All language subtitles for Ghost Elephants 2025_Modified by MerkavaMII_Subtitles02.ENG

Washington, D.C.,
the Smithsonian Museum.

The largest elephant
ever is here on display.

This is Dr. Steve Boyes.

He has been in search of
mysterious ghost elephants that

may be descendants of this one.

This is the first
time I've seen this elephant,

this grand elephant
here at the Smithsonian.

I've dreamt of it 1,000 times.

I carry a photograph of
this elephant with me.

For ten years,

I've been in
pursuit of its descendants in

the part of Angola I've
been working and exploring.

Now, they call it Henry.

Now, Henry is a human name.

And this is interesting
because the Nkangala,

the people, the
Luchaze of that part of Angola,

they believe and talk about in
their mythology of elephants

leaving their bodies
to become human.

And, well, this elephant
has left his body.

There's nothing in there.

There's just scaffolding.

His skull and tusks were too
heavy to mount into the exhibit.

But we get to go and
see the, the real skull,

the original skull and tusks,
the, to meet Henry,

this grand elephant, the
largest elephant ever recorded,

the biggest living land animal.

And, I can't believe I'm
standing in front of him,

the greatest elephant ever.

And here are the
actual tusks of Henry.

The Smithsonian allowed
us to take them out and film

them in its storage.

There are miles of
shelves with collected specimens

that are never
seen by the public.

And here is the skull of Henry.

The label from 1955
identifying the hunter,

Josef Fenykoevi,
is still attached.

The continent of Africa.

Henry was killed in Angola,

not far from the
highlands where Steve Boyes

has been searching
for the ghost elephants.

It is a plateau of over
4,000 feet elevation.

Its eastern part is
almost uninhabited.

It is called the
Water Tower of Africa.

The locals have
another name for it,

the Source of Life.

Annually, this water tower
supplies ten times the average

freshwater use of the
state of California.

Some of Africa's major rivers
have their sources there.

In the north,

the Congo that
ends up in the Atlantic,

in the east,

the Zambezi that
flows to the Indian Ocean.

All the tributaries that
flow south form the gigantic

wetlands of the Okavango Delta.

Where the water runs down
from the water tower,

valleys are carved
into the plateau.

Here, in almost
impassable wetlands,

the water collects in
source lakes and rivers.

And now, what is almost
unimaginable for us,

the uninhabited highlands,

the forest stretching
out in the distance,

where all this
water comes from,

is about the size of England.

Steve Boyes and his team
have discovered there almost

200 species new to science.

Everything they have found
is unique to this place.

Look at us.

We accompanied
Steve Boyes to Namibia,

about 1,000 miles south
of the Angolan highlands.

Here, he has been in
contact for years with

some Bushmen trackers,

the best remaining in the world.

These tribal people are the
most marginalized community in

Namibia, even though
its government is working

to improve this.

The terms "San" and "Bushman"
originated as derogatory labels

in the colonial era but
are now widely used.

These people, Steve hopes,

will make his dream
come true to find the

elusive ghost elephants.

This quest is it almost
going after the white whale?

The unknown, the mysterious?

This is, it's, it is a
bit like Moby Dick,

where I don't even know
if these elephants exist the

way I imagine them.

Could it be that
they are your imagination,

that you are after
ghosts that don't exist?

I am after ghosts
that don't exist right now.

Um, I've spent my life...

...living in a dream
that I never had.

It is like the experience
of the Cuanavale source lake

for the first time.

You stand there, you feel
like you've been there before,

but you have never been there.

You feel like
you've dreamed it,

but you've never dreamed it.

You feel like you're in a dream.

And these dreams
often come true.

I believe we'll
find an elephant,

maybe not as tall
as a building,

as big as Henry in
the Smithsonian,

but we'll find a bull elephant.

Does it matter
if they are a dream or

existing in reality, for you?

It doesn't matter for
me if they are just a dream

because that's almost better.

Then they will always exist,

'cause they
always could be there.

And I can go back
for the rest of my life

looking for them.

And maybe one day,
you find them.

But that's... that's it.

Maybe that's the future of
all animals, all wildlife,

is to be in a dream,
to be a memory.

This is Xui, one of
our San Bushman master trackers.

His Ju/’hoansi language
consists of many clicking and

smacking sounds far from
our phonetic system,

but his language is complex
and rich in expression.

Ju/’hoansi translated
means "real people."

I kept wondering,
who are we, then?

I still have a lot of hair
on my chest, on my body.

Am I half an animal?

As we used
to say when we saw you coming,

we call you

There are the "hairs" coming,

we call you the "hairs"

But you are also people.

And
you are also the "whites."

We also
call you the "whites."

