Original subtitles

No matter what part of the world I'm in,

something wants to sting me.

Aah!

We shouldn't be too afraid of death.

Yeah, I'm crazy. Everybody's crazy.

People just don't think that humans should be able

to do the things that I'm doing.

CAMPBELL: 100 years ago, Robert Ripley went on a quest

to the farthest reaches of the globe

in search of the extraordinary and unusual.

Today, the adventure continues,

searching for the world's most bizarre,

astonishing secrets...

...on "Ripley's Believe It or Not!"

Grit, guts, and glory.

I'm Bruce Campbell, and these are the folks

who push themselves to the brink.

For some people, that means developing radical new skills,

but this guy literally is driven right to the edge.

39-year-old Eskil Ronningsbakken

is making his mark where the mountains meet the sky.

With every passing second,

more and more blood rushes to his brain,

and the weight of his full body bears down

on his arms and shoulders...

yet he barely flinches.

RONNINGSBAKKEN: I just got this inner drive,

this inner feeling telling me to do it, and I do it.

[ Laughs ]

It is also impossible for me notto do it.

CAMPBELL: Now, Eskil is taking on a new challenge,

trading in the wild landscape for an urban peak

10 stories high with slick surfaces everywhere

and the wind in his face.

Believe it or not.

You're so close to death

and at the same time living 100%.

CAMPBELL: Yet Eskil always finds the perfect balance...

at least so far.

At the top of this building, there is no margin for error.

If I fall, then that's the first and the last time.

I believe it's in our nature to have a certain fear of heights.

I also have this kind of fear.

Even though it's really frightening,

when I get to the edge, I just take my time.

I make friends with the edge, which means that I need to know

every little piece, every little inch of the edge

and not fearing it any longer.

Then, slowly by slowly, I remove the fear.

CAMPBELL: Eskil grew up in the Norwegian countryside

on a farm without a TV or a car.

But his town was visited by a traveling circus,

and young Eskil couldn't get enough.

RONNINGSBAKKEN: The circus was really interesting

because it was a kind of mini society

with people from all over the world.

This kind of kicked a bigger dream off.

[ Cheers and applause ]

CAMPBELL: Eskil was especially obsessed

with the high-wire acts,

and by the time he was a teenager,

he was testing his own abilities in the treetops.

RONNINGSBAKKEN: When I first started,

my mom, first of all, was very worried.

She would come out after me,

looking up to the trees, and say, "You got to come down

because you're gonna fall down and die."

And just a few steps behind, my dad came very relaxed,

pointed his camera at me, and took a picture.

[ Camera shutter clicks ]

CAMPBELL: A single snapshot

that would define Eskil's whole future.

I'm not hunting the adrenaline. I'm hunting the picture.

I see my thing as a kind of art.

CAMPBELL: A professional photographer accompanies

Eskil on his stunts these days, beautiful pictures that could,

if something goes wrong,

easily become portraits of death.

[ Camera shutter clicks ]

RONNINGSBAKKEN: I never have a harness,

never have a net -- nothing.

I only use my mind.

Just before I step onto the platform,

I bring myself into a state of mind

where I strip off everything which is no longer important.

CAMPBELL: Eskil normally performs

in remote locations in privacy,

but now he's attempting his latest stunt in downtown Hamar.

With crowds already forming,

it's his most unpredictable setting yet.

RONNINGSBAKKEN: It's different doing buildings

because you have all those sharp ends.

There is always a little bit of noise.

[ Car horns honking, siren blaring ]

What I'm specifically afraid of is the rig.

Is it good enough? Is it stable?

What about the wind? What about people around?

It can be quite disturbing,

but, of course, the biggest fear is that I fall over the edge.

CAMPBELL: In a city with tall buildings,

air squeezed through the narrow channels below

can cause wind acceleration.

There are unpredictable updrafts and downdrafts,

any of which could put Eskil at greater risk of falling.

Eskil's plan is to balance on the chairs

for 1 minute 20 seconds,

long enough for everyone below to enjoy.

But if he pushes it too far and the winds pick up,

this challenge could be his last.

RONNINGSBAKKEN: When the stack of chairs are moving,

I try to use it and move with the chairs.

