Original subtitles

[narrator] Worldwide, 45 billion cameras record our daily lives.

In our hands, in our cars, and in our homes.

They capture things that defy explanations.

What the hell are we looking at right now?

[man 1] Check this, uh...

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

Wow. Now that's a cracker.

[man 2] Oh!

[woman 1 screams]

This doesn't make any sense.

There has to be another explanation.

So, what could it be?

[narrator] Coming up...

How did a family home become a house of horror?

Oh, my goodness. I mean, this sound...

[Craig Gottlieb] Whenever you see an explosion in a quiet California suburb,

one thing come to mind. Meth lab.

Big meth lab.

[narrator] A man with an iron skull...

Now he's getting up from that. How's he okay?

That was a massive impact.

[narrator] And are robot clouds...

[woman] Oh, my God.

[narrator] ...about to unleash a reign of terror?

It's constantly changing shape.

It's malleable, it's moving, it's in motion.

It's probably based on technology that the public

has no idea even exists yet.

[narrator] Bizarre phenomenon.

[gasps] Oh, my God.

[narrator] Mysteries caught on camera.

This is just mind boggling.

[narrator] What's the truth behind this?

Strange Evidence.

Ontario, a family-friendly suburb,

east of Los Angeles, California.

March 16th, 2021.

Just after mid-day, local residents hear a small explosion.

One of them starts to film.

So, it looks like we're in some type of residential street.

I think there maybe some things on fire. There's a little bit of smoke.

We have a lady who's just standing and she's watching.

There's some smoke.

[narrator] Then...

[explosions]

Oh, my goodness. I mean, this sound...

This explosion is just intense.

It's... It's deafening. This is incredible.

[narrator] Panicked onlookers run for their lives...

-[continuous explosions] -...as the ground shakes beneath them.

Then, sounds like machine gunfire burst out.

[woman] Oh my god...

[narrator] Followed by a massive mushroom cloud towering into the sky.

-[car alarm beeping] - [Nick Householder] That is a giant explosion.

Man, I can hear a car alarm going off.

Which means that the pressure wave from the explosion

was enough to jostle the vehicle and set it off.

This must have been incredibly intense.

I mean, what just happened?

You know, how does life go from being completely normal and mundane

to boom, all of a sudden you're in the middle of a war zone?

[narrator] California based historian, Craig Gottlieb

thinks this is evidence that someone in this respectable neighborhood

has just broken bad.

Whenever you see an explosion in a quiet California suburb,

one thing come to mind. Meth lab. Big meth lab.

What's scary is that because the materials used

to make meth can be bought over the counter,

there can be a meth lab right next door to your house.

The US is in the grips of a drug epidemic.

There are narcotics and illegal fentanyl

sweeping through the country at alarming speeds.

[narrator] In the TV show Breaking Bad,

chemistry teacher Walter White makes over $80 million

in a single year, cooking meth.

West Coast cops say that's a realistic figure.

So it's no wonder copycats could be tempted to cash in.

The problem with methamphetamines is that

they're incredible easy to make, and can be made almost anywhere.

[narrator] But the ingredients are incredible dangerous.

There are a number of volatile chemicals involved

in the production of methamphetamine.

And one of them is something that you probably have in your own home.

It's acetone, commonly used as a paint thinner.

It's incredible explosive and highly flammable.

And if they're in an uncontrolled environment, with unstable people,

-you have a recipe for an explosion. - [explosion]

[narrator] Perth, Western Australia.

September 11, 2021.

A suburban family home is destroyed

as a makeshift meth lab violently explodes, badly burning one man.

Everybody knows meth isn't good for you,

But making meth is a really, really dangerous proposition.

[narrator] And when you're a Walter White style meth maker,

it isn't just the chemicals that are dangerous.

One of the interesting things about this clip is that it's not just

a massive explosion which sends this,

you know, mushroom cloud into the sky.

But it's also pop, pop, pop, that sounds like gunfire going on.

[narrator] Destroying a rival's meth lab

would be normal for some of the most ruthless criminals

who fight for control of the USA's $150 billion illegal drug trade.

[Liberty Vittert] Where this video is filmed, in Ontario, California,

is not exempt from this problem.

It's hit just as hard as anywhere else in the United States.

[narrator] Hollywood pyrotechnics expert Matt Kutcher

has 35 years' experience with big bangs.