Mimicking is an
important part of San culture.

Xui was proud to demonstrate
for us how a kudu antelope

finally went down from
his poisoned arrow.

These San Bushmen
here in the Kalahari Desert

of Northern Namibia
are the oldest,

the most primordial culture
since the dawn of man.

They enter a state of trance.

Thus, the spirit of
elephants can enter them.

The dance
lasts all night long.

This is Kobus,

who will come to
Angola as a tracker.

We saw him fainting at the
elephant dance last night.

I asked him if the spirit of
an elephant had entered him.

"Yes," he says,
"I went into a trance.

I felt that something
entered my body.

It could have been the
spirit of an elephant,

but I cannot
describe it exactly.

I'm still learning
to become a healer."

Xui Dawid is the third master
tracker to join the expedition

to Angola to find
the ghost elephants.

He's the only one
who speaks English.

In Angola, I see
the rubbing in the tree.

Yeah.

Can you see that
is that elephant because

of the height?

So, if you scratch
the body up on the tree.

Yeah.

Like this.

Which is
the itchiest part?

The itchy, is it the
shoulder or the back?

- The shoulder. The shoulder.
- The shoulder blades are.

- Yeah.
- Okay.

Yeah, and the
head here and the face.

You make it, he
makes it like this.

On a tree?

In the tree. Yeah.

I'd quickly like to
introduce Kerllen Costa.

He's from Angola,

and he's been working
with the Luchaze in the

Angolan highlands
for over a decade.

This is Gary Trower.

He's been working with
these communities,

these San communities in
this area also for a decade.

And it's a long journey to the
Angolan highlands from here.

It's a week driving.

It's over 1,000 miles.

And, of course,

the master trackers
are nervous about that.

Gary will be joining
them on their journey up,

and Kerllen will be up
there to receive them.

So it's important that we spend
time with the master trackers

and their families.

We were curious
about the poison Xui uses

for his hunting.

He took us into the bush
together with Ricardo,

our translator, and Gary.

Xui is in search of a bush
that is depleted of its foliage.

This is a sign for him that a
small beetle about the size of

our ladybug has laid its eggs.

The hatched grubs voraciously
eat all the leaves,

then let themselves
drop to the ground,

where they dig themselves
deep into the sand.

Here, they form cocoons.

It is these cocoons
Xui is after.

The grubs inside
are so phenomenally poisonous

that a few of them would
even kill an elephant.

Under no circumstance
must Xui have a cut or

a scratch on his hand, or,

slowly, within a day,
he would be stone dead.

So we have a little
pestle and mortar here,

which is used for
grinding them up.

Once you've mixed your poison
in here and it's ready,

you make a little
spatula-type tool out of wood,

and then you start smearing it.

You can see this brown color.

All the way from here to there
is where the poison is applied.

You never actually apply
the poison on the tip,

because if you
accidentally scratch yourself

or cut yourself,

so that's why you can
see it's clearly only

on this section.

Xui once almost died
from this poison when he tried

to break up a fight
between his older brother and

another young man.

He threw himself into the
middle and was stabbed with a

poisoned arrow.

There's a widespread
idealization that these Bushmen,

as pure children of nature,
live in harmony.

But like everywhere else,
there is jealousy, violence,

and even murder.

So what did he do?

As soon as he got
that poison in him,

what was his first reaction,

and what did he
do to save his life?

They made deep cuts in
his shoulder and many more cuts

all the way down his arm
to bleed out the poison.

His whole arm withered away,

and it took years
to grow back to the strength

of his other arm.

It's extremely poisonous.

If you have any cuts
in your hand,

I can vouch for that,

that when I was in the lab,
in the process of trying to put

the protective cap
back on the needle after

I've done the extract,

it went straight
through the glove and actually

pricked me twice.

And I had been told
by the hunters that it

starts burning immediately,

and I immediately
felt it burning like crazy.

It was burning badly.

You didn't cut off
your hand or your finger.

You still have it.

Yeah, so,
luckily, in the lab,

there was a tap right there.

I took the latex glove off.

I had my finger under the tap,

and I was making sure
that no blood could come out.

And I just kept doing this
repeatedly and letting it bleed

into the basin, flushing it,
flushing it, flushing it,

so, 'cause once it gets
into your bloodstream,

it will go up your arm.

And, generally, the only way
to save yourself is to cut

yourself all the way up
so that it can bleed out

as much as possible
before it reaches your heart.

What kind
of poison is it?

It's a nerve poison
or what is it?

It actually works
in several different ways.

So the grubs actually
are a hemolytic poison,

which means they break
down red blood cells.

So what happens is, the animal,
you can actually see in its

urine, the urine actually
turns black because that's

all the broken red blood
cells that are now being

flushed out of the body.