If you move just a little bit out of the center of the chairs,

then that's fatal.

I don't see why I should fear death so much

that it should keep me away from doing what I love to do.

I feel 100% sure when I'm balancing.

I love life.

Eskil Ronningsbakken uses strength,

balance, and mental focus to perform on the edge.

Half a world away, another performer pushes himself

to the extreme using nothing but raw power.

Chris Rider is a 21st-century version

of an old-fashioned strongman.

He always pushes it into the red zone,

never mind that one wrong move could leave him crippled.

But what really sets him apart is what he does with his hair.

[ Grunts ]

Today, Haircules will attempt to pull a 14-foot box truck

weighing 14,500 pounds using only his hair.

Believe it or not.

[ Car horn honks ]

[ Heavy metal music plays ][ Grunting ]

Anything else?

People generally just don't think

that humans should be able to do the things that I'm doing.

Everything that you come across is an obstacle.

Obstacles are made to be beaten.

How's that?

Thank you very much.My pleasure.

As a kid, I was always the heavy kid in town, the fat kid.

I saw a picture of myself at 315 pounds,

extremely out of shape, and said, "No more."

I got heavily involved in physical culture.

I started at 315 pounds wearing a 54-waist jean,

and in one year's time, I went from 315 to 220.

Once that transformation happened,

I decided I wanted to be a big guy again,

and then I found powerlifting.

I was powerlifting, getting stronger,

and then one morning, it happened.

I couldn't get out of bed.

My back was completely locked up.

My legs wouldn't bend.

It was discovered through an MRI

that I have degenerative disc disease

from the base of my skull to my tailbone.

The doctors told me, "No more lifting."

CAMPBELL: Unwilling to undergo surgery,

Chris rehabbed himself through a program of exercise

and physical therapies,

but he still missed the intensity of powerlifting.

I would just lay awake thinking about that drive,

that determination, the beating everything

that you got to beat within yourself

to make the goal, and I found that again.

October of 2006, my life changed forever

when I discovered the classic feats of strength.

CAMPBELL: These demonstrations of superhuman ability

have drawn audiences for hundreds of years,

and Chris wasted no time getting in the game.

And I tore my first phone book.

CAMPBELL: Chris holds the world record

for tearing phone books -- 13 in 30 seconds.

[ Cheers and applause ] 2!

[ Accordion playing ] 8!

Stop!

13 phone books, ladies and gentlemen,

right before your very eyes!

CAMPBELL: When people think of classic strongmen,

they think of bulging muscles, not a great head of hair,

but hair has long been associated

with incredible strength, from Samson in the Bible

to Joe Greenstein of 1930s New York,

otherwise known as the Mighty Atom.

This vaudevillian once secured an airplane

to his hair with a chain, then held the aircraft in place

while the pilot gunned the engine.

Another man tried this same feat of strength a few years later.

He died after scalping himself.

La, la, la, la, la, la, la, la

La, di, la, la, la, la, la, la

I don't know that anybody's ever seen anybody

do what he does with his hair.

La, la, la, la

La, di, la, la, la

JENNIFER: The doctors say, "There's absolutely no way

you're gonna be able to do this."

He does it anyway.

My fear is he could make a mistake

and injure himself and be crippled for life.

Okay, you're ready.

Okay.

CAMPBELL: In spite of his degenerative disc disease,

Chris will attempt to pull a 14,500-pound box truck

with his hair.

Chris Rider, a.k.a. Haircules,

is addicted to performing feats of strength.

So even though he's battling a spinal condition

that could leave him crippled, he's determined to move a truck

weighing as much as two elephants

relying on the power of his hair.

CHRIS: Today, I will be attempting

to pull a 14-foot box truck,

which is heavier than anything I've pulled before.

[ Indistinct chatter ]

Jason, come on.

NEIDERER: Every time he pulls a vehicle,

something in his brain doesn't let him stop.

He just feels and knows that he can do something,

even though the rest of the world may think that he can't.

[ Exhales ] Yeah.

Alright, so I'm gonna hook up.

Hands will go out to the sides.

NEIDERER: Thumbs up?When I thumbs up is...

Foot off the brake....time to go.

CAMPBELL: To succeed, Haircules has to pull this truck

from a standing start and continue for 50 feet.