He has a different theory.

The clip reminds him of a disastrous event from 2012.

So, the city of San Diego, 2012,

gonna do a 4th of July fireworks display.

Except for an 18 minute event, they had an accident. And it went off in 15 seconds.

[narrator] A breach in the computer programming

causes 7,000 pounds of fireworks to ignite simultaneously.

It's like a gate to hell opened over San Diego Bay.

[woman screams]

[Matt] Look at all the flashes and all the noise. Plenty of smoke.

But this looks like it's in a residential house.

Aren't rockets and fireworks illegal in California?

[Matt] They are. I wonder if somebody was storing these illegally,

maybe inside of one of these houses.

So, the question is, would illegal fireworks set off indoors

cause an explosion that looks like this?

[man] Possible.

Let's go get some fireworks to see if we can do that.

[narrator] At a secure location, Matt and his team get to work.

So, I think the key to this is gonna be

getting all of fireworks to go off at the same time. Right?

[narrator] Kutcher adds extra-long fuses to over 50 pounds of fireworks

to allow him to synchronize their detonation

and recreate the Ontario disaster.

[Matt] Put 'em all together.

[narrator] With the fireworks in position, the team create a master fuse.

All right, son, go ahead and pour the accelerant.

Nice stream. Just bring it all the way over to the left side.

Nice.

And then you're gonna light it.

'Cause you run faster than I do.

All right, that's good there. Get ready to light it.

All right, guys, we're gonna go on go.

Stand by. Go ahead and light it, son.

Guys, let's go, let's go. Get back here, quick. Matthew, come on.

[narrator] Coming up...

Was a family home destroyed by fireworks...

Went well... over.

Now, that is a fireworks display.

[narrator] And...

That looks like somebody in the tunnel.

[narrator] Is this footage proof of an ancient Egyptian curse

that stalks the London Underground?

[Karen] The story goes that the priestess wanders the tunnels

of this disused tube station, haunting it.

[narrator] Ontario, California.

A mystery blast tears apart a family home.

By watching this footage over and over,

we can tell that there's two separate phases going on here.

In the beginning, it's quiet and really smoky.

And afterwards comes hundreds of explosions.

-Yeah, definitely. The big pops in the air, right? -Yeah.

[narrator] Pyrotechnics expert Matt Kutcher suspects

the explosion was caused by a huge cache of illegal fireworks

igniting and exploding.

He set up an experiment to recreate the blast and prove his theory.

These experiments are done with 35 years of professional experience.

Don't try 'em at home.

All right, guys, we're gonna go on go.

Stand by. Go ahead and light it, son.

Guys, let's go, let's go. Get back here, quick. Matthew, come on.

[narrator] The fuses all light simultaneously.

Then...

When will it be over?

Now, that is a fireworks display.

[narrator] In a matter of seconds, 50 pounds of fireworks

cause chaos in the 100-foot high and 120-foot wide warehouse.

The same explosion in a confined residential home would be deadly.

Well, so that's crazy. That's the video. That's what we saw.

Sadly, some kind of illegal stash of fireworks.

[narrator] Illegal fireworks smuggling in California

is a tempting multimillion dollar business.

So, there's no federal law against fireworks,

which means that state to state laws are different.

So, they may be illegal in California,

but they might not be illegal in a state like Arizona.

So, what happens is, people cross the border,

they buy fireworks, they bring 'em back and sell 'em.

But before they can sell them, they gotta store 'em.

And there are no regulations, so this is a very dangerous situation.

[narrator] Police reports following the Ontario explosion

disclose the death of two people inside the house.

And over $3 million worth of damage to the surrounding properties.

It was caused by what the fire department described

as a large amount of commercial grade fireworks.

There's a reason why we regulate the sale of fireworks.

It's explosives.

And having an amount this large in one place is just a recipe for a disaster

if you don't have proper safety measures in place.

What's really scary is that on any residential street,

there can be a house just waiting to explode.

And what was originally a way to make a quick buck

very soon becomes a big bang.

[narrator] Now, London, England.

Knightsbridge underground station.

Almost directly beneath world famous Harrods store.

June, 2016.

A shopper films an empty subway platform while waiting for a train.

So, what we're seeing in this clip is part of the London underground,

which is basically the subway underneath the city of London.

[narrator] It seems like an unremarkable clip.

