All language subtitles for Strange.Evidence.S07E08.Indias.River.Monster.1080p.MAX.WEB-DL.DDP2.0.H.264-BETHELL_track3_[eng]

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

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

They capture things
that defy explanation.

Really made me ask,
"What the heck
is going on here?"

[man] Check this out.

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

Wow.
Now, that's a cracker.

[man exclaims]

This doesn't make any sense.

There has to be
another explanation.

So, what could it be?

[narrator] Coming up...

Massive, mysterious
and muddy.

What's on the move
in this Indian riverbed?

[Hannah Rudd]
Is this some kind of creature
that's been disturbed

and is now rising
from the depths?

[narrator] A moonlit night,
a military checkpoint,

then a ghostly gatecrasher.

[soldiers screaming]

I'm not sure which is worse,
is it the cackling,

or is it the well-armed
soldiers screaming?

[narrator]
And who is trying
to blow up

England's
most beautiful towns?

A really spiteful,
deliberate act of malice

to try to wipe out
the best parts of England.

[narrator]
Bizarre phenomenon...

[gasps] Oh, my God.

...mysteries caught on camera.

This is just mind boggling.

What's the truth
behind this strange evidence?

Now, the small village
of Kuchpura,
in Haryana state, India.

July 2021.

I'm looking at
what seems to be
some kind of muddy field

or just maybe
a shallow pond.

[men speaking other language]

Oh, wow.
Something is coming up
out of the water right now.

It looks like the back
of some gigantic
pre-historic creature,

as if Godzilla
is making his emergence

in the countryside of India.

There is no way
I'd still be standing there
at this point.

What is going on here?

[narrator] This bizarre object
emerges from waters

in one of the
luscious parts of India.

But journalist
Linda Rodriguez McRobbie

finds local stories

suggesting that this network
of life-giving waters

hides a killer monster.

Ancient legends tell
of a giant carnivorous
white worm 10 feet long,

that, during the day,
lives and tunnels

under the waterways of India.

But, at night, comes out

to eat livestock
and unwary travelers.

[narrator] The Indus worm,
also known as the Skolex,

has two enormous teeth,

which it uses to rip apart
and devour
its unfortunate prey.

It's said that the brave men
would hunt down
these giant worms

and fight them.

After they would hunt
and kill the worms,
they would string them up,

and oil would drip
from the carcass.

[narrator] Reports
of the Skolex Indus worm

date back
to the 5th century BC.

It's easy to look
at this footage and wonder

if the worm has returned.

[McRobbie]
It really looks like

there's something
under the ground

tunneling and moving
that earth out of the way.

And whatever it is,
it's going fast.

[narrator]
But explorer George Kourounis

thinks this uncanny upheaval

could be the work
of a criminal gang,

who are stripping
these riverbeds

of a very valuable commodity.

Criminal organizations
have formed
that are called sand mafias.

These guys control
the sand market

in a similar way
that the mafia

controls certain industries
in places like Italy.

[narrator] Sand is the world's
most consumed raw material
after water

and an essential ingredient
to our everyday lives.

Glass, silicon chips
and concrete

all require huge quantities
of this finite resource.

India's building boom

in cities
like Delhi and Mumbai

eats up 60 million tons
of sand a year.

That's more than two pounds
per urban resident every day.

The Thar desert covers
7% of India's land,

but the grains on these dunes
don't cut it for construction.

[Cate Larsen]
Why don't we just take
sand from the deserts?

That sand is so fine.

It's so tiny and round.

Something that is more angular
is going to bond better

when you're
making concrete,

as compared
to rounder grains of sand.

So, instead,
we look to rivers

to find our sand
for our building materials.

[narrator]
The Himalayan mountains
erode away

at a rate
of 1/25th of an inch
every year.

That may not seem like much,

but since they cover
230,000 square miles,

in reality,
that's a huge quantity
of silt and sand

carried down annually
by rivers to the plains below.

[Rudd]
The problem is, in India,

the demand
for this river sand

has essentially put
huge pressure
on the ecosystem.

