnels?

And if not them, then what did?

(Anderson) If you take a look at the tops of the ceilings

in one of these caverns,

you'll see that they're-- look like claw marks.

(Host) So geologist Bob Anderson thinks

some sort of burrowing creature made these caves.

And what if these animals still exist?

Archeologist Ed Barnhart says not so fast.

Well, some people have suggested

that these giant caves are actually

the holes and burrows.

Well, that's an interesting idea,

but show me the artifacts.

(Host) So far there's no proof.

No one has captured a giant sloth,

found a carcass or taken a single picture of one.

So I can take giant sloth right off the list.

(Host) And Barnhart even questions if giant sloths

ever dug these tunnels at all.

(Barnhart) Look down in this section here.

There's one, one, one.

There's one coming across here.

There is no reason to believe that these are claw marks,

because they would be repeatedly sections of three.

(Host) Barnhart makes a good point.

But if a giant three-toed sloth had uneven claws,

it might leave one, two or three marks

depending on how hard it was digging.

Still, Barnhart thinks it's more likely

the marks were created by an extinct worm-like creature

called a trilobite.

Some were predators.

The biggest weighed as much as 10 pounds,

and they were known to burrow into walls.

These are much more like worm casts

that were into the wall.

Trilobites make more sense to me

because those are individual hot-dog-shaped things

that attach themselves to the wall and dig in.

(Host) But hang on. As you can see,

there are distinct differences between these

confirmed trilobite tracks

and what we see in Dr. Frank's tunnels?

Is this case really closed?

Okay. It's true that no giant sloth fossils

have been found in Dr. Frank's tunnels.

But the marks don't look exactly like trilobite tracks either.

So we can't come down on one side or the other.

We're calling this an unexplained phenomenon

until we get further proof.

[host] Tartu, Estonia.

October 2021.

Johan Hui Bapju receives a disturbing phone call

from his mother regarding her chicken coop.

He offers to take a look,

but nothing could prepare him

for what he found.

-[dramatic music] -[unintelligible]

Oh, boy.

Their tail is really tangled.

[host] That's an understatement.

Let's take another look.

What looks like a heap of black rats

is actually a heap of black rats

with their tails hopelessly entangled together.

There are 13 rats in this bundle

bound together for life.

[McCarthy] One of them, unfortunately,

looks like it has...

passed on to the next world.

And maybe that's for the best.

I wouldn't wanna be tied to...

a bunch of my brothers and sisters either.

[host] Would you believe that this isn't the first time

a knot of rats like this has been discovered?

It's even got a name.

The Rat King.

The term Rat King is

thought to originate

from German.

It's a number of rats

whose tails have become

entangled so that they are

basically like a rodent super organism.

An older wiser rat

would sit atop a pile of younger rats

and they would serve all of his needs.

Unfortunately for Rat Kings,

they are considered to be

bad omens.

It's thought that they warn of the plague.

They're also associated with witchcraft.

[host] Because of this, in old Strasbourg

were Rat Kings were found,

they were usually drowned in a well

or dumped in boiling water

before being brought to the local school teacher

to study them.

Because of their supernatural associations

and the rarity of their occurrences,

there's debate as to whether or not Rat Kings

are cruel man-made hoaxes.

[McCarthy] There is a long history

of fabricating creatures for profit.

Think about P. T. Barnum's Fiji Mermaid,

George Hull's Cardiff Giant.

Back in the day,

people would take lizards and glue bat wings on them

and say, "Here, buy a dragon."

Or they'd stick a narwhal horn on a horse and say,

"This is a unicorn."

So, a hoax is definitely

not outside the realm of possibility.

Knots are complicated.

There's a whole area of mathematics

called Knot Theory

dedicated to studying these things in the abstract.

And the knots of the Rat King tails are complex too.

Scientist have attempted to recreate them

and they quickly discovered it was a lot harder than expected.

The knots they made looked too neat and intentional.

And those rats were dead.

Let's turn to our experts to see what they think

about this whole thing.

[suspenseful music]

[host] First, we turned to biologist Floyd Hayes

to find out, is this real?

And, if so, how the heck does something like this happen?

One possibility is that it was faked

and somebody actually stuck the tails together.

But it could also be a natural phenomenon

and I think that's most likely in this case.

It's been suggested that perhaps they are stuck together

from birth, but that seems very unlikely

because these are fairly well grown

and they would likely starve to death

if they were stuck together for a few weeks.

[host] So, if they weren't destined at birth

to become parts of a Rat King,

how do they form?

[Hayes] So a Rat King occurs

when the tails are stuck together.

This usually happens in black rats, which have

unusually long tails

compared to other species of rats.

And it happens mostly in cold countries

during the winter months.

And it is believed that their tails

are frozen together overnight

when they're huddling together for warmth

by water or urine

or sperm or food.

