All language subtitles for The.UnXplained.Special.Presentation.S02E05.1080p.WEB.h264-EDITH_track3_[eng]

WILLIAM SHATNER:
An elusive killer

-with a taste for blood...
-(woman screams)

...an ancient mountain shrine

where demons emerge
from the underworld,

and a frightening creature

that roams the frozen forest

and hungers for human flesh.

From an early age,
we're all told stories

of scary monsters
that lurk in the shadows.

From the Big Bad Wolf
and bloodsucking vampires

to evil witches
and dangerous beasts,

we learn early on

that the world can be
a frightening place.

But what if some
of these tall tales

are based on real life?

All around the globe,

there are accounts
of terrifying creatures

that defy our understanding
of the natural world.

Could the reports of gruesome
beings with glowing eyes

or three-toed savages hiding
in remote swamps be true?

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

♪ ♪

SHATNER:
Vlad the Impaler.

Lycaon of Arcadia.

Nosferatu.

The Beast of Gévaudan.

These are the names of grotesque
and terrifying monsters.

Unearthly creatures that,
according to legend,

thrived on human blood
and feasted on human flesh.

(growls)

But could they actually be real?

(wolf howls in distance)

Police arrive
upon a gruesome scene.

A local prostitute lies bloody
and battered on the street.

Her leg is shattered
in three places.

Based on eyewitness accounts,
it's believed

she intentionally leapt
from a balcony 20 feet above.

JONATHAN WEISS:
She'd been with a wealthy man.

He'd been friendly,
generous, funny, kind.

He made no advances,
though he paid for her time.

But then he attacked her.

(creature growling)

He moved upon her
with unnatural swiftness

and wrapped his arms around her,
pulled her head to the side,

and began to "rip at her flesh."

(woman pants)

SHATNER:
Her attacker was a man

by the name
of Jacques St. Germain,

an affluent, well-known fixture
in the New Orleans upper class

who claimed to be a direct
descendant of French nobility.

Historical accounts described
him as a charming ladies' man,

celebrated throughout
the French Quarter

for his tales of adventure
and elaborately catered parties.

But curiously, his guests
never see him partake

of so much as a morsel
of the food he serves.

Instead, he reportedly
got all of his sustenance

from bottles that were thought
to be filled with red wine.

But when police went to question
Jacques St. Germain

about the murder
of the prostitute,

they found
that his preferred wine

was of a very unusual vintage.

JOSEPH LAYCOCK:
When they went to the house
in the morning,

it was entirely empty.

No furniture,
everything was gone.

Jacques had
completely disappeared.

However, on the second floor,
according to the story,

they found bottles of wine
mixed with human blood.

SHATNER:
Bottles of wine
mixed with human blood?

Was Jacques St. Germain
merely a demented killer

who preyed upon
a vulnerable woman?

Or could his taste for blood

have had a more
disturbing explanation?

KEN GERHARD:
Jacques St. Germain
resided in New Orleans

in the early part
of the 20th century.

And one must
look back in history

at an eerily
similar-looking figure

named Count St. Germain,
who lived in Paris, France

over a century earlier.

The similarities between the two
gentlemen are pretty striking.

LAYCOCK:
Count St. Germain was known

to the French court
in the 1700s.

He was a mysterious figure,

he was rumored
to be an alchemist,

and he let the rumor slip
that he had found the secret

to eternal life
through his alchemy.

MARITA WOYWOD CRANDLE:
He would speak as if he had
lived in the 1500s

and he never looked a day
over 40 years old.

LAYCOCK:
We have portraits
of the original

Count St. Germain
when he's 40 years old.

Jacques St. Germain
was also 40 years old

when he disappeared,
and some people commented

that he looked like
the man in the portrait.

WEISS:
Early 40s,

maybe five foot,
six inches tall, 140 pounds,

pale skin and high cheekbones,
thin lips, hawk nose,

long curling dark hair,
large blue-gray eyes.

He's elegant,
he's charming, he's French.

He spends money like it's water.

Many people say
that Jacques St. Germain

and Count St. Germain
are the same person.

SHATNER:
Jacques St. Germain
and the Count de St. Germain,

one and the same?

If so, that would have made him
almost 170 years old

at the time of his disappearance
from New Orleans in 1903.

