Original subtitles

- Tonight on "The Proof Is Out There."

It's a classic UFO mystery of World War II.

What did the army shoot at in the Battle of Los Angeles?

- This photo alone can't possibly capture the sheer panic

that was felt by everybody involved.

[suspenseful music]

- [Tony] Could the myths and legends be true?

Are these the bones of an ancient dragon?

- The body of this animal looks almost reptilian in nature.

- [Tony] Did a famous pop singer

have his own close encounter with a UFO?

- This thing kind of floats and hovers in the sky

and then very quickly just kind of shoots away.

[suspenseful music]

- [Tony] And is this nun's body actually proof of a miracle?

- Incorruptibility is when a person's corpse

simply doesn't decompose.

[compelling music]

- [Tony] Around the globe are videos.

[videographer screaming]

photos,

[suspenseful music]

and sounds that defy explanation.

[unidentified object buzzing]

[suspenseful music]

- [Witness] We don't know where they come from,

who made them, or how they operate.

- [Tony] What are they?

- [Expert] Some sort of bizarre mutation.

What's exciting is nobody really knows.

- Extraordinary claims need extraordinary proof.

[suspenseful music] [fire booms]

- I'm Tony Harris,

and as a journalist for more than 30 years,

I've followed the facts where they take me.

Now, I'm bringing that spirit of investigation

to the world's strangest sounds and images.

- [Videographer] It's coming towards us.

- [Tony] We'll analyze each one with top experts.

[cars crashing]

- It's a credible case, it's a credible video.

- [Tony] And pass a verdict on what it is.

- This video was clearly faked.

- The proof starts now.

[suspenseful music]

Good evening, and welcome to "The Proof Is Out There."

In 1942, just after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor,

California was the site of a deadly incident

now known as the Battle of Los Angeles.

Some thought the Japanese had struck again,

some thought it was a UFO invasion,

and luckily for us, someone snapped a photo.

[pensive music]

February 25th, 1942.

Los Angeles, California.

[suspenseful music]

It's only a couple of months since the Pearl Harbor attack

brought the United States into World War II,

and fears of a Japanese invasion are running high.

Around 2:00 AM,

military radar detects an unidentified object

approaching the city.

A blackout is ordered while air raid sirens blare

and the anti-aircraft artillery starts firing.

As the chaos unfolds,

one Los Angeles Times reporter captures this.

[suspenseful music]

Searchlights converge on what looks like a white craft.

It appeared to have a pointed top, tapered sides,

and a domed bottom.

The anti-aircraft fire peppers the surrounding sky.

Whatever this thing is, they can't shoot it down.

The photo makes headline news

and the incident becomes known as the Battle of Los Angeles.

All over town,

eyewitnesses insist something was in the sky that night.

- Some people, of course,

particularly in more modern times, have thought,

"Well, wait a minute.

Isn't this a classic UFO sighting?"

But at the time, people thought,

"My goodness, we were under attack.

The Japanese are here again."

In fact, just before the Battle of Los Angeles,

a Japanese submarine

had surfaced off the coast near Santa Barbara

and had actually bombarded an oil field there,

aiming for some of the storage facilities.

So, you can imagine the feeling was no one's safe.

And then it hit, and people started saying,

"There's something in the sky, and they're firing up."

[air raid sirens wailing]

It's just like smoke, the sound, the lights,

I mean they're in the middle of a war zone here.

And so this goes on for some hours,

[weapon firing]

but it's a tragic story

because five people lose their lives in this.

[ambulance siren wails]

Two heart attacks

and three fatalities in road traffic accidents.

It's believed that, you know,

the lights being out and so forth

caused all sorts of chaos on the streets.

[pensive music]

- More than 1,400 rounds of anti-aircraft artillery

had been pumped into the sky.

But once all the smoke cleared,

there was no wreckage from Japanese planes

or any indication of Japanese aircraft.

- [Tony] Now, we know Japan didn't fight the war

with aircraft alone.