And another part,

what it does is, it actually,
it contains saponins, which,

once the poison
travels to your lungs,

it starts foaming
and making bubbles.

And that prevents the animal
from breathing because the

whole air tube and
the nose and nostrils,

I mean, mouth,
fill up with bubbles.

Because his
arrows are poisoned,

Xui's bow is small.

He's one of the
greatest trackers alive.

He can read tracks in the sand
as we would read a newspaper.

But he reads with
all his senses.

He hears
a bird alarmed,

and this tells him a
leopard might be nearby.

He sniffs the air
for the scent of elephants.

He senses
the ground vibrating from

the hooves of
fleeing roan antelopes.

Xui is very good
at imitating a small antelope

in distress in order
to attract the mother.

The danger is, he could
attract a leopard as well.

Yes you have
to move very carefully

before you make that sound.

Kerllen Costa
is Angolan.

He dreamt of a career as a
professional soccer player,

but then he became
an anthropologist.

I was born
and raised in Angola.

Most of my childhood was
spent during the height of the

Angolan Civil War.

Because my father was an
helicopter pilot for the army,

I spent a lot of hours
beside him in the cockpit

of his helicopter,
not only fighting in the war,

but trying to run away and
make sure his family was safe.

And on these journeys,

I witnessed and listened
to a lot of stories,

a lot of atrocities that no
human should ever see

nor hear, for that matter.

And it really represented the
Angolan Civil War at its highest

where helicopters are
machine-gunning elephants

from afar, where boats
with soldiers are rifling

hippos on the river,

where soldiers running
in the middle of the forest are

shooting down every single
animal that they can see.

This really represents the
divide that resulted between

biodiversity and humans,
because it's not only humans

that were affected,
for example,

from what is one of the
countries most affected

by land mines.

It's also animals,

because these animals were
being killed by land mines.

They were meant for tanks
and trucks and other things,

but they were being really
destroyed by these land mines.

And that's why you see
these Angolan refugees,

humans and animals,

scattering throughout
the continent.

And this seems to be
a worldwide trend,

it's not just Angola,

where you see humans
fighting against creation.

And this was witnessed
also in America, for example,

in the late 1800s,

where the trains would go
through the heart of America

very slowly, and with
people inside it just shooting

at buffaloes and
everything that they could see.

Not to eat, but just for
the sake of shooting.

As if man is on a mission to
destroy what he is part of,

what he is part of, his
essence, which is life,

which is biodiversity.

This is also represented
by the Fenykovi elephant,

which was shot by Fenykovi,
which is, up until now,

the biggest recorded
elephant in the world.

This is an Angolan citizen,
an Angolan elephant.

He was shot because
of his majestic-ness,

because of his greatness.

And it seems like this
greatness is what causes not

just this elephant but all
other living beings to be

destroyed by humans.

This material is
from the 1966 Italian film

"Africa Addio."

At this time,

big-game
hunting was still fashionable.

Today, our respect for
nature has changed.

Even a huge fallen tree
has its local guardians.

We have
the permission of the guardians

to visit this
incredible baobab,

1,000 years old.

The ground trodden by the
elephants that move around here

looking for parts of
the baobab to feed on,

like this over here.

You can see their
tracks from days ago.

You can see here,
that's the bull.

It's about 50 centimeters.

And if you take the
longest diameter and

multiply it by seven,
you'll get his shoulder height.

So he is nine foot tall,

very big bull on the
edge of the breeding herd

as they feed here.

Not part of them,
here to visit with them.

But now the Fenykovi
elephant in the Smithsonian,

the largest living land
animal ever recorded,

its footprint was, that big.

You can see now,
compared to this.

This is his front foot
carrying the bulk of his head

and his tusks.

Now, the first footprint
that Fenykovi found,

Josef Fenykoevi, was another,
50 centimeters.

So that foot was this big.

Now, he thought
this was something new,

a mammoth, a mastodon.

An elephant like
Africa's, never seen,

the world has never seen.

This he found on his
first expedition in 1955.

They found two bulls
together under a tree.

They put 17 high-caliber
rounds into the biggest one,

the Fenykoevi, as he turned
out to be called, Henry.

They pursued him for 15
kilometers in a Jeep with the

trackers until he collapsed.

And then, upon skinning him,

they found that
he had a flintlock round

in his thigh, in
his front thigh.

Now, these were
typically given in the

18th and 19th centuries
to tribal leaders,

to kings for their support of
the ivory and the slave trade

in that part of
Africa, Portuguese.

So this elephant at this size,

must have been
over 100 years old.

