Original subtitles

[narrator] Worldwide, 36 billion cameras are watching us,

on our streets, at work, and in our homes.

They capture things that seem impossible.

Science says this shouldn't happen.

[man] Do you see that?

[narrator] Experts carry out forensic analysis of these unusual events.

Wow. What a blast.

[woman screams]

This doesn't make sense.

There has to be some sort of explanation.

What else is going on here?

[narrator] Coming up...

In the Land of the Dragon,

are these flying creatures shooting fire from their mouths?

You're fixing to have a shower of molten metal falling on your head.

[narrator] A family buys a house said to be haunted,

and captures this on the nanny cam.

That's the most terrifying thing I've ever seen.

[narrator] And Hitler's escaped pet alligator.

Is it terrorizing a German nudist beach?

They could even hear the sound of bones snapping.

[narrator] Bizarre phenomenon.

Oh, my gosh [gasps]

[narrator] Mysteries caught on camera.

[girl screams]

[narrator] What's the truth behind this strange evidence?

Shenyang.

This sprawling metropolis of over 7 million people

is the largest city in northeast China.

August 3rd, 2020.

In the Tiexi district, as commuters hurry home,

a man films a dark object swooping between the skyscrapers.

And then, all of a sudden, boom.

And there's this big flash, kind of diagonal explosion.

[loud explosion]

There's this sort of finger of God suddenly appearing,

and it was raining flames down on the people below.

Oh, my gosh.

[loud explosion]

[narrator] The entire side of a high-rise with over 100 apartments

is engulfed in fire.

A blazing fire like that shouldn't just appear out of nowhere.

[loud explosion]

[narrator] The ferocious tongue of flame appears to come

from this mysterious flying object.

Is this tower under attack?

[loud explosion]

[narrator] The airborne menace seems to be gliding on enormous black wings.

It's an image that leads local to speculate the fireball

is the work of a terrifying legendary creature.

[Tony] In China, there's a belief in dragons

that goes back thousands of years, six, seven thousand years.

[narrator] Dragons are found in myths and legends all over the world.

But in China, strange stories have emerged in modern times

of encounters with mysterious reptilian creatures.

In 1934, in one village, Yingkou,

villagers claimed to have actually found a dragon that had fallen from the sky.

[narrator] The enormous horned skeleton is put on display and photographed.

But authorities are unable to identify the supposed fallen dragon

as any known living species.

And during the chaos of World War II,

the remains disappeared.

Belief in dragons in China is so engrained that you can imagine,

people see this and think, "My God, we are under attack from dragons."

[narrator] Observers dismiss the grey creatures with wings as large birds.

[loud explosion]

But science journalist Amy Shira Teitel finds that in China

even birds aren't always what they seem.

Strangest of all the Chinese spy technology might be the bird drone.

It's so life-like that the drone is mistaken for a bird

not just by humans but by other birds.

It used GPS technology to get around,

and then send information back via satellite.

[narrator] Avian androids, almost impossible to distinguish from real birds,

are being deployed by more than 30 military and government agencies

in at least five provinces across China.

These robo-birds have a top speed of 25 miles per hour,

and monitor citizens' daily lives from above.

So if you can make a drone that looks convincingly like a bird,

you could gather a massive database on populations in order to control them.

[narrator] And physicist Antonio Paris uncovers evidence

China is going one step further,

unleashing flying machines that would put the power of dragons to shame.

We do know that China is weaponizing drones.

[narrator] In 2013, Chinese security forces

planned to assassinate a drug dealer

with over 40 pounds of TNT attached to a drone.

In 2020, the government unveiled its suicide swarm.

Groups of 200 lethal flying robots, armed with explosives,

commanded by AI that work as a team to destroy China's enemies.

You see these unidentified flying objects,

you see this massive fire engulf this building.

Could this be a weaponized project by the Chinese?

[narrator] Physicist Athena Brensberger

studies weather reports for the day of the blast,

and finds something incredible was happening in the sky.

There was about three inches of rain per hour, over a five-hour period.

Maybe these dark objects that we see flying in the sky

are actually birds leaving before the storm?

[narrator] Former FBI agent Rhonda Glover believes she's found a clue.

[loud explosion]

It appears that it is following a straight line through the air.

