All language subtitles for The UnBelievable with Dan Aykroyd s02e19 Strange Afflictions.eng

[Dan narrating]

[rhythmic music]

- Imagine an entire
town of people

who were born completely blue.

- [Paul] They all come
from the same family.

- Is this a punishment
for their inbreeding?

Nobody fully understands
what's going on.

- Or an outbreak of biting nuns?

- Prayers aren't working,
exorcisms aren't working.

Nothing is stopping
these possessions.

- And what's worse, other
nuns in other convents

have now started
biting each other,

without remorse.

- How about suffering from a
toothache the turns explosive?

- His ears are ringing

and his tooth is in
pieces on the floor.

- Anyone who has
even a mild toothache

starts to get
legitimately scared

because they don't know
if they're gonna be next.

- These are the
afflictions so strange

they can only be called

"Unbelievable."

[dramatic music]

When someone says
it runs in my blood,

it's generally a good thing.

But for the folks
of one small town,

their blood is the cause of
a truly bizarre condition

that gives everyone the blues.

- It's 1820, and a man
named Martin Fugate

leaves France for America.

He marries a woman
named Elizabeth,

and they move to the town of
Troublesome Creek, Kentucky.

- They start a family.

They have seven children.

Three of their children are
born perfectly healthy, normal.

The other four are blue.

- And I'm not talking a
slight pastel blue here.

They come out,
head to toe, blue.

- Now you have to remember,
this is an incredibly small town

in the mid-1800s, before
cars, before railroads,

and you have farmers living
on these vast tracts of land,

so there aren't exactly a lot
of dating options in the area.

- [Dan] After just
a few generations,

most of the people in
Troublesome Creek are now blue.

- By the mid-1900s,
the blue Fugates

become a target of mockery
in Troublesome Creek,

not just because they're blue

but because being blue is a sign

that they all come
from the same family.

- [Dan] As news spreads
about this unique town,

experts are baffled.

How do these people turn
blue in the first place?

- Is it a mutation?

Is it a curse from God?

Some people think
they might be aliens.

It's that bizarre.

- In 1962, two of the
Fugate descendants

decide that they
have had enough,

and they go looking for help.

And they turn to the
University of Kentucky,

where they find
Dr. Madison Cawein.

- [Dan] After running a
series of blood tests,

the doctor has the
unbelievable answer.

- It all traces back to
Martin and Elizabeth,

the very first two in the
family in Troublesome Creek.

- He thinks Martin and Elizabeth

had a very rare
recessive genetic trait

that leads to a condition
known as Methemoglobinemia.

- Methemoglobinemia
is a condition

where the oxygen molecules

are bound more tightly
to the hemoglobin,

leading to skin discoloration.

- [Dan] Recessive genes
often stay hidden.

But when two people
both have it,

like Elizabeth and Martin,

it increases the odds
for their children.

- And then because of the
inbreeding over the generations,

this gene persisted.

- This is a pretty
rare condition

where fewer than one in
a million individuals

have the recessive gene.

So in the case where
two individuals

have the same condition,
it's pretty incalculable.

- [Dan] In a
somewhat ironic turn,

Dr. Cawein treats them
with blue medicine.

- The doctor gives
them a compound

called methylene blue dye.

Now this dye helps red blood
cells to release oxygen

to tissues throughout the
body more effectively.

- [Dan] Shockingly, within hours
of ingesting the treatment,

the Fugates' blue
skin turns pink,

ending a century of trouble
in Troublesome Creek.

- Around the same time, the
population is growing rapidly,

people are moving in,
people are moving out.

They diversify the gene
pool in Troublesome Creek.

And today, you can say
that the blue Fugates

no longer have the blues.

- It's not easy being blue,

but there's another
type of blood disorder

that really sucks.

- Tales of vampires stalking
their prey in the dead of night

go back for centuries.

Some say that the legend
began in Serbia in 1732

after a soldier by the
name of Arnold Paole

goes on a killing spree
and kills 11 people

after he dies.

- Others believe it
goes back even further,

to ancient Mesopotamia.

But by the time we get to
Bram Stoker's "Dracula,"

vampire folklore
is in full swing.

[ominous music]

- [Dan] This gets the
medical community thinking.