That is,
if he ever really disappeared.

CRANDLE:
Even down to modern times,

there have been sightings
of St. Germain

wandering our streets
late at night.

People will say
that they have encountered him,

and now and then
one of them disappears.

(woman screams)

This is actually an account from
some people I know fairly well.

A few years ago at Halloween,

they're in the middle
of the crowd on Bourbon Street

when the crowd
just parted itself,

almost of its own accord...

...and there was a man
standing by himself

in the middle of the crowd.

Maybe five-foot-six,
somewhat slight of build

with a long, dark coat

and sunglasses on at night.

He raised his head up
like he's sniffing the air.

And the crowd kept
parting around him.

And then, they said,
he just vanished.

They swear
that actually happened.

And in New Orleans,
how can I not believe it?

SHATNER:
Whether he's called
the Count or Jacques,

there are many who believe
that the vampire who haunted

the streets of New Orleans
for over a century

still walks the streets
at night.

If true, could it mean

that other seemingly
absurd tales of undead creatures

living among us are also true?

DAVID SKAL:
Vampires are just part
of the human imagination,

going back to time immemorial.

In folklore,
there are so many different ways

to become a vampire
or to destroy a vampire

or to avoid a vampire.

The idea of the wooden stake,

the recoiling from the crucifix,

the destruction by sunlight.

Vampires like the night
because they can skulk around

and cover their terrible deeds
in the shadows.

HARVEY ROSENSTOCK:
In Romanian,
the word for a vampire

includes the word "vârcolac,"

which, uh, really means,
uh, "werewolf."

So you have "werewolf,"
"vârcolac," uh, "vampyr,"

uh, "vampire,"
so it's sometimes...

I can see how people
can coalesce

and come out with something
that's a mixture.

The werewolf
and the vampire merge

and morph and inform each other.

When Bram Stoker
wrote his novel,

Dracula had the power
to become a wolf.

He was a werewolf.

He was a bloodsucking vampire
as well.

And, uh, it was
the kind of arbitrary grab bag

of characteristics that he chose

that we are still
mostly playing with today.

SHATNER:
Vampires?

Werewolves?

Could these creatures
actually exist?

And is it possible
that there is a space

between the known and unknown

where the supernatural
crosses into our reality?

Perhaps further evidence
can be found

at a strange temple complex

that some believe
is the gateway to hell itself.

SHATNER:
High in the mountains
of Central China,

along the banks
of the Yangtze river,

lies a complex
of shrines and temples

that is known as
Fengdu Ghost City.

According to Chinese legend,

Fengdu is considered
to be a place where our world

meets the underworld.

As you're approaching
Fengdu City on Ming Mountain,

you're imagining something
that's gonna be beautiful,

but instead
you see these depictions

of hellish images

and devilish creatures who are
actually devouring human beings.

One of the first things
that you encounter,

uh, when entering the complex
is, um, actually a gate

that is shaped
as a head of a demon,

and you have to enter it
through its open mouth.

So it's a very impressive
first sight

that the visitor encounters.

JEREMIAH:
Walking through this complex

is like walking
through hell itself.

It's supposedly the place where
the devil actually resides.

SHATNER:
The vast array
of devilish statues and carvings

found throughout Fengdu
have earned the city

a ghoulish reputation.

But why did the ancient Chinese
feel the need

to create an entire city

filled with such
ghastly depictions

of the forces of evil?

Well, Fengdu Ghost City

is believed
to have been first built

during the Han dynasty,
around the year 200 AD.

The city was constructed
to represent Chinese beliefs

about the afterlife

and how a person's soul
is judged after death.

STEAVU:
The Fengdu Ghost City is a type

of purgatory space
in Chinese conceptions

of the underworld.

It's a place where the souls

of recently deceased people
are brought

so that they can be in front
of the court of the underworld

and tried and judged
for all of the actions,

the good deeds, and the misdeeds

that they performed
during their life.

If their karmic balance
is positive,

then, after their judgment,

they are taken
to various celestial realms

where they can enjoy
a nicer afterlife.

If your misdeeds overshadowed

your good deeds
during your life,

then you will be unable
to complete this trial

and you will be presented
for judgment forthwith

and then
carry out your sentence.

