Original subtitles

[mysterious music]

- Tonight, legendary tales of beasts so terrifying

they've generated stories told for thousands of years.

- What's absolutely fascinating

is that almost every culture on Earth

has stories of demons, and devils, and hellish beasts.

- [Dennis] From giant creatures able to swallow humans alive...

- Jonah spends the next three days and nights

in the belly of this beast, praying to God for deliverance.

- To monsters of the deep

that attack both ships and sailors.

- It's said to roam the deepest oceans,

and it can take down entire ships in one fell swoop.

- To a fallen angel who exemplifies evil.

- Satan wants to populate hell

by drawing humanity into sin

so that they will also be trapped there for eternity.

- Is it possible these accounts

are more than just cautionary tales?

- Pope Francis said,

"There is no shadow of a doubt a battle exists

in which the eternal salvation of us all is at stake."

- Many believe that mayhem happens

when dark beasts are unleashed.

These are some of the stories.

[dramatic music]

- They're known today as an army of evil beings

sent to torment humans,

unholy creatures who are both feared and loathed.

Almost every culture has its own version.

But they share one trait, malevolence.

[tense music]

- Demons may be the most famous religious monsters we have.

They can shapeshift to deceive humans,

they can trick people into worshiping them,

and they can inflict physical torture.

- These are evil spirits usually in league with the devil.

They're out to do the devil's work.

This is a very modern conception of the word demon.

- [Dennis] Surprisingly, demons haven't always been depicted

as bad.

- We get the word "demon" from the ancient Greeks.

Their word daemon originally refers to

all kinds of different spirits that interact with people.

Daemones could do bad things,

but often instead they would guide people,

provide wisdom, even protect them.

- Socrates famously claims that he had his own daemon

that inspired some of his famous writings,

acting more like a divine guide

than a demon in the modern sense.

- [Dennis] Other civilizations have similar stories.

- In ancient Mesopotamia,

beings called utukku could bring sickness or even death.

But the Mesopotamians also believed in protective spirits

that could counteract these bad ones.

And then in Egypt, you have a character named Bes,

who's a dwarf-like protector demon

who actually scares away evil spirits.

- In Islamic mythology,

there are these invisible demons called djinn.

And they can take the form of either humans or animals.

They originate from this smokeless fire

existing in this parallel world.

Djinn are neither inherently good or evil.

They can be malevolent, benevolent.

They can be mischievous.

- [Dennis] In Europe at least, that all changes

by the time the King James Bible is published in 1611.

Written under royal supervision by 47 scholars,

this new version attempts to remove inaccuracies

in earlier translations from Hebrew.

It also advances a new and frightening definition

of demon behavior.

- So after this translation of the Bible,

demons are everywhere in the New Testament.

Suddenly Satan's forces are causing physical illnesses,

like the inability to walk, the inability to see,

the inability to speak.

And they're actually causing demonic possession.

- [Dennis] Possession is when an evil or dark spirit

allegedly takes over someone without their consent.

The King James Bible counts several instances

of this phenomenon, most famously involving Jesus.

- Jesus himself encounters demons dozens of times

in the Gospels.

And in fact, one of the most famous stories

is retold in Matthew, Mark, and Luke.

Jesus and his disciples meet a guy who's possessed.

He's been cutting himself with stones,

running around naked, and nobody can control him,

Not even with chains, he just breaks free.

The people in the area are terrified of him.

- When the man sees Jesus, he immediately starts yelling.

But it's not really him speaking,

it's the demons inside him.

- Jesus asked the demon, "What is your name?"

And the man responds with,

"My name is Legion, for we are many."

Now, remember, Roman military

would have about 5,000 for a legion,

so there's like a whole lot of demons in this man.

- Jesus, being the Son of God, scares the demons off

and the man is totally transformed.

He finally puts his clothes on

and he is back in his right mind again.

- This is one of several stories of Jesus casting out demons.

And these kinds of tales have a huge influence.

Scholars begin writing many books

about how to identify demons, how to avoid demons,

how to combat demons.

- [Dennis] Eventually, the Catholic church

compiles all this research into an official handbook in 1614

called the "Roman Ritual."

- It lists some signs of possession,

which include superhuman strength, knowledge of events

or people the person possessed couldn't have known about,

and speaking in unknown languages.

- [Dennis] It also suggests the best way

to get rid of demons, exorcisms.

- There's a very detailed, step-by-step process

to an official exorcism.

