Original subtitles

The number that I've read of people that were killed here

is set at 135.

[ominous chord strike]

[sinister music plays]

These attacks continued night after night.

[screaming]

Two different lions.

-[roar] -[ominous chord strike]

[man]

Right.

Oh, my word. Look at this.

[ominous chord strikes]

Could these lions be around here right now?

-[Daniel] Yes. -Scary.

-[Daniel] You see the lion? -[Josh] Oh, oh, lion.

Oh, there's two.

[suspenseful music builds]

Where's the other one?

[roaring]

[suspenseful music plays]

[epic music plays]

Welcome to Chicago's Field Museum,

one of the world's greatest and largest institutions

devoted to natural history.

Within these walls is the visual story of life itself,

told through 40 million artifacts and specimens.

Let's go.

There are dinosaur skeletons, like ferocious Sue, the T. rex,

the world's coolest knife drawer, and oceans of

precious gems, not to mention some flying reptiles

from Michael Crichton's left over nightmares.

But among the crown jewels of the collection is something

even more terrifying, a pair of serial killers who have been

fascinating museum goers for more than a century.

[ominous chord strike]

Deep in the hall of mammals, I come face to face with

the infamous Man-eaters of Tsavo.

The cute and cuddly stars of "The Lion King," they are not.

Back in the 1890s, when the British were trying

to build a train line across East Africa,

these two Hannibal Lecters of the animal kingdom

terrorized a camp of railway workers,

reportedly killing and consuming a staggering 135 men.

The two beasts eluded capture for nine bloody months,

until finally, British Colonel John Henry Patterson managed to

track them down and kill them.

[gunshot blast]

He then famously claimed to locate their den,

a cave filled with human bones.

Patterson eventually sold the lions' pelts and skulls

to the field museum here in Chicago,

where they became a sensation.

The thrilling and macabre story of their rampage rose to nearly

mythic proportions and was even immortalized on film

in "The Ghost And The Darkness" with Michael Douglas

and Val Kilmer.

Today, these once lethal cats are still shrouded in mystery.

Why did the lions begin become man-eaters,

and how did they get away with murder for so long?

Also, how much of this incredible tale is even true?

Starting with their legendary den, which for nearly 100 years,

no one was able to rediscover.

Now, though, one researcher believes he's finally found

the lion's den.

And in the remote Kenyan bush, state-of-the-art technology is

being used to track down a new pair of elusive lions

to prevent a modern sequel to this terrifying tale.

And, incredibly, the remains of the Tsavo lions themselves are

still revealing new evidence, including what could be

the lions' grisly, final meal.

So join me as we reveal the truth

behind these feline killers, whose taste for flesh

has become the stuff of terrifying legend.

[dramatic music plays]

[theme music plays]

[Josh] The past is all around us.

Oh my god, it goes on forever!

A world of mystery...

-[theme music plays] -[ding]

Come on, look at that!

...danger...

-Hang on! -[waves crashing]

...and adventure.

It's just straight down!

I gotta get a new job.

-[theme music plays] -[bird caws]

[Josh] I travel to the far corners of the earth to uncover

where legends end...

We got it! Yes!

...and history begins.

Whoo hoo! Here we go!

I'm Josh Gates, and this is "Expedition Unknown."

[cheerful music plays]

[as Patterson] It was towards noon on March 1st, 1898,

that I first found myself entering the harbor of Mombasa.

I was much struck with the strange beauty of the view.

Everything looked fresh and green, and an enchantment

seemed to hang over the island.

So begins "The Man-eaters of Tsavo," a memoir published in 1907

by Colonel John Henry Patterson, a British engineer

sent here to Africa to oversee the construction of a railway.

His account of the reign of terror by a pair of

bloodthirsty lions begins, innocently enough,

here on the shores of Mombasa.

[singing in foreign language]

[Josh] Mombasa in Kenya has been a vital East African port

since at least the year 900.