SHATNER:
The final judgment takes place

inside the oldest temple
in the city,

where a person's soul
is put on trial by King Yama,

the gatekeeper to hell.

STEAVU:
This main building, which is
actually King Yama's court,

is presided over
by a statue of King Yama,

very fearsome in appearance.

King Yama is the overseer
of the underworld

in the Chinese tradition.

So he judges the deeds
and misdeeds of the deceased

and oversees
all of this distribution

of postmortem justice.

So he's bringing down
the full power

of the underworld state

to bear on the people
that he judges.

And he is also flanked
by a retinue of demons.

Their role is to dole out
the punishment

and to make sure that
the punishment is respected.

For those who don't go straight
to the celestial realms,

they have to spend
a certain amount of time

in the 18 levels of hell.

And you have a variety of hells,

you have the hell
of burning oil,

you have the hell of fire,

you have the blood pool hell,

in which you have
to spend a time,

sometimes close to eternity.

The fact that this
has become a major site

that is open to the public
and that people can visit

perhaps serves
as a kind of warning

or an incitement, uh, for, uh,
people to live more moral lives

and, uh, to be kinder to others.

SHATNER:
The idea that your soul

can be doomed to hell
for eternity is concerning,

to say the least.

But it also raises
an intriguing question.

What led people to believe
that this particular location

was so strongly connected
to the devil and hell

in the first place?

STEAVU:
There's a long history
of connecting Fengdu

to the Gate of Hell,
the Guimen guan,

or the Gate of Demons,

and this is considered to be
the actual gate to hell,

to the, to the courts
of the underworld.

It's the actual entrance portal
to the netherworld.

This portal to hell
is actually a two-way portal,

so not only can
the deceased enter it

to get to the netherworld,

but you have demons
of the netherworld

who are allowed to leave,

who can emerge from it

and sometimes wreak havoc
in the world of the living.

SHATNER:
The notion
that Fengdu Ghost City

could be a portal to hell

may sound far-fetched to some.

But on the other hand,
there are similar places

throughout the world
that are also thought

to serve as bridges
where Satan crosses over

from his realm into ours.

The idea of a portal
to the underworld,

a doorway to hell shows up
in many different cultures...

...and various locations.

There are certain caves
in the Mediterranean area

that that is how you enter
or someone returns from Hades.

There's a burning bowl
in Turkmenistan.

It's actually a natural
geological formation,

but it is continually burning

and it looks like
a gateway to hell

if you would descend there.

The concept was always,

if Satan shows up on the Earth,

people asked,
"How did he get here?"

Does he have a magic power
where he can just appear

and just disappear,

or is there a way to a shortcut?

And what happened
in a lot of religions

is, you had to have
some kind of way

to get from the underworld
up to the terrestrial plane,

and so you needed to have
a cave or some kind of portal.

BADER:
These can be in graveyards,
they can be in old mines.

There's been a number
of these reported over time.

These places have developed
a folklore or mythology

that they are dangerous,
scary places you should not be.

And the belief
about portals to hell

is that these are places where
the dimensional walls are thin.

These are places
where it's easier for Satan

and his minions to cross over.

SHATNER:
Could it really be true
that Satan and his demons

use portals to spread
across the Earth?

According to many systems
of belief,

the answer is yes.

And there are some
who believe that,

once Satan has entered
our world,

he has the ability to take
many different forms.

It's recorded
in ancient literature

that these forces

who we call shedim, or demons,

it is well known that they can
sometimes materialize

into physical form.

And they would look like
whatever form they would choose.

(squawks)

In Christian demonology,
angels don't have bodies,

demons don't have bodies,

so they can take
whatever form they want.

They're natural shape-shifters.

So we need to understand
that these entities,

they're not relegated
to the ancient past.

We must protect ourselves
from these interactions.

SHATNER:
A group of psychiatrists

from the University of Miami
School of Medicine

publish an intriguing
and unsettling study.

Their report documents
a rare mental illness

that is known
as Wendigo psychosis.

BLACKBURN:
Wendigo psychosis is a kind
of controversial condition

in which a person is believed

to have intense cravings
for human flesh.

This could result
from, uh, isolation,

lack of food, in which a person

ends up getting a condition
of high anxiety

that just sort of comes out

in this bizarre
cannibalistic craving.