It's not expanding.

So it could be following an electrical wire of some sort.

Possibly, a lightning strike has struck the line.

But a typical lightning strike hitting a power line

would not cause a vaporization like we see in the video.

[narrator] But perhaps this is no ordinary power line.

China has a problem.

Over 780 million people,

more than twice the entire population of the United States,

are living in its crowded cities,

and there isn't enough power.

To stop these cities from plunging into darkness,

the Chinese authorities are building 20,000 miles

of ultra-high voltage power lines from west to east,

to bring electricity to the rapidly expanding metropolises.

Each carries over 800,000 volts,

and experts warn, these lines are dangerous.

Security analysts see these lines as being vulnerable to terrorism.

If you were to take out one of these high-power lines,

not only would it create a huge explosion,

but it could lead to widespread blackouts.

[narrator] And the lines are also potentially vulnerable to lightning strikes.

This cable runs right past an apartment block,

putting hundreds of people at risk if it blows.

[Athena] So is it possible that this power line

could be one of those Chinese high voltage power lines?

[narrator] Electrical engineer David Wallace examines the explosion.

[David] We have a massive burst of fire and flames going across the street.

This is a massive release of energy that I'm looking at right here.

[loud explosion]

[narrator] Wallace sets up an experiment

to find out if lightning striking an ultra-high voltage cable

would result in an explosion like this.

[loud explosion]

Okay, we're getting ready to start our experiment here.

[narrator] To replicate the ultra-high voltage lines in Shenyang,

Wallace suspends a wire 15 feet in the air.

So let's raise it up.

[narrator] The thin wire has a capacity of over 200,000 volts,

and Wallace will overload it

to simulate a lightning strike.

So what we're gonna try and see is what happens

when this lightning impulse strikes this cable.

Now for this run, we're gonna need about 250,000 volts.

So this is a deadly voltage here.

I don't know about you but I don't want to be anywhere around this.

I'm fixing to go to the safety zone.

All right, let's get ready. In three, two, one. Energize.

[narrator] Coming up... Has China's passion for power

unleashed a fire-breathing monster?

[loud explosion]

It's just reckless and unsafe.

[narrator] And, from cradle to beyond the grave,

a nightmare on a nanny cam.

I would never leave my baby alone again.

[narrator] In the Chinese city of Shenyang,

a mysterious flame shoots down the side of a high-rise apartment building

over 30 stories tall.

Electrical engineer David Wallace wants to find out

if this is evidence of one of China's massive ultra-high voltage power lines

being struck by lightning.

His generator readies a charge of 250,000 volts

to shoot through a specially constructed wire.

[David] When this lightning impulse strikes this cable,

will we get sparks? Will we get vaporization?

I don't know but we will find out.

All right, let's get ready. In three, two, one. Energize.

[explosion]

[narrator] The explosive force creates, on a small scale,

the shocking impact of a lightning strike on a power cable,

a cable capable of carrying over 800,000 volts into a crowded city.

Okay!

That's what I was looking for.

[narrator] When the massive voltage overloads the maximum capacity of the wire,

the effect is similar to the wall of flame seen in the footage.

[loud explosion]

[David] What used to be a transmission line is now nothing but vapor.

It's gone, we completely nuked it. It's out of here.

So now if you imagine yourself sitting under this transmission line,

when these events happens,

you're fixing to have a shower of molten metal falling on your head.

[narrator] Wallace's experiment suggest that the blast

was one of China's deadly ultra-high voltage cables

being struck by lightning in the middle of a built-up residential area.

[Jeff] This is a case of extraordinarily bad electrical engineering.

You wouldn't expect a high-voltage power line

to run from the ground up to a top of a building.

[Athena] You should not have high-voltage power like this

so close to where so many people live.

It's just reckless and unsafe.

[narrator] Now, Highland, Michigan,

a small township 45 miles north of Detroit.

March, 2019.

In an ordinary suburban home,

grandmother Kristie Higgins notices strange things happening.

We've had things disappear and reappear.

We've had lights turn on and off

by the switch that we've physically seen,

doors open and close on their own,

and voices, we can hear voices.

You can hear their footsteps.

You can see their shadows.

[narrator] Then one morning, her 15 month old grandchild

wakes up with three deep scratches on her cheek.