As a result, it has, over the centuries,

passed through the control of powerful Arab sultanates,

the Portuguese, and even Germany.

But in the late 19th century, it was the British Empire

that ran things around here, along with what is today

all of Kenya and Uganda, a huge area through which

they needed to move men and goods.

When Patterson arrives here, Mombasa is the capital

of British East Africa, and the Brits have started

construction on the Uganda Railway,

linking this rich, coastal port with the African interior

and the distant shores of Lake Victoria.

The plan is to connect the port of Mombasa with a long distance

rail line all the way to Lake Victoria.

Why? Well, Lake Victoria is

one of the sources of the Nile River,

which would allow them to ship goods

along that great natural highway

across Africa all the way to the Mediterranean,

giving them the keys to the continent.

But this audacious project will require laying 660 miles

of track, secured by more than four million riveted bolts.

The labor was performed by local Africans from

the Maasai tribe, but primarily by 36,000 Indian workers

brought in by the British.

The project was plagued by sweltering conditions,

tribal attacks, outbreaks of malaria, and, as we'll see,

two bloodthirsty lions.

And if I'm going to continue in the footsteps of

Colonel Patterson, who was sent to supervise this project...

Hey, how are you?

...I've got a train to catch.

-To the train station. -[driver] OK.

Patterson describes getting across town in what's called

a gharri, a small trolley set under a little canopy

and running on narrow rails.

Today, locals prefer to get around in these -- tuk-tuks,

which are slightly faster. All right, let's step on it.

-[driver] OK. -[upbeat music plays]

Whoo!

[beep]

There are no rules.

My ride is even on-brand.

I got lions!

[upbeat music plays]

-[beep] -That's a pedestrian, That's fine.

They're gonna be fine.

And I might need nine lives to survive the trip.

I can't look.

-[laughter] -[upbeat music plays]

[two beeps]

[Josh] In a few more nail-biting miles...

[panicked yelling]

...we arrive at my next stop.

-Hey, thanks for the lift, man. -[driver] OK, OK.

-Asante. -[driver] Karibu.

[suspenseful music plays]

[Josh] All right, this is us.

Kenya Railway's train to Nairobi.

It takes about six hours to get all the way there, but we'll be

getting off long before that as we try to get to Tsavo,

where Patterson was stationed. Come on.

Jambo.

Hi.

-Karibu. -Asante.

[suspenseful music plays]

Made it.

[train horn bellows]

[Josh] The train wheels start turning, and we slowly exit

Mombasa, headed north.

In moments, the city recedes from view, and we find ourselves

in the great wilderness of Africa.

[inspirational music plays]

To get to Tsavo today, I'm following Patterson's tracks,

or rather, running alongside them.

Today, the modern train line runs parallel to the original

narrow-gauge steam engine tracks from Patterson's day.

When Patterson made this journey in 1898,

the Uganda Railway was three years into construction,

and in that time, they had laid down 132 miles of track.

The colonel's first mission was to supervise the building of

a bridge over a remote crossing at the Tsavo River.

Building a railroad across 600 miles of untamed wilderness

was a daunting task.

It cost the equivalent of a billion dollars today.

Some British considered it a waste of taxpayer money,

laying tracks across jungles, deserts, and swamps.

The public even began referring to this as "the lunatic line."

Africans had their own name for the project...

"The Iron Snake."

The local people, called the Maasai,

had a prophecy which warned of an iron snake that would

one day cross their land as a portent of doom.

And as predictions go, they nailed it.

The British would go on to push most of the Maasai people

off their land, only to market East Africa as a destination

for wealthy, big game hunters.

[bell ringing]

Today, the train doesn't go all the way to Tsavo,

so I'm jumping off here at the nearby town of Voi.

This is our stop.

[exciting music plays]

-Asante. -Karibu.

[Josh] The train got me the hundred miles from Mombasa to Voi,

but I need to grab a car for the remaining 32 miles

to the bridge.

Five hundred years ago, this was the site of a fierce battle

between the Maasai and Kamba tribes, earning it

the name, "Tsavo," or, "slaughter."

