All language subtitles for The UnXplained Special Presentation s02e01 Mysterious America.eng

WILLIAM SHATNER:
Glowing objects that hovered in the night sky.

Determined homesteaders
who disappeared without a trace.

And an engineering marvel

that may have triggered

a deadly curse.

If you've ever traveled
around the United States,

you surely have seen
some of the vast landscapes

that make the country so unique.

From desert mesas
and towering mountain ranges

to winding rivers
and dense forests,

the land is covered

with open spaces
that are a sight to behold.

But amidst the majesty

of these beautiful places

are some
surprisingly haunting mysteries,

frightening tales
of lost civilizations,

deadly curses,

and legends of giant creatures
that once roamed the plains.

What dark secrets do the remote
regions of America hold?

Well, that is
what we'll try and find out.

? ?

At 6:55 p.m.,

police in this small desert city

receive reports
of a massive V-shaped

unidentified flying object
in the night sky.

Over the next three hours,

the craft is witnessed
by thousands of people

as it journeys southeast
into the state of Arizona.

Because most of the sightings
were reported

by the residents of Phoenix,

the incident is known

as the Phoenix Lights.

For me, it was
just another night.

I was at home.

I was upstairs in our bedroom.

And I'm lying in bed.

I see three lights pop up.

I grab my video camera.

I run outside on the balcony.

And I did capture video
of formations of these lights

or actual craft
arranged in a "V" or triangle.

We're talking mile
to eight miles wide,

gliding silently,

some at a distance
but most at rooftop level.

Some people said they could've
thrown a rock at it-

it was that close.

NICK POPE:
Phoenix is a city of about five million people.

And here they are,

looking up and seeing
this immense UFO

flying at fairly low altitude
quite slowly.

This was a sighting on
an almost unprecedented scale.

SHATNER: The giant V-shaped object
reportedly hovered above Phoenix

for three hours

before it finally disappeared
over the horizon.

The Phoenix Lights incident

made headlines
across the country.

Many eyewitnesses were convinced
that what they saw

was not a man-made airplane

but rather
an extraterrestrial spacecraft.

Lots of people saw this.

You have a lot
of general consistency

with how this was reported.

But you had, uh,
skeptics saying,

"Well, the thing that people saw
going down the state

was actually just aircraft."

And then a spokesperson
from the National Guard

made an announcement and said,

"Yeah, those lights
that people saw over the city,

"that was actually flares
that we dropped

by A-10 Warthog aircraft."

Not if you talk
to the witnesses.

There were a number of witnesses
who were quite adamant

that this was extraterrestrial.

And one of the witnesses,
turns out,

was actually the governor
of the state, Fife Symington.

As a pilot
and a former Air Force officer,

uh, I can definitively say
that this craft did not resemble

any man-made object
that I'd ever seen.

KITEI:
With the Phoenix Lights phenomena,

what's really exciting is that
more and more credible people

have come forward.

All I knew is that it was so
beyond anything I ever imagined

being here on this Earth.

To date,
the Phoenix Lights phenomena

has never been recreated

or explained.

SHATNER:
While the Phoenix Lights is one

of the most extraordinary
UFO encounters in history,

it is just one
of many mysterious sightings

that have taken place
in the state of Arizona.

According to the National
UFO Reporting Center,

there have been
approximately 5,000

UFO reports in Arizona,

going all the way back
to the 1940s.

On July 7, 1947,

William A. Rhodes,
an amateur photographer,

saw an elliptical
metallic object.

He managed to capture
two excellent photographs

of this object
at very low altitude,

and he sent them in to
The Arizona Republic newspaper,

which published them
on the front page.

And if you look
at these photographs,

you can see that they show
a very solid-looking

metallic gray object
at low altitude.

These photographs
have never been debunked.

So this is
a very important case.

DOLAN:
There was, what I believe is, a genuine UFO crash

that occurred in Kingman,
Arizona, in May of 1953.

This was apparently the recovery
of a-a virtually intact

downed flying saucer.

Witnesses came out.

And, uh, this was quite
a significant case.

And then probably
the most famous

of the many UFO sightings
Arizona has had

is the Travis Walton
abduction experience

from 1975

that took place
in November of that year

and made national news.