First, you have to identify that there is actually a demon

because it will try to hide itself.

Plus, you don't wanna mistake a medical condition

for demonic possession.

- [Dennis] Over the years,

religious figures have performed thousands of exorcisms,

including one that inspires Hollywood.

- One of the most famous cases in America happens in 1949

with this teenage boy in Maryland,

who the Catholic church has identified

by the pseudonym Robbie Mannheim.

Robbie begins exhibiting strange behavior.

He is throwing tantrums.

Disturbingly, people reported seeing objects

and even furniture moving around the room by itself.

- When psychologists can't explain his behavior,

priests are called in.

- Father William S. Bowdern leads an exorcism

with several other clergymen.

Spontaneously, scratched words like evil and hell

appears on the boy's body.

He starts speaking in Latin

despite not knowing the language.

All of this is evidence for the priests

that powerful demons are inside of Robbie.

- Once the demon is identified,

a process called the clash begins.

The priest conducting the exorcism

wages a spiritual battle,

including certain prayers, and chants,

or tools like rosaries, or crucifixes, or holy water.

And if the exorcist is successful,

the demon is expelled.

- It actually took a second round of exorcisms

to fully rid Robbie of this demonic possession.

During a second exorcism,

he even slipped out of his restraints

and broke one of the priest's nose.

Ultimately, the exorcism was declared a success

and Robbie went on to live a fairly normal life.

- The Robbie Manheim exorcism

actually inspires the famous novel

and later Hollywood movie, "The Exorcist."

- [Dennis] It's a ritual Catholic priests

still practice today.

- The exorcism guidelines were revised in 1999,

but they remain fairly close to the 1614 version.

- The demand for exorcisms

has actually increased in recent years

due to the rise of secularism, they say,

and occult practices which the church believes

opens people up to demonic influences.

- [Dennis] And Catholicism isn't the only religion

that casts out demons.

- Jews, and Christians, and Muslims believe that exorcism

is a serious and sacred right,

a desperate attempt to save a soul.

- As frightening as demons are,

many serve the most terrifying evil creature of all, Satan.

[ominous music]

- If you look up Satan or the devil on the internet,

you'll probably pull up images of a red monster

with horns and wings, maybe carrying a pitchfork.

That's a picture that's become iconic not only in religion

but across pop culture as well.

- Outside of God and Jesus,

Satan is arguably the most recognizable figure

in Christianity.

Satan is the personification of pure evil.

- In the Christian tradition,

Satan is a beautiful angel named Lucifer

who rebels against God

and leads a third of the angels with him in a war in heaven

and is defeated and is cast down into hell.

Even in hell, Satan doesn't learn his lesson

and wants to populate hell by drawing humanity into sin

so that they will also be trapped there for eternity.

so that they will also be trapped there for eternity.

- [Dennis] While this is the devil we've come to know,

he didn't start out that way.

- For centuries, one name has evoked fear,

fascination, and debate: Satan.

But who is this figure?

And how did he come to embody everything we fear

about darkness and temptation?

- The term Satan comes from the Hebrew word Ha-Satan,

which actually means "the accuser" or "the adversary."

The word appears more than 20 times in the Old Testament,

referring to a being dispatched by God

as an instrument of judgment.

- The first instance of the term Ha-Satan

occurs in the Book of Numbers,

when God sends a Satan

to confront the greedy prophet Balaam

who's planning to curse the Israelites.

And this Satan actually acts as a kind of employee of God.

He's under his command.

- Ha-Satan's role as an instrument of God's judgment

is further established in the Book of Job.

Satan and God are having this conversation about Job.

Job is a man whose favored by God for his righteousness.

Satan starts questioning Job's integrity,

saying that Job is only good

because God has given him such good fortune.

It's not because of Job's great faith in God.

- So there's a bet between God and Satan

about how far Job can be pushed before he renounces God.

And Satan is given permission to destroy Job's family,

his property, inflict all kinds of illnesses

and pain on his body.

- And if you've read the Bible,

you know that in the face of losing everything he has,

Job actually doubles down on his faith in God,

proving Satan wrong.

- [Dennis] In later books of the Old Testament,

Satan begins to transform.

- Satan eventually becomes so enamored

with his own greatness, and beauty, and power,

that he decides he is the one that should be worshiped

and not God.

- And this all leads up to the Book of Isaiah,

when we finally hear the familiar tale

of a former angel called Lucifer who is cast out of heaven

for aspiring to be even more powerful than God.