SHATNER:
While Wendigo psychosis
continues to be studied

by medical professionals...

...the name
of this disturbing condition

actually has its origins
in Native American lore.

For centuries, when Native
people heard the word "wendigo,"

they understood it to be
not a form of mental illness

but rather a terrifying monster.

McNEILL:
The wendigo

is a creature that comes to us

from Algonquin tradition.

So, the Ojibwe people,
the Cree people,

right around
the Great Lakes area

in both the U.S. and in Canada.

This is an area of the world--
the Great Lakes region--

where winters are harsh,

and starvation--
that was a common thing.

The key theme
to the wendigo story

is that this is a creature
that eats human beings.

"Wendigo" is a word
from the Algonquin language

which translates into

"evil spirit
that devours mankind."

Descriptions of the creature
vary from tribe to tribe,

but in general
the wendigo is a very tall giant

with glowing red eyes,
rows of sharp teeth,

and an extremely long tongue.

CHAD LEWIS:
Many cultures believe

that the wendigo
is the most fearsome

and deadly creature

ever to set foot
in North America.

It has an insatiable hunger
for human flesh.

The more it eats,
the bigger it becomes.

SHATNER:
A skeletal monster
that becomes bigger and stronger

with each human it devours?

It's undoubtedly terrifying,
to say the least.

But could the legend
of the wendigo actually be true?

Well, according
to Native American tradition,

it is.

And perhaps the most
haunting part of the legend

is that these hideous creatures
were once human beings.

BLACKBURN:
According to
the Native American stories,

the process for somebody
becoming a wendigo

is either an evil spirit
possesses the person

-and then becomes the wendigo...
-(screeches)

...or the person simply
transforms into the monster.

LEWIS:
If you dreamed of the wendigo,

that would welcome the wendigo
to come and attack you.

So there were multiple ways
that you could be possessed

by the wendigo.

SHATNER:
While Native American legends

of wendigo transformations

might be easily dismissed
as parables

rather than real events,
that may not be the case.

Perhaps the most
compelling argument

that wendigo possession is,
in fact, real

can be found by examining
the horrific story

of a 19th century Cree trapper
named Swift Runner.

The story of Swift Runner
is one of the most gruesome

and heartbreaking tales
of a person becoming a wendigo.

During the winter
of 1878 and '79,

Swift Runner took off
with his family

to their winter hunting grounds.

But then the game disappeared.

Times were tough
and food was scarce.

During this
particularly brutal winter,

he actually killed

and ate his wife
and his children.

And according to the story,
Swift Runner had been possessed

by the spirit of the wendigo.

LEWIS:
Swift Runner said
an evil presence overcame him.

When authorities
took him back to the grounds,

they discovered something
out of a horror movie.

Bones thrown all about,
skulls everywhere.

He was eventually arrested
and sent to Edmonton

and was hanged
for being a wendigo.

SHATNER:
Did Swift Runner
commit shocking crimes

because he was possessed
by the wendigo,

as some people believed
at the time?

Or was he simply afflicted with
an extreme form of psychosis,

as the modern medical community
now claims?

Just like many tales regarding
monsters of myth and legend,

the truth remains elusive.

The key defining feature
of the wendigo

is about cannibalism.

We can see that
as a supernatural creature

or we can see it
as a medical condition.

But as far as anyone can tell,
the Wendigo psychosis

is pretty specific
to that cultural area.

And there are things known
as culture-bound conditions

that only happen to people from
a given cultural background.

BLACKBURN:
Now, the fact
that we have a science

referring to the wendigo,

it doesn't prove
that the wendigo exists,

but it just underscores the fact

that the wendigo has transformed
from Native American tales

to something we're talking about
in modern times.

The possibility
of contracting a psychosis

that would make you
crave human flesh

is terrifying, to say the least.

But wendigo is not
the only creature

to be concerned
about encountering.

It you find yourself lost

in the swampland
of rural Arkansas,

you just might come face-to-face

with a dangerous being
known as the Fouke Monster.

SHATNER:
Population: 733.

This small town
near the eastern border of Texas

appears similar to hundreds
of other rural communities

in the region.

A single highway
cuts through the town,

which is surrounded
by vast woods,

creeks...

...and acres
of mosquito-ridden swampland.