[narrator]
Government rules controlling
the taking of sand

from India's rivers

have led to a black market
worth more than $250 million
a year.

People involved in it
will stop at nothing

to make sure that they get
their hands on that money.

[Kourounis] One journalist
who was reporting on this
was kidnapped and lit on fire,

another person was hacked
to death with a machete.

All of this
over seemingly worthless sand.

[narrator]
Between 2019 and 2020,

193 people in India died

as a result of illegal
river sand mining.

This rapidly rising earth
could be evidence

of the river bed being
recklessly disturbed
by one of these gangs.

[Rudd] What we're
looking at here looks like
quite a water-logged area,

so maybe it's located
near to a river,

where illegal
sand mining activity
has been taking place.

[narrator]
But geologist Cate Larsen
finds maps of the area

show no evidence
of no sand beds
in this village.

[Larsen] As a normal person,
I'd want to run away
from this,

because it looks
kind of scary.

But the geologist in me
just wants to get closer

and investigate
what's happening.

[narrator] Digging deeper,
Larsen suspects

this could be a tragedy
caused by removing
something other than sand.

There's another
very valuable asset
in this part of India,

and that is dirt, soil.

They're digging up soil
and selling that.

[narrator] Indian farmers
are selling their golden goose

for a fast buck
and a pile of bricks.

Sometimes farmers
have been known

to strip the top layers
of their fields,

we're talking two to four feet
of soil,

and sell it off to companies
who use that soil
to make clay bricks.

Taking the soil has an effect
on the environment.

[Kourounis] Of course,
you've stripped away
all of your precious top soil,

and now, the lower sections
are more prone to flooding.

So you're not gonna
fill it in with sand,

because that's already
very valuable.

They're gonna fill it in
with other things.

[Kourounis] So, has
the landowner here

sold off his top soil,

and then refilled the pit,

perhaps with
some other material

that maybe
shouldn't be there?

[narrator] Coming up...

Is this a guilty secret
rising to the surface?

Mother Nature comes along
and exposes the truth.

[narrator]
And over Kuala Lumpur,

mysterious headlights
appear in the sky.

[Liberty Vittert]
It's like there's
a flying car

straight out
of a sci-fi movie,

hovering above the city.

[narrator] In rural India,
a hulking mass

emerges from a farmer's
waterlogged field.

Explorer George Kourounis
finds an interview
with the farmer's brother.

The landowner's brother
reports that he did
actually remove

a section of top soil
off of about an acre
of his land,

and filled in that gap
with about 15 feet worth
of rice husk ash.

And then covered up that ash
with a layer of soil,

completely hiding it
underneath.

[narrator] The rice husk ash
seemed to work well
as substitute soil

for a while,

then the monsoon
rains arrived.

In this case,
they filled the hole in with
a very absorbant material.

[Kourounis] In the days
leading up to this video,

heavy rains had fallen
in the region

and flooded out this field.

[McRobbie] That rain
soaked into the earth

and reacted with
the rice husk ash somehow,

and created this,
kind of, expansion effect.

Almost like crazy foam.

Mother Nature always has a way
of uncovering buried secrets,

even if that's just
rice husk ash.

[narrator] Now...

Kuala Lumpur,
the capital of Malaysia.

January 4th, 2021.

A man is filming
the world-class skyline

from one of the capital's
many rooftop bars.

The Petronas Towers
in the background.

Beautiful picture,
little bit of a cloudy sky.

You can hear his friends
laughing in the background.

This is at a social event.

But he moves the camera
up towards the sky.

[man speaking]

I can't even imagine
what those are.

[Nick Householder]
They don't look like stars.

It doesn't look
like a plane.

What could be
just hovering in the sky
above Malaysia?

I may not necessarily be
the biggest believer
in aliens,

but this is
the kind of evidence

that could make you
rethink about it.

[narrator]
Meteorologist Orelon Sidney
finds Malaysia,

with a population
of 33 million people,

has a history
of close encounters.

This is absolutely
not the first time

there have been
UFO sightings in Malaysia.

There are lots of reports
in the area.

One of the most notorious
Malaysia alien overlaps

is the story of
Malaysia Airlines 370.