But the real carnage began when Patterson arrived.

And I'm headed to the scene of the crime.

[roar]

[suspenseful music plays]

Here we are, the old tracks.

[Josh] I've traveled 8,000 miles to this,

the notorious Tsavo Bridge.

This is where, in 1898, a pair of man-eating lions

went on a killing spree, never equaled before or since.

Spooky, spooky place.

A sensational book about the event has been

the main source of information about the slaughter.

Here to help me discover how much of it is true is one of

the foremost experts on the Tsavo man-eaters

and a curator at Chicago's renowned Field Museum,

Julian Kerbis Peterhans. -[Julian] Greetings, Josh.

Welcome to Tsavo and the infamous Tsavo bridge.

What an amazing place to meet.

I've read about this place for so many years.

Question one, should I be worried about getting eaten

by a lion? -Yes.

-[Josh] Really? -You should always be wary.

We have a good lion population.

I mean, we don't mess around at night.

In addition to lions, we've got other things

to be concerned with. This is the Tsavo River.

It's full of crocodiles, hippos...

cape buffaloes. Why don't we head down below?

-Toward the crocodiles? -Yeah.

Let's do it.

[Josh] We hike down to the Tsavo River.

In this spot, over a century ago, the men

building the bridge faced off against an unseen terror.

It is a gripping story, detailed in Patterson's memoir.

So tell me what happens in this book, in this spot.

Patterson arrived here in March of 1898.

There had been an encampment of up to 3,000 workers.

They brought many workers, over 1,000 from India,

especially the stonemasons, but also Africans.

They were in tents.

They surrounded their little encampments

with thorn thickets, which was meant to keep out lions.

So how long before things start to go bad?

Almost immediately after Patterson's arrival,

two workers just vanished in the middle of the night.

-Poof? -[Julian] Poof.

[suspenseful chord strike]

Patterson did not take that disappearance too seriously.

He thought they might have been killed over money,

or perhaps they just abandoned ship

and decided they didn't want to work anymore.

Right, but this is not the end of the disappearances.

Well, not long after, one of Patterson's prized officers,

named Ungan Singh, was dragged from his tent.

And the description of this in the book is harrowing.

[sinister music plays]

[as Patterson] At about midnight, the lion suddenly

put its head in at the open tent door...

[roar]

...and seized Ungan Singh by the throat.

The next moment, he was gone,

and his panic-stricken companions lay helpless,

forced to listen to the terrible struggle

which took place outside.

[scream echoes]

And Patterson calls the scene where they found the remains,

"a dreadful spectacle."

This is a really gruesome thing.

[as Patterson] The ground all around was covered

with blood and morsels of flesh and bones,

but the unfortunate head had been left intact.

The eyes staring wide open

with a startled, horrified look in them.

When Patterson was examining the corpse of Ungan Singh,

he noticed there was tracks from two different lions.

There's no evidence that there was a pride, so we think

they might have been nomad, a nomad pair.

[Josh] A pair of rogue lions hunting together and hunting humans

was something Patterson had never heard of before.

Lions normally stalk local game --

things like cape buffalo,

zebras, impala, or gazelle.

And even worse, these lions were both male, the larger of

the species, each one weighing up to 350 pounds

of pure, predatory muscle.

So he knows he's got a major problem.

And so after this event, these attacks just continue, right?

-These attacks continued night after night. -[growling]

[Josh] Patterson and his men now know who their adversaries are,

but can do nothing to stop them.

Once the sun goes down, the carnage continues,

with the body count rising like a fever.

-[suspenseful chord strike] -[roaring]

Workers flee Tsavo in a stampede, shutting down

construction for three weeks.

Colonel Patterson calls in the district officer in charge

of the region, who brings 20 soldiers to hunt the lions.

The officer is barely off the train

when he himself is attacked.

His back is ripped open by the lion's claws.

His assistant is dragged off and killed.