An elephant that no one had
ever imagined could exist,

an elephant, that we don't
understand today as it stands

there in the museum,

an elephant that may
be a new subspecies.

When we talk to
the Luchaze today,

they've told us of
these elephants,

the ones that they've seen,

encountering forest
elephants with red eyes.

So we really don't know.

And I'm here to seek help,

the same help
that Fenykovi had,

Khoisan Bushmen master
trackers to help us,

Kerllen and the Luchaze,
find the Fenykoevi,

find Henry, find the
descendants of Henry.

Get tissue samples that
we can compare to what we

have in the Smithsonian,
because in the Smithsonian,

the skin alone was two
tons when it arrived there.

They used five tons of material
to build the elephant up,

but the skull was one
- and-a-half times bigger

than any skull on
record in any museum.

And the tusks were
too heavy, their bulk,

to mount onto the exhibit,
so those are in storage.

We can extract ancient DNA
from those for comparison to

what we find today.

What is interesting
is how the media reported about

this hunt at the time.

Here to the left, Fenykovi
poses in front of his trophy.

It was Sports Illustrated
that celebrated the sportsman

who had set a new world record.

Fenykovi took
meticulous measurements.

Here, his sketch with all
the detailed dimensions.

On the top right,

he includes a sworn statement
to the correctness of his data.

The emphasis is on the
proof of the new record that

has never been
surpassed to this day.

Ghost elephants are
these last great giants,

living in these
high-altitude forests.

We don't find elephants
over 1,200 meters.

They're up there in the sky.

I mean, the terra do
fim do mundo,

the Lisima lya Mwono,

Source of Life, it's this,
it's this place.

It's the Kalahari but raised
into the sky like a temple.

I-it's, it's, under it is a,
I don't, what do they call it,

a kimberlite supercluster.

It's diamonds and
rare earth minerals,

and gold coming up and
pushing it into the sky.

There is a free-air
gravity anomaly.

This means gravity
is too much there.

What's coming up is
coming up too fast.

It's raised this desert
into the sky where it's

formed mist belts.

So every morning it's misty
over these lakes that are not

meant to be there.

It's a place for
lost things, like us.

It's filled with real
magic, whatever that is.

I've been to the place where
an entire river disappears into

the ground, or I don't
know where it went,

a raging river into
a dark channel.

I've heard people
saying that finding the

elephants means
finding ourselves.

But do we really learn
anything from them?

I'm not gonna learn
anything from a ghost elephant.

Um...

...maybe it's better
staying as a dream.

Um, but it's something we chase,
dreams, as humans.

We share dreams with each other.

And maybe if this stayed as a
dream for the rest of my life,

go up there once a year in
September to the springs they

say that they come to,

sitting there quietly,
like Vundumtiki,

maybe that's better.

Tell us how
ancient the San people are.

Okay, as a scientist,
there is the principle of

greatest genetic diversity.

And that gives the
Kalahari San, the Bushmen,

uh, the greatest time depth,
so, they are the first people.

We, all of us, are the
descendants of a small founding

population of
Kalahari San Bushmen,

that survived the Ice Age,

hiding ostrich eggs
in the desert,

hunting with poison,
and where to walk out.

Some went north,
some south to the coast.

And you follow the genetics,

they walked the coastline
all the way to Australia,

because the next genetic
markers are the Aborigine

peoples of Australia.

So how quickly they
walked straightaway,

and then the rest of the world.

In other words,

we are the direct
descendants of them.

They are our direct ancestors.

Yes.

Um, to think of them as
being different is, uh, bizarre,

if people do.

They are the awakening of us,

the awakening of the human soul.

The dancing, the ritual,
the culture, the knowledge,

fire and stone,
bow and arrow,

medicine and poison.

Technology starts
developing here.

This is us.

The society of
the Ju/'hoansi Bushmen is

completely egalitarian.

Xui has hunted a kudu,
but he, the provider,

does not brag about it.

He rather puts himself down
and belittles his haul.

The women make a
show of ignoring him.

The boy here, Xui's son,
will distribute the meat.

Life here is in
many ways ancestral,

although the San Bushmen
use cell phones with ease.

But I recognize myself.

Having a good talk with your
son at the end of a day,

getting up in the morning
without fixed plans or duties.

Time does not seem to occur.

This elder of Nhoma village
spends much of his day fixing

his musical instrument.

I know I should not
romanticize this, but I feel,

surrounded by chickens,

it cannot get any
better than this.

- Hi.
- How's it going?

Our three
Namibian trackers are spread out

in different villages.

For scientific support,

a visitor arrives
in Xui's village.

This is Jordana Meyer, a
specialist in DNA biodiversity.

She's come here to
give training to the

team of trackers.

