Original subtitles

- Whoa, whoa, whoa. - What do you mean, whoa,

whoa, whoa, whoa? - Look, there's a warm spot.

That means that something was here.

I think this thing is close.

- Whoa. - What?

- What? - Holy...

On this episode of "Expedition X,"

my team investigates reports of a horrifying hybrid creature

stalking the woods of Washington.

- It's moving. - Oh, my God.

That looks big.

Witnesses describe a monstrous black cat

that shockingly has the face of an ape.

This thing is an apex predator built for stealth.

Ooh.

I just saw eyeshine over there.

Some whisper this could be a top-secret government

experiment gone wrong.

Could an animal have escaped that resulted in this thing

that people are calling the ape cat?

Absolutely, it could have.

Look, down here.

Heather and Phil will prowl for proof

as they attempt to track the atomic ape cat.

We want answers, but I don't wanna be dragging you out

of the woods in a body bag.

Oh! Oh, no!

So I just got a desperate request for us to take on

a case in my own backyard about a cat.

A cat in your backyard? It sounds riveting, Phil.

Maybe next week we should investigate my kid's goldfish.

- That's funny. - No, seriously.

It's been acting fishy.

So listen, this is no ordinary cat.

And by backyard, I mean the millions of acres

of Washington wilderness, more specifically,

the Columbia River Gorge.

Volcanic mountains, raging rivers, dense forests.

And you know, if I'm a secret monster, that's definitely

where I make them at home.

And apparently this cat is just as extraordinary

as its habitat. It is large.

Unlike any known species, there have been hundreds

of terrifying encounters.

And strangest of all, people who see it, some of them

say it looks half-feline, half-simian,

so they call it the "ape cat."

The ape cat-- I have to say, this is one of those great

cryptid stories that I have never investigated myself.

A monster cat with the face of an ape.

Some people say it was cooked up in a top-secret government

lab or that it's been wandering in this gorge for centuries.

Any way you cut it, this story is wild.

More than 80 miles long, the Columbia River Gorge is

a natural border between Washington and Oregon

in the Pacific Northwest.

The gorge was formed when

saber-toothed tigers still ruled the region.

Although those fearsomely fanged ancestors are long

extinct, there's evidence that monstrous cats

may have never left.

A 3,000-year-old petroglyph on a gorge canyon wall depicts

a giant cat-like figure.

In the 19th century, the earliest colonists

in the region write about a huge beast prowling the forests.

A century later, in the 1960s, reports of a ferocious

jet-black feline become disturbingly frequent.

However, the only known big cats in the area are cougars,

which do not have a gene that can produce an all-black coat.

As the mysterious sightings continue, locals whisper

that sinister animal experiments at a nearby top-secret

government facility called the Hanford Site

may be to blame.

For decades, it produces plutonium for the U.S.

nuclear weapons program, but residents suspect it's also

conducting grotesque experiments, leading to escaped

mutant test subjects.

In the 1990s, reports of the pitch-black cat

take a truly terrifying turn.

Witnesses describe the beast as standing five feet tall

with a nightmarish ape-like face.

Today, encounters with the so-called ape cat are still

surging alongside horrifying reports of mutilated livestock.

Many believe this strange creature possesses

an uncanny intelligence.

A seasoned hunter insists the monstrosity deliberately

lured him into a trap from which he barely escaped.

Is the ape cat an undiscovered ancient animal, or could it be

some kind of mutant feline?

With no easy answers, officials fear the gorge is

no longer home to a legend, but instead hosts a very real

and vicious predator,

stalking humans from the shadows.

So?

Listen, I think there could be something

really interesting here.

Some sort of undiscovered monster cat on the prowl.

And for the record, we had success in England

finding evidence of a previously undocumented

big cat out there.

But I gotta say, the whole ape-face thing sounds bananas.

Well played, Phil. Skeptical and funny.

Heather, what say you?

Well, I'm thinking if it is that monster in

those petroglyphs, then it has to be dang smart to win

at hide-and-seek for centuries. You know what that means.

Bigger brain, bigger threat.

Well, whether it's related or not, cougar attacks

in the area have been on the rise,

with someone being killed just a few years ago.

But the bottom line here is

the locals are asking for our help.