The family reviews footage from a night time nanny cam.

Did you just see that? What was that?

Did that thing just come out of nowhere?

[narrator] A human shaped figure appears to materialize out of the gloom.

And stalk across the room next to the crib.

Seeing the entity in the video was a shock.

After taking it all in, it wasn't a surprise.

[Jeff] It's semi-transparent, you can see right through it.

The baby clearly sees it too,

because, look, it's getting up, peering over the crib.

There's something unnerving in that room.

Can you imagine watching a nanny cam and seeing this?

[Tracy] Their daughter had three deep scratches on her face.

And they think that whatever this was was responsible.

[narrator] Image Analyst, Ben Radford studies the footage

and notices an important detail about this apparently ghostly figure.

What we're seeing here is casting a shadow.

[Ben] The shadow is being cast from that source of light

on to the ceiling.

That tells us that what we're seeing is solid.

It's blocking light.

[narrator] Physicist Chad Orzel thinks the answer might lie

in the type of camera that took the footage.

The camera is fitted with an infrared light source to better illuminate

the scene.

[narrator] The camera floods the room with infrared light.

A special chip inside the camera processes this light

into an image.

What's interesting is that the edge of the table

at the bottom of this footage is very bright.

[narrator] Orzel thinks if an object like the table is overexposed,

something moving through frame could appear faint.

He positions an infrared camera on a table.

We also need a version of the baby in the foreground of the shot.

So we'll use this little toy dog.

The plan is, we'll turn the lights off.

And then I'll walk across the back of the room,

and we'll see if this camera can turn me into a ghostly phantom.

[narrator] Coming up... Poltergeist or predator?

Is a notorious child killer on the prowl?

These monsters are everywhere.

[narrator] And a "Nazi" surprise for Germans at a nudist beach.

What we could be looking at here is a distant relative of Hitler's personal alligator.

[narrator] A Michigan family who believes they live in a haunted house

discover three deep scratches on their daughter's face.

The night time nanny cam captures a sinister figure passing by her crib.

And when they saw this entity or whatever it was,

they think that was responsible.

[narrator] Physicist Chad Orzel believes the camera setup

may hold a clue.

He positions himself at the back of the room.

[flips switch]

Dims the light.

And begins to creep through frame.

So look at that, the baby in the front of the camera

is overexposed, leaving me fading into the background.

From what we see here, it's fairly clear to me

that there was another person in that room.

And the camera just made them look ghostly.

[narrator] Biologist Kiki Sanford wonders if the bedroom visitor

could be a person who is fast asleep.

[Kiki] As I am watching this video,

I have to wonder if, is this somebody who's been sleepwalking?

[narrator] Scientists estimate four percent of all adults are sleepwalkers

and some can be violent.

In 1987, Ken Parks drives over 12 miles

and beats his mother-in-law to death with a tire iron and stabs her husband.

Covered in blood, he drives to a police station

and turns himself in.

In the trial, his lawyers pleaded

that he'd been asleep at the time of the attack

and the jury agreed.

Scientists used to think that we were either asleep or awake.

But now we know that different parts of the brain can be active

while others are inactive.

[narrator] The child's parents insist they were downstairs all night

and they never sleep walk.

Former CIA agent Tracy Walder

looks through local news archives

and discovers this house is in an area associated

with an evil man with a sadistic interests in children.

Oakland county is home to an infamous serial killer

who was never caught.

The papers called him The Babysitter Killer

because he would bathe his victims and feed them before killing them.

[narrator] Four children are brutally murdered

between 1976 and 1977.

Their killer lays their bodies out to be discovered

in a game of cat and mouse with the cops

The police released details of a suspect

but no one is ever caught.

He was tall, scruffy hair,

about 20 years old,

but that was the closest they ever came to identifying him.

[narrator] If The Babysitter Killer is alive today,

he'd be in his mid-60's,

and still capable of chilling acts of horror.

[girl screams]

These monsters are everywhere.

[narrator] No other injuries or ghostly figures

have been recorded in this room

since the creepy video was captured.

Until more evidence can be produced,

the identity of this sinister scratcher remains a mystery.

Christy stays in the house

but the sinister shadowy figure

was enough to convince her son and daughter-in-law they were no longer safe.