In 2014, this flight
disappeared without a trace.

And people have claimed
that there was
alien intervention.

That something other worldly
interfered with this flight.

[narrator]
March 8th, 2014,

flight MH370 takes off
at 12:41 am
from the city's airport.

Flying out
over the skyscrapers

as it heads
for Beijing, China.

With 227 passengers
and 12 crew onboard,

less than an hour later,
the plane's transponder
ceases transmission.

The plane vanishes
without a trace.

One of the most
widespread conspiracy theories

about what happened
to the plane

is some sort of
alien interception.

[narrator] In 2018,
a Twitter user receives
a cryptic message

in a robotic voice.

Deciphered,
the message reads,

"Danger. SOS.
They are not human."

[automated voice]
Five-nine...

[narrator]
The voice then gives
a series of numbers,

believed by some UFO watchers
to be coordinates.

Shockingly, these numbers
corresponded to coordinates

just a few miles from where
the Malaysian Airlines plane
sent out its last signal.

This case is very strange.

It's like
an episode of Lost.

[narrator] So, perhaps
it's no surprise

these lights
close to the original path
of the doomed jet

spark uproar in Malaysia.

This gentleman uploaded
this video to social media,

and the Internet
absolutely exploded.

Convinced that he had
finally captured
video evidence

of aliens existing
right in our own skies.

[narrator]
Data scientist
Liberty Vittert

finds a Malaysian
government report
from 30 years ago,

known as Vision 2020,

that points to this
being a secret test flight.

Vision 2020
was a legitimate plan

to change the country
for the better.

The Prime Minister
wanted to tackle poverty,

build the economy,

and some people
wanted to replace

boring, old regular cars
with flying ones.

[narrator] Back in 1991,
Malaysia's gross domestic
product per person

was less than $3,000.

Today,
it's more than $10,000.

It's a massive
South East Asian
success story,

featuring a booming
technology sector.

The Malaysians are already
in the process of developing
a flying car,

so could we be seeing
some kind of test run?

[narrator] Jetson-style
aerial cars

have been a dream
on the drawing board
for more than a century.

But the physical constraints
of making them work

have often been
a nightmare.

The Waterman Arrowmobile
was a flying car

with incredibly wide wingspan
and a tiny cabin.

Cool to look at,
but not very practical.

[narrator] Ten years later,
the ConvAir 118
took to the skies,

with equally limited success.

But in the 21st century,

flying car technology
is closer to taking off.

In January 2022,

Slovakia issued
an air worthiness certificate
to the Aircar.

[Tim Pickens]
So the Aircar
is really cool.

Reminds me of watching
a Transformer,

like you'd see on TV.

[Householder] You can fly it
over 100 miles an hour,

and it only takes
three minutes

to convert from car mode
to plane mode.

I think that's a lot closer
to what we envision
as a flying car.

[narrator]
But aerospace engineer
Nick Householder

is not convinced that
these weird lights in the sky

reveal the future
of Malaysian automobiles.

[Householder] I don't think
this is a flying car.

Any kind of
controlled vehicle

flying over,
especially, a city,

has a very specific
series of lights to it.

We see none of that
on these lights in the sky.

[narrator] Coming up...

Are these lethal lights
that could down a plane?

[Vittert] Three different
pilots were blinded.

The FBI was brought in
to investigate
the growing threat.

[narrator]
And a mysterious explosion

in one of England's
most beautiful cities.

What that looked like to me
was a car bomb.

[explosion]

[narrator]
Witnesses at a rooftop bar
are baffled as they film

strange lights
in the sky above Kuala Lumpur.

[man speaking]

[Pickens]
So, what are these lights?

They're clearly not stars.
It's cloudy.

This is something different.

[narrator] Nick Householder
studies the footage,

and suspects these lights
aren't coming from the sky
at all.

[Householder]
I think it might be projected
onto the clouds from below.

Dense clouds can act as,
kind of, a light filter.

They'll diffract
and reflect light.

Maybe we're seeing
an optical illusion.

A hologram
projected into the sky.