So we want to get
those outer cells,

the outer DNA that's left
behind from the elephant.

And we swab,

you might know from COVID,
the little swab.

- Mm-hmm.
- I'll show you in the field

now when we find
some elephant dung.

- Mm-hmm.
- But we'll swab the outside.

And then we put that into
this small vial like this.

And, again, same fluid,
liquid that preserves the DNA.

And then that will tell
us if this elephant is

maybe from Angola.

Yeah.

We might be
testing these darts.

And what this is doing is
taking a tiny piece of tissue

from the elephant.

Mm-hmm.

Hopefully, and then we
will take that little piece,

and we'll put it into
here to preserve.

This device
appears promising...

Bull's-eye.

...but later in
the Angolan highlands,

it will prove useless.

The team now ventures
out to find a dung sample of

the local elephant population.

We're
collecting two things.

One is going to be
from the inside.

And we want it from the inside
because it's not contaminated.

Like we did yesterday,

I'm going to have one
person hold this for me.

- Ah.
- Take the lid off.

Hold it.

I'm going to break it in
and then put it back on.

This is called DNA Shield.

It's a preservative
for the DNA,

so that once it's in there,
it's actually very stable.

Okay?

Until it looks
something like this, okay?

So everybody can see?

- Mm-hmm.
- Quite dirty.

Get it quite poopy.

All right, then we open.

And then we very carefully,
there's a breakpoint on here.

And it just breaks
off by itself, okay?

But this is
what the app will look like.

And then we can go
through recording all of

the information here.

- Yes, please.
- See how that goes.

Oh, you did it already.

- Yeah.
- All right.

Why are we doing this?

We looked for the ghost
elephants and failed.

Helicopters, camera traps,
hundreds of them.

Acoustic sensors
listening for them.

Still never seen one.

We've got 62 photographs now.

Took us seven years to
get the first photograph.

We're here seeking the help of
the Ju/’hoansi master trackers,

Xui, Xui Dawid, Kobus,

three of the last
master trackers alive,

the last people that
can identify an elephant

individually by its footprints,
that can read this landscape

and the sands up in Angola.

The sands in the highlands,
those are Kalahari sands,

same as these.

They can read them
like a newspaper.

And it's with them, this year,
over the next six weeks,

two months that we are
going to see a ghost elephant,

a giant elephant,

and the legendary elephants
the Luchaze hunters talk about

in the remotest valleys
of the Source of Life,

the Lisima lya Mwono,

with these Ju/’hoansi
master trackers.

That's what we're doing here.

I'm going to Angola,
and everyone say it's good.

And everyone is happy.

My wife she is not say
goodbye when you go to Angola.

Just work nice, and I will
see you when you come back.

In Nhoma,
the village of Kobus,

Angolan trackers
of the Luchaze tribe

join the expedition.

They will play an
important role from now on

as guides in their homeland,

in the highlands where
the ghost elephants hide.

We're with the Angolans.

We will be very safe.

Yeah.

We are going
to Angola today, and, um,

so we will be saying goodbye.

The village chief,

here to the left of Kobus,
gives permission and his

blessing for Kobus to leave.

For Xui
and the San trackers,

this is a big unknown now.

The presence of the Angolan
hunters eases the uncertainty

for Kobus and Xui Dawid as
they enter terra incognita.

The border of Angola marks
the outer limit of their world.

The expedition now enters
an area that used to be a

battlefield in the
Angolan Civil War that raged

for 27 years.

In the town of Kuito,

Steve Boyes meets a convoy
of the foundation Lisima,

an NGO that he established
for long-term conservation

in Angola.

Here, the convoy swells
to nine vehicles,

two support trucks with
armor plating for land mines,

and 12 motorbikes, all
in logistical support of

the search camp
they will establish.

The convoy is
headed for the town of Cangamba

to have an audience with
the king of the Nkangala.

The king's
spirit meets them.

Um, I request permission
to approach the king to

give him two gifts.

I'd like to show
you two pictures,

one of an elephant that
is in Washington, D.C.,

capital of the United States,

and the skull of
the elephant on the right

that is held there.

We believe that the last
hiding place for the descendants

of this elephant
is in this area.

And we saw the
trails for bull elephants,

one very big one.

And that is the
reason we are here,

to understand this animal.

We would request
your assistance in making this

onto an arrow much bigger,

a much bigger bow to be far
away from the elephants.

And I can bring this to
you now so that you can see

that it is not an arrowhead.

It is simply something
that will go this far into

the skin and fall out.

Put it
right there in the front.

He'll pick it up
and have a look.

Okay.

It's a special knife
inherited by the Luchaze with

geometry that they've created.

This is the same as that
amulet that he has in his hand.