The typical human head has about 100,000 hairs,

and each one of those hairs is strong enough to hold 100 grams,

about the weight of a bar of soap.

Braided together, all that hair is as strong

as a 1/2-inch-thick steel cable,

the same cable contractors use for suspension bridges.

But the strength of his hair alone

is only part of the concern.

CHRIS: My biggest concern pulling this truck is

pulling so hard that I black out and fall over.

[ Grunts ]

[ Crowd cheering ]

[ Grunting ] Yeah!

MAN: You're on a roll, baby!

You're on a roll, baby!

[ Truck horn honks ]

MAN #2: Keep going.

Go!

[ Cheering continues ]

[ Cheers and applause ]

[ Exhales ]

CHRIS: I think the box-truck pull went very well.

I pulled it for a long distance,

and I'm just having a great time doing what I love.

As Haircules knows well, sometimes you have to endure

a little pain in the name of glory.

I know pain.

Pain is a friend of mine.

But for a few bugged-out guys on stinger watch,

pain is their best freaking friend.

Most people do their best to avoid stinging bugs,

but Justin Schmidt entered the hornet's nest

on a brave and excruciating mission.

40 years ago, Schmidt, an entomologist,

set out to do the unthinkable --

get bit by every stinging insect on the planet

and document the aftermath.

His resulting work, known as the Schmidt Pain Index,

became a fascinating scientific treatise.

Now it's getting new attention

from outdoor adventurer Rob Alleva...

Big freaking centipede -- amazing.

CAMPBELL: ...who intends to use the index

as a road map from sting to sting.

That is electric!

CAMPBELL: Rob loves to test science...

Oh, boy. Here we go.

CAMPBELL: ...even at its most painful.

Aah!

Okay, it hurts. [Bleep]!

Oh, [bleep]!

CAMPBELL: The Schmidt Pain Index says this tarantula hawk

is the worst sting in North America.

Today, Rob will find out if that's true.

[ Screams ]

Believe it or not.

The desert outside Tucson, Arizona, is full of insects,

over 50 different types of hymenoptera --

wasps, bees, and ants,

the perfect home base for Justin Schmidt.

Good morning, my lady.

The insects are so beautiful and so charismatic,

and it's just such fascinating, wonderful behaviors.

And what could be more fascinating than a sting?

A sting is basically nature's hypodermic syringe,

which puts the goodies in.

[ Insects buzzing ]

CAMPBELL: Starting in 1969,

Justin volunteered to play pincushion.

Over 1,500 stings later, he's got close to 100 species

catalogued in the Schmidt pain scale,

which ranks insect stings on a pain spectrum from 1 to 4.

Most of us have felt a 1 or even a 2,

but very few of us have experienced a 4.

And a 4 is just excruciating, electrifyingly debilitating.

It just shuts you down.

4 is a tarantula hawk wasp.

They're like an absolute bolt of lightning.

[ Thunder crashes ]

I don't like the sting. I'd rather not have it.

But I like the result that I get,

you know, some data and some useful information.

CAMPBELL: Build a pain scale,

and people will come, looking to test their nerve...

Not that baaaaad! Okay, I'm kidding.

CAMPBELL: ...or to just experience

the worst nature has to offer.

Oh, man. That stings. [ Laughs ]

CAMPBELL: Enter Rob Alleva.

Today, he's after a category-4 sting

from a tarantula hawk wasp,

a creature so fierce it eats tarantulas for lunch.

One of the largest wasps in the world,

the tarantula hawk has a stinger up to 7 millimeters long,

delivering a dose of painful venom,

a sting so painful this wasp has no natural predators,

and Rob Alleva is about to find out why.

This insect is at the top of the Schmidt pain scale

with a number 4.

But I've been bitten by rattlesnakes.

I've been stung from everything from honeybees to velvet ants.

But I want to see if this deserves

the reputation that it has.

I'm going to pick a spot on my forearm

and have it sting me, which is terrifying.

And if you try to say, "Oh, I'm tough. I'm macho," wrong.

You can't overcome the pain.

ALLEVA: Oh, I can see the stinger.

He's ready to sting.

RICHARDS: Why can't people change,

be whatever they want to be?