I have an experiment
that might explain what
we're seeing in the video.

Let's give it a try.

This is a piece of plastic,

but it's been coated
with a special film

that gives it similar
diffraction and refraction
properties

to the misty clouds above.

If this were just
a clear piece of plastic,

light would shine
straight through it.

But because
of this diffraction
that it has,

an image will appear
if we shine something onto it.

Exactly like
what I think is happening
in the video.

[narrator]
Nick uses a projector
attached to his computer

to stand in
for lights on the ground.

[Householder] I'm trying
to align the beam

so that it hits
my sheet of plastic
and creates an image.

Let's see if it works.

Wow. It's a hologram.

This specially coated piece
of reflective plastic

is acting like the clouds.

It's allowing the light
to hit something,

reflect off of it
and hit your eye.

What we get is an image
that looks like it's floating
above my desk,

just like the image
we see floating in the sky
in the footage.

[narrator] Householder's
experiment shows

that light from the ground
could appear to be coming
from above the clouds.

What we don't know
is the source of the light.

Is it coming from a spotlight
or a high-powered laser?

[narrator]
Meteorologist Orelon Sidney

has no doubt that
this is a dangerous beam

that could imperil
thousands of lives.

[Sidney] I think
a very good candidate for this
might be lasers,

because laser light
is extremely concentrated.

[Vittert]
If the lights we're seeing
are being made

by lasers pointing up
at the sky,

there could be
really dangerous consequences.

[narrator] Across the world,
incidents of lasers

targeting aircraft
are on the rise.

In the US,
the FAA catalogue
9,723 incidents

in 2021 alone.

If you hit a plane,
it can dazzle the eyes
of the pilot,

potentially risking
their ability to fly.

Some lasers have power enough
to actually injure a pilot.

[narrator] In 2013,
California police pilot

Sergeant
Steve Robertson's helicopter

was hit
by a powerful beam
of green light

while he was on patrol.

I was struck with
a very powerful laser

that burned both
of the corneas in my eyes.

[narrator]
Robertson was incapacitated,

and would have crashed
if his co-pilot

hadn't been able
to land the chopper.

These threats are real.

[narrator]
The sky above Kuala Lumpur

is crowded
with potential targets.

Almost 60 million passengers
pass through the airport here

on almost 125,000 flights
every year.

A plane coming down
on this city

could lead
to thousands of deaths.

No plane crashes
have been caused

by a laser incident yet,

but the authorities feel like
it's just a matter of time.

[narrator]
Now, England, Exeter.

February 27th, 2021.

Evening is falling over
the sleepy cathedral city.

Aye, lovely, little
college town here.

Everything seems fine.

[explosion]

Ka-boom!

Holy cow!

Well, wasn't
expecting that.

That was a very
high energy explosion.

[narrator] Another camera
also captures the explosion.

The camera actually rattles.

So you can just imagine
this shockwave

moving out
at the speed of sound.

This type of explosion
is not something that
I would expect to see.

Was it an accident?

Was it some kind
of act of aggression?

What happened here?

[narrator] Engineer
Nick Householder wonders

who would bomb a city
best known for its
historic buildings,

tea shops
and tourist destinations?

[Householder] Is it possible
that someone with an agenda
has chosen this town

as a target of an attack?

[narrator] In 2007,
a terrorist group

declare themselves
ready to fight for
an independent Cornwall,

the county
that lies just next door,

40 miles
to the west of Exeter.

[Householder]
Cornwall has its own language
and traditions.

It's a Celtic nation,

and there's a lot of anger
at how the place is treated
by the rest of England.

[narrator] The rich treat
the picture-postcard county

as an ostentatious
playground,

while many
of its local residents
are priced out and deprived.

Cornwall is the second
poorest area in all
of Northern Europe.

The Cornish Liberation Army
want the county of Cornwall

to be recognized
as an independent nation,
known as Kernow.

And it carried out
a series of attacks

to further
that objective.

[narrator] The CLA
seems particularly angry
with English celebrity chefs,

like Jamie Oliver
and Rick Stein,

who set up restaurants
for well-healed tourists

on the beautiful
Cornish coast.