I think we need to get there and figure out what's going on.

Absolutely. Let's get into it.

And while the two of you start looking for the creature,

I'm gonna dig into these reports surrounding

this top-secret Hanford government base

where some say this thing originated.

Let's see if there really is a cat to let out

of the proverbial bag. Happy hunting.

- We're on it. - Next week, the goldfish.

It's a six hour flight from New York to Portland, Oregon.

Phil and Heather then cross into Washington and spend

another hour and a half driving deep into

the Columbia River Gorge, averaging one majestic waterfall

every two and a half minutes.

All right, Heather, welcome to my home state.

It's so exciting. I've never been here.

You've never been here?

No, I've never been to the Pacific Northwest.

- I did not know that. - It's crazy beautiful.

It is crazy beautiful. I mean, take a look around.

This is why I moved here. It is green all year round.

All right, I think this is James' spot right up here.

OK.

- Hey, James. - Hey, good to see ya.

Good to see you.

We're meeting with James Szubski, a local

whose terrifying encounter with a monstrous creature

in the woods inspired him to seek out stories

similar to his own.

You think you have seen an ape cat?

That's right. It was about four years ago.

I was in the East Gorge hiking above a lake.

And I saw something large and dark swimming in the water.

It was at least 10 feet long and all black.

- Hm. - You know, there's not a lot of creatures around here

that are that big.

I couldn't figure out what it was.

You know, we do have a lot of black bear.

Of course, you know, black bears don't have a tail,

and this thing that I saw, it had a tail, a long tail.

The next option would have been a cougar, but there are no such

thing as black cougars, and they're not that big.

I probably watched the thing for 20 minutes in total,

and I took my attention off it, and when I got to another

vantage where I could see the lake again, it was gone.

What were you thinking at that time?

I was shocked.

To think that there's a creature out here in

these woods that we don't know what it is, and it's that large,

it was a little disconcerting, I'll be honest with you.

When did you connect your sighting to the ape cat?

My wife and I own an outdoor store, and one night,

a guy came in and told me

a story that really kind of blew me away.

He was up near the White Salmon River,

one of the major rivers here.

He saw this enormous cat, and he described it as having

black fur and a long tail.

And then he said, "You know, James,

"the strangest thing...

was that it had a face that looked like a monkey."

And I had no idea, like, how genetically a cat

and a monkey be combined into a thing.

But it seemed like he was very genuine and credible.

And I really wanted to understand what this thing was.

So I started asking around. I put up flyers.

We put out radio ads.

And now we have over 130 reports of the cat.

- No. - Wow!

- Yeah. - So, considering

all the reports you've heard,

where do you think we should focus our efforts?

You got that map I sent you, right?

Yes-- let me get out.

OK.

So I created this map based on all the reports that I got.

And these icons, each of these represents a credible sighting.

- That's correct. - That's a ton.

I know, and do you see how they're clustered

along the waterways? - Yeah.

It seems like they're using the waterways

as their sort of transit system.

So that's really where I would start, right along

the White Salmon River and right along Panther Creek Falls area.

Well, thank you, this is incredibly useful data for us.

Any advice for us as we go looking for this thing?

This thing is an apex predator, built for stealth,

and it's gonna see you before you see it.

Before you head out, there's one more person

you gotta talk to. - Who?

- The sheriff. - Thank you.

- You bet. - All right, James.

Appreciate it.

Never wanting to keep the law waiting, Heather and I head

into town for our summons at the Skamania County Courthouse.

- Hi, Sheriff. - Hi.

- I'm Phil. - Hi, nice to meet you.

Sheriff Summer Scheyer oversees search and rescue operations

throughout the Columbia River Gorge region and has chilling

reports to share from deep in the wilderness.

There's something out in these woods that might be

dangerous for our community.

I want that identified, and that's why you are here.

- OK. - We'll do our best.

We've heard a lot of stories, but from you,

we want the facts. What's going on out there?

I have heard reports of this ape cat.

I've been very skeptical of it.

However, one of my deputies came to me and said, "I've seen

something similar to ape cat." - One of your deputies

has seen it? - Yes, yes.

He was out hunting...

and he saw a very large black cat walking across the field.