But when the passenger plays it back,

they notice something inexplicable moving in the darkness.

That looks like somebody in the tunnel.

[narrator] In the blink of an eye,

a strange shadowy form appears to jump from behind the safety barrier

into the darkness beyond.

Former NYPD image analyst Conor McCourt,

scans the frames to check if this is a camera fault

or a trick of the light.

There's just a few images of the actual subject in question.

But what I was able to do... if we just back it up here.

I think right here we can see what is probably a head,

probably an arm extended

and then as we go further, we can see what appears to be a leg.

This appears to be some kind of human form.

[narrator] Coming up,

is this the London underground's legendary murderous mummy,

said to prey on late night passengers?

Witnesses claim to have heard a strange ghostly wailing

at the time that the woman disappeared.

[narrator] And a man with a head for danger.

Is it possible that he has superhuman bones?

[narrator] On a London subway platform,

a passenger seems to capture a mysterious apparition on their camera phone.

There's a shadowy figure, you can see what looks as though it can be a head

and some shoulders, hunched over shoulders.

The ghoulish figure reminds historian Tony McMahon

of a bizarre legend about the subways under London.

If you're travelling between Holborn and Tottenham Court Road,

on the central line and you look out through the glass,

you'll see the ghostly platform of British Museum station,

which has been closed for decades.

[narrator] It was shut down in 1933,

following the expansion of Holborn station,

situated just 400 feet to the east.

[Karen] This station has been abandoned

but the legend continues that there's a secret passageway

from that abandoned platform

directly to the Egyptian gallery of the British museum.

[narrator] The famous British Museum has over eight million artifacts

from around the world in its collection.

And in the Egyptian gallery is its most notorious ancient object,

known as the Unlucky Mummy.

It's believed that the Unlucky Mummy

is a 3,000-year-old sarcophagus

that was made to house the body of a priestess

of the cult of Amun-Ra.

[narrator] Amun-Ra was a hybrid of two separate Egyptian gods.

Amun created the universe,

Ra was the God of Sun and light.

His priestess's coffin was acquired by the British Museum in 1889

and with it seemed to come a curse.

Not long after, the sarcophagus,

so called Unlucky Mummy arrived at the British museum,

there was a series of bizarre and really quite disturbing incidents at the museum.

[narrator] Curators and cleaners report sobbing,

wailing and hammering coming from the priestess' sarcophagus

and an overwhelming feeling of terror when in its presence.

And this priestly poltergeist is said to have used the secret passageway

to flee the museum.

The story goes that the priestess escaped

the Egyptian rooms in the museum

and now wanders the tunnels of this disused tube station, haunting it.

In 1935,

two years after British Museum station had closed,

two woman disappeared mysteriously at Holborn station

which is the next station along.

Witnesses claim to have heard a strange ghostly wailing

at the time that the women disappeared,

and later there were strange symbols found on the wall.

This lead to speculation that the priestess might have been responsible

somehow, for these women going missing.

[narrator] The cellphone footage captured in Knightsbridge

is just five stops from the abandoned Museum station.

But anthropologist Deborah Hyde

finds rumors of other unsolved murders

on the London underground in the 1960s.

These were reportedly committed by a group of workmen,

driven mad after becoming trapped in the tunnels.

Rumor began to spread of a society of subterranean troglodytes

who lived in the underground network.

The story was that these underground workers

were confined underground, unable to face the light of day.

And they'd taken to cannibalism, they would kidnap commuters,

grab them and eat them.

The police had no leads,

until, a group of repairmen in the tunnels

were attacked by what they described as a wild bearded man.

[Brian] This man actually came out of a tunnel like a wild man

gnashing his teeth.

But the workmen were able to beat him back with hatchets.

[narrator] The man ran back into the train tunnels and was never seen again.

[narrator] It seems bizarre that humans

would choose to live in the London underground

which is 192 feet below the surface at its deepest level.

But Tony McMahon finds this is exactly what happened in America,

after the New York subway was built in 1904.

People in New York started moving underground during The Great Depression,

to escape from the cold winters.

When I was a kid, growing up in New York City, there was a train tunnel

that had a tent city in it, we used to see the tents erected inside.

[narrator] It was known as Freedom Tunnel

and the inhabitants were dubbed 'The Mole People'.

If there were underground communities,

these tent cities in New York when I was growing up,

it's totally possible that the tent cities and the communities

are here, down in those tunnels,

right there in London.