And so Arizona has
its own long history

of anomalous,

uh, activity, for sure.

SHATNER:
According to researchers,

Arizona is one of several
locations around the globe

where UFO sightings are reported
far more often than normal.

These places are referred to
as UFO hot spots.

DOLAN:
There do seem to be certain areas

where these unusual
or unknown things

are seen more than others.

So, for example, Catalina Island
off the coast of L.A.

has an incredible high-density
number of very bizarre things.

It's definitely a place

where there has been documented

and recorded high level
of UFO activity.

What we see in these areas is

a disproportionately large
amount of UFO activity.

That's absolutely what
we're seeing here in Arizona.

Arizona has played
a very powerful role

in our understanding
of the UFO phenomenon.

KITEI:
There is a vast history in Arizona

of UFO anomalous sightings.

And people ask me,
"Do you believe in UFOs?"

For someone who has had

an unexplained phenomena
experience,

it isn't a belief.

It's a knowing.

SHATNER:
Could Phoenix

and other areas
of the American Southwest

be hot spots
for unexplained phenomena?

The possibility seems
even more likely

when you consider
the strange tale

of a mysterious visitor

who may have had a hand

in causing a Native civilization

to simply vanish.

SHATNER: Set into the high
cliffs of Mesa Verde National Park

in Southwestern Colorado

is what many consider
to be America's biggest mystery.

A mystery carved in solid rock.

Cliff Palace,

as it has come to be known,

contains more than 150 chambers

connected by extensive ramps
and stairways.

According to most archaeologists
and historians,

it was constructed
almost a thousand years ago

by a tribe
of Ancestral Puebloans

known as the Anasazi.

BARNHART:
The Ancestral Pueblo are a people

that grew up in
the Four Corners area

of the United States.

They're actually in an area
called the San Juan Basin,

where they spent most
of their culture's history,

all the way
into Paleo-Indian times,

which is about 12,000 years ago.

They're a culture
we call Basket Makers,

and they did most
of their cooking and gathering

in pit houses
in weaved baskets.

I think one of the things
that's the most admirable

about the Ancestral Pueblo
is their ability to live

in such
a resource-poor environment.

It was highland desert.

There were not many
natural plants to eat.

It was very difficult
to grow corn.

There were not a whole lot
of animals to hunt.

And yet they found a way to live

in that niche and survive.

SHATNER:
Starting in the ninth century,

the Anasazi expanded
their civilization

by building massive structures
throughout the Southwest-

first in New Mexico's
Chaco Canyon

and later in the cliffs
of Mesa Verde.

There was a big explosion

in the kind of architecture
they were making

and its scale
and its sophistication.

There were already

tens of thousands
of little communities,

but now they started building
these gigantic buildings.

We call them "great houses,"

and they were
apartment complexes,

but on a scale
that the Pueblo had never made.

Hundreds of individual rooms
would make up

these great houses,

and they could be upwards
of five stories tall.

SHATNER:
For years,

people studying the Anasazi

have wondered
how a simple group of people

developed into an advanced
civilization so quickly.

But perhaps an even more
intriguing question is

why would those same people
go to such great lengths

to build incredible structures,

only to abandon them?

TOK THOMPSON:
And then, during the 1200s,

very mysteriously,
suddenly, it disappeared.

When archaeologists
looked at these remains

at the time of the civilization
disappearance,

it was very sudden, as if people
just grabbed what they could

and took off.

The people just up and left.

They left behind
all of their belongings.

And there is evidence
that this activity

occurred very quickly.

It was almost as if
they left behind ghost towns.

So what really happened
to the Anasazi?

We know that drought
must have been a factor,

because there were periods when
there was virtually no rain.

BARNHART:
We can say they left for drought reasons.

But if these
perfectly good places

were good again
after the drought,

why didn't they come back?

It had to be more
than just a practical

"well, we can't
plant here anymore."

SHATNER:
If it wasn't drought that forced the Anasazi

to leave their cliff dwellings,

then what was it?

According to
some anthropologists,

the answer may lie
in their own mythology-

in a tale about
a shadowy, supernatural figure

known as the Gambler.

ROB WEINER: The story of the Gambler
tells of a very powerful figure.