He's very well versed in the outdoors.

He knows what's indigenous to the area.

He said, "He's never seen anything like it before,"

and could not figure out why he saw

what he saw. - Wow!

I wasn't expecting that answer from you.

You're telling me this could really be out there?

Absolutely.

Beyond the ape cat, there are a lot of hazards

and dangers out there.

In fact, last year, two gentlemen were about

30 miles away from here and died

in the woods looking for cryptids.

And that's my team that has to bring those bodies out.

So we want answers, but I don't wanna be dragging you out

of the woods in a body bag.

- We don't want that either. - No.

We'll be careful, and we'll let you know

what we find out there.

- Excellent. - All right.

- Thank you, Sheriff. - Thank you.

- Great to meet you. - Great to meet you.

- Lovely-- good luck. - Thanks.

Heeding the sheriff's warning, Heather and I prepare

to set out for the rugged terrain of what some say

is ape cat country.

James's map points us to two hotspots.

We'll tackle Little White Salmon River first,

navigating a three-mile stretch, placing trail cams

along the way.

Then we'll hike up to Panther Creek Falls, which has

the highest concentration of supposed sightings.

Little White Salmon River has some seriously tough

white water to navigate.

Let's hit the water.

So we enlist a local guide to help us ride the rapids.

Heather, I'm at your pace.

So, you see a lot of cougars out here?

We sure got them out here. They're here.

There's a reason they call it Panther Creek Falls.

What about black ones?

I haven't seen a black one myself, but I've heard stories.

Cats don't like people. They're really reclusive.

So, the further you get away from civilization,

the more likely you are to find them.

So we're heading in the right direction.

- Oh, yes, we are. - Copy that.

All right, looks like we got some rapids coming up.

All right, let's get this.

Yeah.

Whew.

Here we go, here we go!

- Keep it going! - Oh!

All right.

Gotta move up! Watch it!

- Go team! - Let's go!

Keep it going, keep it going, keep it going.

Phil, Phil, Phil!

- Phil, are you OK? - Whoa.

You good? You good?

Yeah-- I'm good.

Yeah. That'd be great.

Though it's not easy with rough water, Heather and I scan

the shoreline as we go, searching for the best spots

to mount our trail cams.

Little game trail coming right down to the water.

Any animal around here that wants to go for a drink is

gonna pass through this trail.

I douse the trees with a horrifically pungent cocktail

of animal musk and pheromones designed to attract any

wild predators. Oh, that is horrible.

Hopefully, including the ape cat.

We blanket the three-mile stretch of river

with six trail cams.

The camera trap is set.

Then it's time to shift our focus to our main hotspot

of sightings-- Panther Creek Falls.

This is the end of the line.

All right. From here, we hike, Heather.

- All right. - All right, guys.

I'll secure the raft. I'll set up camp.

- I'll see you when you get back. - All right, Mark.

- Thanks for the ride. - Good luck out there, guys.

- Be careful. - You got it.

Look, I know we have our bear spray with us,

but what do we do if we see a big cat?

Well, first of all, don't run.

You wanna look as large as possible, maintain eye contact,

then back away slowly.

OK, so only the most

dangerous staring contest of my life.

Yeah, pretty much if you blink, you die.

Great-- no blinking.

Wait, wait, wait. You hear that?

Water.

That's gotta be Panther Creek.

Follow that upriver, we hit Panther Creek Falls.

- Awesome. - Let's go.

- All right, look at that. - Whoo!

Welcome to Panther Creek Falls. It's amazing.

It's incredible.

Whoa!

I see the creek. I see the falls.

Now all we need is that ape cat.

Who knows? Maybe that's what they were

seeing back in the 1800s. - Who knows?

So notice how we kinda have to yell here?

Yeah.

I wanna use that to our advantage.

For any of the wildcats in the area, their main advantage

over us is their ability to hear us coming

and their vision.

This noise, it levels the playing field a bit.

And when it comes to that vision of theirs, when we are

out here tonight, I'm gonna go completely lights out,

only night vision.

You wanna look for this thing in the dark?

You look for ghosts in the dark all the time.

- They're not gonna eat me. - True.

Well, I'll tell you what. While we do have some daylight,

I wanna put up some camera traps.