This video can be the first crucial bit of evidence

that somebody is living down there.

[narrator] There are more than 11,000 homeless people living in London,

where winter temperatures can plunge to just 23 degrees.

But seeking shelter in the underground

could be more dangerous than the icy streets above.

One thing that is definitely clear

is no one should ever be on those tracks

or ever be in those tunnels.

[narrator] Now, Long An province, Vietnam.

December, 2019.

CCTV records the evenings traffic.

So, we've got what looks like a relatively busy intersection,

because I can a lot of bikes, both on the road and off the roads.

[narrator] Then...

Oh, my goodness. Wow. That motorcyclist...

their head just went up against that window

and it was just... It was hard.

And they are just out. They're out for the count.

[narrator] The motorcycle rider lies motionless.

on the hard pavement,

when suddenly...

Now, he's getting up from that. How is he okay? That was a massive impact.

He's not even wearing a helmet.

[narrator] Stumbling just once,

unbelievably, the man climbs back onto his battered bike

and starts the engine.

The driver of the van comes out 'cause he's thinking

he must've been thinking 'Now I got this dead guy I got to clean up now'.

And instead, he gets up, comes around the vehicle

and as he does so, the guy that just hit him, drives off into the sunset.

[narrator] Worried members of the public watch on

as the seemingly unharmed man speeds away.

No one believes what they've just witnessed.

He's like wearing a t-shirt, shorts, flip-flops and that's it.

No safety gear of any kind.

[Martin] If that had been me, every bone in my body would have broken.

And I'd be lying there bleeding out.

I'm seeing it happen, but I don't believe it.

[bike crashes]

It's like a zombie movie where, you know, they die,

and they are out cold and they pop right back up.

[narrator] Coming up, Engineer Nick Householder

tries to get inside this guy's head.

[Nick] What I have here is a simulated human head.

Good luck, my friend.

[thuds]

[narrator] And in South Carolina,

a mother and daughter film an unexplained blob shooting through the sky.

-[kid] Is it a ship? -[mom] Look.

[Roland] The little kid who's seeing it is asking,

Is it a ship? Is it a ship?

And I gotta wonder, could it be a ship?

[narrator] I n Vietnam, what looks like a brain bursting bike crash

is caught on camera.

[Martin] This guy lays there for a second stunned,

and then sits bolt upright

and gets his motorcycle up and drives off.

[narrator] The Vietnamese vehicular carnage,

reminds engineer Nick Householder

of a legendary car crash from 2003.

[Nick] Indy car driver Kenny Brack,

experienced a car accident like you'd never experience

in your life.

He was driving 200 miles an hour, and impacted a steel beam

A sensor inside of his vehicle measured 214 Gs of impact force.

That is the greatest impact force that we have measured

that a human being has survived.

[narrator] Brack broke his sternum

femur, vertebrae in his spine and both ankles were smashed.

He survived.

But his racing career was effectively ended.

Kenny Brack's car was full of safety equipment

which helped him survive his impact.

The man in this footage isn't even wearing a helmet.

I wanna understand how much force his head experienced

when it bounced of the side of that van.

[narrator] Nick Householder builds an experiment in his workshop.

What I've set up is a simulated car accident.

What I have here is a slingshot that I can use

to accelerate a head to the speed of a car accident.

Across the way, I've got a metal plate, representing the side of the car

that the man's head impacted on.

What I have here is a simulated human head.

It's made of silicon and full of expanding foam.

So, it's a little bit pliable and sort of like a human.

But what I need to know

is what kind of force it's going to experience

when it impacts my simulated car.

So, what I have for that is something called a g-force indicator.

All right, so these are stickers,

so all I have to do is apply them to the back of the head.

And they will measure, how much force it experiences.

I've got the 100G indicator,

and the 50G indicator.

The way these indicators work is this little white area inside

has a packet of dye.

And it will only break and expose a red patch in the middle

if it exceeds the g-force that the sticker's designed for.

[narrator] Shock indicator labels were invented to protect

and record damage to postal and shipping packages.

But Householder's using them for human cargo instead.

If we break the 50G indicator, they're definitely hurt.

If we break the 100G, they're concussed and possibly dead.

[narrator] Householder estimates the scooter could have been traveling

at anywhere between 30 and 40 miles per hour.