In fact, they would later launch a new weapon

against the American mainland,

balloon bombs.

- Japan did launch balloons designed to drop bombs

over to the continental United States,

most notably reaching Oregon, which makes people wonder,

Was what happened this night actually an early balloon

or an early attempt by the Japanese

to launch something toward the American mainland?

[air whooshing] [suspenseful music]

- In January 2018,

Hawaiians received this emergency alert warning,

"Ballistic missile threat inbound.

Seek immediate shelter.

This is not a drill."

Panic spread, but it all turned out to be a false alarm.

Similarly, some believe a false alarm

triggered the Battle of Los Angeles,

but then how do you explain that photo?

Let's ask the experts.

[graphic clacking] [suspenseful music]

Considering the US was at war, was this a Japanese air raid?

- I don't think that's what we're actually looking at here

because when we zoom in on this image,

it doesn't look like a plane.

It just looks like a white-ish blob.

And if it was a plane,

you'll be able to see that it was a plane

from these searchlights.

- [Tony] But what about an early balloon bomb?

- Again, a balloon will be something that

will be very well-illuminated by searchlights.

You'll see the clear circular outline,

and we just simply don't see that.

And of course, if it was a balloon,

it probably would've been shot down

'cause balloons don't move very fast

and they're very vulnerable to anti-aircraft fire.

- [Tony] The Japanese later denied involvement

in the incident.

Even the US military dismissed the so-called battle

as a false alarm.

Could that be all this is?

- We have to remember that radar

was very much in its early days back then,

and it was very slow-scanning and very prone to error.

So, what might have shown up on the radar back then

may just have been something

like reflections of waves on the water or even birds.

- [Tony] Of course, faulty radar doesn't explain the photo,

though something else might.

- I think what we're actually looking at here

is just simply a region of smoke from the anti-aircraft fire

that's been illuminated by multiple searchlights

at the same time,

and that single bright area

that all the searchlights concentrating on

creates a shape

that looks a little bit like a flying saucer,

and so a legend was born.

[pensive music]

- [Tony] But that still leaves

numerous eyewitness accounts of strange objects in the sky,

objects that could not be struck down

by anti-aircraft artillery.

World War II fighter pilots in Europe

would notice something similar two years later.

[pensive music]

They reported being confronted by mysterious glowing orbs

that they called foo fighters.

- My best guess here is that either nothing was there

and it's a false alarm

or that maybe it was a

high-tech craft of some kind

that never could be hit by our shells.

And to this day,

we can't discount the possibility

that it might also have been an advanced craft

that was eluding the guns.

[pensive music] [graphic clacking]

- Our verdict?

This is a split decision.

We think the object in the photo

is probably smoke from the anti-aircraft fire,

but based on the eyewitness accounts,

we believe something unexplained

was also in the skies that night.

[air whooshing] [pensive music]

Whether it's Smaug hoarding treasure in "The Hobbit"

or the Targaryens

riding them to victory in the "Game of Thrones,"

dragons are among the most iconic creatures

in legend and literature.

But that's all just fiction, right?

[pensive music]

October 10th, 2017.

Zhangjiakou City, China.

Villagers of this rural community gather around,

smartphones in hand,

after several residents

claim to have made a bizarre discovery.

[suspenseful music]

We see what appears to be a 65-foot-long skeleton.

It has a serpentine body, a head with antlers,

and a set of prominent claws.

The villagers are in awe,

with some even straddling its head while posing for photos.

- This video went viral,

and ultimately it got

over 10 million views.

But apparently,

many of the local villagers swore up and down

that these were actually the remains of a real-life dragon.

- [Tony] Many say the skeleton

matches the anatomy of dragons from Chinese mythology.

They were often depicted with horns or antlers.

- In primeval China, emperors were said to have descended

from the bloodline of dragons,

and these were known as the Loong.

It's a very powerful symbol in Chinese culture.

One can wonder, "Where does this mythology stem from?"

Are we actually looking at the remains

of a real-life dragon?