Could tales of these
blood thirsty demons

be inspired by something real?

- In 1871, a German physiologist

writes the first paper on
what is called porphyria.

- Porphyria is a disease

that basically makes it
hard for your blood cells

to carry oxygen around.

And since nearly everything
in your body requires oxygen,

it can cause problems
with just about anything.

- [Dan] It's a
fascinating discovery

but doesn't gain traction
until a hundred years later

when Dr. David Dolphin
digs a little deeper.

- He points out a very rare
type of porphyria, Type 1,

which is only found in about
one in a million people,

which if you have this
type of porphyria,

it presents symptoms that
look a lot like vampirism.

- People suffer from some
very unusual symptoms,

such as an extreme
sensitivity to light.

When they go out into the
sunlight, they can blister.

- They experience
receding of gums,

so that their teeth are exposed

in a way that could
seem fang-like.

- Another symptom is
that you urinate blood,

which could potentially mean

that you are out
here drinking blood.

- They have a profound
sensitivity to sulfur,

which is toxic to their system.

Which vegetable contains the
highest amount of sulfur?

None other than garlic.

[suspenseful music]

- The symptoms are so
similar that today,

porphyria is often referred
to as the vampire disease.

But folklore experts
are skeptical,

merely calling this
blood disease connection

nothing more than
mere coincidence,

claiming that they might
not have porphyria,

they might be
legitimate vampires.

- Having to avoid sunlight
would be challenging,

but it pales in comparison
to an affliction

that gives new meaning to
the phrase sweating blood.

- In 2017, a panicked,

totally freaked out
21-year-old woman

checks into a hospital in Italy.

[eerie music]

Her face and her hands are
completely covered in blood.

It's like a horror movie.

She says she has no injuries,
but the blood is hers.

- As insane as her story
sounds, two doctors,

Roberto Maglie and Marzia
Caproni, examine her.

And after they complete
their examination,

they realize, yes,
no cuts, no bruises,

but all the blood that
is on this woman's body

is her own blood.

So where is this blood
actually coming from?

- [Dan] The doctors discover
that she's not bleeding.

She's sweating blood.

- Stories of people
sweating blood

go as far back as the
third century BCE.

Aristotle describes
people sweating blood

through their own pores.

- Then in the 17th century,

a Belgian doctor
writes about a man

who, when he was
condemned to death,

sweated blood in this
frantic and heightened state.

- Even in the Bible,
in the Book of Luke,

there's a scene that's described

as Jesus starting to sweat blood

while he's praying in
the Garden of Gethsemane

right before the crucifixion.

- [Dan] But while historical
accounts of sweating blood

may have simply been
colorful language,

the woman in Italy is very real.

- So after the doctors
examine this woman,

they end up diagnosing her

with a condition
called hematohidrosis.

- This is an incredibly
rare condition.

I mean, there's only a handful

of confirmed cases in the world.

And almost everything
about it is a mystery.

- Some scientists
believe that the blood

is actually secreting
through the sweat glands.

Others believe that it secretes

through the follicles
or the pores,

but we just don't know.

- What's really interesting

is that it might explain
some cases of stigmata

that have been documented
throughout history

in which people spontaneously
have appear on them

the wounds that Christ
received on the cross.

- Others have suggested
that it's a curse,

but until we have a definitive
medical explanation,

there's not really anything
that we can rule out.

- The fact that we don't
understand what this really is

means there is also no cure.

The best they can do is offer
blood pressure medication,

which does reduce the
effect a little bit.

But at the end of the day,
she's still sweating blood.

[apprehensive music]

- Many of the strangest
afflictions come on suddenly,

like rashes or allergies

that seem to manifest
for no reason.

Usually it's caused
by some outside toxin

your body sees as a threat.

But for one woman,
her body is the toxin.

[siren blaring]
[rhythmic music]

- On the night of
February 19th, 1994,

a 31-year-old woman
named Gloria Ramirez

is rushed into a
California hospital.

She complains of a
shortness of breath

and heart palpitations.

So they rush her into the ER

and the staff uses
the defibrillator

to stabilize her heartbeat.

- They remove her shirt.

And when they do, they
notice that she's covered

in this oily sheen.