So he rigs his slingshot to replicate the movement

of the rider's head in the footage.

Now, only thing to do is fire at that.

Let's go, good luck my friend.

[narrator] Householder stretches the silicon

to its required depth.

Now, this one should be around 30 miles an hour.

[thuds]

[narrator] The hurtling head hits the sheet metal with a sickening thud.

If you look closely, you can see that the 50G impact detector has broken.

That means that the head experienced over 50 times earth's gravity in the impact.

But also notice, that the 100G impact detector hasn't broken.

That means, his head has probably been rattled pretty hard.

But he doesn't necessarily have a concussion.

You could probably get up and walk away from this.

[narrator] But the movement of the silicon head

is less violent than the rider's head in the footage.

All right, this time, let's up the speed.

[narrator] Nick stretches the slingshot back a further six inches.

This will increase the dummy's head speed to approximately 40 miles per hour.

[thuds]

The head slams into the plate with a marked increase in its velocity,

replicating the Vietnamese clip to perfection.

Oh, man, that was intense.

Look at this, the 100G impact detector has broken.

That means that higher speed impact would have guaranteed a concussion,

if not a more severe brain injury.

That's what I think happened to the man in the footage.

I don't understand how he was able to walk away with his life.

[narrator] Military expert Martin Morgan

believes the rider's extraordinary recovery

suggests he's no normal man.

The special forces of the People's Army of Vietnam,

they undergo extremely rigorous physical training.

These guys are tough.

They can do things like pour out of a bunch of broken glass

and then jump from a height of like five feet onto it barefoot.

They will also have like, pointed sticks

pressed into their chest and then they'll lean against them

and have somebody else pile bricks on their back

and then break the bricks with a sledgehammer.

Maybe this is somebody

who has been trained to be able to withstand

a high-impact collision like that.

[narrator] Special forces around the world

use pain training to toughen up their recruits.

Pain is the human body's defense mechanism.

Nerves send signals to the brain to stop you doing something

that could be damaging to your health.

But for a soldier, being trained to ignore these natural reactions

and to carry on fighting

could be the difference between life and death, victory or defeat.

Maybe this is a guy that's military.

Maybe he's military and that's why

he can walk away from something like this.

Because a normal person would not just up and walk away from this.

[narrator] But Journalist Linda Rodriguez McRobbie

suspects we are witnessing a primeval survival technique

that lies dormant in every human on the planet.

What's quite possible and probably more likely

is that we're seeing the effects of shock on the nervous system.

What happens to your body after you've had a serious injury

or a serious shock is a rush of a number of neuro chemicals including adrenaline.

When someone is flooded with adrenaline,

the impossible literally becomes possible.

[narrator] Adrenaline is a hormone released by the adrenal glands

and it sparks the fight or flight response.

Increasing blood flow to the muscles and dumping sugars into the blood stream,

adrenaline kick-starts the body, getting it ready

to fight a bear or escape a flood.

[Nick] You've heard of stories of people

lifting 3000 pound cars well under the influence of adrenaline.

I don't think it's so strange to think that's what we're seeing here.

[narrator] But when the wonder drug of adrenaline wears off,

the human body could rapidly collapse.

Adrenaline can make it look and feel like you are totally fine

when actually you may not be.

And eventually that adrenaline is gonna wear off

and whatever problems it was hiding before are gonna come out.

It's entirely possible that the driver of this motorcycle

pulled two blocks away

and then collapsed.

Whatever happened to this man, I just hope he's okay.

[narrator] Now, Goose Creek, South Carolina,

June 30, 2021.

Shaneika Joyner and her six-year-old daughter India

are waiting at a stop light on highway 52

when they suddenly spot something strange in the sky.

Shaneika starts filming on her smartphone.

[Shaneika] Oh, my God.

There's something in there.

I can see.

[Chad] It looks like there's a small bit of cloud that's

moving of its own accord.

And kind of in the opposite direction from all the other clouds.

That's really weird.

[narrator] Shaneika struggles to film the fast moving cloud.

[India speaking]

[Shaneika speaking]

[narrator] The strange entity seems to shapeshift right before their eyes.

I've seen things like this,

but usually only in a science fiction movie.

[indistinct conversation]

This thing, whatever it is,

seems to be moving under its own power.

Doesn't look like there's any sort of, like,

tail from a jet engine.

There's no propellers on it.