- [Tony] Some argue that instead of looking

to China's cultural history,

we should look to its fossil record.

- In 2024,

an international team discovered the fossilized remains

of a new type of dinosaur,

Dinocephalosaurus Orientalis, nicknamed the Chinese dragon.

This particular species lived about 240 million years ago,

but what was really remarkable

was that it had a very long neck

like we're seeing here in the video.

So, are these the remains

of some type of prehistoric creature?

[pensive music] [crowd chattering]

- Legends claim that Alexander the Great

came across a dragon during his campaign in India,

a hissing, cave-dwelling beast over 100 feet long

and with eyes as large as a Macedonian shield.

The terrifying creature reportedly struck

fear into his army and was worshiped

as a god by the locals.

Is it possible that these creatures once did exist?

Let's ask the experts.

[pensive music] [graphic clacking]

- This is really like no skeleton

that I've ever seen before.

Dragons are often depicted as having wings.

For animals that have wings, like birds and bats,

they're essentially like modified hands,

and we're not seeing any indication of that here.

In fact, we're seeing forearms

and we're not seeing anything on its back.

[pensive music]

- [Tony] However, the dragons of Chinese myth

were thought to be wingless.

They'd fly by undulating through the sky.

Impossible?

Well, check out these airborne leaps

made by paradise tree snakes,

recently documented by researchers at Virginia Tech.

But our experts still say, "No way."

- These bones seem really thick and there's a lot of them.

Even if this were a real dragon,

it doesn't make sense

for it to have such a dense number of rib bones.

Its skeleton seems way too heavy.

It doesn't seem physiologically possible

for this animal to be able to fly.

- [Tony] Okay, so maybe not a dragon as we know them.

But could it be an undocumented cold-blooded creature

of some sort?

- The body of this animal looks almost reptilian in nature.

You see a very elongated body like a snake

and seems to have some sort of antlers.

There's one snake out there

which does have two seeming antlers on them.

- [Tony] The snake

is known as the venomous horned viper cerastes,

named after a horned serpent of Greek legend.

- But those antlers, they're more cartilage-based

and their fleshy tissue that would decay and dissolve

with the rest of the body.

[pensive music]

- [Tony] If it's not a new species of reptile,

is it possible this mysterious beast is actually very old,

a dinosaur like that recently discovered Chinese dragon?

- Skeletons of dinosaurs are not actually bone anymore

because the minerals from the surrounding rock

have replaced the bone.

If this is a real animal,

this is one that would have had to have died very recently.

- If this was truly a recent kill,

I would expect to see some sort of insect

or decomposer in the area.

My hypothesis is this is some sort of hoax.

- They either used fake bones

or they took bones from other existing animals

and put them all together

to create the shape and illusion of a dragon.

[pensive music] [graphic clacking]

- Our verdict?

We agree with our experts

that this is most definitely a hoax.

There are just too many things that don't add up.

And recent online posts from China

indicate that this may indeed be a movie prop.

So, dragons shall remain the stuff of myths and legends,

for now.

- Every parent knows the anxiety of tending to a sick child,

but it's even worse

when the doctors can't even figure out what's going on.

Well, in this next story, hundreds of children

experience the same strange affliction all at once,

setting the stage for one massive medical mystery.

[compelling music]

July 13th, 1980.

Kirkby-in-Ashfield, England.

Photographer Neil Lancashire

is covering a children's band competition

at the Hollinwell Showground,

where more than 300 kids are gathered

with their instruments.

[festive music]

But in the midst of this idyllic scene, disaster strikes,

and Neil's camera captures this.

[suspenseful music]

All over the showground, children begin to collapse.

Complete chaos takes over

as people lie unconscious in the grass

and parents carry their children in their arms.

As you can see in Neil's photos,

young children appear to be doubled over in pain,

as if sick to their stomachs or possibly gasping for air.

- All these kids just were falling over.

Really horrible.

It was really frightening.

- [Tony] Thankfully, no one died.

But what caused this in the first place?

The health department theory?

Mass hysteria.