He challenges all the people
of the Four Corners region

to these gambling matches,

and he always wins.

And in these stories,

the people give away
their goods.

Eventually, they're giving away
even their homes and their food

and eventually themselves
as slaves

to this powerful gambler figure.

And in their mythology,

they say the Gambler
is the one who taught them

how to build these great houses

and asked them to do it,
basically,

in terms of slavery.

They were then his to command.

WEINER:
Eventually in the story,

the gods decide that the Gambler
has overstepped.

He has become full of hubris.

He's behaving
in a way he shouldn't.

So he's eventually defeated
and banished from Chaco Canyon.

So when the Gambler
was finally defeated,

it's said that he laid
some kind of curse on the land.

He said, "I will kill you
with lightning,

"and I will send war
and disease among you.

"May the cold freeze you,

"may the fire burn you,

may the waters drown you."

Some groups say he opened up
some kind of vortex.

And because there was so much
badness and so much suffering,

everyone made
the decision to leave

and never go there again.

SHATNER:
Many cultures have tales of a wily trickster,

someone who cheats people
out of hearth and home

before laying a curse
on their village

and vanishing
in a puff of smoke.

But could the Anasazi's legend
of the Gambler

have actually been based
on a real-life event?

I went into museum collections,

and I found hundreds
of gambling pieces

excavated from Pueblo Bonito

and the other buildings
in the canyon.

Things like dice or pieces used
in different guessing games.

There's a lot of archaeological
evidence for gambling

at Chaco Canyon.

And I do think
the stories are literal

in the sense that it was
a major aspect of the society.

It has to do with actual people,
historical events.

SHATNER: Does archaeological
evidence of gambling mean

the Anasazi legend
of the Gambler

is simply a parable about
the dangers of unchecked vice?

Or were the Anasazi forced
to flee from their homes

after being tormented
by some sort

of dark, supernatural force?

Very often, abandoned villages
or abandoned sites

are held to be haunted
by the ghosts.

This is probably
a very widespread notion-

that when
a civilization collapses,

very often,
something went wrong.

And it's not purely physical-
it's something spiritual.

Today, Pueblo people
will go to Chaco

and they will honor
their ancestors there.

But some groups of them say

that there was a very bad thing
that happened there

and that their ancestors,
for a long period of time,

didn't go there and they wanted
nothing to do with it.

SHATNER:
Inside a narrow cave,

two miners are searching
for bat guano,

a key ingredient
in making fertilizer.

But as they head deeper
into the darkness,

they make
an unexpected discovery.

They find more
than 40 human skeletons,

some of which
are abnormally large.

WEATHERLY:
In 1911,

giant bones were found
in Lovelock Cave.

Large human skulls

and skeletons that measured
between seven and eight feet

in height,

which, for ancient man,

would have been
rather significant.

HUGH NEWMAN:
This caused a sensation.

And one of the strange things
about the discoveries

in Lovelock Cave
is that the skeletons

were often found with red hair.

So it does seem like they're
a different kind of people

than the Native Americans
from the area.

SHATNER: Although many of the
large bones found in Lovelock Cave

were unfortunately lost to time,

for decades,

a number of skulls were
preserved at a local museum.

NEWMAN:
Until about ten years ago,

there were four
very large skulls on display

inside the museum.

These were then removed
and ceremonially buried.

What's also interesting
is that over 100,000 artifacts

were excavated
from Lovelock Cave.

The strange thing is that
many of the artifacts were huge.

Like, you have
giant-sized sandals.

Like, a 15-inch-long shoe,

which is size 29 U.S.,

which would fit someone
who's about nine feet tall.

And even pieces of clothing
which were so big,

looked as though
they were worn by giants.

SHATNER:
The idea that giant bones were actually found

in a cave in Nevada

may sound far-fetched to some.

But the truth is that there were
many such discoveries reported

during the Wild West.

THOMPSON:
In the Southwestern United States,

there's, uh, several
very strange stories

of these, um, dead corpses
or skeletons

being found regularly.

In terms of the reports
of giants,

this is a compelling motif.

People were fascinated
by this idea

of a giant race
that had lived here previously.

And this connects
to a lot of biblical belief

that tended to be fairly literal
back in the day.