And it's sort of just gliding through the air.

[narrator] Coming up, flying military smart dust.

Perilous particles that could choke us all.

[Sarah] What are we looking at?

Is it something man-made? Is it a solid object?

Is it alive?

[narrator] And in China,

a woman with a secret she keeps under her hat.

She looks fairly aged.

She's got to be north of 80, I would imagine.

She's going into a-- Oh! Good grief.

[narrator] Captured on a smartphone over Goose Creek, South Carolina,

a weird cloud moving fast against the prevailing wind.

[Shaneika speaking]

[Sarah] I mean, my first question is, what is that thing?

Is it alive?

What are we looking at? Is it something man made?

Is it a solid object?

Against the blue sky,

we can see that the object is white in color.

But as it proceeds,

it almost changes color and becomes dark.

[narrator] Physicist Michio Kaku maps the area

and finds a large installation close by this highway in Goose Creek.

Not too far there's a military base.

And at military bases, of course,

they try to look for experimental devices.

Now Goose Creek is really close to Joint Base Charleston.

Now this is a sprawling US military base,

roughly about 20,000 acres.

Now, this is important.

If whatever is seen in the video

was based out of Joint Base Charleston,

it's probably based on technology

that the public has no idea even exists yet.

Now, there is one cutting-edge technology that could possibly explain,

the sort of shape-shifting nature of the object seen in the video.

And that's a concept known as claytronics.

[narrator] Claytronic scientists are trying to create catoms,

computer-generated programmable robot atoms,

that have the potential to change life on earth forever.

As Arthur C. Clarke once said,

any sufficiently advanced technology

is indistinguishable from magic.

[narrator] The person who commands the billions of robotic catoms

will be like a wizard, who controls a genie in a fairy tale.

One simple computer instruction and they can create literally anything.

[Chad] So, prototype devices use magnets on their outer edges

to pull them together, make connections,

break those connections, shift them around

and change their orientation.

Enabling the collection of these objects to form different shapes.

Think about this, billions and billions of microchips,

you simply push a button, change the electric charge

and all of these microchips which are microscopic in size

they then can be programmed to reassemble into any shape whatsoever.

From hospitals to construction sites to actually military applications,

if you had enough of this materia l,

from a military perspective, you could make it into a defensive structure.

[narrator] And the military also has plans

to take this stuff into the air

as a lethal weapon of attack.

The US military's premier research facility,

also known as the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency,

known as DARPA,

has been working with a concept known as smart dust.

Now, this takes the claytronics idea

and makes it sort of airborne.

Smart dust consists of thousands of particles of dust

that float in the air by themselves.

They're made out of microchips.

And so what you do is, you simply throw it over enemy territory.

The wind blows it over enemy territory,

taking pictures and giving you reconnaissance.

And unlike a drone, you cannot shoot them down.

If a dust cloud comes at you, which is intelligent,

taking pictures of everything around you,

and you try to shoot it down, nope it can't be done.

[explosion]

[narrator] And the possibilities are even more terrifying.

Claytronic smart dust could be programmed

to enter the lungs of enemy soldiers

or even civilian populations

asphyxiating millions in a single invisible stroke.

[Sarah] Can you just imagine if this was a swarm of machines

which had escaped, perhaps from this nearby military base,

just how terrifying that would be.

[narrator] Officially, this potentially lethal technology,

is in its infancy and only created under strictly controlled conditions.

At the moment, much of this technology is actually

resigned to the lab.

It's not something on a scale

large enough to explain what we're seeing in this video.

[Conor] Looking at this object, it's quite eerie.

It's changing shape, it's moving along at a fast rate of speed.

It's really unidentified and it's kind of spooky.

[narrator] Now, a small village in Sichuan, southwest China.

August 2015, a bizarre video emerges.

[Karen] There's an elderly Chinese women, she's got her head covered

with what looks like a shower cap.

[Deborah] She looks fairly aged.

She's got to be north of 80, I would imagine.

She's going into a-- Oh! Good grief.

[narrator] Under the makeshift hat,

a strange, dark dagger-like appendage protrudes from her forehead.

They are something,

I've never seen anything like it growing out of her head.

It's what appears to be a giant horn.

[narrator] The women is named as 87 year old Liang Xiuzhen,

[Roland] Oh, my God, that poor woman.

She does not look very happy about that.