[Christy] After this incident it really frightened them

so they ended up moving out.

This is a good reminder that you should lock your doors at night.

[cameras zooming]

[narrator] Now, Bremen, a historic town in northern Germany.

July, 2019.

The river Weser, a popular waterway for wild swimming,

with Germany's 600,000 nudists.

The tranquil scene is suddenly disturbed

when an alarming vision emerges from the water.

All of a sudden, you see what looks exactly like a very big reptile

with its nose, its long mouth, its teeth, beady eyes, swimming through he river.

[narrator] It's a sight to strike terror into swimmers,

as a beast with monster jaws appears to stalk the river for its next victim.

It seems to be some type of crocodilian,

in order of reptile including alligators, crocodiles and caiman.

They represent a clear danger to all of the living creatures

including human kind.

[man speaking over walkie-talkie]

[narrator] The authorities raced to stop the bathers

from being eaten alive.

Then, other reports come in of more man-eating monsters

spotted in nearby German waterways.

A woman claims to see a crocodilian

on the banks of the river Unstrut.

Mouth wide open as though poised to attack.

Local fishermen back up her claim.

The first step of enforcement, "Swimming is banned in this river."

[narrator] But these cold-blooded killers

rely on the sun for warmth.

Northern Europe is not their traditional hunting ground.

This would be a bit like seeing polar bear in New Orleans.

This is something that does not belong there.

[narrator] Marine biologist Eric Hovland

believes it could be an alligator.

and he's reminded of events said to have happened

during the country's Nazi past.

This is not the first crocodilian seen in Germany.

A 9-foot long, 400lbs American alligator

was imported from Mississippi to the Berlin zoo

which became a favorite of, of all people, Adolf Hitler.

[narrator] Hitler, a famous animal lover,

is said to have paid many visits to the zoo to see the creature

who was named Saturn by the keepers.

A true case of monster meets monster.

It was love at first sight.

[narrator] But in 1943

the zoo was bombed by the allies.

The aquarium building was completely destroyed

but somehow Saturn escapes into the sewers and waterways around Berlin.

Hitler's pet gator survives

in the war ravaged city for three years before being recaptured.

But there are rumors,

Saturn might not have been the only alligator to escape.

What we could be looking at here is a distant relative

of Hitler's personal alligator.

[narrator] But this can't be an alligator.

This creature has a long snout,

and a row of teeth that overlaps its upper jaw.

Just like a crocodile.

A beast that grows up to 5-feet longer than an alligator.

Is this the future of Germany's river and lakes?

Are crocodilians making themselves at home in Germany?

[narrator] Coming up...

Is Germany about to declare war...

-[crocodile growls] -...on crocodiles?

There are very few things that can fight off an attack by one of these animals.

[narrator] And watch this mysterious object tracking the ISS.

[Jeff] The International Space Station is really vulnerable,

and it's one catastrophic accident away from complete destruction.

[narrator] In Bremen, Germany,

a man films what looks like a crocodile

swimming close to a famous nudist camp.

Snap-happy crocs have the biggest bite force of any living animal,

over three times stronger than a lion.

[Martin] They are an apex predator.

There are very few things that can fight off an attack by one of these animals.

[crocodile snarls]

[narrator] In 2019, in Indonesia,

a woman is ripped from an enclosure wall

by a saltwater croc

measuring over 14-feet long.

She has her arm and most of her abdomen eaten in a deadly attack.

Her body is found in the croc's mouth the next morning.

They could even hear the sound of bones snapping.

[narrator] But how could a crocodile be swimming in a German river?

Morgan analyzes the dates of the sightings,

and discovers they coincide with a controversial modern event.

In Germany, every year there's a large reptile fair,

in the city of Hamm.

[reptiles hissing]

[Roland] The fair took place just about a month before this mysterious sighting.

Has this crocodilian escaped an exotic pet collection?

[narrator] No animals are reported to have escaped from the Hamm fair.

But absconding reptiles have gone on to kill before elsewhere.

In New Brunswick, Canada,

two sleeping brothers, aged four and six,

are crushed to death in their bed by a python

that escaped from a pet shop below their apartment.

Having vicious animals like this in an area with so many people

could have really dangerous consequences.