And they smell this awful
smell coming from her mouth,

not garlic, but the
smell of rotting garlic.

- As one of the nurses
starts taking a blood sample,

she notices yellowy
brown particles

floating in the syringe.

But then she gets an
overwhelming whiff of ammonia.

That's when she passes out.

- Then another nurse is
struck with intense nausea,

and she passes out cold too.

- [Don] More people
continue to drop.

Eventually we're down
to a skeleton crew

staying with Ramirez

while the entire wing of
the hospital is evacuated.

- 45 minutes after
arriving at the hospital,

Gloria Ramirez dies.

The doctor writes it
down as kidney failure,

but clearly that is
not the whole story.

- The entire staff is terrified.

23 people who were exposed
to this patient are sick.

Five of them are hospitalized.

One of them is in the
intensive care unit.

- And it gets even weirder.

A special team arrives in
hazmat suits to handle the body.

- They look for
hazardous materials.

They look for biohazards.

They can't find anything.

- So they seal the body
in an aluminum casket,

just to be safe, and transfer
her to the coroner's office.

- [Dan] What exactly
happened that night

and how did the toxic
lady become toxic?

- Six months before,

she was diagnosed with
terminal cervical cancer.

So, yes, that could
explain the kidney failure,

but all of the nurses
passing out around her,

the smell of ammonia, the rotten
garlic, none of it adds up.

- Officials conduct
three autopsies,

and after several months,

they close the case as simple
kidney and heart failure

brought on by her cancer.

And the coroner's office
chalks up the fainting nurses

to simply being overworked.

- [Dan] A federal
research lab is brought in

to take one more
look at the case.

What they present to
the coroner's office

a few months later
is, well, unbelievable.

- They believe
that Ramirez's body

was covered head to toe in DMSO.

- DMSO was put in many
products, typically a cream,

where you would
put it on your body

to cure basically
anything was the idea.

And some people thought that
you could actually cure cancer.

- By the late 1970s, however,
DMSO is labeled toxic.

- And by the '90s,
you could only get it

in its super-concentrated form,

a degreaser sold
in hardware stores.

- In large quantities
and concentrations,

DMSO can leak into the
bloodstream and become toxic.

And when exposed to electricity,

like with the defibrillator,

it can create a poisonous gas.

- [Dan] So case closed, right?

This was simply an unfortunate
home remedy gone bad?

Well, maybe not.

- The coroner's office
agrees with the new findings,

but when it's released in a
peer-reviewed publication,

the majority of scientists
disagree with the findings.

- They're saying
there is no amount

of DMSO you could
slather on your body

that would generate this
type of a toxic reaction

in a room full of people.

- When the Ramirez family is
asked about this DMSO theory,

they're not buying it either.

They're adamant she
didn't lather herself

in toxic degreaser.

And they certainly
would've noticed this

when they took her
to the hospital.

And so, 30 years later,

the debate of the mysterious
toxic lady continues.

[tense music]

- Sometimes it's not the
affliction itself that's strange

but what's causing it, as one
woman in California discovers.

[rhythmic music]

- Tessa Hanson Smith had been

a normal girl her entire life.

She grew up doing gymnastics,
she grew up swimming in pools,

just doing things
that kids normally do.

But in 2006, at
the age of eight,

she starts breaking
out in these hives

and gets these really,
really painful rashes.

- Her scalp begins bleeding

when she comes
out of the shower.

Her parents think allergy, so
they do what you should do.

They change her shampoo,
they change her soaps,

they change her toothpaste,
they change her deodorants.

They change any kind of chemical

that comes into
contact with her body,

but to no avail, the
symptoms persist.

- By the time she
becomes a teenager,

the ailment just
gets worse and worse.

She's even having a hard time

holding down water
after she drinks it.

- Her mother is a
practicing family doctor,

so she takes the lead.

She has to figure out what
is wrong with her daughter.

- [Dan] After running
several tests,

she comes to a
startling realization.

Her daughter is
allergic to water.

- It sounds crazy,

but it turns out that this
is an actual condition

known as Aquagenic Urticaria.

- It's an extremely
rare condition.

There are only about a hundred
cases even in the world,

where you are literally
allergic to water.

- And there's no known cure.

The only way to avoid
these painful symptoms

is to stay away from water.