- He's said to be banished by God to the, quote,

"lowest depths of the pit."

- But even in this story,

he's still not the kind of powerful evil force

that we think of him today.

He's actually powerless

because God has complete authority over him.

- The reason is that a lot of the Old Testament

is written by Israelite Jewish authors

for an audience of Israelite Jewish readers.

And they really don't have a concept of Satan

as this independent entity that could stand up to God.

That would fly in the face

of everything they believe about God,

that he is all powerful and stands alone.

- [Dennis] That changes in the New Testament.

- In the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke,

we start seeing a darker, stronger,

and more independent side to Satan.

In Matthew, Satan tries to tempt Jesus in the wilderness,

offering worldly power in exchange for worshiping him.

And it seems like Satan is doing this

without God's authorization.

- Now, we see Satan in this role as a tempter

and as a corrupter, trying to lure people away from God,

even God's own son.

- From there, it gets worse.

The Gospels describe Satan causing illnesses,

including fever, and leprosy, and even arthritis.

And his main goal is to turn humankind toward evil.

- By the time you get to the Book of Revelation,

Satan's transformation is complete,

into a full fledged evil enemy of God,

and he has a whole new look.

He takes the form of a great red dragon with seven heads,

10 horns, and a massive tail.

He eventually wages war against the righteous and loses,

getting cast into a lake of fire to die.

- [Dennis] By the fifth century AD, thanks to the writing

of influential theologians like St. Augustine,

the concept of the devil as pure evil is set.

- He's given ominous names, like Samael and Beelzebub.

And he's retroactively associated

with all kinds of evil acts in the Bible.

Soon, writers are offering whole new interpretations

of Bible passages, especially the Book of Genesis.

And they now suggest that Satan was present

in the story of the Garden of Eden.

- We have the snake who tempts Adam and Eve

with the apple of knowledge.

So that snake, for so many Christians, is now Satan.

- And as this re-imagining of the devil

is happening in the fifth century,

Christianity is spreading like wildfire throughout Europe.

So this is a version of Satan that spreads along with it.

- And then, Europe hits the Dark Ages

between the 5th and 10th centuries.

Living conditions for most people at this time

are quite bleak, and people are more than willing

to blame Satan for everything bad that's going on.

- [Dennis] But something surprising happens

around the 14th century.

- After 900 years or so of Satan being the most feared

and despised creature in existence,

people do a 180 on him.

He becomes a joke.

- During this time, we do start to see images in art

of Satan with his horns, cloven hooves, tail, and pitchfork.

But it's not done to make Satan look scary.

It's done to make him look ridiculous.

- [Dennis] In 1260, Satan is featured

in a medieval bestseller called "The Golden Legend."

- "The Golden Legend" is this compilation

of encounters between the saints and Satan.

It's almost like Wile E. the Coyote versus the Road Runner.

It's an endless tale of back and forth

in which Satan is duped and fooled by the saints.

More copies of "The Golden Legend"

survive from the Middle Ages, more than the Bible,

more than any other book.

It was that popular.

- Even in Catholic writer Dante Alighieri's famous work,

"Inferno," which is written during the early 1300s,

Satan isn't frightening.

Instead, he's portrayed as a once powerful demon

that's been reduced to a grotesque, weak, silent creature

who suffers the same punishments as all other sinners.

- [Dennis] Then, a devastating period in history

renews Satan's fierce reputation.

He is blamed for causing the infamous Black Death.

- One of the most eventful things to happen

to medieval Europe was various plagues around the 1300s.

The Black Death was said to have killed

almost a third of the population of Europe.

- In the wake of the plague,

people are praying to the church,

protect us from the evil that Satan has unleashed upon us.

By the time that the first wave of the Black Death has ended,

this age-old fear of the devil is once again ascendant.

In places like England

that were hit especially hard by the plague,

Christian sects begin to form

with the goal of living as pious a life as possible

to escape the wrath of Satan.

- [Dennis] The Puritans bring this view to the new world.

- They come from England when the panic around Satan

is in full swing.

And they settle in New England

and they start seeing Satan everywhere around them.

These are extremely religious people

who move to an unfamiliar wilderness.

There are strange beasts all around them.

Wolves had gone extinct in England by the 1500s,

and their wild nighttime howling

is freaking out the Puritans,

who believe that these wolves are in league with the devil.