- Mass hysteria has affected a lot of young people.

There was a case in 1962

called the Tanganyika Laughing Incident,

which occurred in Tanzania in East Africa.

And in this case, up to 1,000 girls over a period of weeks

couldn't stop laughing.

But they were also getting rashes,

and sores, and sore throats, and fainting, and nausea.

So people were very concerned about what it could have been.

[pensive music] [air whooshing]

- In 2014, 34 years after the Hollinwell Incident,

British politician Dennis Skinner

claimed the incident was not properly investigated

because the victims were working class kids.

He said, if the children had fallen ill

at a Royal garden party,

authorities would've handled it more meticulously.

Let's see if our experts can discover anything

those authorities might have missed.

[pensive music] [graphic clacking]

Could we really be looking at a case of mass hysteria?

- Mass hysteria, or mass psychogenic illness,

is a very real phenomenon,

in which symptoms with no known cause

spread throughout a community.

Some believe that mass hysteria

actually reflects the social fears and anxiety

of a given time period.

There have been many mass hysteria events

throughout history.

A famous one occurred in 1518 in Strasbourg, France,

when a woman began dancing

and didn't stop for a couple of weeks.

More and more people began to join her,

until eventually, there were 400 people dancing.

Some of them died from overexerting themselves

and no one could figure out what had caused the event.

Most recently,

there was a mysterious condition called Havana syndrome,

which occurred in Cuba.

US diplomats there were suffering

from dizziness and migraines,

and they thought they might have been attacked

by some kind of weapon.

[suspenseful music]

Officials came to the conclusion

that this was some kind of mass hysteria,

where people became sick

because they thought they were exposed

to some kind of threat.

According to two US intelligence agencies,

it's possible that a novel weapon

wielded by some kind of foreign adversary

could be causing some cases of Havana syndrome.

Others, however, disagree.

- The reasons why I don't think

this is a case of mass hysteria

is that we see infants that are falling sick.

Infants who are less than a year old

are not gonna be taken over

by psychological manifestations of symptoms.

In addition, there were individuals who felt sick

when they got home.

The symptoms continued

even after people had left the scene

when they were not around other people who were sick.

- [Tony] If mass hysteria can't explain what's happening,

maybe chemistry can.

According to reports,

there was a powerful chemical smell

coming from the recently-cleaned bathrooms.

- People smelled a combination of ammonia and chlorine.

Because they were smelling that combination,

that gave people the idea

that that was the the major cause of this accident.

[pensive music]

- The beauty of chemistry

is that you could take two everyday normal household items,

mix them together,

and come out with something totally different,

and that very well could be what happened here.

When they were trying to clean the bathrooms

and they mix the bleach with the ammonia,

they produce chlorine gas, which can be pretty terrifying.

It was even used in World War I as a weapon.

[pensive music]

- [Tony] Now, that sounds like a compelling theory,

but that doesn't make this a closed case.

After all, you can see in these photos,

the kids were outside in the open air.

- Those two gases would've dissipated

long before they had gotten out onto the field

where those kids were playing their marching bands.

There's just really no evidence

to really determine what actually went on.

Everybody has their own leading hypotheses,

but there's really no strong evidence

to point to any one particular thing.

[pensive music] [graphic clacking]

- Our verdict?

Unexplained mass illness.

We're going with Dr. Anderson on this one.

The Hollinwell Incident

remains one of the greatest medical mysteries

of the 20th century.

- Skeptics often argue that UFO witnesses are

lying about their experiences for fame and fortune,

while believers argue

that there's too much ridicule involved

for that to be the case.

But what does it mean when somebody who's already famous

shares his UFO sighting?

It means we need to investigate.

[upbeat music]

It is spring 2024 in New York City.

Grammy-nominated musician J Balvin

is hanging out on the soccer field with some friends.

Before long, they notice something strange in the sky

and manage to record this.

[suspenseful music]

The camera zooms in on an object hanging in the blue sky.

It appears triangle-shaped,

with rounded corners

and a light or opening on its underside.