- Suffering from Aquagenic
Urticaria means you can't cry,

you can't sweat, you
can't go swimming,

you can't get
caught in the rain.

Any and all contact with water

will cause you to break out
in these painful rashes,

in these painful hives.

- [Dan] Even the most basic
things become a challenge.

- To stay clean, Tessa has to
take lightning-fast showers

and dry herself off immediately

before any of the
symptoms can take hold.

To stay hydrated, she
can only drink skim milk

because the fats, the lipids,
and the proteins in there

are not water soluble, so she
could still get the hydration,

but not be exposed to actually
physically touching water.

- [Dan] It's so unusual

that doctors know
almost nothing about it.

- The first reported case
of Aquagenic Urticaria

was in 1964, when a
53-year-old Mexican woman

reported every time
she did the dishes,

she would get this
rash on her hands.

- [Dan] This leads some
medical professionals

to think that the water
itself might not be the cause.

- There are theories

that it might not actually
be a water allergy,

but something in the water,

like a chemical that some
people are allergic to.

There's also theories that
something in the water

reacts only after it
dissolves in the body.

But at this point,
it's all speculation.

- When you only have 100
documented cases of this

on a planet that has
9 billion people,

there's not a lot of research

that's gonna go into
this affliction.

So we may never truly know.

[tense music]

- Incredibly, Tessa has
been able to survive

in a world without water,

a feat that continues
to baffle doctors.

- On average,

a person spends a third
of their lives sleeping.

For most, that's a good thing,

a peaceful slumber to
recharge for the day ahead.

But for one 19th
century British girl,

even a solid eight hours
doesn't seem to be enough.

[suspenseful music]

- A little 11-year-old
girl named Ellen Sadler

is living with her large family

in the tiny town of Turville
in the outskirts of London.

And like a lot of families in
their town, they're very poor.

So little Ellen is sent to
work to help feed the family.

- At first, everything's normal,

but her boss starts to notice

that she's getting a little
bit sleepy on the job.

After four months,
she gets too lethargic

and he fires her
and sends her home.

- She goes home, and now
she's acting even more tired.

So she goes to bed and
immediately falls asleep.

- [Dan] Little Ellen Sadler
sleeps, and sleeps, and sleeps.

After an entire day, she
still hasn't woken up,

and her mother begins to worry.

- Ellen's mother tries
everything to wake her up,

splashes of water,
pricking with pins.

- Nothing works.

And the local doctor named
Henry Hayman examines her,

but he's totally baffled.

- According to local newspapers,
Ellen continues to sleep.

She sleeps for days,
she sleeps for weeks,

she sleeps for months,

and months, and months.

And a whole year goes by.

- Of course news gets out,

and this becomes
quite a spectacle.

People come from
all over the world

to see the sleeping
girl of Turville.

- This little girl basically
becomes a tourist attraction.

And it's not just gawkers.

Doctors come to visit her,
and even they're stumped.

- Almost two years go by and
she still hasn't woken up.

So a reporter from the Daily
Telegraph out of London

pays her a visit to see if
this could possibly be real.

After seeing her himself, he
returns to London and writes

that he's totally puzzled
by the sleeping girl.

- [Dan] Many try to help,
including the Prince of Wales,

who would later
become King Edward.

- This might sound strange,

but there was actually
a historical belief

in the power of royalty
to cure illness.

- [Dan] But not
even a royal visit

rouses this real
life sleeping beauty.

- Now, remember, this
family is very poor.

So when the visitors start
offering donations to help,

they gladly accept.

The problem, of course, is
that this starts a speculation

that this is all a hoax.

- The government actually
sends in investigators,

but nothing is found,
no charges are filed,

and Ellen keeps sleeping.

- [Dan] By 1880, Ellen has
been asleep for nine years.

And then on a crisp September
morning, she wakes up.

- She was 11 years old
when she fell asleep,

and now she's a
21-year-old young woman,

and she remembers nothing.

By November, she's
almost fully recuperated,

except for one thing.

- She doesn't wake up
as a mature 21 year old.

She wakes up acting
like an 11 year old.

- According to the family,
it takes her several years

to adjust to the new
world around her.

But she slowly
starts catching up.