[host] However, in a bizarre twist,

when we do some research of our own, we find

that temperatures in this area of Estonia

only had a low of 36 degrees Fahrenheit

the night before this Rat King was found.

Not cold enough to freeze.

And what's more, rats, contrary to their reputation,

groom themselves nearly as much as cats.

The idea that they could get stuck together

with dirt and grime seems unlikely.

So, we turn to wildlife biologist Stephanie Schuttler.

She says the Rat King legend carries a grain of truth.

Rats can be carriers of diseases

and parasites,

so, the fact that people thought Rat Kings

were bad omens

or carriers or signals of plague,

it's not that unreasonable of a leap.

[host] It might just be coincidence,

but the COVID-19 epidemic was still ravaging Europe

when this video was shot.

And Schuttler says

there's another question gnawing at her.

Why do these rats lie down and accept their fates?

Why don't they fight back?

[Schuttler] When animals are

stuck or trying to escape from something,

they can do things like...

chew their own appendage off.

Like, this has happened

in leg traps

with animals like coyotes or wolves.

Why aren't these rats

chewing their own tails off to get away?

Our verdict?

It seems like Rat Kings form naturally,

but what we don't know is the why of it all.

Why aren't there more Rat Kings?

And why don't these rats make more of an effort

to escape?

It remains an unexplained mystery.

Eisenhower State Park, Texas 2015.

One morning after some record-setting rain,

a few rangers are checking the park's back roads

when they discover this.

KEN GERHARD: It's pretty gross and weird and disgusting.

SHOW HOST: At first glance, it almost looks

like patties of ground beef, oddly arranged straight

down the middle of the road.

But look closer.

Is that one wiggling?

KEN GERHARD: They look to be giant masses of earthworms

or annelids, segmented worms.

I've honestly never heard of any type

of behavior like this before.

SHOW HOST: So what are these worms doing?

And why?

Since we couldn't ask them, Gerhard got to theorizing.

One interesting possibility is that we're

looking at a spontaneous attempt at evolution.

These worms are attempting to build a superorganism.

SHOW HOST: And these worms wouldn't

be the first to try it.

KEN GERHARD: One example would be something called a tunicate.

This is a very primitive type of vertebrate

that will actually join together and form a massive chain

tens of feet long.

And there is an advantage to this in terms of locomotion

through the water.

SHOW HOST: Social insects can do something similar,

creating a group of synergetic organisms

known as a superorganism.

KEN GERHARD: In times of heavy flooding,

you'll often see these complete islands

of ants that join together.

It's kind of a survival mode where these animals

are able to collaborate in order to survive

an extreme situation.

SHOW HOST: And who could forget bees,

one of the better known superorganisms

and the source of inspiration for the term "hive mind."

Perhaps these worms are exhibiting just that.

I think this is a great example of a very primitive

life form, a worm, demonstrating that perhaps it

has a level of conscious collective intelligence

that is greatly underestimated.

Some scientists are starting to believe

that the complex brains that you and I have

could have evolved from the very first worms.

So does that make worms smart or humans dumb?

We'll let you make the call.

As for these worm balls, we'll rely

on the brains of our experts.

Wow.

SHOW HOST: First, Dr. Floyd Hayes considers

the superorganism theory.

FLOYD HAYES: Worms could detect each other

through olfactory cues.

And they are attracted to larger groups of worms.

So they like to socialize for some reason.

SHOW HOST: While the worms do socialize to some degree,

Hayes notes that true superorganisms are eusocial.

They have designated individuals that reproduce,

and others that don't.

And they have a very complex society.

These worms are not examples of eusocial animals,

so I would not classify them as a superorganism.

SHOW HOST: OK, if superorganism isn't the right word, what is?

It's hard to understand why exactly they're gathered

together in the road there.

It may be drying up a little bit.

And one potential benefit of grouping together

would be that they could stay more humid

for a longer period of time.

SHOW HOST: Dr. Hayes brings up an important point.

Worms need moisture to live.

The mucus on a worm's skin actually acts as a medium

for oxygen absorption, meaning that in order to breathe,

the worm cannot dry out.

That's what makes the strange alignment of these worm balls

the biggest mystery of all.

STEPHANIE SCHUTTLER: It's really strange

that the worms seem to congregate in the center

of the road, almost perfectly.

It is probably the driest part of the road.

Roads are designed to mound in the center

so that water can go off the road.

SHOW HOST: It's not adding up.

If worms need moisture to live, why gather at the driest place

available?

So, folks, we're stumped.

While it's not unnatural for animals to herd together,

this peculiar behavior is leading us to call

this an unexplained phenomenon.

In the end, Darwin concluded that despite their small size,

worms are just as capable of shaping

the landscape as any person.