[narrator] Germany's 600,000 nudists

should be worried about losing more than their clothes.

We might face a situation

where there are German sun-worshippers

who are being dragged down the riverbank

down into the water into a death roll.

[narrator] Now.

The International Space Station.

Over 240 miles above Earth.

February 21, 2020.

Three astronauts, two Americans and one Russian,

film something weird with the station's onboard cameras.

[Jon] There's a very strange object

floating just beside the International Space Station.

Is it supposed to be there?

[narrator] The object seems to be keeping pace

with the orbiting space station.

[Amy] Clearly, the guy operating the camera

is curious about what this object is.

[narrator] It's metallic and pointed

like some kind of craft.

[Martin] The International Space Station

is not robust, it can't stand up to much punishment.

Anything that could get close to it

could potentially damage and destroy it.

And so, for this object to be nearby

is an extremely alarming thing.

[narrator] Science journalist Jon Farrow

notices the object moving away from the ISS

appears to have power and control.

So it goes towards the Earth.

But then it starts going away from the Earth again.

That's almost even more worrying

because how does it do that?

It must have some sort of propulsion system.

[narrator] Coming up...

Is the ISS being tailed by a clandestine space craft?

[Amy] Is this something

that the US government want to keep a secret?

[narrator] And two-headed mutant monsters

are terrorizing Argentina.

I'm not sure I would get too close to that.

[narrator] Three astronaut orbiting Earth

aboard the International Space Station

observe a pointed object which seems to be tracking them.

Military historian Martin Morgan

discovers this is not the first time

mysterious objects have been spotted

from American spacecraft.

[Martin] Astronauts and space travelers have seen

unexpected things in Earth orbit before.

This is not new.

[narrator] US astronaut, Jim McDivitt,

orbiting the Earth during the Gemini 4 mission,

reports a white, cylindrical object with an aerial

appearing outside his window.

McDivitt attempts to record

whatever is tracking his capsule

but when he tries to photograph what he's seen,

his two cameras fail to capture an image.

Buzz Aldrin, during the Apollo 11 Moon landing,

claims to see unexplained lights

tracking the lunar landing module

as it descends to the Moon's surface.

The people who are on the spacecraft are scientists.

I tend to find them to be very, very believable

as eye-witnesses.

[narrator] But the authorities deny

any of these reports relate to unexplained craft.

And they also deny this object is any kind of spaceship.

But America has not always been transparent

about what it's launching into space.

[Amy] Is this something

that the US government want to keep a secret?

[narrator] In 2019,

a pilotless shuttle called the X-37B

landed in Florida after a two-year mission in space

the American public was never told about.

What it was doing orbiting the Earth in that time

remains a complete mystery.

NASA has worked with the Department of Defense before.

The payload bay of the space shuttle

was the size it is so NASA could launch DoD satellites.

It's conceivable that NASA's working with the government

on something that we can't know about.

[narrator] But science journalist Jon Farrow examines ISS records

and discovers the footage

could have captured NASA taking out the trash.

[Jon] The logs show

that a communication module was ejected

from the ISS at, almost exactly, this time.

[narrator] The 680-pound module is no longer needed

and thrown from the space station

using a 55-foot long robotic arm.

But that's just the tip of the space-garbage iceberg.

Astronauts on the ISS

create over half a ton of waste each year

and with a capacity crew of six,

that trash has to go somewhere.

So there's been a real proliferation

of objects in space, and debris.

[narrator] Over 34,000 pieces of discarded space junk

rip around the planet at over 17,000 miles an hour.

Ten times faster than a speeding bullet.

It's like a minefield for the fragile space station

where all that stands between the astronauts

and the unforgiving vacuum of space

is just a tenth of an inch of aluminum with a Kevlar lining.

If the space station was hit by a piece of debris,

substantial enough to rupture the skin,

the astronauts would be thrown into space

meeting rather painful and certain death.

[narrator] The ISS has executed

29 debris-avoidance maneuvers

between 1999 and 2020.

And near misses are becoming more common.

It may only be a matter of time

before the $150 billion space station is lost forever.

[Jeff] The International Space Station is really vulnerable.

And it's always, you know, one catastrophic accident away

from complete destruction.

[narrator] Now.