The Bible talks about back when
there was a race of giants

that lived on the Earth.

And so, for many people
in the Wild West,

when you see, um, some skeletons
dug out of the earth

that seem to corroborate this,

this was a-an affirmation

of literal biblical beliefs
as well.

SHATNER:
Is it really possible that a race of giants

once inhabited the Old West,

as the numerous discoveries

reported throughout the 1800s
suggest?

And if so,

was evidence of these giants
recovered in Lovelock Cave?

Perhaps a clue can be found
by examining the history

of the indigenous Paiute people,

who have inhabited
the Nevada desert for centuries.

WEATHERLY:
A woman named Sarah Winnemucca,

who was a descendant of
Chief Winnemucca of the Paiutes,

wrote a book in the 1800s and
recounted her people's battle

with this race of giants,

the Si-Te-Cah.

Now, what's fascinating
about this is that

she says that it was
an actual battle-

not part of tribal lore
or mythology

but something
that actually occurred.

The Si-Te-Cah were red-haired

and lived in the mountains
near the Paiute nation

and they were cannibals.

According to the Paiutes,

they naturally grew tired
of being cannibalized,

and they confronted
these giants.

CHAD LEWIS:
A war was started between the giants

and the Paiute people.

For three years,
they battled one another.

The last of the giants

holed themselves up
in the Lovelock Cave.

And the Paiute people
stuffed the openings

with a bunch of brush
and firewood

and lit the place on fire.

And that was the end of
the red-haired giant cannibals.

NEWMAN:
What's also interesting is that,

when the discovery was made
in 1911 at Lovelock Cave,

they also found evidence
of extreme burning

which took place
near the entrance to the cave.

So this matches the story
almost precisely.

And, again, we have evidence
of red hair,

because Sarah Winnemucca Hopkins

actually saved some of the hair

and sewed it
into a mourning dress,

which she used
when she gave lectures.

And so the story of the Paiutes

defeating the giants
then suddenly became a reality.

SHATNER: For many, the evidence
in support of the Paiute story

about the red-headed giants
is compelling,

not only because of what
was found in Lovelock Cave

but also because
there have been reports

of giant bones being discovered
in other places

throughout
the Western Nevada desert.

NEWMAN:
If you go back and look

through the records,
you can find numerous accounts

of bones, skeletons
and giant-sized artifacts

that have been found
in this area.

In 1904, it was reported

that an 11-foot-tall skeleton
was found,

and then we have
accounts in 1931

of an eight-and-a-half-foot
skeleton that was reported.

And so, the fact is,
you have the stories,

you have the skeletal evidence

and you have the artifacts

and even the legends
that prove this was a real story

of giants in this area.

THOMPSON: To be sure, the Paiutes
believed this to be a historical truth.

People might dismiss them
as just folklore.

But again, who's to say
that it didn't happen?

Of course,
there were ethnic conflicts.

So, this has been
a real important part

of many, many peoples'
historical beliefs

and how they think
about their own history.

The thought of red-haired,
man-eating giants

roaming the American Southwest
is a bit unnerving.

But there's another,
more recent story

from the deserts of Nevada
that is also unsettling,

because some believe
that an attempt to harness

the raging waters
of the Colorado River

may have awakened
a deadly curse.

NARRATOR: With the country in
the grips of the Great Depression,

President Franklin D. Roosevelt

presides over
the dedication ceremony

of one of the most extraordinary
engineering projects

in United Sates history:

the Hoover Dam.

McBRIDE:
There were thousands of people.

And at that time,

the people who came to listen
to the president dedicate it

understood that it was
more than just a dam.

They were standing
on a structure

that they had built with their
own blood and sweat and tears.

We are here to celebrate
the completion

of the greatest dam
in the world.

SHATNER:
Named for President Herbert Hoover,

who was in office when
construction began in 1931,

the Hoover Dam is located
in the Black Canyon region

of the Colorado River.

Officials believed
that a dam in this area

could help manage flooding
of the Colorado River,

provide a much-needed reservoir
of fresh water

and be a source
of hydroelectric power.

There was just one problem.

In order to tame
the Colorado River,

the engineers
would have to construct

a more ambitious dam

than had ever
been created before.