- [Tony] The object pivots slowly from side to side

as if scanning the area.

Then, as J turns the camera away from his awestruck friend,

the UFO zips away.

J posts the video on Instagram,

and you can guess

what happens next.

- J Balvin is enormously popular.

He has more than 50 million followers

on his social accounts.

So, when he posted this video, it spread like wildfire.

[photographers clamoring] [J laughing]

- [Tony] J's sighting brings to mind a type of UFO

that's famous in its own right.

- Ufologists will point to kind of consistent shapes

that UFOs have,

and triangular is one of them,

with sightings from around the world.

- From 1983 to 1984, even into 1985,

residents of the Hudson River Valley area

reported giant triangular or boomerang-shaped craft.

This is important because this is not just grandma

seeing some lights in the backyard.

These are trained observers,

highly-trained individuals like law enforcement,

even military personnel,

all reporting being eyewitnesses

to some of the most incredible UFO experiences and events

in recent history.

[pensive music] [air whooshing]

- It's worth noting

that while triangle UFOs typically have sharp edges,

this one is a little different.

Take a look at this.

See how it has these rounded corners?

And look here in the middle.

Now, if you ask me,

that looks like an opening going straight through the craft.

That's different.

But what will our experts make of this celebrated sighting?

[pensive music] [graphic clacking]

We always consider the most obvious explanation first.

Could this be some sort of novelty balloon?

- Balloons can be any shape that you want them to be,

but the balloon is gonna be impacted by wind

and wind changes.

It would not be hovering in one spot,

it would be up and down,

and you don't see anything like that in this video.

- [Tony] We know that paparazzi have started using drones

to get shots of celebrities.

Could they be targeting J Balvin?

- I would think that this drone

would be a lot closer to the individuals

so that they could get good facial recognition

and see who's part of his entourage.

Also, I have tried zooming into this video,

and I don't see any indication

that this particular object is a drone.

There's none of the lights, there's no sound.

The typical things that you would see with a drone

are not in this video.

- [Tony] So, if it's not any flying craft we know of,

is it a famed triangle UFO?

Not exactly.

- [Rich] I don't think that it's a UFO.

It's not the description that we typically get

for triangular-shaped UFOs at all.

And it looks like it's relatively

about the same distance

from the camera as the water tower is,

which is not that far.

So, it appears to be relatively small.

- [Tony] Triangular UFOs are known for being massive,

often described as the size of multiple football fields.

So, if this one is small, it doesn't fit,

and that's not the only suspicious clue.

- In this video clip, there's a water tower, there's a tree,

and then there's an object.

When I zoom my camera in,

I'm seeing the fact that the position of the actual object

shifts and moves with the camera movement.

- [Tony] See how, in the stabilized version of the video,

the object doesn't actually hold steady

relative to its surroundings?

Instead, it moves with the video frame.

That's a telltale sign

it was digitally inserted into the scene.

- None of the things matched up

in terms of positions of where the object was.

The moving away from that to take a picture of somebody,

all that has the indications of it being a hoax.

[pensive music] [graphic clacking]

- Our verdict?

Hoax.

If you're still not convinced,

take a look at this photo

from J Balvin's Coachella performance

just four days after he posted the video to social media.

Look familiar?

That's the same UFO.

Clever promo, J,

but I think we can agree your talent is for music,

not video fakery.

- Have you ever seen "The Blob"?

It's a 1958 horror movie where a community is terrorized

by an alien creature made of goo.

This fictional blob consumes people,

growing bigger and hungrier with each victim.

Well, after seeing this next video,

you might think something similar happened in Nebraska.

[suspenseful music]

June 20th, 2024.

Scotts Bluff County, Nebraska.

Chad Casey is out and about in the countryside,

when suddenly,

something on the ground starts moving towards him.

[ominous music]

It's like nothing he's seen before.

So, he takes out his phone and captures this.

[blob squelching]

A brownish, blobby mass studded with white spheres

crawls along the ground.