- John Winthrop, the first governor

of the Massachusetts Bay Colony,

claims that the devil made rebellious Puritan women

give birth to stillborn monsters with claws and sharp horns.

Other Puritans write that the Native Americans

are worshipers of Satan

and describe them as, quote, "children of the devil."

Some settlers even claim to have seen Satan in the flesh

at Native American ceremonies.

- [Dennis] The fear of Satan is so overwhelming

that in 1692, the Massachusetts colony

executes 19 people believed to comport with the devil.

Known as the Salem witch trials,

these tribunals eventually launch endless books,

plays, and movies.

- Ever since the tragic events of the witch trials,

the idea of an evil Satan, a beast unleashed on mankind,

has remained firmly rooted in literature and pop culture.

- All you have to do

is turn on your television or your radio

or log into your favorite social media site

and you're going to find depictions of hell.

You're gonna find the devil and his minions

running around with their pitchforks.

You're gonna find fire, flames, darkness, brimstone,

all of these catastrophic,

eternal punishments raining down.

- [Dennis] According to a recent poll,

41% of people worldwide believe in a literal devil.

- In October of 2013, Pope Francis said,

"There is no shadow of a doubt a battle exists,

a battle in which the eternal salvation of us all

is at stake."

- Not every legendary monster is a fallen angel

or a dark spirit with evil intent.

Some biblical beasts are allegedly

unleashed by God himself.

But is there evidence that any are real?

- In the beginning, God creates the heavens and the earth,

Adam and Eve, the Garden of Eden.

He also creates all the animals.

And apparently, one of them

is a real, honest to goodness monster.

[tense music]

- It's in the Book of Job

that we get this terrifying introduction

to this beast known as the Leviathan,

a massive sea creature that God himself creates

on the fifth day of creation.

It has scales, it has teeth, it is huge,

it has this massive tail, and it breathes fire,

just like the giant dragon in "Game of Thrones."

- [Dennis] The Leviathan is portrayed as a beast

no human can subdue.

- In one account in Job, of Leviathan's power,

when a group of warriors is crossing the sea,

the beast rises up.

The very sight of it terrifies these mighty men

to the point that they're absolutely beside themselves

with despair.

It doesn't matter what weapons they try to use,

swords and spears, arrows, slings, stones,

they're all powerless against Leviathan.

- [Dennis] Remarkably, tales of scary sea monsters

are not unique to the Bible.

- The Leviathan shares similarities

with several other monsters that predate the Bible

across multiple ancient cultures,

like the hydra in Greek mythology.

This legendary creature

is a giant sea snake with nine heads,

which represents the idea of evil and danger.

- In Egyptian mythology, we have a creature called Apep,

who is described as either a serpent or a dragon

that also is invincible

and has stone-like scales protecting its skin.

- The Babylonians also have a primordial sea goddess

named Tiamat,

who's often depicted as a chaotic sea monster

that's beaten down by a God,

kind of similar to how only God

can kill Leviathan in the Bible.

- If all these religions across thousands of years

describe a similar monstrous beast,

maybe it was inspired by something they all saw.

- [Dennis] One of the ancient world's best known authors

writes about such a beast around 77 AD.

- In his book "Natural History,"

the famous Roman naturalist and philosopher Pliny the Elder

describes the bones of a monster

put on display in Rome's largest theater.

[dramatic music]

This beast is said to be over 40 feet long,

with each rib taller than an elephant,

and the bones of its spine one and a half feet thick.

We should note that the skeleton

was actually found near Judea,

which is the same area where the Bible's Book of Job

was probably written.

- Pliny the Elder goes on to describe the discovery

of other larger than life animals,

including a washed up carcass with 120 teeth

that are each six to nine inches long.

These finds confirm that the geographical region

around the Mediterranean, the Middle East,

have been home to some big creatures.

- The bones haven't survived

and the physical descriptions are too vague

to classify these animals.

But here's the thing about unidentified species.

They don't always stay unidentified.

In 1719, Robert Darwin,

the great-grandfather of Charles Darwin,

contacts the Royal Society of London, a group of scientists,

with an unusual find

that sounds a lot like what they had on display in Rome.

He's located a rock that has strange bones embedded in it.

- At the time, they can't figure out what it is,

but today we know it's part of a Plesiosaur skeleton.

Plesiosaurs are large marine reptiles

that went extinct about 66 million years ago.

They're known to grow up to 50 feet in length.