Then let's head to higher ground so we have a better

vantage point over everything. - All right, let's get to it.

OK.

OK.

I think this might be the sweet spot because...

the creek and the falls are

still masking our noise a little bit.

We have a very good vantage point

of the habitat around here.

Right-- what are you thinking?

I'm thinking you post up here, take advantage

of the visibility.

I will head further upstream, see if I can find some physical

evidence of what's living around here.

- OK. - And from here on out,

if you're gonna use a light, use these red lights.

Cats can't see it very well, and the red light wavelength

doesn't travel very far.

And cameras, let's switch to IOI.

All right.

- Good luck and stay safe. - You got it.

It is incredibly creepy in these woods.

It's pitch black, and I can't hear anything.

So the best way that I think I'm gonna feel somewhat

aware of my surroundings are night vision goggles.

I'm looking for signs of scat,

markings, clawed up trees,

anything that could be a sign...

of a large cat.

I'm not seeing anything right now, though.

Whoa, whoa.

Look at these scrape marks.

The way that this bark is peeled back and slashed up,

I'm sure many of you have seen a house cat

do this to furniture.

This is what the bigger cats do.

Look at the size the animal would have to be to reach

all the way up here and scrape the bark off.

If this were a bear, you would just see claw marks.

But this is continual scraping.

That is a large animal. I'm like, shaking.

I'm not seeing any fur, any scat.

So I'm gonna get a photo.

All right, if this thing is close, it is time to get

out the FLIR.

This is slightly terrifying.

We are in...

this thing's territory.

It will see us before we see it.

I can make out the stream down below.

Dark, dark blue.

Not seeing anything alive around here, though.

It's awfully quiet.

Ooh.

Did you hear that?

There's nothing on the goggles.

What is that?

Oh, my God.

I just saw eyeshine over there.

It's gone.

I can't see anything.

- Phil, I just saw eyeshine. - You got eyeshine?

Yes, it looked big. But it completely disappeared.

Stay put. I'm heading your way.

All right, let's move.

Where's the eyeshine?

- It was this way. - That way, that way.

- Yeah. - Keep the light low.

Use the FLIR.

Could you make out any details from this?

No.

It looked like two glowing eyes.

If they were glowing like that, you may have seen

a big cat.

- There is something out there. - I'm not getting anything.

Whoa, whoa, whoa!

What do you mean, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa?

Look.

- There is a warm spot. - Where?

On the ground, right in front of us.

Look!

Look at that leaf. It's bent down, right there.

- Something was sitting there. - Are you kidding me?

Were you down on the ground over here?

No.

No, that means that something was here.

I think this thing is close.

- Whoa. - What?

Oh, my God.

- Heather? - What?

- You got bear spray? - Yeah.

- Something just jumped. - No.

Something just jumped down there.

- It didn't look like a cat. - What?

I mean it.

There was something here, Heather.

Where is it?

Did it go? Where'd it go?

Where'd it go?

Not seeing any signatures right now.

Whoa.

OK.

Looks like there's a bit of

a game trail here along the creek.

It must have gone past this.

There's a scent mark here. Smell that?

Come here. Smells musky.

Any animal passing underneath this might leave a hair behind.

I'm gonna look for hair, scat, claw marks.

You watch my back.

- Cool? - OK, OK.

Oh! Look!

That is a hair. Right there.

Yes, I see that.

That has to be from what we just saw.

We've walked right through here, left a hair behind.

And Heather, the craziest thing about this hair, it's color.

- What color is it? - It's black.

- It's black? - Yes.

We may be onto something here.

All right, I'm gonna bag it before it blows away.

Got it.

All right, not to freak you out even more, but that heat

signature I found on the ground,

that was close to you.

That could have been this animal

stalking you, watching you.

Of course it was.

And the way it moved on the FLIR, it seemed like it

knew where it was going.

So what, it comes in here

to hunt and then heads back to its den somewhere else?

I mean, that's kinda what James is saying.

He thinks that ape cats use this waterway

to navigate the area. Question is, where's that den?

Let's keep looking. But no more splitting up.

Phil and I continue searching Panther Creek Falls until

sunrise, but we don't uncover any additional leads.