Yeah, I'm crazy. Everybody's crazy.

[ Engine revs ]

And in the white snow was blood everywhere.

Seven months after my injury happened,

I was racing supercross.

Justin Schmidt created a pain scale of insect stings

so people would know which bugs to avoid like the plague.

He never imagined anyone

would actually replicate his agony for fun.

Rob Alleva is about to face a full 4

on the Schmidt pain scale,

the most agonizing sting in North America --

the tarantula hawk wasp.

We're gonna find out if it lives up to its reputation.

He's ready to sting.

I tell people when they get stung by a tarantula hawk

to lay down and scream because that's a 4,

and a 4 is just excruciating, electrifying.

It just shuts you down.

ALLEVA: Here we go, sting level number 4.

Oh, I can see the stinger.

[ Screams ]

[ Inhales sharply ]

[ Groans ]

[ Exhales ]

[ Groans ]

[ Grunts ]

[ Exhales sharply, grunts ]

I've been bitten and stung by a lot of animals,

but this one -- this one's really high up there.

[ Exhales ]

Sorry. I can barely talk right now.

[ Exhales ]

[ Groans ]

Whoa.

Whoa, it just -- it just receded.

[ Exhales ] Wow.

Was the most painful sting I've ever had.

It felt like fire.

It literally felt like I was being burned.

I don't think I'll be tangling with any tarantula hawks

again anytime soon.

Respect for that animal.

Rob and Justin sought out pain for posterity.

For another man on a personal quest,

pain is all about transformation.

[ Birds squawking ]

Ted Richards loves his birds so much,

they've taken over his whole life.

He's even changed his name.

Now Ted is raising the stakes.

To really become a parrot...

he needs to take to the air.

But will this bird fly?

Eight years ago,

Ted started transforming his house into a birdcage

where he and dozens of birds live together.

He even eats the same food...

... as his feathered flatmates.

Now, lots of people are devoted to their pets.

[ Laughs ]

CAMPBELL: But Ted doesn't just want to be with them...

...he wants to bethem.

And then one day...

[ Squawks ]

But it doesn't stop there.

He's also colored his eyes.

Tattooing the eyes requires injecting ink

into a very thin layer of skin covering the sclera,

which is extremely risky.

There's nothing he won't do to look more like his birds.

By removing the outer ear flap,

which helps funnel sound into the ear canal,

Ted has impaired his hearing.

[ Parrots squawking ]

Ted is unique, to say the least, but he's not alone.

In the early 1900s, Horace Ridler

was a military officer

who covered his body in zebra stripes.

Species dysphoria is a condition in which a person

thinks of him-or-herself as an animal

accidentally born into a human body.

Plenty of people have modified their appearance

to correct the mistake.

But to truly complete his transformation,

there's one last thing Parrotman needs to do...

Fly.

He's traveled to a quarry where a zip line 230-feet-up,

2,300-feet-long traverses a reservoir.

It's time for Ted to spread his wings,

but will he take the leap

or will this parrot man chicken out?

MIKE: I hit a hole at about 35 mile an hour.

Most intense pain I've ever had up to that point.

He was dying.

FRANDSEN: I have a passion for it.

If you want to know what our prehistoric world looked like,

you need to look at poo.

Ted Richards spent years transitioning

from mild-mannered bird-keeper to fully fledged parrot,

but he won't really feel like a bird until he can soar.

[ Birds chirping ]

RICHARDS: Then the helmet?WOMAN: Yep.

Alright. This one?

Perfect.

Whoo!

Yeah! I love it.

I love it, I love it, I love it, I love it.

Whoo-hoo-hoo-hoo! Whoo-hoo!

Flying like a bird!

Ted Richards went from man to bird.

This person went from man to machine.

[ Engine revs ]

When it came to extreme sports, Mike Schultz was a natural

until everything came crashing down.

Now, with no training and no help,

he's determined to get back in the game

by re-fashioning bike parts into his own leg.

[ Engine revs ]

Believe it or not.

In the summer of 2008, I was on top of my game.

I had a lot of new things going on coming into the season,

just signed with a new race team.

I was banging bars with the best of the best in the world

and living my dream.

It was pretty awesome.

CAMPBELL: That is, until the second race

of the snowcross season.