[Householder] In 2017,
they firebombed a restaurant
in Porthleven,

and announced that
they had members

who were ready
to become suicide bombers

for the cause
of Cornish independence.

[narrator] Exeter is
the county capital of Devon,

and a symbol
of the hated English.

Could this be a Cornish
Liberation Army bomb?

[narrator] Military historian
Martin Morgan analyzes
the blast.

That was some HE
right there.

High explosive,
like TNT, or hexanite
or something like that.

[narrator] This is not
the signature of a local
terrorist group,

but of a major
global power.

This is not something
that's an explosive vest
for a suicide bomber.

That's more than 500 pounds
of high explosive
that just went off.

How did that get into
the middle of a sleepy,
little town?

[narrator] Coming up...

A man with
a grudge against beauty.

Throughout history,
people who have wanted
to make statements

combine explosions
with symbolic buildings,

such as cathedrals,
to a devastating effect.

Could we be seeing
something similar here?

[narrator]
And in New Jersey...

Does a wormnado
mean an earthquake
for the Garden State?

You see all kinds
of things in Hoboken,
don't get me wrong.

But this...

This is
really, really unique.

In Exeter, England,

a massive explosion shakes
the historic city.

Military historian
Martin Morgan

discovers that
this detonation

is truly a blast
from the past.

What we're looking at here
is a bomb dropped by
the German Luftwaffe,

specifically it was
a 1,000 kilogram bomb.

That's a bomb
that weighs 2,200 pounds,

so an extraordinarily
powerful weapon.

[narrator] By 1940,
Adolf Hitler was determined
to break Great Britain,

the one European nation
holding out

against the ferocious advance
of the Nazis

during World War II.

But Exeter was a town
of little strategic
importance.

Hitler attacked it
to get revenge.

[Jeff Wise] The raids
were known in England

as the Baedeker Raids,

because before the War,

Germans traveling
on vacation to the UK

would carry
a series of guidebooks

published by a company
called Baedeker.

And these were, of course,
all the lovely spots
that you would want to go.

By selecting these towns
for no other reason

than they were recommended
by the Baedeker guide.

It was thought
that the Germans could shatter

the will
of the English people

to continue
fighting Germany.

The raids target Canterbury
and its 1,400-year-old
cathedral,

Bath, famous for its elegant
18th century streets
and Roman remains,

and the ancient city
of Exeter,

which is devastated
by the Baedeker bombings.

[Wise] So, a really spiteful,
deliberate act of malice

to try to wipe out
the best parts of England.

[narrator] The south side
of Exeter cathedral
is destroyed,

but the will
of the British people is not.

Yet, even today,
the legacy of Hitler's
brutal bombing blitz

still threatens civilians.

[Morgan]
Over the course of the War,

German aircraft dropped
30,000 tons
worth of munitions

on cities
in the United Kingdom.

The average
failure rate of bombs
during the Second World War

is expected to have been
somewhere between 15 and 20%.

You're dealing with hundreds
of unexploded bombs.

[narrator] Bombs that are
still lying undiscovered
in 21st century Exeter.

[Householder] It turns out,
it was a World War II munition

that had miraculously survived
to this day

and was still explosive.

[narrator] An explosives team
surround the 2,200 pound
Nazi bomb

with 400 tons of sand

to dampen
and direct the blast.

Once its contained,
they set it off.

[narrator] The explosion
blows out windows

and even doors
of nearby houses.

But there are
no injuries.

They dampened it to
the greatest extent possible,

and still
they could not contain

the explosive force
of that munition,

simply because of the fact
that it was so large.

It ended up
leaving a crater

big enough to park multiple
double decker buses inside.

[narrator] One of Hitler's
deadly legacies is destroyed,

but an ever present
danger remains.

These unexploded bombs
aren't that uncommon.

[Morgan] The United Kingdom
has hundreds
of World War II era

unexploded bombs,
secretly hiding,
lying in wait to go off.

[narrator]
Now, Hoboken, New Jersey.

March 25th, 2021.

A woman
out for a walk is startled

by an extraordinary
swirling in the sidewalk.