It did feel like we were being stalked by whatever

we encountered at Panther Creek.

So the next morning, I connect with an eyewitness who reported

experiencing something similar.

He felt certain he was being pursued by the ape cat.

Jasper, thanks for meeting with me.

Yeah, of course.

Jasper Foster is a seasoned hunter,

familiar with every animal in these woods.

But he says one fateful night, he encountered a beast

with a frightening unnatural intelligence.

I hear you've had an encounter with what people are calling

the "ape cat." - I did.

Tell me what happened.

Well, me and my buddy were driving out to the Big Lava Bed

to go camping.

It's an extremely dangerous place.

In the last 50 years, there's multiple people

still missing out there.

And all of a sudden, we saw a massive black object

bound down off the embankment.

Stopped in the road in front of us.

It looks at us, and we see its eyes.

It was a cat, but neither one of us ever saw a cat like

that before. - How is it different?

Now, all the cougars I've seen, none of them have been

black, and this one was. Jet-black.

And it was massive, far larger

than any other cougar I've seen before.

And its face looked flat,

more like an ape's face than a cat.

We're just sitting there staring at each other until it

bounded off the side of the road and into the woods.

Our curiosity, you know, got the better of us.

Me and my buddy decided to head on in after it.

- You decided to go in after it? - Yes, indeed.

We're pursuing it into Lava Bed,

but we lost its tracks.

The only thing I could think was it took high ground.

We were in a box canyon, walls on each side of us

15, 20 foot high.

And I had a moment of realization that it may be

setting an ambush for us.

You think this thing led you into a box canyon to be

trapped and killed? - At that moment, yeah.

Is that typical cougar behavior?

No-- it seems a little bit more intelligent

than your normal cougar. - I mean, that's terrifying.

It was.

And me and my buddy made the best decision we made all

night, probably, and got the hell out of there.

While Heather meets her eyewitness, I'm eager

to interrogate the conspiracy theory that the ape cat is

a product of secret experiments gone wrong at a nearby former

government facility, the Hanford Site.

Nice to meet you. I'm Phil.

Nice to meet you.

I'm meeting with Professor Robert Franklin,

chief archivist of the Hanford Project, who has researched

the site's once top-secret records.

A lot of people talking about this thing that they're calling

the "ape cat," - Mm-hmm.

and linking it to the Hanford site.

I'm wondering if there's any merit to it and trying to get

a sense of what really happened there.

Well, Hanford site is one of the three sites

of the Manhattan Project where we made plutonium

for the world's first test of a nuclear weapon

and for the Fat Man bomb that was dropped on Nagasaki.

It made two-thirds of the United States' plutonium.

Wow!

How come no one knows about this place?

It was designed to be secret, and it was

a pretty well-kept secret.

Hanford is creating massive amounts of radiation.

And one way that they determined

radiation's effects on the body was to experiment with animals.

So it is a fact that animal experimentation was happening

at the Hanford Site? - Absolutely.

I gotta know. What kind of animals?

- Dogs, sheep, alligators. - Alligators?

Alligators.

Did they have cats?

Yes.

In the 1980s, when they were digging up the corpses

of the animals to dispose of them properly,

they found felines within the carcasses.

No way!

So it's possible the ape cat could have come from

experiments done at this site? - Absolutely.

And so I guess the question on everyone's mind around here is,

could an animal escape and insert a novel set

of mutations into the population here that resulted

in this thing that people called the "ape cat"?

Absolutely, it could have.

And Hanford is having an effect on surrounding communities.

We know that Hanford discharged radiation into

the Columbia River, and wild animals

were getting exposures too.

- Really? - Oh, yeah.

Sometimes truth is really strange.

And Hanford did some really crazy stuff.

Still digesting the fact that many of the wildest claims

about the Hanford Site are actually true,

I meet back up with Heather.

Her witness has given us the coordinates where he had

his encounter, miles off the main road.

So, get this--

not only is it entirely possible that a radioactive cat

escaped from the Hanford Site, but it is a fact that radiation

contaminated the local environment, meaning it would

have caused mutations in the wildlife surrounding it.

So you're saying ape cat

could have been a result of this?