MALE ANNOUNCER: They're off and out.

[ Engines revving ]

MIKE: I hit a hole coming down a really rough section.

Then I got thrown from my machine

at about 35 mile an hour, so...

I landed feet first,

and on impact, my left knee buckled 180°,

and instantly, most intense pain I've ever had up to that point.

And in the white snow was blood everywhere.

CAMPBELL: Mike suffered a compound fracture,

severing an artery in the process.

He was going into shock.

CAMPBELL: With a storm approaching,

EMTs can't airlift Mike to the nearest hospital.

They'll have to drive 2 1/2 hours

and hope Mike can hang on.

It's touch and go.

This leg injury was killing him.

CAMPBELL: They make it to the hospital, barely.

The only hope to save Mike's life is to amputate the leg.

MIKE: After I got home from the hospital

and kind of recovered physically enough

to where I was stable and could think straight again,

I kind of accepted the fact

that I wasn't gonna be racing or competing anymore.

CAMPBELL: But then in the spring of 2009,

he receives an unexpected invitation

to participate in a race for adaptive athletes

at the X Games.

Whatever excitement Mike's feeling is soon dashed.

He discovers that there isn't a single prosthetic

on the market that can handle extreme sports.

When you're riding, the majority of the time,

we're standing up on the dirt bike and the snowmobile.

I need to be able to absorb those big jumps and bumps,

and if I were to use my everyday prosthetic leg,

it would just buckle under impact,

or I'd have to sit down the whole time while I'm riding,

and, yeah, that's not gonna work.

CAMPBELL: The human leg absorbs impact

by transferring the force to muscles and tendons,

which contract in the opposite direction.

This extends the time of impulse, softening the impact,

but a prosthetic one doesn't exist...

at least not yet.

MIKE: So I went to the shop and started designing my own.

I used my 9th-grade drafting class experience.

I had pages and pages of drawings.

CAMPBELL: No formal training, no R&D department,

just one man driven to reclaim his life.

[ Engine revs ]

But will it get him back in the race?

In the winter of 2008, extreme-sports athlete

Mike Schultz is involved in one of the most gruesome crashes

snowcross fans have ever witnessed.

He lost his leg from above the knee down,

but not his will to compete.

MIKE: Prosthetic leg I was designing

was trying to recreate my quadricep muscles

to absorb the shock from those big jumps.

The main challenge of creating it was

basically trying to achieve the full range of motion.

[ Engine revs ]

CAMPBELL: Now to find out if his homemade bionic knee

will hold up.

My hands were just shaking 'cause, like,

this is gonna get me back into riding.

When I went for that first ride, it was an unbelievable feeling.

Man, I was standing up on both foot pegs.

I felt normal again.

Seven months after my injury happened,

I was racing supercross in Los Angeles

on the gnarliest racecourse

I've ever ridden in my entire life.

It scared the hell out of me. [ Chuckles ]

But I, you know, I stuck to it, and I pushed myself,

and I brought home a silver medal.

If you have something taken away from you

and you're not ready for it and you think you've lost it,

and then to have it back in your grasp again,

that's an incredibly powerful feeling,

and it just opens up your world again,

and from that point on, I haven't let off the throttle.

CAMPBELL: Mike goes on to win medals

in snowcross and moto-X racing,

the most decorated adaptive athlete

in X Games history.

Part man, part machine, total stud.

For some people, glory means crossing the finish line first.

For one man in Florida,

it's all about getting his hands on the rarest...

poop in the world.

If there was such a thing as king of feces,

George Frandsen would wear the crown.

I'm definitely a poop collector.

But not fresh poop.

CAMPBELL: George collects some of

the oldest turds in the world,

fossilized millions of years ago.

George's collection is prolific.

CAMPBELL: But he's not nearly satisfied.

My goal is to find the largest fossilized poo in the world.

CAMPBELL: Believe it or not.

FRANDSEN: I've collected coprolites since I was 18.

My first piece was purchased from a rock shop in Moab, Utah.

It looks like a cat poo,

and it said, "Fossilized dino poo," on it.

I just thought that was the most incredible thing

I've ever heard of or seen,

so I would go hunting for fossilized poo.