Oh, my goodness,
these are worms,

and there are, like,
thousands of them.

And they're not
in just some random
lay in piles,

they're in more
of a spiral shape.

Almost like
a cyclonic shape
on the ground.

[narrator]
The tiny-brained creatures

seem to have been gripped
by some unseen force,

spinning them
into bizarre spirals
across the ground.

[Carin Bondar] It really looks
like a little tornado of worms
on the ground.

A wormnado.

[narrator] But there's
not even a light breeze.

Why are they
in this crazy spiral?

What's making them
do that?

This is not normal activity
that you'd expect
out of earthworms.

[Leslie Samuel]
Whatever it is,
this isn't random.

There's a clear pattern.

So we need to figure out
what's going on here.

[narrator] Coming up...

Is this a wiggly warning?

[David Wallace] So, you're
walking down the street,
and you see this,

I don't think you consider,
"Hey, this is my lucky day."

This is more like,
"Okay, what is fixing
to happen to me now?"

[narrator]
And soldiers versus ghosts

on an island
with a deadly reputation.

[screaming]

If I was a soldier
on post here,

I would be
literally freaking out
and running the other way.

[narrator]
In Hoboken, New Jersey,

an extraordinary
whirlwind of worms appears.

It's like a wormnado.

I've never seen
anything like this before.

[narrator] Entomologist
Kevin Kasky digs into
worm lore,

and discovers that
weird worm swarms

sometimes appear
ahead of natural disasters.

[Kevin Kasky]
There have been reports
in Taiwan and in Japan

of large clusters
of worms appearing

just moments
before an earthquake.

[narrator]
January 17th, 1995.

The Kobe earthquake
shakes Japan,

causing thousands of deaths
and billions in damage.

Just before the quake,

scientists observe worms
fleeing the soil.

There were reports
of these worms

on driveways,
sidewalks, gardens

appearing moments
before that disaster.

So, are all these worms
in Hoboken

a sign of some
impending future disaster
for New Jersey?

[narrator] New Jersey,
the most densely populated
state in America,

lies above
the Ramapo Fault Line.

This 70-mile long fault
is potentially

the most dangerous
earthquake zone in America,

because it runs
directly beneath

Indian Point
nuclear power station.

A disastrous meltdown here
would threaten
millions of people.

[Wallace] Well, we know
that the earthquakes

can generate
electrical currents.

Now, is it the possibility
that the electrical currents
flowing through the ground,

these worms can sense it
and react to it?

[narrator] Kasky discovers
that the worms have
no ears or eyes,

and some have
just 300 nerve cells
in their whole nervous system.

They may have one super sense
that beats humans hands down.

Scientists have
recently discovered

that neurons in worms
can detect magnetic fields.

[Samuel] Sensing the
Earth's magnetic field,

they couldn't work out
which way is up
and which way is down,

and then
burrow accordingly.

[narrator] This could mean
that these worms circling

acts as a natural
early warning system

of a devastating
East Coast earthquake.

Is there some type of charge
in the ground

causing these worms
to act in a weird manner?

[narrator]
Electrical engineer
David Wallace wants to know

if worms really can react

to the kind of
electrical interference
produced by an earth tremor.

Here we have some
good old fashioned
earthworms.

Perfect for fishing.

But today, we're gonna
put them in here

and make them
our performing worms.

So, what we need to do now
is insert an electrode,

so we'll have a way
for the electricity
to flow through the dirt.

[narrator]
As electrical current flows
from anode to cathode

across the dirt,

a magnetic field
will be generated

perpendicular
to the direction
of current flow.

[Wallace] We're gonna
start out low.

So, there's about four volts.

We'll run it up
to about 12 volts,

which is your typical
car battery.

I got a little active one
going right here.

Come on, boy.
You can get up.
There we go.

Second one coming up.

So, you might as well
call me the worm whisperer.

I can call them
out of the ground.

[narrator] Wallace's
experiment shows

that worms do respond
to electrical
or magnetic fields.

But his worms don't form
the mysterious-looking circle

seen in the footage
from New Jersey.