It must have been terrifying for everybody that was here.

Yeah.

The locals thought these lions had supernatural powers,

and so they were almost mystical animals.

They were named "the ghost and the darkness."

"Ghost and the darkness," something invisible that would

come and strike in the night. -Right.

And look, if you were in this camp night after night,

people being murdered, you could see why you'd start

to believe that. -[Julian] Yeah.

[Josh] Some of the African workers see the lions as a retribution

for the railway, the iron snake, that scarred their land.

Supernatural curse or not, the lions' reign of terror

lasts nine bloody months with the massive cats brazen enough

to enter the workers' tents together and dragging off

two victims at a time.

But patterson finally finds a way to turn the tables.

He sets out a donkey carcass as bait, hoping it will prove

an irresistible meal for a hungry carnivore.

Patterson then climbs into an elevated blind

with his rifle and waits.

It takes nine days of patience, but on December 9th, 1898,

he spies one of the lions crouched in the undergrowth,

aims... -[gunshot blast]

...and the first of the Tsavo man-eaters is dead.

Three weeks later, using goats as bait, the colonel guns down

the second man-eater.

-[gunshot blast] -[roar]

The Ghost and the Darkness are no more.

We have a photo here in the book after he shoots

the first lion.

And the first thing that jumps out at me looking at this photo

is it's enormous. -These were huge lions.

They would look even bigger if they had manes.

[Josh] You might think of male lions as having thick,

lustrous manes, but that's not always the case.

Because Tsavo is so hot, the lions here don't have them.

But don't mane shame them, they're still big enough

to kill in the triple digits.

The first man-eater Patterson shot measured over nine feet

from nose to tail.

Patterson's story and his book captivated the world

and led to some fundamental questions.

So, all of this raises some very compelling mysteries.

The first of which is, why?

Why did these lions attack and kill so many people?

It's an unprecedented event. Number two, how?

How did they successfully hunt humans for so many months

without being shot and killed?

And number three, is it all true?

You know, critics over the years have questioned this memoir.

It's so sensational, it's so macabre, could it

really be true?

Yes, there are these really compelling mysteries.

[Josh] For starters, there's the body count.

The number that I've read of people that were killed here

is set at 135. Is that accurate?

So Patterson documented 28 killed Indian workers.

[Josh] That number has led some to believe that

the total body count must be lower.

And Patterson's own accounting in his writing and interviews

also changed over time.

The numbers started escalating.

[Josh] Eventually, Patterson settled on the figure of 135.

And as Julian points out, there's a reason for that.

The number of African workers killed or disappeared

is never kept as an official statistic.

Right, so we don't know how many African workers died here.

In his writings, Patterson describes

their losses as being in the scores, meaning dozens,

which means his final number might just be reasonable,

not to mention terrifying.

Yes, that many people in a relatively short period

of time, coming in sometimes nightly, is pretty horrific.

[Josh] Patterson's book describes something else

that shocked the world.

He claims to stumble upon a grisly discovery, evidence of

what happened to the victims the man-eaters dragged away.

In his book, he describes finding the den

of the man-eating lions.

It is the most visual, gripping moment in this book,

and it just underscores the violence of this --

of this entire episode.

[as Patterson] Inside the cavern, I was thunderstruck to find a number

of human bones, with here and there a copper bangle

such as the natives wear.

Beyond all doubt, the man-eaters' den.

[Josh] There's just one snag.

Even though the memoir includes a photo of the supposed den,

after the book was published, nobody could find it.

If it could be rediscovered, it would prove Patterson wasn't

spinning tall tales.

[Julian] This cave full of human bones had been searched for

for 100 years unsuccessfully. -Yeah.

And our team undertook three searches for it.

And if you're interested, we could take a hike.

Am I interested to see the den of the man-eaters?

Yes, very. Lead on.

Julian leads me to rediscover the so-called "man-eaters' Den."

but this is no trip to the zoo.

To get there, we'll need to hike through wilderness

without any fences to keep us safe.