I have a passion for it.

CAMPBELL: When droppings are covered in mud,

a mineral transfer occurs, fossilizing them.

Millions of years later, it's no longer actual poop

but rather an all-mineral-based replacement known as coprolite.

The oldest human coprolite is from a Neanderthal,

previously thought to be strict carnivores.

Turns out, they actually ate plenty of vegetables.

FRANDSEN: I love it because what it tells about history.

If you want to know what our prehistoric world looked like,

you need to look at poo.

Fossilized poo, it can tell us about behaviors of dinosaurs

that we didn't know.

In each piece, you can tell maybe what it ate.

Are there bones in there? Are there scales in there?

That will indicate more information about our history,

and I think that's important to collect.

So what I thought would be a great idea

is to build a database, a resource center.

I ended up calling it the Poozeum,

an online resource center where people could come

and do comparative analysis with coprolites they have found,

and they could see ones from my collection.

They could find research papers. They could play games.

It's the hub of all things fossilized poo.

Prior to my collection and the Poozeum,

nobody was collecting poo,

and I had a passion for it, so I went for it.

CAMPBELL: The Poozeum, as his house is now known,

contains over 10,000 samples

with an estimated value of over $100,000.

FRANDSEN: The collection is so vast,

it's stored in several different places.

The very expensive ones are stored

in a environmentally controlled safe that only I have access to,

and it keeps growing into a giant crap collection,

you could say.

I always get really excited when I have somebody send me

a new fossilized poo.

This is a coprolite from Lyme Regis of England.

Hopefully, I'm gonna open it up

and it's going to be an incredible coprolite.

Really excited. It's like Christmas morning.

Poozeum curator George Frandsen is a man

who has reached into the bowels of his obsession,

and even after 21 years,

he's still tickled by every... treasurethat comes his way.

Today is a special day.

George is opening the newest addition

to his precious collection.

It's definitely not the world's largest coprolite,

but it's a rare specimen.

FRANDSEN: This is kind of neat.

It looks like it used to be more of an oval shape,

and it's broken off, which reveals all these scales,

but what's neat is that you can see the point that it comes to,

which is the great pinch mark.

What I'm guessing is this poo belonged to an ichthyosaurus.

It's a prehistoric marine reptile

that kind of looks like a dolphin

with these big, giant sharp teeth,

but it was a carnivore, and it would go through the seas

eating other sea-dwelling creatures,

and you have a series of scales

all through the inner core of the...

So it definitely ate some smaller fish.

All these little black marks are scales.

CAMPBELL: Each new coprolite George acquires is weighed...

52.9 grams.

CAMPBELL: ...measured...

53.28 millimeters.

CAMPBELL: ...catalogued and added to the Poozeum.

Most fossilized poo, you know, are tiny,

a couple millimeters across to several inches.

You get to these huge dinosaurs that are as big as a school bus.

Those big pieces of poo

that you think you'll find are very hard to find.

Not all poos are gonna fossilize.

Certain things have to happen --

quick burial, the right conditions,

and other critters have to leave it alone, which is hard

because other animals in the environment,

they like to eat the poo.

They like to live in the poo.

CAMPBELL: Case in point -- dung beetles,

which have been around for at least 100 million years,

rolling away turd balls and using them for food and shelter.

Because they don't have skeletons,

dung beetles rarely show up in the fossil record,

but paleontologists have found

their fossilized dung balls left behind.

FRANDSEN: Value for coprolites, it really depends.

A lot of poos I spend just a few dollars on.

Most of them are very cheap.

$5 to $50 range you can get some exquisite poos for.

The most I've spent on any one specimen was about $3,000.

CAMPBELL: The biggest ones that retain

the most poo-like characteristics

are the most valuable.

Any scientific details like bite marks,

bones, and scales can turn a turd into a treasure.

FRANDSEN: My goal is to find the largest full,

unbroken fossilized poo in the world.

I want it to look like a poo. I want it to be huge.

That's my goal, and before I die,

I want to add that to the collection.

In the end, whether it's ancient turds

that rock your world or the aspirations of human flight,

the pursuit of a dream can be as sweet as the goal itself.

Succeed or not, there's always glory in reaching for the limit

and pushing yourself to the edge.