It's for protection,
not physical protection,

but spiritual protection.

And he's asking if you could,
in the world that you travel,

see if it's possible, to
find something like that,

but maybe double the size.

Mm-hmm.

And he would
take that as a symbol

of your respect.

It is seven hard
days of driving from Namibia

to the Angolan highlands.

There are no roads, no
bridges in a landscape,

we have to remember,
the size of England.

The four-wheel drives
have to be left behind.

It is about 100 miles
now on motorbikes,

with more river
crossings to come.

The locals have encountered
crocodiles at this river.

Steve is apprehensive,

but he has been assured
crocodiles would only

come after nightfall.

We are following the
tracks of Luchaze tribesmen

who spend the dry season
here hunting antelopes

for meat and skins.

A base camp is set up.

Our Namibian trackers
have settled in well with

the Luchaze tribesmen.

Oh, man.

The motorcycles
have to stay behind now in

order not to disturb
the elephants.

The next 30 miles
must be on foot.

There are first
unmistakable signs of the

presence of elephants.

Yeah, yeah.

The tracks
in the sand are fresh.

Xui has spotted the
track of an individual elephant.

He finds
a tree with recent markings.

The elephant has poked
the bark with his tusk and

then rubbed his
flank against it.

Elias Ngunga,
the Luchaze tracker,

has found a very
fresh dung sample.

Let's get it
from all over here.

Passes out the rectum.

And look at that.

But we are catching up with him.

There is a high
chance to get a complete

DNA sequence
from the mucus on it.

Mainly wood, just wood.

Steve also collects
a sample of the contents

of the dung,
mostly roots and bark.

This will yield
insight into the habitat of

the ghost elephants.

Steve, the scientist,
has to be quick.

He has to share his
treasure with dung beetles,

who appear almost instantly.

The beetle, in turn, has
to compete with flies.

The scarabaeus beetle was
sacred to the ancient Egyptians.

It had the task of rolling
the sun across the sky.

The camp closest to
the ghost elephants is

used by Luchaze hunters,

smoking fires and drying
meat of antelopes everywhere.

The arrowhead for collecting
a sample of the skin of

a ghost elephant is
being made ready.

This
is Antonio Luhoke,

the Luchaze hunter who
has accompanied Steve on

many prior expeditions.

Next day,
traces of a very, very large

elephant were found.

This one here.
Here, try that one.

That's
the highest point.

Yes.

Wow.
There's a big rubbing.

Is that the shoulder height?

So that's,
nine, ten foot.

That's like a big
elephant in the Okavango,

like that one we saw.

But it's the top of
the shoulder or here?

- Under?
- Mm.

So maybe one more foot.

And, is it a,
a male or a female?

It must be a male, a bull.

They believe it's
a herd of 16 elephants.

And there's several big
males walking in front.

One in front and three or
four on the sides protect them.

And there's one or two that
have broken their tusks already.

Mm.

And he believes
this is one of the four

that are on the side,

paving the way
for the herd to come.

They were talking about,
over here, is that height.

And the shoulder.

- Shoulder.
- There.

- Yeah.
- And he's like that.

Oh.

It's a good 11-foot.

I mean, it's bigger than
what we have in Botswana.

What's
standard big in Botswana?

Ten-foot standard.
You don't get bigger.

And that's an eight-ton,
seven-ton elephant.

The Fenykovi was 13 tons.

So, like, you're
talking about a, yeah.

Nine to ten?

Yeah, a nine to
ten-ton elephant, yeah.

Xui and Xui Dawid
discover something else

overlooked by everyone.

This elephant hair will become
part of the forensic evidence.

Xui explains
here how the elephant has

moved into the wet peatland.

He obviously heard us coming.

So it's, since the big rain,
after the small rain,

he walked through here,

and he actually
ran through here.

See this footprint?

And ran, not
along the channel,

straight to where Tony is there.

We've got two cameras,
so I think the first one

will go there.

Okay.

Here or.

As sophisticated
as this contraption is,

it never captured any
of the ghost elephants.

In the end, the
whole thing will come down

to hand-held cell phones.

Among the companions of
the night is this spider.

It is poisonous,

and the young teeming on
its back are equally poisonous.

The spider was weird enough,
but the next morning,

I believed I was still
dreaming of demons.

No, it's been, we,
in the beginning,

six days behind him.

One day behind
the breeding herd.

Yesterday, we were right
behind the breeding herd,

literally chasing them.

They're smelling
us with the wind.

That's what the team's done,
go around.

Now we are, they're
probably with them.

And we're one hour,

two hours,
three hours behind this guy.

So we're catching up.

But then,
unexpected luck would strike.

Each morning, separate
teams would venture out.