I hope they can remove that, whatever it is.

[narrator] The horn is approximately five inches long

and said to be solid.

[Tony] Poor thing.

How she survives with that.

You just wanna know, is this something particular to this poor woman?

Or, could it happen to any of us? Is it even contagious?

As a zoologist, I've seen a lot of weird things,

but this really takes it to another level.

[narrator] Coming up,

scientists find millions of humans are suddenly growing horns.

Is it something in the diet?

Is it something in the atmosphere?

What is it that's caused this?

[narrator] An 87-year-old lady is filmed

with what appears to be a horn growing out of her forehead.

Historian Tony McMahon considers if this could be part of a magical ritual.

The horn is something almost sacred in Chinese culture.

[narrator] The Chinese have a 3500-year-old oral history

of horned creatures with supernatural powers.

The Qilin is a unicorn-like creature whose arrival can signify imminent death.

Pixiu is a single-horned dragon associated with gaining wealth.

Horned animals represent health, vigor and long life.

[Tony] There's undoubtedly something in Chinese mythologies

about horns on heads equaling power.

The horn of the rhino in Chinese culture

has enormous status.

[narrator] The horn of the rhinoceros is believed

to be a cure-all medicine in China.

It is also highly sought after as a powerful aphrodisiac

and enhancer of sexual prowess.

There's no proof of any of it.

But people will still pay almost anything

for something that they think is gonna make them feel better.

[narrator] Chinese citizens' desire for illegal rhino horn

has driven the animal to the brink of extinction in Africa.

Poachers are supplied by international criminal gangs

with sophisticated equipment

to track and then kill the rhinos.

Two pounds of rhino horn can be worth

more than $60,000 on the black market.

[narrator] In the far east,

it's particularly popular with older people,

as it's falsely claimed to ward off cancer, strokes and even terminal illness.

In terms of the sort of shape and position

and even the color, this resembles quite a bit, a rhino horn.

[narrator] But in Chinese medicine,

rhino horns are crushed and eaten or mixed with water and drunk.

Not worn or stuck to the forehead.

Biologist Leslie Samuel discovers

there are accounts of real horns growing out of human skulls.

An Australian health scientist noticed an increasing number of his patients

had a growth coming out of their skulls.

[narrator] University of Sunshine Coast, 2016.

Researchers studying X-rays of 218 young Australians,

make a shocking discovery.

41% have boney growth forming at the back of their skulls.

[Leslie] Some of them are over an inch long.

They're so big you can actually feel them poking out

of the skin with your bare hands.

[narrator] Scientists call them

an enlarged external occipital protuberance.

Is it something in the diet?

Is it something in the atmosphere? What is it that's caused this?

The scientists believe that these horns are caused by

the rise of modern technology.

I mean, we're hunched over on our phone so much.

It's starting to reshape our skulls.

[narrator] The scientists hypothesized

that leaning the head forward to stare at screens

caused the tendons and bone at the back of the skull

to grow due to the increased load.

It's crazy to think that the way we use our technology

and change our body position can actually affect our skulls.

[narrator] But historian Tony McMahon

finds reports of horns growing on humans go back far beyond the era of smart phones.

A French woman called, Madame Dimanche in the early 19th century,

is reported to have had the largest horn growing out of her head ever recorded.

It was something like 10 inches.

[Karen] This lady's horn, grew straight out of her forehead

between her eyes and curved down and ended at her chin.

I've read about abnormalities like this.

I think they're very rare, but it seems like it could be a cutaneous horn.

[narrator] Reports of cutaneous horns are few and far between.

But that doesn't mean, it couldn't happen to you.

These growths are rare but they can happen to anyone.

And they can appear anywhere.

A 50-year-old manual laborer in the UK grew five and a half inch horn,

over the course of three years on his back.

[narrator] Modern scientists still don't know exactly what causes

a cutaneous horn like this one to grow.

But they are more common in the elderly

and can be safely removed by a doctor as long as they are not cancerous.

Cutaneous horns are growth of compacted keratin.

Sometimes they can be cancerous, sometimes they are not.

But it's always scary to be the person that they're growing on.

[narrator] It is not known whether Liang Xiuzhen

had the horn surgically removed.

[Roland] This poor woman looked pretty annoyed, and I tell you I would be

also super annoyed if I had a huge horn growing out of my head.

It does not look like a pleasant situation.