Chad films it moving across the countryside,

as it spreads out in what seem to be layers

eating everything in its path.

After it's posted, the video spawns a curious theory online.

- People drew comparisons between the video

and the movie "The Blob,"

which was apparently inspired by a real-life incident.

On September 26th, 1950,

two Philadelphia police officers [siren wailing]

saw an object falling from the sky.

They called for backup

and then pursued the object to where it had fallen.

During a search of the area,

they discovered an ooze that seemed to move.

According to some reports,

it even shimmied up a telephone pole.

[blob squelching]

When one of the officers touched the ooze,

it left behind a clear sticky residue.

After about an hour and a half,

the whole mass simply evaporated.

Because they had called for backup,

there were actually four witnesses

to whatever had gone down in that field.

[pensive music]

- [Tony] Think that's the only time

a weird jelly fell from the sky and puzzled the world?

Think again.

- In 1969, following a meteor shower,

scientists in Australia

were actually able to gather 200 pounds

of a jelly-like substance off the ground,

which they then analyzed

and discovered that it included amino acids,

which are the building blocks of life.

- [Tony] So, is this some sort of natural substance

from space,

or could it be possible it was created in a lab?

After all, we've seen synthetic blobs,

like this magnetic putty,

which appears to have a life of its own.

- Scientists have also created

a really creepy-looking, gooey substance.

It's actually infused with metal.

And so when you put it near magnets,

it moves in a way that is really unsettling.

[suspenseful music] [air whooshing]

- In 2024, in Southern California,

beachgoers spotted clusters of strange oval-shaped blobs

along the shore.

These were identified as Velella velella,

a small ocean predator related to jellyfish.

But what about our terrestrial blob?

It's nowhere near any ocean.

Can our experts identify it?

[pensive music] [graphic clacking]

Could this blob be a manmade creation?

- It's got dirt in it, it's got ice in it.

You can see that it's picking up material

that's on the outside.

This appears to be like a mud-type of feature.

It's more moving like a solid,

and so more like a mud flow,

so it's more natural than it is a manmade type of feature.

- [Tony] If it didn't come from a lab,

where did it come from?

- I believe this has appearance of hail.

We're looking at some water,

so this tells me we're looking at the beginnings

of a flash flood.

- [Tony] Flash floods might conjure up images

of rushing water,

but they can also create what's known as a debris flow.

This is when flooding runs downhill,

picking up loose soil, rocks, and foliage along the way.

The result?

A sludge-like torrent.

- More than likely, we just saw a storm move across,

with flash flooding

that is likely occurring in the background.

We also probably just experienced a hailstorm

that dropped quite a bit of hail across the region.

[air whooshing]

- [Tony] Good theory, but how about some data?

Well, we confirmed that a hail-forming storm front

had passed through the region.

- Although this blob may seem quite scary,

the most monstrous thing we saw was a severe hailstorm

that impacted the Scotts Bluff area.

[thunder rumbling]

[pensive music] [graphic clacking]

- Our verdict, hail and ground debris flow.

So, this was no living goo monster,

but there's a chance we'll soon see

a different kind of blob come to life.

Scientists in Japan have recently engineered a pink blob

out of collagen gel

to mimic living skin tissue for humanoid robots.

- On a previous episode,

we investigated the case of Sister Wilhelmina Lancaster,

whose body was remarkably, some say miraculously,

preserved after her death.

Well, we have some developments to that story.

Is it more evidence of divine intervention?

You can make the last judgment.

[pensive music]

April 2023. Gower, Missouri.

Four years after the death of Sister Wilhelmina Lancaster,

the other sisters of her order

decide to transfer her remains to the monastery chapel.

But when they open her casket,

they're stunned to find this.

[pensive music]

It's Sister Wilhelmina's body.

But where one might have expected decayed

and formless remains after four years,

instead, her body is largely intact.

Sister Martina Lee, who witnessed the exhumation,

reveals that it's not just Sister Wilhelmina's body

that seemed unscathed by the passage of time.