Listen, I still think that's a stretch, but I guarantee

you that the secrecy of the Hanford site has made

the lore surrounding the ape cat much, much louder.

Oh!

You don't get car sick, do you, Heather?

I really, really do.

I guess I'm having a lot more fun than you are.

Yep, we're testing limits today.

- Oh, my God . - Whoo-hoo-hoo.

Our bumpy ride is just a preview of the punishing

ground we'll be covering tonight.

The Big Lava Bed is an 8,000-year-old lava flow

fractured into sharp ridges and hidden caves.

Only four miles from Panther Creek Falls, this area is

another hotspot that local expert James marked on his map

of supposed ape cat sightings.

But it remains largely unexplored, and he gave us

a clear warning why.

This lava bed is some of the most treacherous landscape

you're ever gonna find.

It's filled with microcanyons and hidden lava-tube caves.

The rock is unstable. No one goes in there.

And because of that, I think the creature might be actually

living there. Be careful out there.

I've been in every kind of terrain there is,

and that place terrifies me.

All right, waypoint should be right up here.

- Just get set up. - Yeah.

We gotta keep our eyes peeled.

This ape cat could be out here.

I feel like we're about to find out.

Whoa!

I see why they call it the Big Lava Bed.

- Look at all that volcanic rock. - Yeah.

It's like another planet.

They were not kidding about this terrain.

It is rough out here.

This is a perfect example of a collapsed lava tube, which is

gonna result in caves. - Right.

And this lava bed is the size of Manhattan, so that means

there's plenty of potential dens for the ape cat.

Yeah, and I knew we were gonna have a lot of ground

to cover, which is why I brought us something special.

So, this is a military-grade thermal drone

with target-tracking capabilities.

We had such great luck last night using the thermal camera,

I figured, why not take it to the air?

Perfect-- let's get eyes on the sky.

Let's do it.

OK.

- All right, that must be us. - Yeah, that's us.

OK, let's see what else is out there.

This is gonna be challenging, though, because these lava

rocks are absorbing heat all day from the sun.

So we're seeing a lot of red areas.

What we really gotta look out for is movement.

OK.

I'm gonna send this thing

really far out there, but we also gotta know what's close.

I got my thermal scope in my bag here.

OK, on it.

I'll make sure nothing sneaks up on us.

Perfect.

I'll tell you what, I don't know if I could not run

if I saw a big cat staring at me back through this.

I wouldn't mind if you ran. Go after you.

All right.

You seeing anything?

Nothing yet, but we got time.

- It's so quiet. - Yeah.

Can't even hear the drone, it's so far off.

Oh, got some movement, got some movement, Heather.

Look on the left of the screen.

Oh, my God, what is that?

Oh.

Looks like it has a long tail.

Yeah.

- It's moving. - Oh my God, that looks big.

It just disappeared.

Yeah, it's like it just vanished.

You seeing it?

- No, I don't see it. - I don't either.

Do you know where that is?

Looks like it's about 500 yards away.

Tell you what, I'm gonna turn on the beacon light,

leave the drone hovering.

Let's get over there and find this thing.

OK.

- I see the drone up there. - I see it.

- You got it? - This way.

OK.

Yeah, there it is, around these trees.

And look, down here. Game trail leading right to it.

Do you see anything on there right now?

No, I don't see anything.

But the drone could be scaring it off.

I'm gonna back it off and set it to run a grid on

the rest of the big lava bed. As for us, let's head in.

OK.

- Whoa. - Look at that.

Is that the tree?

Yeah, that's gotta be the log that he was running on.

Oh.

- Let's get down there. - OK.

Not seeing any tracks in the dirt here.

Not seeing any hairs.

Oh, Heather, look.

- Is that a cave? - We got ourselves a cave.

Now we know how this thing disappeared on us.

Must have ran straight inside.

You know, it might still be in there.

Yeah-- let's suit up.

All right, let's go in.

Wow.

There's so many boulders for this thing to hide behind.

Yeah.

This cave could be the perfect den for a large cat.

It's critical that our rules of engagement change

from last night.

In the open forest, any cougar we encounter could easily

run away from us.

Deep in this cave, a cornered cat is much more

likely to violently defend itself.

We need to be extra cautious.

Anything could happen down here.