BLACKBURN:
Fouke, Arkansas

is thousands of acres
of very swampy area.

And within that,
there is plenty of places

that creatures
could find seclusion

and could easily survive.

The woods and the swampy bottoms
are just so thick

that they could travel
through these woods

and not be seen,
uh, very much, if at all.

SHATNER:
This rugged landscape

is teeming with wildlife,
but according to locals,

there is a massive,
monstrous creature

that stands out from all others,

because it bears an uncanny
resemblance to a human.

They call it the Fouke Monster.

By physical description,
the Fouke Monster,

it's very large,
seven to ten feet tall.

Very thick, long,
matted-down hair,

usually dark brown
or reddish tint.

It's a biped,
walking and running upright

on its hind legs.

(howling in distance)

BLACKBURN:
The creature is often known

to elicit a frightening howl.

It's often said to have

a very terrible, rank odor.

It's said to be similar
to a bigfoot,

yet more scraggly,

more rugged-looking,

and witnesses often have
a very emotional reaction

because of the fear
of this creature.

SHATNER:
It's estimated that there
have been hundreds of sightings

of the Fouke Monster,
dating back to the 1800s,

and locals are convinced
that tangible evidence

of the beast exists.

Over the years, people have made
numerous plaster casts

of unusually large footprints

said to have been left
by the massive creature.

Today, many of them
are preserved in a town museum

known as the Monster Mart.

SHATNER:
Are these strange footprints

proof that a giant hairy beast

roams the swamplands
of Southwest Arkansas?

Perhaps, but of course

many residents
don't need convincing

because they claim
to have actually seen

the Fouke Monster
with their own eyes.

Back in the early '70s,
my friend Karen and I

were riding in the back
of a pickup truck.

And all of a sudden,

we saw this thing step out

-from behind a big tree.
-(screams)

It was probably about
three and a half feet

across the shoulders.

And it turned
and took another step

and was gone
into the plum thicket.

That's why we never went
in the woods anymore after that,

'cause we-we knew
how big it was,

and that thing
could snap you like a twig.

DOYLE HOLMES:
About 2004,
I'm in a little canoe,

-and I hear splashes.
-(water sloshing)

I could see the image,
the silhouette

of something with two legs

standing up.

This thing was hairy.

It's big legs, big trunk.

It was very impressive-looking.

After a while,
he just turned around

and just walked off
in the marsh,

and I didn't see him again.

Now, I, at that point,
never believed in the monster

or that there was
something else out there,

but my mind started
getting open to the possibility

at that point.

SHATNER:
And many believe
that the monster

is not only real
but also quite dangerous.

The most infamous incident
that cemented

the Fouke Monster's
menacing reputation

occurred on May 2, 1971,

when it reportedly attacked
a local man named Bobby Ford.

One of the most sensational
and well-known encounters

with the Fouke Monster

originates at what's known
as the Ford house.

On a Saturday night,
the Ford family

started to hear something
creeping around on the porch.

And all of a sudden,

this big hairy hand
came in through the window.

Bobby Ford went outside

-and shot at it.
-(gunshots)

All of a sudden, something
ran out from beside the house

-and attacked him.
-(creature growls)

He barely managed to escape,
and whatever had happened,

uh, shook him up so bad

that they ended up
having to transport him

to the Texarkana Hospital,

where he was treated
for shock and injuries

as a result of this attack.

The Fords found
a strange footprint

which looked, uh, large
and somewhat humanlike

yet had three toes,

and so something very scary

and something
very unexplainable happened.

Following the publicity
around the Ford incident,

a farmer found
a track line of footprints

that went across
a soybean field,

and these tracks
were roughly human-shaped

yet had three toes.

And this was investigated

by the Miller County
Sheriff's Office,

the game warden,
wildlife officials,

and none of them
could really explain

what the heck
these footprints were.

So that built credibility
to what the Fords were saying.

SHATNER:
Perhaps what's
even more remarkable

than the fact that inexplicable
three-toed tracks

were found
shortly after the Ford incident

is that a plaster cast
of those footprints

can still be seen today
in the Monster Mart.

SHATNER:
While the outside world
may be skeptical,

many people in Fouke, Arkansas
remain utterly convinced

that their town
is home to a monster

that is not the stuff
of myth and legend

but rather flesh and blood.