- Everything that she was wearing

at the time of her burial,

her veil and forehead piece,

her entire habit was preserved intact.

It's kind of like, you know, this is God's little sign

that this person was so faithful to Him

that she didn't necessarily need

to undergo the curse of corruption.

[pensive music]

- Incorruptibility is when a person's corpse

simply doesn't decompose.

It's said to happen with people of the cloth.

- [Tony] At the time, the story caught fire

with media around the world.

- People were so excited

that 25,000 people flocked to rural Missouri

in the first month after her body was exhumed

to pay their respects and see for themselves.

- [Tony] When we first told this story,

our verdict was that this was a potential miracle.

Now, a new development.

Fast forward to 2024,

when a new medical exam of the remains

has come up with some startling revelations.

- In the time since Sister Wilhelmina was exhumed,

she has been examined by medical experts

who, according to the church,

couldn't find any reason

for why her body would be so well-preserved.

Now, a fellow Benedictine nun said that this is a miracle,

and she is actually gathering testimony from eyewitnesses

to bolster the case,

and that is just one of the steps toward canonization.

[pensive music] [air whooshing]

- In 2024, experts studying relics in Spain

exhumed the body of Saint Teresa of Avila who died in 1582.

They declared that her remains had not decomposed at all.

A year later, the church presented the new evidence.

Saint's corpse was put on display,

and some claimed that its well-preserved condition

was proof of her incorruption.

But can we say the same for Sister Wilhelmina?

[pensive music] [graphic clacking]

When we first covered this story,

no medical exam of the body had taken place.

But now, we've got forensic data.

So, what did that new exam reveal?

- The examining doctor was a doctor of pathology

and was assisted by two other medical doctors

and also by the local coroner,

and they said that her body is truly atypical

for what they might expect

for the passage of approximately four years.

- [Tony] To top it off,

the team literally dug deep for more answers,

conducting a soil analysis around the grave.

- They even addressed people's ideas about the soil.

There are chemicals that will help preserve skin

and help preserve tissue,

but they came to the conclusion

that there was nothing in the soil

that would've preserved her body in such pristine condition.

- [Tony] Additionally, the medical examiners

interviewed eyewitnesses at the burial

and did not learn of any other factors

that could explain the body's remarkable condition.

- What's really remarkable about Sister Wilhelmina

is that when they pulled out her coffin,

there was a large crack down the middle.

They found a large amount of moss,

suggesting really damp and wet environment.

And you're gonna see more bacteria, scavengers,

all of these organisms that decompose the body.

So, the fact that her body was preserved

despite the environment is unexplainable.

I honestly don't have a medical explanation

for what's going on here.

- [Tony] So, can we call this

a real case of incorruptibility?

[church bell ringing]

- Perhaps this is truly a case of incorruption

in the great tradition of the Catholic church,

but throughout Christian history,

we have 10,000 saints

who have been canonized by the Catholic church.

A very small fraction of those

have been declared incorruptible.

[pensive music] [graphic clacking]

- Our verdict?

Unexplained phenomenon.

As of 2025, the Catholic Church has not yet weighed in

with a formal declaration

on Sister Wilhelmina's perceived incorruption,

but now that there is an American pope,

maybe that could change.

- For centuries,

medieval medicine has been dismissed as unsound.

The time period itself

is snidely referred to as the Dark Ages,

suggesting that it was

unenlightened by science or reason.

So how could a 1,100-year-old medical book from this period

hold the secret to curing modern illnesses?

[pensive music]

2016.

London, England.

Scientists around the world are intrigued

when the British Library announces it is releasing online

the complete pages of "Bald's Leechbook,"

a medical text that is believed to have been written

in the mid-10th century.

When the day comes, eager researchers log on to find this.

- It's a blend of Old English and Latin,

and the remedies within it are totally wild,

completely unorthodox.

Among these cures is one for swollen eyes,

in which it's recommended

that the person whose eyes are swollen gets a live crab,

cuts off the crab's eyes,

and then holds those eyes to their neck.