They have long necks and flippered bodies

that give them a serpent-like or dragon-like appearance.

- Some historians believe

that the so-called monster bones found in Rome and Greece

were from prehistoric reptiles,

plesiosaurs, dinosaurs, you name it.

Today we know of many scary extinct species

with terrifying teeth and massive size.

- From the time that the Bible was written

all the way up until the 19th century,

discoveries like this

were thought to be from unknown monsters.

It isn't until 1822 that a fossil is identified

as an ancient extinct reptile species.

And it's not until 1842

that this category of dinosaur is named.

- [Dennis] Whether humans feared a real creature

or a metaphorical one,

the legend of the Leviathan lives on.

- The word Leviathan has become synonymous

with anything that is gigantic and formidable.

- Marvel comics borrowed the name Leviathan

for an evil, powerful government organization.

The name has also lent itself

to roller coasters and video games.

It's even become a catchphrase in politics,

used as a metaphor for governments

that wield absolute control.

- In the end, no matter the source,

that's most definitely what the authors of the Bible

were going for when they wrote about the Leviathan,

the symbolism, the power of God,

the recklessness of chaos,

and the fear of the unknown

lurking beneath the depths.

- In legends shared around the globe,

deities unleash all kinds of beasts against humans,

from dragons, to huge creatures called behemoths,

to sea monsters like the Leviathan.

Among the most famous is the tale of one small human

and a mighty whale.

Is it possible this story is true?

- You've probably heard the story of Jonah.

A guy gets swallowed by a whale,

lives in its stomach for three days, and then gets spit out.

It sounds terrifying.

What must this guy have done to deserve such a punishment?

But as we learn from the Book of Jonah,

it's not actually a punishment, it's his salvation.

- According to the Bible, Jonah's story begins

with a command from God

that he travel to the city of Nineveh

and warn the people to repent from their evil deeds.

But Jonah is hesitant

because he's not a big fan of these Ninevites,

and he's afraid that the people will listen.

So instead of following God's command,

Jonah flees in the opposite direction.

- Jonah gets on a boat,

and almost immediately, this intense storm hits.

Jonah has told the sailors that he's fleeing God's orders,

so they think the storm is his fault.

So the sailors throw Jonah overboard,

hoping to calm the waters.

- [Dennis] As it turns out, God has other plans.

- God sends this large fish,

who swallows Jonah whole to save him from drowning,

not to devour him.

Jonah doesn't know what's going on though,

so he spends the next three days and nights

in the belly of this beast, praying to God for deliverance,

repenting for his mistake.

- God wasn't trying to kill Jonah anyway,

but he appreciates the prayers

and has the fish vomit him up onto dry land.

Jonah finally travels to Nineveh

and follows through on his mission.

He delivers God's message of repentance.

The people of Nineveh heed his warning,

and the entire city is saved from the power of God's wrath.

- Now here's the first thing

you might not know about the story.

The Bible never says God sends a whale.

The original Hebrew text says that God sends a "dag gadol,"

meaning large fish.

No species is mentioned,

and it's definitely not called a whale.

- [Dennis] So when and how does the fish become a whale?

- Some people think that

an English biblical scholar named William Tyndale

is responsible.

In 1534, he publishes a translation of the Bible

working from manuscripts written in both Greek and Latin

but not the original Hebrew.

Tyndale uses the words ketos and cetis,

translating these to mean whale.

To this day, the study of whales is called cetology.

- So the word whale

gets into Tyndale's 1611 King James version of the Bible,

which in turn cemented the whale

as the beast who swallowed Jonah.

- [Dennis] Whether a fish or a whale,

some scientists wonder what could be big enough

to swallow a person.

- There are several possibilities of whale.

Of course the biggest ones are blue whales,

thought to be the largest animals

that have ever existed on Earth.

But their throats are too narrow.

They would choke on a human.

- Sperm whales have large enough throats,

but their stomachs are full of methane, not air.

Some even say, well, what if it's a whale shark?

It's a fish that feeds by opening its huge mouth

and swallowing whatever it can hold,

but they're a little too small.

There really is no animal

that fits the biblical description perfectly.

And there aren't too many stories

of people being swallowed by sea creatures to compare with.

- [Dennis] That is, until just a few years ago,

when a routine dive in Cape Cod takes a bizarre turn.

- On June 11th, 2021, a man named Michael Packard

is diving for lobsters off Cape Cod,

about 40 feet below the surface of the ocean,

when something swallows him whole.