[narrator]
Biologist Leslie Samuel
finds other animals

that run rings
around each other.

[Samuel] Army ants
will form death spirals.

When a group of ants
become separated
from the main column,

they lose
the pheromone track.

So, instead,
each ant follows
the one in front

in a never-ending circle.

They can just keep
going and going

until, eventually,
they die of exhaustion.

[narrator]
Other animals form
circular formations

for mutual protection.

Female elephants
will actually circle around
a mother giving birth

to protect her
from lions and hyenas.

[Bondar]
Reindeer herds will run

in these incredible, round,
cyclone formations.

And this is
a good strategy for them,

because a predator
can't really keep its eye
on any one individual.

Are these worms
reacting to a predator?

[narrator] Kasky suspects
he can see a purpose behind
the weird wormnado.

It looks like
one large animal.

The bird's gonna
look at 'em and go,
"Oh, I'm not eating that.

That's way too much."

[narrator]
Creatures great and small

sometimes find
safety in numbers.

There are loads
of critters out there

that love to make
their lunch out of worms.

So, it's a worm-eat-worm
world,

and they've got to do
what they can to survive.

[narrator] Now...

the South East Asian
island nation of Singapore.

March 2006.

In the middle of the night,
two soldiers are on guard duty
at a check post.

One is idly filming
on his cell phone.

[Morgan] I like how this guy,
the Singapore soldier,

is throwing up
this westside sign.

Soldiers doing
what soldiers do best,
killing time,

trying to deal
with absolute boredom
at a checkpoint.

[soldier] Full moon.

[narrator] Suddenly,
the silence of the
moonlit night is shattered.

-[woman shrieking]
-[solider speaking
other language]

What is that noise?

[Tracy Walder]
There seems to be,
kind of, a shriek,

or cackling,
like a witch's cackle.

[soldiers speaking
other language]

These soldiers,
these guys with guns,
they're freaking out.

-[narrator] Then...
-[soldiers speaking
other language]

Oh, my God.
What is that?

Whoa!

[soldiers screaming]

[narrator]
A phantom-like intruder
appears out of the darkness.

Is that thing floating?
Looks like it's floating.

Looks like
a pointy-headed ghost.

What is this? What?

[soldiers speaking frantically
in other language]

This has scared these guys
half to death.

[soldiers screaming]

[Craig Gottlieb]
Those guys are terrified.

I mean, they've got guns,
and they're terrified.

[Morgan]
There was nothing there
a second ago,

and then he's back,
and this apparition appears.

[exclaims]
That's actually spooky.

Look, here's
a serious question.
What is that?

[narrator] Coming up...

What's eating
these war recruits?

As the pontianak strikes,

she uses these claw-like nails
to tear out the stomach.

[narrator] In Singapore,

soldiers on night watch
during a full moon

are terrified
by an apparently
spectral apparition.

[soldiers screaming]

[narrator]
Singapore is a tiny nation

of just over
five million people,

surrounded by
much bigger countries.

[speaking other language]

[narrator] All male
citizens over 18 must serve

two years
of national service.

Military historian
Craig Gottlieb

notices that the soldiers
in the footage appear
to be very young.

Maybe even fresh recruits,

doing their basic training
on Pulau Tekong island.

[Gottlieb] Men in Singapore
who get drafted
to the National Guard,

they train
on this island,

which is known to be
one of the most
haunted islands

in the entire area.

[narrator] The island
of Pulau Tekong used to be
home to some 8,000 people

until 1987,

when the military
took over and relocated
the civilian population.

So, pre-military,
there was a shrine.

So, when you got
to the island,

you'd leave an offering
to appease the spirits there.

Well, the military takes over,
they abandon the shrine.

No offering,
angry spirits.

[narrator] Today,
all civilian access
is restricted.

And the island
serves exclusively

as a military training area
for new recruits.

[speaking other language]

[narrator] But that hasn't
stopped terrifying tales
from leaking out.

Some of the recruits
have reported,

some of the officers
that train them have been seen

walking around the island,

leaving little offerings
in places

where paranormal activity
is said to have occurred.