Do the three-toed tracks

recovered from
an Arkansas farmstead

prove that a dangerous beast
is on the loose?

Maybe it's this
physical evidence

that will finally turn skeptics
into believers.

Like in the case
of an extraordinary discovery

in rural China
that just might authenticate

the existence of giants.

SHATNER:
Paleontologists from China's

Hebei GEO University
analyze an astonishing discovery

from the bottom
of an ancient well.

Their study is of the largest
human skull ever found.

The extraordinary find makes
headlines around the world

and sparks intense debate
about this ancient skull,

which scientists have
nicknamed the Dragon Man.

The Dragon Man skull is arguably
the most mysterious cranium

that's ever been discovered
in this world.

It is the largest ever.

It's actually around
nine inches long

by six inches across.

It was discovered in 1933
by a Chinese workman,

and because, at the time,

that part of China was occupied
by the Japanese,

he felt
that the best thing to do was

to hide it away in a well.

And it was left there
until 2018,

when he revealed the location
to his grandson.

The grandson went and dug it up.

And it was still there
in absolute perfect condition.

And he gave it
to a local university,

and it obviously came
to the attention

of the scientific community.

The Dragon Man skull
is interesting because

the cranial shape is shaped
like an American football,

being very elongated,

whereas a modern human skull--
Homo sapiens--

would be more rounded in shape.

The skull is
generally very robust,

including a very pronounced
brow ridge.

The eye sockets on Dragon Man
are also very large

and-and more square in shape,

versus a modern human's,

which are smaller
and more rounded.

Based off of what we know
about the skull,

it probably dates
to around 200,000 years ago.

Dragon Man is
such a new discovery

that lots of ideas are
coming out of the field

about exactly what did
this population look like

and how do they relate to us?

PRYOR:
The Dragon Man

is bringing us face-to-face
for the first time

with a new Asian version
of-of human,

which very likely
we also interbred with

and whose DNA we probably
also carry in us today as well.

It's one of these finds
which occasionally comes along

which is really changing what
we know about our human story.

SHATNER:
Experts agree that the discovery

of the Dragon Man
redefines our understanding

of humanity's past.

And there are some researchers
who believe

that further investigation

of the skull will reveal
shocking truths

about this previously unknown
cousin of man.

COLLINS:
There is every indication

that the Dragon Man
may well have been

not only large in size
but also of great height.

Possibly as much as seven
to seven and a half feet tall.

And if you want to imagine them,
just think that in the past

you'd have had the small guys

that would have been
the Neanderthals,

who were about five
to five and a half feet tall.

You'd have had
our own modern human ancestors

that were around six feet tall,

and you'd have had
the much bigger,

much stronger Dragon Man.

With the discovery
of the Dragon Man skull,

we might have
the first real evidence

that giants once walked
the Earth.

SHATNER:
Is it possible

that the Dragon Man
was actually a giant?

Perhaps clues can be found

by examining the numerous
historical accounts

of people claiming to have
encountered ancient giants.

Giants are a stock character of
folklore throughout the world.

For example,
the Bible clearly states

that there were giants
on the Earth.

HUGH NEWMAN:
In North America,

the Native American cultures
have many

of these giant stories.

For example,
in Mi'kmaq tradition,

we find stories of giants

that would hunt people
and eat them.

There are similar stories
in the Algonquian-speaking

Natives of North America
as well, and traditions,

even up
to relatively recent time,

would honor
these ancient giants.

And this is something
that is prevalent

in different parts of the world.

SHATNER:
There are many skeptics
who write off tales of giants

as nothing more than
exaggeration or fantasy.

But there are others who insist

that giants were,
in fact, quite real.

And as evidence they point
to accounts of large human bones

being discovered
throughout North America.

NEWMAN:
During the mid-1800s,

the Smithsonian Institution
had an edict

where they would collect
all the different skeletons

of Native American cultures

from mounds, from caves,

from all over the country,
basically.

And they started finding
these remarkable skeletons

and discoveries that suggested

there was a very advanced race
of giants

living in North America.

And even in their Smithsonian
annual reports

in the late 1800s--

specifically, the fifth
and the 12th annual reports--

they documented between seven-
and eight-foot-tall skeletons

that their Smithsonian employees
actually dug up themselves.