There's even a baldness cure

in which it's advised to take burned bees,

willow leaves, and oil,

make a salve and spread it all over your scalp.

- "Bald's Leechbook"

is actually one of the oldest surviving collections

of medical knowledge in existence.

Bald was the owner of the book.

Leech refers to physicians.

In this book, there's Bald's eyesalve,

to cure an eye infection.

There was a very specific recipe.

It had onion, garlic, English white wine,

and the bile salts from a cow's stomach.

- [Tony] How did this "Leechbook"

come by its odd remedies?

Some speculated it was witchcraft.

- Magic really was a part of life in the Middle Ages.

Really before the witch persecutions started in Europe,

there were people who you believed worked magic,

and you might go to them for cures

probably before you would go to any kind of physician

who is out of your reach.

- But for some people who were coming up with cures

during the Middle Ages, there was a real danger,

particularly for women who were accused of witchcraft.

The church and the patriarchy were not okay with this.

They persecuted those women,

and sometimes even executed them for coming up with remedies

and the kinds of things you'll find in "Bald's Leechbook."

[pensive music] [air whooshing]

- It's not the first time we've seen books like this

ahead of their time.

In the '70s,

Chinese scientists found a malaria treatment

in a text from the fourth century.

Do the cures in "Bald's Leechbook" work too?

And how did they get there?

[pensive music] [graphic clacking]

How did the medieval healers

behind "Bald's Leechbook" come up with their remedies?

Did they actually work?

- "Bald's Leechbook" isn't the only medicinal book

from this period.

We have other examples of books with remedies in it,

and they actually came up with remedies that worked.

The treatments devised by practitioners in the Middle Ages

required gathering ingredients and experimenting with them

until they found something that worked.

Willow bark was used to calm inflammation,

and today, a compound from willow bark is used in aspirin.

Another example are the psychotropic plant compounds

that were used in witches' quote, unquote,

"flying ointment."

But today, we use them as muscle relaxants

and to cure motion sickness.

- A lot of this stuff has been around

for a very long period of time.

This book has a remedy for arthritis

that contains nettles,

and we know that nettles are a

traditional Native American way of relieving arthritis

and is also found in modern arthritic medicines today.

So, we know a lot of those herbs

and a lot of those methods really are effective.

[pensive music]

- [Tony] Researchers at the University of Warwick

actually tested out Bald's eyesalve on a staph infection.

[pensive music]

- To their astonishment,

the staph infection was completely gone.

And they repeated the experiment time after time,

and every time, they found the same results.

The eyesalve was completely eradicating the staph infection.

- [Tony] Scientists were even more surprised

when they tested the salve on MRSA,

a highly-resistant bacterial strain.

[pensive music]

- This is a super bug

that is responsible for killing about 2,000 people a year

and a major problem in the world of medicine today.

And to their surprise,

the eyesalve killed 90% of the infection.

- [Tony] How could an archaic recipe

that includes white wine and bile salts from a cow's stomach

accomplish this?

- Researchers found that allicin, a component of garlic,

while it had the strongest bactericidal properties,

did not work nearly as well alone as it did

mixed with the other ingredients

- [Tony] Within the book's remedies,

researchers have also discovered herbal ingredients

that can effectively treat coughs, colds, and toothaches.

But not all the recipes are created equal.

- There's another recipe

where if you mix beetroot and honey,

mash it together, smear it on someone's face,

have them lay on their back in the sun

and let it drip down their face.

That will cure their headache.

I don't believe that works.

[pensive music] [graphic clacking]

- Our verdict?

There are some real proven medical treatments

in "Bald's Leechbook."

We haven't come across witchcraft

or magic potions here,

just evidence that the Dark Ages weren't so dark after all.

Still, I think I'll pass on Bald's cure for warts,

which says to apply dog urine and mouse blood

to the affected area.

No, thanks.

And that's our show for tonight.

Thank you so much for watching,

and remember to keep those cameras rolling.

[compelling music]