-[suspenseful chord strike] -[growling]

[anticipatory music plays]

Look at this place.

This is just like, incredible wilderness.

I'm in Kenya, searching for evidence

of the Ghost and the Darkness,

two legendary man-eating lions.

[dramatic chord strike]

To confirm the only firsthand account of their grisly

killing spree, I'm searching for the lions' den,

which was first found by the man who shot them in 1898,

and was never seen since.

People looked for this cave for a long time, right?

Yeah, the photograph he took of this cave

during the reign of terror was taken in about 1898.

So people have been looking for about 120 years.

[Josh] And this is the photo, right?

[Julian] And this is the original photo.

[Josh] Now, Patterson gives us some clues as to where this cave

should be, right?

He says he sets out toward these rocky-looking hills lying

to the southwest of Tsavo.

Patterson's description of his path to the cave included

dry stream beds and dune, or palm trees, to the southwest

of the bridge.

I assume that you and others went to the southwest.

-Right. -And what did you find there?

[Julian] We found zip to the southwest, but by shifting

90 degrees to the northwest, we're still following the same

stream beds with the same landmarks, the same dune palms.

-[Josh] Right, maybe he just wrote the direction down wrong. -[Julian] Right.

-And we're headed northwest now? -[Julian] We're headed northwest.

[Josh] Let's see it. Come on.

[anticipatory music plays]

[Josh] This... this is legit.

Hiking down the riverbed is a beautiful trip,

but then we get a reminder that beautiful does not mean safe.

Oh, look at the size of this print.

That is huge.

This is a fresh hippo print.

Hippos are actually one of the deadliest animals

in Africa, killing upwards of 500 people a year.

So this footprint will keep us on our toes.

All right, eyes peeled.

[suspenseful music plays]

It's a long hike under the African sun,

but eventually, a small hill appears,

and behind it, history.

Oh, my god.

And Josh, welcome to the Man-eaters' Cave.

That's it.

[suspenseful music plays]

-There's no question that's it. -That's it, Josh.

Lost for over 100 years.

And we've got Patterson's iconic photo here.

-[Josh] And look at that. -[Julian] Yep.

[Josh] Look at that!

[Julian] You can see how these cracks line up.

Diagonal cracks on the right.

[Josh] Yes, that little step up right there is exactly the same.

And then we have this horizontal fracture on that

rock above. -[Josh] No question.

[Julian] Yep. This is the man-eaters' Den.

[Josh] And we're standing right now, very close to where

Patterson himself was standing, taking that photo.

Can we get over and take a closer look?

Yeah, we can come down the other side.

Let's see what's going on over there.

[suspenseful music plays]

Look at this place. Wow.

That's it. That's the cave.

To ask whatmight be a stupid question,

how do we know something's not living in there?

Yeah, we don't.

But first thing we can do, look for tracks.

[Julian] There are no big footprints.

-[Josh] Right. -Let's check it out.

-[suspenseful music plays] -[thud]

Whoa!

A bat literally just shot out of the cave.

-[suspenseful music plays] -[thud]

Wow. This is spooky.

I mean, anything could be lurking back here.

Let me get a light.

OK, let's see how far back this goes.

-[Josh] Want a light? -[Julian] Oh, thank you.

[Josh, whispers] There you go. [normally] So, what do you see?

[Julian] So we're full up with sand, and there's certainly

a lot of room back here.

[Josh] I can kind of see it from this side, too.

I mean, it looks like it goes back 15, 20 feet.

Definitely large enough for some big predators

to hang out in, yeah? -[Julian] Any predator would be

very happy living back here.

But you don't hear anything growling back there, do you?

Not now.

All right, let's pull ourselves out of here

before a snake slithers out.

Julian and his team have no doubt discovered the cave

and verified at least part of Patterson's story,

but there is something missing.

Let's talk about what we're not seeing.

Bones.

If this is Patterson's Cave, where are the bones?

[Julian] This happened 120 years ago.