Here, Elias and António.

The camera filmed them
only leaving the camp and

then joined Steve and Kerllen.

I think it was in his pocket.

Suddenly, Elias
and António spot the biggest

of all ghost elephants,

the vague gray shape
between the leaves.

António only has time to
start his cell phone camera.

And then he scrambles to
find a better position.

And now, for seconds only,
we catch a glimpse.

Then the elephant
bull is going away.

They took a picture?

They took a picture.

May I see the picture?

Was this it?

Was this worth the
ten-year search and

the arduous expedition?

Was this the proof?

Was this the truth?

In a way, yes, but the
accountant's truth at best.

Yes, the ghost elephants exist.

We have the forensic proof
because one of them was

captured on an otherwise
disappointing video.

This one?

It was certainly
the biggest elephant bull.

Its shoulder height indicates
that this is the largest known

elephant in Africa and hence,
the largest land mammal

on our planet.

Two days' rest.

And then
Steve will get lucky.

Just saying to
Gary and Xui that we heard

an elephant up
over this ridge here.

Just gonna go look if
we can see the tracks,

which one it was.

After less
than two hours' march,

the San trackers catch a
glimpse of an elephant.

Our professional camera
stayed slightly behind,

and, thus, what we
see was shot by Steve on

his cell phone.

Xui cautiously shoots his arrow.

They retrieve the tip of
the arrow that was meant

to collect the DNA sample.

Ah. Oh.

I couldn't see it properly.

I think it, I think it bounced
off the elephant or missed it.

But we got, when it hit
the ground, certainly,

it took some sand in.

But the elephant is right here.

I think you said it
came off the rump. Yeah.

Yeah.

How's the elephant now?

It made
the elephant flee,

and so the whole idea
with the arrow was given

up for good.

How it looks.

But Steve
got his reward.

He got his clean shot.

This is the.

Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve!

Xui, still excited,
gives an account of how he

alerted Steve to the elephant.

After the
first excitement had subsided,

Steve was again confronted
with a question whether

it might have been
better never to have

encountered the ghost elephants.

Were they not possibly
better as a rainbow,

as a mirage in the sky?

And yet, he did encounter
one of them for real.

This reality was undeniable.

Steve would have to
live with his success.

This is the one by himself.

In the water tower,
in this place.

And another
reality set in, the rain.

The expedition would have to
return before the peatlands and

rivers would become impassable.

The Source of Life, huh?

Now the time had come
to return and secure the loot,

the biological samples
of the ghost elephants.

The Smithsonian had given
permission to extract a DNA

sample from Henry in order to
compare it with Steve's samples.

Now, where will we
be taking the sample from?

I think we'll aim for
somewhere around here or in, uh,

where the tusks are from.

And I'll collect the samples,

but I'll have to get
my team in to help.

Melissa Hawkins
was assigned to this task.

I'll stand back,
and thank you for doing this.

Okay, great.

Mary Faith Flores
will assist her through

the next steps.

At the base of
one of the molars,

she was able to
find tissue that,

even after 70 years,

was still fresh enough
to be promising.

The next procedures
have to be performed in a

completely sterile environment.

These here are Henry's
tissue samples.

Melissa and Mary will
extract the DNA here.

And now Steve delivers mucus
and dung samples from the ghost

elephants to Katherine Solari
of Stanford University.

In the background,
Dmitri Petrov,

the mastermind behind
Stanford's genomic programs.

These samples are
literally out of the elephant,

just a few weeks ago.

Um, four of them, five of
them are from the actual

ghost elephant bull.

So I'm going to hand them over.

But you see, um,

this is one of the
ones from the bull itself.

Perfect.

We're just gonna bead-bash
it in order to open up all

of the cells and release
all of the DNA so that we

can see everything
that's in there,

what they're eating,

as well as samples from
the DNA of the elephant.

This is the sequencing machine.

And it's very
state-of-the-art,

worth well over a
million dollars.

This is where our
ghost elephant samples will go?

Yes, exactly.

This is where they'll end up.

They'll go through a number of
steps from what we saw earlier

to end up on here, but
this is where they end up and

where the data is generated.

And this machine creates
six billion sequencing reads.

Six billion.

So 6,000 million DNA sequences.

- It's a lot of data.
- Yeah?

So I have it
set up here to show you.

So, here, each line is a read.

This is 150.

- That's a lot of letters.
- Letters long. And then.

So you're talking about
six billion of these lines?

- Six billion.
- Outputted by this machine.

- Exactly.
- From the elephant-dung samples.

- Exactly.
- This is mitochondrial?

- This is all DNA.
- All DNA?

It's just everything
that's in there?

And what are you going
to do with this data?