McBRIDE:
Here you have the Colorado River,

one of the wildest and most
untamed waterways in the world,

and you want to tame it,
you want to control it

so that you can provide
dependable water storage,

hydroelectric power, irrigation.

MICHAEL DENNIN:
Well, when I think of the Hoover Dam,

I'm impressed that we actually
moved the river

to build the dam.

And they had to divert the river
through tunnels,

through the mountainsides
on either side.

So, you have a dry bed
that you can build the dam on,

and then bringing
the river back just amazes me.

SHATNER:
Built in just five years,

two years ahead of schedule,

the Hoover Dam is a staggering

726 feet tall.

At the time of its construction,

it was the tallest dam
ever built,

the costliest water project
ever undertaken

and home to the largest
hydroelectric power plant

in the world.

McBRIDE:
Never before, ever in history,

had there been
that much concrete placed

and poured in one spot.

And enough concrete went into
the construction of the dam

that you could build
a two-lane highway

from San Francisco to New York.

SHATNER:
The Hoover Dam changed the face of the nation,

allowing for
the explosive growth

of cities like Las Vegas
and Los Angeles,

and fueling
the country's recovery

from the Great Depression.

But some have suggested
that the Hoover Dam represents

not just an engineering
success story

but also humanity's desire

to bend the forces of nature
to our will.

McBRIDE:
The construction engineer Walker Young

was widely quoted
at one time as saying,

"The Lord put that canyon there,

all we had to do was find it."

That speaks to a very, kind of,

Judeo-Christian philosophy

that human beings

were the paramount creatures

and so, we're going to impose
our needs on nature

and we're going
to control nature.

LYNNE McNEILL:
The flooding power of rivers

is something that humankind
has been contending with

since there has been humankind.

And, in a lot of ways,

the more we're able to restrain

what have often been understood

as the unrestrainable forces
of nature,

the more we suspect
that maybe something superhuman

is taking place there.

SHATNER:
Was the construction of the Hoover Dam

motivated by our need
to harness,

control and ultimately
have power over Mother Nature?

There are many who believe
that to be the case,

and as evidence,
they point to a curious memorial

that was placed next to the dam:

an intricate celestial star map,

intended to send a message
to future generations.

McBRIDE:
The celestial star map

is an amazing piece of art deco

where, laid into the ground,
is a star map

with brass discs
named after certain stars.

And the purpose of that
was really just one thing.

It was to fix,

in astrological time,

the very moment-

the month, the day,
the minute, the second-

that Hoover Dam
was-was dedicated.

SHATNER:
The builders of the Hoover Dam certainly believed

that their creation would
be an everlasting testament

to their triumph
over the Colorado River.

But what happens when
the forces of nature defy

our attempts to control them

in ways that we can't foresee?

Lake Mead is the man-made
body of water

created by the Hoover Dam,

and what's interesting
is that Lake Mead

is actually one
of the most deadly

recreational areas
that we have in this country.

People drown mysteriously.

So many people
end up dying there.

One of the fascinating things
about Lake Mead

are these methane or gas pits.

And methane basically comes
when vegetation decomposes.

Now, one of the things
that Lake Mead did

is cover up a lot of vegetation,

because you make a lake
where there wasn't a lake before

and what you had before
was stuff growing.

So you can get
these periodic releases

of the methane gas

that's been generated
under the water

from the vegetation decomposing.

BARA:
When the methane bubbles up to the surface,

what can happen is if a boat
is over that methane bubble,

it basically will lose
all buoyancy

and just sink like a rock
to the bottom of the lake.

So, by building the lake
over this land,

we may, in fact, have created
a very dangerous situation,

and sort of set up
the lake itself

to basically be a death trap.

I think if you reflect back
to when the engineers

were making the Hoover Dam,

it's often portrayed
as trying to control nature.

The focus was on the dam,

and we probably weren't
even asking questions

about the larger impact
on nature

'cause it would have been
too hard

to calculate or worry about.

The challenge
with engineering and science

is always
the unintended consequences.

For the most part,
people are driven by this desire

to make things better.

SHATNER: Did the ambitious plan
to create the Hoover Dam and Lake Mead

overlook
the possible consequences

of messing with Mother Nature?