Wow-- look how far back it goes.

It just keeps going.

I'm not seeing any scat, fur.

No signs of what might be living in here.

Ugh, what is that smell?

I don't know. It does smell awful.

- Oh, look. - Oh.

Oh, my God!

The top secret Hanford nuclear site, said by some to be

the source of the ape cat, is confirmed to have birthed

irradiated alligators.

But there's one more infamous fugitive

from this government facility.

In 2009, the base went on high alert when radioactive

bunny droppings were discovered.

No, this wasn't from some mutant super bunny.

Instead, it was a wild rabbit with a taste for the toxic

material buried at Hanford. Crews sealed its burrow.

But where was the "wadioactive wabbit"?

Well, luckily, the bunny droppings were so hot

on the Geiger counter, they were trackable.

By helicopter, officials scanned over 10,000 acres,

GPS tagging every piece of plutonium-powered poop.

Unfortunately, no DayGlo bunny was ever found.

It's all just another strange chapter

in Hanford's hare-raising history.

Hare, rabbit? You get it.

Those hooves!

Those are deer legs.

Oh, my God, this smells awful.

There's no air circulation down here.

Heather, I'm trying to figure out if this is just an animal

that got lost in this cave, fell and died, or if there are

definitive marks on it that say a predator did this.

Phil, there's pieces of it everywhere.

That animal didn't fall.

Yeah, and I'm seeing some bite marks on there.

Heather, I gotta document this. You watching my back?

Watching it.

There's a significant chance that this is where whatever

we just saw brings its prey.

I mean, a cougar can drag an entire deer up a tree.

It absolutely is strong enough to drag it through this cave.

Holy.

What was that?

I think there was something up there.

- Look, there's another way out. - OK.

Oh, wow.

Look, look in the dirt.

See this?

This is scuffed.

So something just ran right through here.

Looks like it was going this way.

Oh, Heather.

What?

My gosh, look at that.

See the three lobes, four toe pads.

Yeah.

Typical of a cat, but these things are huge.

Is this the ape cat?

I don't know, but this is the biggest cougar print

I have ever seen.

I'm gonna get a scan of it, OK?

- OK. - Look at that.

I don't know what we are dealing with here.

Well, one thing's for sure, it's a massive cat.

Yeah, and we may have just followed this thing

through its den,

and we know it went that way, so we gotta see what other

physical evidence we can find.

Let's move.

Phil and Heather spent the rest of the night trying

to track down the huge cat-like shape they saw

on the thermal drone.

Oh, my God. What is that?

But found no more signs of it.

It just disappeared.

The team still captured a wealth of remarkable evidence

showing that there is something special stalking

Washington's Columbia River Gorge.

Oh, look! That is a hair.

We conducted DNA tests testing on the hairs Phil found near

Panther Creek Falls. The results were conclusive.

They belong to Puma Concolor cougar, a.k.a.

a North American cougar.

Cougars have been known to kill humans.

Heather's life truly was in danger.

That heat signature I found on the ground,

that was close to you.

That could have been this animal stalking you.

We also did tooth pit analysis on the deer bones

the team found in the lava tube.

The mark's left on the bones match those made by carnassial

teeth used by dogs, cats, and other beasts to tear

meat off the bone.

Humans don't have these teeth, but theoretically,

could an ape cat?

My gosh, look at that.

The paw print Phil documented just outside

the lava tube was also intriguing.

It measured four and three-quarter inches long,

which is very large for a cougar.

Heather, you are gonna wanna see this.

But a bombshell was yet to come.

All of this evidence for and against the existence

of the ape cat would arguably be put to rest by video the team

caught on the trail-cams around Panther Creek.

In addition to capturing an owl and an impressive black bear,

there is footage that seems to reveal the truth.

Went up on the ridge to check this camera trap

and wait till you see this.

- Oh, look at that! - Isn't that incredible?

You know, it's not black, but to me, this looks a few

shades darker than your average cougar.

And look at the size. It looks huge!

This is great!

To me, the evidence doesn't

get clearer. It's a cougar.

This is a case of misidentification.

There is no ape cat. Case closed.

Yes, it appears the case of the ape cat is closed.

That is, until something altogether more monstrous

is caught on camera.