- She finds herself
a job, and in 1886,

she even gets married and
goes on to have six kids.

According to records, she
lives at least into her 50s,

kinda like nothing
had ever happened.

[suspenseful music]

- Falling asleep for nine
years is quite the nightmare,

but at least it's one little
Ellen eventually wakes up from.

The same can't be said for
a group of Laotian men.

[tense music]

- It's 1981 and a 47-year-old
man named Yong Leng Thao

is asleep at night next
to his wife Xiong You.

He is a Laotian refugee

that has recently moved to

the United States from Thailand.

They live in Portland.

They have set up their new
life here with their kids.

- Yong Leng starts thrashing
about in his sleep,

and it gets so loud and so
bad that he awakens his wife.

And she looks over and realizes

he's having another
one of his nightmares.

So she attempts to awaken him,
but nothing is waking him up.

- [Dan] Then he sits
up, makes one last gasp,

and falls back to bed.

[ominous music]

His wife shakes him,
but it's no use.

Yong Leng Thao is dead.

- Doctors investigate his death.

He appears to have
had a cardiac arrest.

His heart stopped beating
while he was sleeping.

But other than that,

they can't find
anything wrong with him.

They don't know what
caused this to happen.

- What they do know
though is that Yong Leng

is the fourth Laotian refugee

to die while sleeping
in the last nine months.

[tense music]

By 1981, there are a
staggering 117 victims.

All but one are men, and
the average age is 33 years.

And it is a complete mystery.

- It's bizarre
enough that the CDC

starts investigating the matter.

And by the end of 1981,

they've linked them all

to a phenomenon that's known

as sudden unexplained
nocturnal death syndrome.

- [Dan] It's a terrifying term

that basically means
death by nightmare.

- And these deaths
are still a mystery

as to the actual cause.

We have to remember,

this is a categorization
of these deaths.

This isn't the cause itself.

That's why they're categorized

as sudden unexplained
nocturnal death syndrome.

- But why would this
mysterious death by nightmare

only be afflicting
one group of people,

one ethnicity from one nation?

- [Dan] Families of the victims

think they know who
or what's behind this,

a nasty little nocturnal
spirit known as Dab Tsog

- Before these
families came here,

their home country of Laos
was wracked by a civil war,

all throughout the 1970s.

And what does that mean?

That meant that people
didn't have the time

to do their normal prayers.

- Hmong people believe that
when they're not able to pray,

then they won't have
protection from Dab Tsog,

who will come to them in
the middle of the night,

press on their
chest, and kill them.

- The Laotian Hmong are
not the only culture

that believes in
something like this.

The word nightmare
is actually derived

from German and Dutch language.

The word mare refers
to an evil spirit

that is said to
sit on your chest

and crush the breath out
of you until you die.

And if you've been thinking

that this sounds a
lot like the plot

to "A Nightmare on Elm Street,"

that's because this
story inspired it.

[Yong Leng gasping]

- Personally, I prefer
ghosts you can catch.

- Religion has a long history
of strange afflictions,

possessions, stigmata.

But perhaps the most bizarre
case occurs in the 15th century

when a group of Catholic nuns

are struck with a
mysterious curse

that turns them into something
out of a zombie movie.

[eerie music]

- Life in a 15th century convent

isn't what I would
necessarily call pleasant.

- It's isolating,

and they spend their
time praying, working.

The priests frequently set
them to manual labor tasks,

which results in
total exhaustion.

- If they complain,
they were told

that they have a lifetime
of fire and brimstone,

and punishment for
their petulance.

- [Dan] But according to a
doctor named Jerome Cardan,

in a Saxony convent,

one of the nuns snaps.

[apprehensive music]

- She just starts uncontrollably

biting other nuns.

- And before the
priest can intervene,

the other nuns also
start biting each other.

[nun gasping]
[apprehensive music]

And before you know it,
it's a giant bite fest.

- [Dan] The priests
fear the worst,

a demonic possession
is spreading.

And so they begin
performing exorcisms.

- But it only
makes things worse.

- Within days, almost
every nun in the convent

is infected with this
demonic biting nun disease.

- And what's worse
is that these priests

are now concerned that
this biting epidemic

might go beyond the walls
of this convent in Saxony.