The same might be said
for a group

of ill-prepared English settlers

whose pioneering spirit

may have cost them their lives.

SHATNER:
More than 400 years ago,

this was the site
of a colony called Roanoke,

the first English settlement
in North America.

Roanoke is known
as the Lost Colony

because it was
mysteriously abandoned in 1590,

and the colonists
vanished without a trace.

The Lost Colony
remains this mystery

that's at the very heart
of the origin of our nation.

People remain fascinated
by Roanoke

because we know so little
about the place.

We know what happened
at Jamestown.

We know what happened
at Plymouth.

But Roanoke is this mystery

because we don't know
what happened.

When we think about the founding
of the United States of America,

we think of it
in this fairly linear way,

that colonists showed up,

they settled,
they move West: America.

And really, it turns out
that there were a number

of false starts in how
this country got started.

And one of those
was the colony at Roanoke.

This was a group of people
who showed up

and were ready to settle.

But what happened to that colony

is one of the big unanswered
questions of American history.

SHATNER:
What happened to the Roanoke colonists?

Perhaps the answer can be found
by examining the events

in the late 16th century

that led to their
fateful disappearance.

LAWLER:
In the 1580s, England was a very small,

poor, struggling island

that really wanted to get in

on the game
of colonizing the Americas,

'cause that's where
the money was.

GABRIEL-POWELL:
The English were looking at the Spanish ships

coming back laden with gold
and various commodities from

their empire,
if you like, in Mexico,

South America, Florida,

and of course, that was making
the Spanish very powerful.

Essentially, it was a case of,

"If we don't find our own source
of wealth in this new world,

we could be, sort of,
overrun by our enemies."

SHATNER:
In 1587, an English mapmaker named John White

was commissioned to found
a new colony on Roanoke Island,

which had been claimed
by a British expedition

to the New World
two years earlier.

After an arduous
two-month voyage

across the Atlantic Ocean,

White and 117 colonists

landed on Roanoke Island.

LAWLER:
The people who chose to come along

on this ill-fated expedition

were middle-class people
from London.

So, they were eager
to find new lands,

because to have land in England
meant everything.

That's what gave you status.

But they knew
they needed more supplies

and more colonists in order
to succeed, in order to thrive.

So, John White decided
to return to England

in order to get those needed
supplies and colonists.

SHATNER:
On August 25th, 1587,

only three months
after first arriving on Roanoke,

John White set sail for England.

He planned to return with aid
in less than six months,

but a series of conflicts
with the Spanish navy

would delay
White's return mission

for three long years.

In August of 1590, John White
returns to Roanoke Island.

They anchor offshore.

And when they arrive,
it's dark,

and it's too late
for them to go ashore,

but John White is happy

because he sees a fire
in the distance

and he assumes that the settlers
are there waiting for him,

maybe even have seen his ship

and have lit a bonfire
in order to guide him in.

SHATNER:
The next morning, White came ashore,

expecting to find the colonists
there to welcome him back.

But to his surprise,
there was no sign of them.

The entire settlement
was completely abandoned.

GABRIEL-POWELL:
John White gets back to Roanoke,

but there's no sign of anyone,

and he finds all the houses
have been taken down.

And in their place
is a very, very well-built,

defensible fort,
so a little bit of a mystery.

You've got this new fort
that wasn't there in 1587

when he last saw them,

and the place is deserted.

Where have they gone?

SHATNER:
Eventually, John White came across

a cryptic clue as to the
whereabouts of the colonists.

He found the word "Croatoan"

mysteriously carved
into a wooden post.

John White told the colonists
when he left in 1587

that if they were to abandon
the settlement, that they should

leave a secret token,
as he called it, behind

so that he would know
where to find them,

and this seemed
to be the answer.

Here was "Croatoan"
carved onto the post.

"Croatoan" was what
we call Hatteras today,

an island about 50 miles
to the south.

It's also the name
of the tribe of Native Americans

who lived on the island.

SHATNER:
But when John White prepared to set sail

to search for the colonists,

a storm blew in
and damaged his ship,

and he was forced
to return to England.

Unfortunately, John White

was never able to return
to the New World to search

for the lost colonists.