So this is an
example of that data a little

bit more processed.

So here it's all
aligned and mapped.

Okay.

And here, you
can see this is one elephant.

This is a second elephant.

To find the anomalies,
here marked in yellow,

would be impossible for humans.

From the billions of lines, a
computer program identifies the

differences between
two specimens.

Elephant down here
versus this elephant up here.

This is the University
of California, Riverside.

The final step in Steve's
research will be done here to

compare the DNA of the
ghost elephant's with Henry

and other lineages.

Steve, hi.

This leads
him to Ellie Armstrong.

- Great to see you.
- Good to meet you in person.

I brought
something out for you.

Thank you very much.

It's 'cause I knew
you were coming.

Well, you knew that
we went to Smithsonian.

Absolutely.

And we dug around
just below the teeth,

took out some tissue.

And the objective is to compare
that to the fresh samples

I brought from Angola.

What we'll be able to
do with these is really be

able to trace the history
of these elephants.

So, with the historic specimen,

there are some things
that we know about it,

like where it was collected,

but there are some
things that we obviously

don't know about it,

especially in relation
to the elephants that you've

collected from Angola.

And so what we'll be able to
tell is what population this

elephant was from,

whether it was more
related to forest elephants

or other species of elephants,
or how different it is from the

elephants that we're
currently seeing.

I've interacted with thousands
of elephants in my life.

Mm-hmm.

I've never seen
elephants like this.

They've got long legs.
They're very tall.

They've got small feet
compared to their size.

They live at altitude.

I mean, if you were to take
a savanna elephant nor a bush

elephant from the Okavango
Delta and put them up there,

they would not survive.

I mean, is it crazy to
think that they are, like a,

not a subspecies or, um.

- Yeah, they're.
- Something completely different?

We'll be able to trace
that using the genetic DNA.

So we'll be able to understand
whether this is sort of a

lineage that has descended from
some of these historic lineages

that you've been able to sample
at the Smithsonian or whether

this is something that's
totally new and never

has been sampled.

And that's what's so great
with genetic sequencing.

You know, sometimes we get
species that we can't tell them

apart just by looking at them.

But once we look in the genome,

we know that
they're actually distinct.

When we sequence a genome,

we're sequencing about
three billion base pairs

of DNA.

And we have to put this into
supercomputers and then process

all of the data.

Um, so, usually, this
takes on the order of about

six months to a year.

Um, and that's because
we have to pull in all of

the genetic data

that's already been sequenced
for elephants so that we

contextualize the data
that you have brought back and

got for us.

The first time we do it,
it takes a long time.

But then the second and
the third time we do it,

it starts becoming very quick.

Her findings,
long down the line,

will be published in
scientific journals.

I was puzzled by
the array of dead birds

for scientific research.

They appeared like Egyptian
mummies in eternal sleep.

But how can we keep
the dwindling diversity

of species alive?

Can the ghost elephants be
kept alive long into the future?

Policing their survival through
armed rangers has only slowed

down their dramatic
decline in numbers.

On his way back
from his expedition,

Steve had another fascinating
audience with a local king.

His deep-rooted traditions may
hold the key to the protection

and survival of the
ghost elephants.

Everything is formalized.

First, he grants
permission to hear the report

of the expedition.

One of the
king's own hunters,

who was part of
the expedition,

narrates the
events day by day.

And now
the king speaks.

He reminds us of the elephants
by narrating the origin

myth of his people.

Kerllen translates why
elephants belong to the tribe.

When those
hunters went to hunt,

there was one small elephant
at the back of the herd.

This elephant, a small elephant
came to the Kwango River.

And as it got to the river,

it started taking off
his skin of elephant.

And as he took off the skin,

the hunter could see
that it was a woman.

And he helped her take off
all of the elephant skin.

And with the woman,

he came running all
the way to here,

the kingdom of the Nkangala.

He kept that woman as a wife.

They reproduced with that woman.

And that's why he's telling
you that the elephants are

part of the people.

So that's why you see
that when you ask for

permission to the king,
before we left,

because we asked permission,
he kneeled.

And he did the ritual to
connect to the ancestors,

asking permission.

And they allowed you
to see the elephant.

That's why you managed
to see the elephants.

Those elephants you will
not see if you do not ask

permission to the king and
the king to his ancestors.

Okay.

Is there hope in the
enduring power of African myth

that humans and elephants
belong together?

Will the landscape
enshroud the ghost elephants

for a long, long time?

Probably not.

But the power of traditions
will not easily fade away.

And what is striking is that
both Steve and the tribal

elders firmly believe that
if the elephants disappear,

this would be the harbinger
of our disappearance as well.

Life would go on but without us.