- His world goes black.

At first, Michael is thinking

that he was struck by a great white,

but as he begins to feel around

and realizes that he's still in one piece

and he's not surrounded by razor sharp teeth,

he starts to rethink his situation.

- About 40 seconds later,

a member of his crew is on the boat

and he sees a giant sea creature emerge from the ocean.

It turns out to be a humpback whale,

and he just spits out Packard back into the sea.

Packard is rushed to the hospital

with some minor soft tissue damage,

but he's got an incredible story.

And he even goes on Jimmy Kimmel to retell his tale.

There are plenty of news articles about it

and most of them reference Jonah and the whale.

- Humpback whales have occasionally rammed into boats

or people.

They just don't usually swallow people whole.

But hey, it happened at least once,

even though Packard wasn't in there

for three days and nights.

- [Dennis] Despite being a short story

in a very short book of the Bible,

Jonah and the whale has had significant cultural influence.

- The story of Jonah and the whale

has inspired numerous pieces of art and culture.

He appears in Michelangelo's work "The Prophet Jonah,"

which now graces the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

He inspired Rembrandt to paint portraits of him.

Authors like Herman Melville penned their famous novels

with direct inspiration from the story of Jonah itself.

Even "Pinocchio" from Disney

features a massive whale named Monstro,

which is a direct reference to the story of Jonah.

- Jonah's story is

more than just a miraculous survival tale.

It's about human flaws, second chances,

and the idea that God's mercy is available to all

no matter how undeserving they may seem.

- Metaphorically, the whale,

or the big fish, or whatever it is

is less about the creature itself

and more about transformation.

Jonah goes from defiance to repentance,

from despair to redemption,

all within the belly of the beast.

- Much of what lurks deep in the ocean remains a mystery,

but one creature

has been feared by sailors worldwide for centuries.

- The Kraken is a legendary water beast

of monstrous proportions

that's believed to have this huge head

and multiple arms or tentacles.

It's said to roam the deepest oceans,

and it can take down entire ships in one fell swoop.

- Today, the kraken is a pop culture icon.

It's in the "Pirates of the Caribbean" films,

several novels, including John Wyndham's "The Kraken Wakes,"

and it's even the name of Seattle's NHL team.

- [Dennis] The earliest recorded stories

date back about 800 years.

- There's a Norwegian text called "The King's Mirror"

from the mid-13th century

which is essentially a sacred guidebook

for the king to pass on knowledge to his son.

And it includes a catalog of sea creatures

that sailors might encounter in the North Atlantic Ocean.

- In this catalog of sea creatures,

there is a description of a monster that is so massive,

it is sometimes mistaken for an island.

And it has the ability to create whirlpools

that it uses to swallow sea creatures whole.

- Around the same time, another saga emerges

where a Viking hero encounters a giant sea monster

called the Hafgufa.

It's similarly described as a massive creature

that can consume ships and whales whole

and is often mistaken for a reef or a small island

before it strikes.

- Even though this creature has a different name,

they sound a lot alike.

- [Dennis] Tales of the beast spread for 500 years

before it gets its famous name.

- In 1752, a Scandinavian bishop named Erik Pontoppidan

publishes "The Natural History of Norway."

And in it, we find the first ever use that we know of

of the term "kraken."

- This book comes out at just the right time

in the history of science.

This is a period where scientists are very interested

in cataloging and identifying different types of animals.

He describes the same creature from older religious myths,

with massive size, long tentacles,

and this frightening reputation.

- If you look up the word kraken

in the Norwegian dictionary today,

it derives from the root word krake,

which means an overgrown crooked tree.

And this makes sense if the beast

is supposed to have several snaking arms,

like the many branches of a tree, as the bishop describes.

- In 1801, we get an illustration

drawn by a French naturalist named Pierre Denys Montfort.

And he names this illustration "Colossal Octopus."

And it depicts this giant octopus-like beast

surrounding a ship,

and it's about to pull it down into the ocean.

- He also refers to historically known attacks in 1782,

where 10 warships were lost at sea

and this was largely attributed to a kraken.

- So at this point, what do we have

with descriptions of the kraken?

We have these stories and we have this illustration.

And around this time, scientists are dissecting sperm whales

and studying the contents of their stomachs,

and sometimes these large tentacles are found.

But still, there isn't any direct proof

of the Kraken's existence or what it is.