- [Dan] Within a few weeks,
the priests in Saxony

learn that nuns from
Amsterdam to Rome

have picked up the
same bad habit.

- So these priests start
thinking to themselves,

this can't just be
demonic possession.

This has to be the devil himself

coming to possess all of Europe.

- Now the priests are
starting to get desperate.

Prayers aren't working,
exorcisms aren't working,

nothing is stopping
these possessions.

- Time to go to Plan
B, old school flogging

and dunking a nun's head
inside of ice cold water.

- And it works.

- [Dan] The afflictions
suddenly stop,

and the curse of the
biting nuns is over.

- Nearly 600 years later,

religious scholars
are still speculating

as to what is it that
exactly happened.

Was it demonic possession?

Was it the devil himself?

Nobody knows.

Clearly there's something
else going on here,

but we may never know
what that something is.

- If you think

a contagious biting nun
epidemic sounds terrifying,

hold on to your crucifix.

500 years later, another dental
condition strikes the clergy

with more explosive
consequences.

- It's 1817, and a
Pennsylvania reverend

known only as D.A.
is suddenly suffering

from a terrible,
terrible toothache,

so bad he's about
to lose his mind.

He's frantically running
around the house like a madman,

screaming in pain.

- He is slamming his head

against the ground
in pure agony.

- He's on the verge of
taking his own life.

- And suddenly there's
a fierce explosion

inside the reverend's mouth.

[explosion booming]

Fragments of his teeth
shoot out all over the rug.

- His ears are
ringing and his tooth

is in pieces on the floor,
but the pain is suddenly gone.

- [Dan] The reverend has
just become the first case

in an epidemic of
exploding teeth.

- Two more cases are reported
in the Pennsylvania area

by Dr. W.H. Atkinson,

who in years ahead becomes
the first president

of the American
Dental Association.

- One of these cases
is a woman in 1830,

and it is the exact
same scenario,

terrible toothache pain,
a pop, and then relief.

And then it happens again
to another woman in 1855.

Same MO, horrible pain,
popping noise, relief.

- [Dan] But teeth aren't just
exploding in Pennsylvania.

[suspenseful music]

- Dr. J. Phelps Hibler
is treating a young woman

in his dental office.

She is also complaining of
excruciating mouth pain.

Boom, one of her
molars explodes.

She's knocked out of the chair.

Her ears are ringing, but
she reports total relief.

- By the 1870s, there
have been so many reports

of people with exploding teeth

that anyone who has
even a mild toothache

starts to get
legitimately scared

because they don't know
if they're gonna be next.

- [Dan] By the 1920s,
cases of exploding teeth

suddenly stop.

So what caused this
terrifying phenomenon?

- There's lots of theories

about what's behind the
exploding teeth epidemic,

but most have to do

with what the dentists
used for fillings.

- Around the time of the
exploding teeth epidemic,

the best way to fill
a cavity is with gold.

It's strong, it doesn't decay.

- But that's also
really expensive.

And so if you can't afford
that, what's the option?

Well, a lot of dentists

start mixing their own
metal composite fillings.

- Some of these metals
include lead, tin, silver,

and even mercury before it
was understood to be toxic.

- What they also don't know

is that some metals
don't play well together.

- Some of the mixtures of metals

that they were using
to fill cavities

would chemically
react with each other,

releasing gas in the process.

- And then if you have
a little air pocket

in the same tooth,

you are getting an intense
buildup of pressure.

You basically are
carrying around

a tooth bomb in your mouth.

- Luckily, by the 1920s,

more standards are put
in place for fillings.

And now dentists mostly
use composite fillings.

And yes, the old standard and
my personal favorite, gold.

- I think we can all agree

it makes that nightmare
about your teeth falling out

seem pretty tame.

- When mysterious
afflictions occur,

there's always a desperate
search for the cause.

But what if the cause were
as simple as watching TV?

[suspenseful music]

- In Japan, on
December 16th, 1997,

this incredibly unusual
scenario plays out.

All over the country,

children are suddenly
being rushed to hospitals.

They're having seizures,
they're having convulsions,

they're having headaches,
they're having dizziness.

Some of them are nauseous.

And it's happening
in huge numbers.

There are 600 cases
initially reported.