[narrator]
One story from Pulau

concerns a soldier
who went missing

during a training march
through the jungle.

When his comrades
conduct a search,

they find his body
hanging from a tree.

His internal organs
have been torn
out of his belly,

and arranged
neatly on the ground,

next to his corpse.

To impressionable
young recruits,

it could be the work
of a terrifying spirit,

known as the pontianak.

Legends say that
the pontianak first appears
as a very beautiful woman.

Graceful, pale skin,
long, black hair.

Long fingernails,
which is a sign of beauty
in South East Asia.

And wearing a white robe.

As the pontianak strikes,

she uses these
claw-like nails
to tear out your stomach,

to rip out your viscera

so that she can eat
your intestines.

Legends say that
she turns up
only at full moon,

which tallies with
the footage we see.

-[woman shrieking]
-[soldiers speaking
other language]

[narrator] No wonder
these soldiers are terrified.

So, think about it.

You've got a lot of young guys
who've never been out
of their village.

They get drafted into
the Singaporean
National Guard.

They travel to Pulau,

rumored to be
the most haunted island
in the area.

It's a recipe
for paranoia.

[soldiers screaming]

[narrator] But this
specter in the footage

isn't a figment
of the recruits'
over active imaginations.

Martin Morgan looks
at the history of Singapore,

and wonders if this footage
could show

the state deliberately scaring
its own citizens.

This is a country where
people are, sort of,
terrified into

being orderly members
of society.

[narrator] Singapore
was founded in 1819,

and became rich
from trading pepper
and rubber.

Today, it's one of
the wealthiest places
in the world.

One in every six people here
is a millionaire.

But citizenship
comes at a price

many in the West
would find unbearable.

So, to an outsider,
Singapore looks perfect.

It's nice and clean,

the crime rate
is incredibly low.

But how they do that
is that they rule
with an iron fist.

They're very,
very controlling.

There are rules and laws
covering almost everything.

You can't chew gum in public,

you can't feed pigeons,

you can't even walk around
in your own home naked.

[Walder]
Singapore is known
for having

one of the toughest
penal codes, really,
in the world.

You can be caned for
seemingly mundane offences,

all the way
to the death penalty
for drug trafficking.

Is it possible that
the authorities use
people's fear

of the supernatural
to keep them under control?

[narrator]
Investigators wonder

if this could be an unorthodox
training scenario.

[soldier speaking
other language]

Could this be an elaborate
military experiment

to see how soldiers
react to fear?

[soldier screaming]

[narrator]
Fear is a natural reaction

to any
life-threatening situation.

And overcoming
that fear is vital

to performing as a soldier.

In the US,
military training is designed

to inoculate troops
against terror.

[Walder]
It's not difficult
to train someone

in, you know,
how to shoot a gun

or how to participate
in combat.

However, it's really difficult
to train someone

in how to respond
psychologically
and emotionally to fear.

For example, at the FBI,
they have a mock city

that's called
Hogan's Alley.

[narrator] Hogan's Alley
covers ten acres

at the FBI Academy
in Quantico, Virginia.

Dubbed the most
crime-ridden town in America,

the bank here is robbed
two to five times per week.

The FBI consulted
with Hollywood set designers

to create this
authentic-looking
urban training center,

where recruits' reactions
to a variety

of deadly
real-life scenarios
are tested.

[Walder]
The whole point of that
is to expose you

to different situations
that you have to deal with
every single day.

So, I think a country
that is highly superstitious,

that has legends
that have been handed down
for generations,

I don't think it would be
out of the realm
of possibility

for supervisors
to use that,

um, on soldiers,
during their training,

to try to invoke fear
out of them.

It could be that
the senior drill instructors
on the island

know good and well
that they can use the island's
ghostly reputation

to make the troops shape up
and pay a little bit
closer attention.

[narrator] With the island
being closed
to civilian investigators,

we cannot be sure
what strange creature
is appearing in the footage.

[Gottlieb] All I gotta say is,
if I was a soldier
on post here,

I would literally
be freaking out,
running the other way.

[soldiers screaming]