And yet in 1910 onwards,

when Ales Hrdlicka became
the director of the Smithsonian,

he put a news report out
saying giants are no more

and tried to delete this idea
that giants ever existed,

even though
they discovered some themselves

in the late 1800s.

And so,
there's a definite mystery here

when it comes to trying
to find evidence

of these giant skeletons
of North America.

COLLINS:
Hundreds,
perhaps even thousands,

of these giant skeletons
have been unearthed,

but the problem with this is

that all of them today
have been lost.

Everything that was inside
the Smithsonian Institute had

to be given back,
or they were just destroyed.

And so the importance
of the discovery

of the Dragon Man skull is
in the fact

that this archaic human
that once existed

in this region of China has been
brought back into reality

and is being studied
by the scientists today.

You can discover
so much information

from just a single bone.

It opens up a whole world
of opportunity

for what we can learn
about them--

who humans are
and where we came from.

SHATNER:
This rustic town
located in the Mojave Desert

is adjacent
to Joshua Tree National Park.

Each year, millions
of people visit Joshua Tree

to hike through
its twisting expanse of boulders

and oddly shaped trees.

But unfortunately,
many adventure seekers

who trek into this wilderness
never return.

BLACKBURN:
On occasion, human remains
have been found out

in the area of the Joshua
Tree National Park,

and these are presumably

hikers who have gone missing
over the years.

So, while it's a beautiful,
striking-looking place,

it's also very secluded
and very dangerous.

SHATNER:
It's easy to see
how tourists hiking

in Joshua Tree could get lost

and fall victim
to the scorching temperatures

of this desert environment.

However, some locals believe

that mysterious deaths
in the park are the work

of a frightening monster who is
referred to as the Yucca Man.

BLACKBURN:
The Yucca Man is seen

in the southern regions
of the California area.

Sightings
of the Yucca Man date back

to at least the 1960s.

It's described
as being very tall,

covered in hair
over its entire body.

BADER:
The Yucca Man is
what you might call

a desert-based bigfoot.

People go missing
in the Yucca Valley

and its various campgrounds.

Part of the evolving lore of
this creature is, perhaps it is

preying on humans when it finds
people who are vulnerable.

SHATNER:
The idea that a giant monster
roams this remote area

and preys upon
unsuspecting hikers is chilling.

But according to local lore,

another fearsome encounter
involving the Yucca Man

allegedly took place
at a nearby

U.S. Marine Corps base.

One of the more famous Yucca Man
encounters occurred in 1971

at the Twentynine Palms
Marine Base.

A Marine was on night duty

and encountered
this eight-foot-tall,

-blond Sasquatch creature.
-(creature growls)

(roars)

He then became unconscious,

and when he was found,
his rifle was bent in half

with no explanation.

He was unharmed,
but it's pretty scary

to think of a Marine
being knocked unconscious

and a rifle being bent in half.

SHATNER:
While it's impossible

to verify the Yucca Man's
alleged run-ins

with military personnel,
many locals are convinced

that this dangerous creature
actually lives

in the Mojave Desert.

And like other monsters

that have been widely reported
by eyewitnesses

but not officially recognized
by science,

the possibility of its existence

both tantalizes and terrifies.

We love believing
in these creatures

and monsters
because we love getting scared.

But we also love the unknown,

not knowing if we've discovered
every species on the planet.

The mystery is
the best part of it all.

McNEILL:
We are often inclined

to see belief
in fantastical creatures as

somewhat irrational, maybe
fantastical, something that

isn't scientific.

And yet there's news reports

of people interacting
with creatures

that maybe we can't identify.

That keeps it alive.

It is not fundamentally
proven false.

And that kind of monster
is what we are continuing

to be obsessed with.

So, what do you think?

Are these dangerous
and frightening creatures real

or just a figment
of our imagination?

Could the stories
we've been told

about scary monsters
be strictly fantasy,

or are these tales based
on actual experiences

with terrifying entities?

What exactly
are people encountering

when they come up
against these strange savages?

It's a spine-tingling mystery,
but one that's best explored

from the comfort
of your own home,

because nothing can guarantee
your safety

while the truth about
these creatures of the night

remains...

unexplained.

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