- People think that it might
be something in the water

or some viral pathogen
spreading through the air.

It's really unclear
what the causes are.

- [Dan] As news of a mysterious
child illness spreads,

a chilling through line appears.

They had all just watched
the same broadcast

of the animated
series "Pok�mon."

[rhythmic music]

- Pok�mon was a card game that
was adapted for TV in 1997,

and this animated series
becomes a pop culture sensation.

- Everybody in Japan seems
to be watching "Pok�mon."

There are about 127 million
people that live in Japan.

4.6 million viewers would

watch Pok�mon every night,

not just kids,

people.

- [Dan] But on the
night of December 16th,

"Pok�mon" is causing
widespread panic.

- Parents are terrified.

There is a real genuine
fear that watching "Pok�mon"

could be dangerous.

- An investigation's
underway in Japan

into why more than 600 children

suffered from
convulsions and vomiting.

- The next day, TV Tokyo
suspends the series

but not before 12,000
children are hospitalized.

- [Dan] As "Pok�mon" shock
quickly becomes world news,

parents wonder why this
adorable anime character

is sending children
into violent seizures.

- The episode in question
that was being watched

had a pretty egregious use
of strobe light effects.

- What these strobing
lights can do

is activate a condition called
photosensitive epilepsy.

- Photosensitive epilepsy

is a neurological condition
triggered by flashing lights,

strobe patterns, which can
lead to dizziness, nausea,

and vomiting, sometimes
really violent convulsions.

- [Dan] But this
theory has a problem.

- This episode wasn't
the first anime show

to ever use that kind of effect,

and there had never
been anything close

to this kind of outcome before.

And also,
statistically speaking,

there is no way nearly 13,000
"Pok�mon" fans in Japan

all suffer from this condition.

- And sure enough, after
examining the patients,

only a handful of
the thousands of kids

that were rushed
to the hospitals

actually do have
photosensitive epilepsy.

So what accounts for all
those other hospitalizations

from all those other kids?

- [Dan] Many psychologists
eventually agree

on a more likely scenario,
mass child hysteria.

- Once the hysteria dies down,

nearly all of the children
make full recoveries.

Four months later, TV
Tokyo allows "Pok�mon"

to go back on the air.

- This quickly becomes, when
you look at all the factors,

a really wild and kind
of important example

of absolute social persuasion,

where people found
out about a story

and then kind of
became part of it.

- Sure, mass
hysteria can spread,

but they say nothing is more
contagious than laughter.

[suspenseful music]

- On January 30th, 1962,

the boarding school
for teenage girls

run by the Kashasha mission

in Tanganyika,
modern day Tanzania,

is having a totally normal day,

until three girls start
laughing in class.

[girls laughing]

- Teenage girls laughing in
school is not a rare occurrence,

but today it marks the start
of something different.

The girls' laughter
is uncontrollable,

and it's starting to spread.

- Within minutes, 95 of the
159 students in the school

are laughing uncontrollably.

For some, their
laughing stops in hours.

But for others, it
continues for days.

- These students go home,
they're still laughing.

They come back to school,
they're still laughing.

Some of the girls are laughing
for two straight weeks.

But even after they stop,

they just start
right back up again.

- They are crying, they are
having trouble breathing,

they're developing rashes.

- At this point,
parents are suspicious.

They're thinking, is there
some kind of gas leak?

Is there something in the water?

But then they realize,

it's not happening
with the teachers.

This is only happening with
the girls, the students.

- This mysterious epidemic
continues for a year and a half

and ends up affecting
over a thousand girls

and closing 14 schools.

And then after 18 months,

the laughter starts to fade,

and then it just stops.

- There's still no explanation,

but there's well-
documented instances

of these mass hysterias

happening before
throughout history.

The Dancing Plague
of Europe in 1518

killed over 400
people in France.

They basically were compelled
to dance themselves to death.

There's the Hollinwell
event of 1980,

where 300 people in
London just mysteriously

and spontaneously faint
at a marching band event.

To this day, there's
still no explanation.

- There are theories

as to what could cause
this kind of mass madness,

anything from community stress

to subconscious peer pressure.

Either way, the laughing
plague of Tanganyika

remains a mystery.