But in recent years,
archaeologists have carried out

extensive excavations
to try and solve

this 400-year-old mystery.

Archaeologists have been
digging on Hatteras,

what was called Croatoan,

and they have come up with
some remarkable evidence.

The first, most important piece
of evidence found

was a gold ring that was made
in Elizabethan times.

This was big news,
because it seemed

to indicate the possibility that
at least one of the colonists

had been on Croatoan Island.

And then another competing team
was digging on Hatteras Island,

and what they found
was really intriguing.

They actually
discovered the hilt

of an Elizabethan-era sword

that was found
in a Native American village.

Now, whether or not
this is something that belonged

to a lost colonist
remains to be seen.

GABRIEL-POWELL:
It's possible some did survive long enough

to have a family and that there
would have been assimilation

with the Croatoans.

And yet, considering
how much archaeology

that's been done,
we have no skeletons.

Where are they?

That is a mystery.

McNEILL:
If we had found dead bodies scattered

or obvious signs
of a siege or an attack,

that would be the answer
that we need.

We get this word, "Croatoan."

But did people
actually make it there?

Where did they go?

What happened
to this group of settlers?

It's the ambiguity

that really keeps
this legend alive.

SHATNER:
Contractors begin uncovering

a series of strange artifacts

while renovating a string of
18th-century houses in the area.

Mummified animals,

dismembered dolls,
broken knife blades,

strange bottles
filled with human hair,

bent nails and silver pins,

and all concealed
within hidden nooks and voids

throughout the old homes.

The artifacts are so unnerving
that many began to wonder

who had placed them
throughout the homes,

and perhaps
more importantly, why?

After looking
at a-a number of instances of,

of these either
intentional deposits

or objects that were located
in strange places-

uh, shoes, um, animal parts,

bottles with, um,
unusual contents in them-

certain patterns
that seem to be prevalent

throughout the area,
uh, became apparent.

We see them in England
and in the Netherlands

and in Germany
where a lot of the people

who settled in New York State
originally came from.

And so, it's clear that people
brought their folk beliefs

and folk religion with them

when they moved
across the Atlantic Ocean.

Evidently, in all these cases,
there was a very strong belief

in, uh, the agency of evil

to affect people's
everyday lives,

particularly
in a number of stories

that related to fears of illness

or of the potential for curses

to access houses
through openings,

uh, particularly, uh,
through fireplaces,

doors, windows,
that kind of thing.

Yeah, the more you look,
the more you find these objects,

and it becomes
increasingly clear

that the numbers of objects
that we have found,

which go into the thousands,

is really just
the tip of the iceberg.

SHATNER: But were these strange
objects carefully collected and hidden

in order to invoke
a deadly curse

or as a means of preventing one?

I think what people
were really focused on

was finding ways of turning
that harmful magic around

and either repelling it
or trapping it

or thwarting it in some way
from getting into their houses.

So, the local, sort of,
white witch or wizard

could be paid to produce
a charm for you,

and the charm would eventually
be concealed on your property

as a trap, essentially,
to impale any negative energies

coming into the house
looking to attack you

and stop it from
going further into the house

where it might do you harm.

SHATNER:
While such arcane practices

may seem like the stuff
of fairy tales and fantasy,

is it possible that mystical
talisman and other charms

can actually protect people

from the deadly effects
of curses?

JONATHAN YOUNG:
Things that are mysterious,

if we put it
in the right narrative,

then we have a semblance
of control or understanding,

even though
we made up the story.

The explanations
may not be very sound,

but they still
give us some comfort.

WHITEHEAD: Maybe these curses
are created by us, by our imagination,

by us trying to deal
with the mystery of nature,

and then it actually
comes to life

because we bring
the curse to life

by attaching our mind to it,
collectively.

So, just what should we make

of these odd
and unsettling tales?

Could the strange lights
hovering over Phoenix, Arizona,

be aliens or simply aircraft?

Are the massive bones
found in the Nevada desert

evidence that a race of giants
is more than just a legend?

And how can we explain
the disappearance

of not one but two
groups of people

who seemed to vanish
without a trace?

Well, for now, these mysteries
from all across America

will remain unexplained.

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