- [Dennis] All that changes one day in the 19th century

when a group of sailors come face to face

with what they believe is the mythical beast.

- In 1861, a French ship sailing in the Canary Islands

encounter what they think fits the description of a kraken.

They're very eager to capture this

and bring it back to the scientific community

to prove that the kraken exists.

- So the captain orders them to fire on the creature

and try to capture it.

They fire muskets, they launch harpoons,

and they try to ensnare it with a noose.

The bullets have little effect

on the creature's rubbery body,

but the sailors do manage to get this noose around it.

- The problem is the animal is so heavy,

they can't just haul it onto their ship.

Just as it manages to escape the sailors' grasp,

a piece of its body they refer to as its tail

is torn off and brought aboard with the ropes.

You can imagine the sailors are disappointed, of course,

that they're unable to catch a live kraken.

- [Dennis] But it's enough to ignite tales

of the terrifying kraken for generations to come.

- Following an 1861 encounter between a French ship

and a huge sea beast near the Canary Islands,

interest in a monster known as the Kraken

reaches a fever pitch.

[suspenseful music]

- The stories of the sailors who do encounter a kraken

basically do the modern equivalent of going viral.

The existence of a frightening, unidentified, giant squid

doesn't just inspire scientists,

it inspires the public worldwide.

- From this point, the Kraken and the giant squid

are forever linked,

and articles begin to describe them

as one and the same thing.

This eventually leads

to several other popular works of literature.

- Victor Hugo writes about the Kraken around 1866,

and then in 1870, Jules Verne comes along

and makes it infamous

with his "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea."

In it, an unnamed giant squid becomes locked in a battle

with Captain Nemo's submarine, the Nautilus.

- So at this point, people are really excited

about the Kraken,

but the scientific community is not ready to concede

that the giant squid actually exists.

- [Dennis] From here, face offs where the sea beasts

become increasingly rare over the next century.

- Sometimes, a large squid or part of a squid

will wash ashore or a tentacle end up in a fisherman's net.

These events are highly publicized,

and this is part of what keeps the Kraken's legend

in modern consciousness.

- Throughout the 1980s and '90s,

there are these scientific expeditions

searching for these giant squid

that they believe are out there, but they haven't found it.

- [Dennis] In 2004, the mystery surrounding the Kraken

begins to unravel when two important things happen.

- A Japanese research team is able to photograph

a live giant squid in its natural habitat

off the coast of the Ogasawara Islands south of Tokyo,

and a 28-foot-long giant squid

is caught off the coast of the Falkland Islands

and brought to the Natural History Museum in London

for examination.

- They name it Archie

and it is the most complete specimen

that we have ever found.

So finally, the giant squid

is acknowledged to be a real species.

- As of 2011, about 700 specimens

of giant squid had been collected,

mostly in the area around the North Atlantic.

And this is where the original Norse stories emerged.

Once again, all signs point to the giant squid

as the creature that inspired the legend.

- [Dennis] But there might be an even bigger possibility.

- In 2007, a fishing vessel called the San Aspiring

is searching for Chilean sea bass

off the coast of Antarctica, in the Ross Sea,

when something massive gets caught in their nets.

- It turns out to be an even bigger species of squid.

It's the largest known invertebrate on the planet,

and it's named the colossal squid.

It takes nine crew members two hours to drag it on board.

It's frozen and taken to a New Zealand museum

where it's still on display.

- So a giant squid can grow to about 45 feet

and weigh about 600 pounds.

The colossal squid is about the same length

but almost twice as massive,

estimated to reach up to 1,500 pounds or more

because of its bulky body and its thicker mantle.

- Both the giant and the colossal squids

have this massive central eye.

It's the largest eye in the animal kingdom.

And the colossal squid's eye is actually bigger

than the giant squid's eye, measuring over 12 inches.

- The average human eye is about one inch in diameter.

So if you came face to face with a colossal squid,

its eye would be about the size of your head.

It makes sense that encounters with these creatures

would make terrifying stories in ancient times.

- Could the colossal squid be the Kraken

or even some kind of super Kraken?

In 2023, a mission was launched to learn more about them

but came up empty handed.

Future expeditions are planned, and maybe one day

we'll be able to solve this mystery once and for all.

- Whether it's Satan or the Kraken,

these legendary beasts continue to fascinate

and frighten people everywhere.

I'm Dennis Quaid.

Thanks for watching "Holy Marvels."