[girls laughing]
[suspenseful music]

- I should invite them
to my next movie premiere.

- We've all dreamed
of having superpowers,

the ability to fly,
ESP, X-ray vision.

But one woman in Minnesota

learns that not every superpower

is all it's cracked up to be.

[mysterious music]

- Stephanie Schmitz is a woman

who lives in the
suburbs of Minneapolis.

And one day she
notices this sound.

[apprehensive music]

And it's something she can't
quite put her finger on.

She doesn't know where
it's coming from.

[ear ringing]

- She's wondering, is it
an appliance in her house?

Is it something outside the
house that she's hearing?

- This continues
for days and weeks,

and she cannot identify
the source of this sound,

until she notices that
she only hears the sound

when she moves her eyes.

- [Dan] That's when Stephanie

comes to a startling
realization.

The strange noise she's
hearing is her own eyes moving.

- You're not used
to hearing people

that can hear their
eyeballs move.

- At first, she's thinking,
this is gonna go away.

But as the months go on,
this actually gets louder.

- And soon she also
starts to realize

that she can hear
her neck creaking

when she moves it side to side.

[neck crackling]

She can also hear
her own heartbeat.

[heartbeat thumping]

It's like in Edgar
Allan Poe's story.

She is tortured by
all of these noises,

but her own body is making them.

- Stephanie can't
take this anymore,

so she goes to the doctors
and they examine her.

- [Dan] After running tests,

the doctors give her the
terrifying diagnosis.

- They realize that
the cause of it

is that she has a
hole on her inner ear.

It's superior canal
dehiscence syndrome, or SCDS.

- The inner ear's job is to hear
things in the environment,

not to hear sounds from within.

Once there is a hole,
there is now a pathway

for all of the usual daily
sounds that your body creates.

- And that's
something that affects

only 1% of the population,

which may sound like
a lot of people,

but most people don't have this

to the degree that
Stephanie does.

- [Dan] In Stephanie's case,

the location of
the hole in her ear

is what causes the
sound to be intensified

to a deafening degree.

- Think about how
frustrating this would be,

to be distracted with the noise
of your own eyeballs moving.

Think about how often
you move your eyes

throughout the day every day.

- The good news is there is
a surgery that can fix SDCS,

but Stephanie is still
awaiting that procedure.

- Talk about being in your head.

The mind is certainly
a powerful thing,

but how much of it
do we really need?

Maybe less than you think.

[rhythmic music]

- In 2007, a man in Marseille,
France goes to the doctor.

He's 44 years old.

He tells the doctor he's been
having dizzy spells lately.

- It's getting so
bad at this point

that he's now actually
having difficulty walking.

- The doctor starts
running some tests,

and he thinks this is
probably related to his brain.

And he does some CT scans.

But when he reviews the
images, what he sees is crazy.

- [Dan] 90% of the
man's skull is empty.

- The doctor learns that
when he was an infant,

he was diagnosed with a
condition called hydrocephalus,

which is basically excessive
fluid in and around the brain.

At one point, he had a shunt

to help drain that
fluid off of the brain.

- And by the time
he was a teenager,

it seemed like this
problem had dissipated,

and so they decided
to remove it.

But now all of this history

leads his doctor to wonder

if perhaps that hydrocephalus
situation has returned.

- Doctors think
that over the years,

the majority of his brain
started to erode away

because it kept getting filled

with more and more brain fluid.

- His doctor has
him take an IQ test.

And what's really interesting
here is that he scores a 75.

- The average range
is up in the 80s,

so he's doing pretty
well for what he's got.

- He's holding down
a government job,

he has a wife, he has a kid.

For someone who only has
about 10% of his brain,

it's pretty incredible.

- [Dan] 15 years later,
there isn't a consensus

as to how he could
still possibly be alive.

- Some doctors think

that maybe he does
have all of his brain.

The theory is that
the fluid pressure

pushed the brain flat against
the inside of his skull,

almost like a pancake.

[rhythmic music]

- Even if he does
have his entire brain,

it's pretty impressive that it
still works in pancake form.

Strange afflictions
can strike at any time,

from the moment we're born
to the moment we fall asleep.

But whether they affect
the body or the mind,

they're all truly

"Unbelievable."

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