Bigand, a small town

in the province of Santa Fe, Central Argentina.

February 12, 2017.

A woman finds something writhing on the ground

outside her home.

[Re] What is that?

Is that a snake? A worm?

[narrator] To her horror,

she sees the creature has two heads.

It's got multiple heads, multiple eyes, stripes.

It's the weirdest thing I've ever seen.

[narrator] The gray tubular creature

appears to attack when it senses something nearby.

This looks very, very disturbing.

I'm not sure I would get too close to that.

What is this freaky creature?

And where did it come from?

[narrator] Coming up...

In South America,

two heads are not better than one.

Twisted mutations that seemed spawned from hell.

[narrator] A woman in Bigand, Argentina,

encounters a two-headed monster outside her home.

Biologist Carin Bondar

studies the creature in the footage

and thinks it may have a disturbing condition.

Although rare, it's possible

for animals to be born with more than one head.

A condition called polycephaly.

[narrator] In 2019,

a team in New Jersey discover a double-headed pit viper

they nickname Double Dave.

He's capable of delivering lethal bites

from both his functioning heads.

The same year,

a lethal and fast-moving two-headed venomous cobra

is discovered in a remote forest.

A single bite from either of its two mouths

is enough to kill a man in 30 minutes.

It must be an incredibly weird sensation

telling your body to do one thing,

but then feeling it being controlled by something else.

[narrator] But these two-headed snakes

have heads that are side-by-side.

It's almost unheard of for nature to produce a snake

or any animal with a head at either end of its body.

And these heads aren't twins.

They look different and distinct.

The discovery of this double-headed horror

comes at a time when doctors in Argentina

are reporting a spate of weird mutations in humans.

Children are being born

with missing limbs and organ defects.

[Liberty] What we are seeing here

is causing terrible harm to children.

[narrator] A doctor reports over three percent of children

born at his hospital have birth defects.

A more usual figure is around one percent.

Experts cannot explain the cause of the horror

haunting some area of Argentina.

[Liberty] Reports show

that birth defects and cancer are at four fold.

[narrator] Some blame chemicals used in agriculture.

Some, arsenic in the water.

Or even household chemicals getting into the soil.

But no clear evidence has yet been found

to explain the mystery mutations blighting Argentina.

Looking at the footage,

could this crazy, snake-like creature

be one of these mutants?

[narrator] But entomologist Kevin Kasky

examines the writhing creature

and rules out a genetically corrupt freak.

When a genetic mutation happens,

most of the time, it doesn't function right.

This appears to be moving normally,

it's responding to being prodded with a stick.

[narrator] A snake born with two heads

could never be this short.

There is no room in its body

for two sets of internal organs.

So therefore, we can conclude that it's not a mutation.

[narrator] Ashanti Davis thinks its freakish appearance

could be an elaborate and deadly deception.

It looks like it has two heads.

One side is bigger than the other,

if you get a little bit closer,

I think what we're seeing here is a fake head.

What we're seeing here may actually be

a case of aggressive mimicry.

This false head allows it to lure unsuspecting animals in

and make them its victim.

[narrator] Aggressive predators in nature

don't always need to attack.

Many lure their unsuspecting victims to their deaths.

Ant-mimicking spiders

wave their front legs near their head

like the antenna of an ant.

When unwary ants get too close, the spider attacks.

The spider-tailed viper is a highly venomous snake

found on cliffsides,

its camouflaged body hidden against the rocks.

Using its spider-shaped tail as bait,

it draws in birds looking for an easy meal

before turning its winged victim into dinner.

Bondar studies the creepy creature close up

and spots an important detail.

If we watch the video again and take a look

at the entire size of the creature,

we can see that the head

is, actually, about a quarter of the entire body length.

This so-called snake has tiny, little feet.

I think we might be looking at some kind of caterpillar.

An earlier life stage of a moth.

[narrator] Its distinctive markings reveal

this creature is the caterpillar

of the death's-head hawkmoth.

It has evolved

the face of a snake on the back of its body

to terrify other creatures including humans.

It's an animal whose appearance

strikes fear into the superstitious.

Many believe it's an omen of death.

And anyone who sees it has not long to live.

They say two heads are better than one,

but in this case, I really don't think that's true.