You can see we are in a flowing stream that the next time it

rained heavily here, those bones got washed out

downstream somewhere.

[Josh] So no bones were found here, but do you think

Patterson's account is accurate?

Do you think that when he came here to this cave,

he really saw human bones and bracelets and things

like that? -[Julian] Yes, absolutely.

So much of what Patterson wrote has borne out.

We've been able to verify so many small details, so I have

no doubt his discovery of this cave

full of human bones was accurate.

[Josh] As we step outside the cave though, Julian informs me that

while this is certainly the right place, there is

one major issue with Patterson's story.

Joshua, I have some news that might really shock you.

Lions do not use dens.

But wait, this is, like, a famous expression,

"the lion's den."

It's not based in current observation.

Current science has not documented that.

[Josh] But wait, I thought we said that we think Patterson did

find this place filled with bones.

Right, I have no reason to not believe that.

But if lions weren't living in that den, because you've

totally shattered my worldview about lions' dens...

-[Julian] Yep. -...how did those bones get there?

[ominous chord strike]

[suspenseful music plays]

[Josh] I'm outside the infamous den that reportedly belonged to

the man-eating lions of Tsavo...

-[roar] -[screams]

...where Colonel John Henry Patterson discovered

the remains of dozens of human victims.

Joshua, I have some news that might really shock you --

lions do not use dens. -[Josh] But Dr. Julian Kerbis Peterhans

is convinced the bones got here another way.

But if lions weren't living in that den, because you've

totally shattered my worldview about lions' dens...

-[Julian] Yep. -...how did those bones get there?

Hyenas accumulated the bones.

Hyena den?

Lions eat out in the open.

They don't bring their food to a secondary location,

but hyenas do.

As scavengers, hyenas take the long bones left over from,

well, the lions' share, and bring them back to a den

where they can break them open and feed on the marrow.

Julian believes this cave indeed held the human remains

of the Tsavo victims.

And the reason copper bangles were found is because they were

dangling from their limbs, the exact body parts that

hyenas would have carried back here.

They got there from hyenas scavenging the humans that were

killed by these two Tsavo man-eaters.

Right.

Having laid eyes on Patterson's rediscovered den, we now know

that aside from his layman's error about which predators

used the cave, his story is undoubtedly true.

And while the exact human death toll will never be

fully determined, the lions were certainly as lethal

as Patterson claimed.

Other questions, though, remain.

Like, how did this pair of lions managed to kill

for so long before being stopped?

And why did they turn to people for prey?

The answers to these questions may help protect people today

who still share land with these apex hunters.

[suspenseful chord strike]

To get a behavioral profile on the Tsavo lions, I say goodbye

to Julian and drive to meet wildlife rangers who monitor

dangerous big cats, hoping that none of them

turn into man-eaters themselves.

The route takes me 80 dusty miles west

into pristine African wilderness.

[anticipatory music plays]

This place is gorgeous.

Whoo!

Tsavo's largest national park is a stunner.

And at 5.5 million acres, it's more than five times

the size of the Grand Canyon.

The park is also home to Africa's famous

Big Five game animals.

That would be elephants, rhinos, cape buffalo,

leopards, and, of course, the king of the jungle,

lions, even though lions don't really live in jungles.

And despite the Wizard of Oz, they're also not cowardly.

And despite the song, "The Lion Sleeps Tonight,"

they're nocturnal.

Basically, everything you've been told about lions is a lie.

But the point is, it's dangerous out there,

and we're not getting out of the car.

Can I get some knock-off "Lion King" music in here

that narrowly avoids a copyright issue?

["knock-off 'Lion King' music" plays]

Perfect.

[inspirational music continues]

[scared grunt]

[inspirational music continues]

Oh, elephant, elephant. Oh, look at that.

[trumpets]

Elephants. Big Five, one down.

That was a buffalo. Let's be honest, though.

There's really only one that we're here to see.

[growls]

[cheerful music plays]

I'm just about to feel the love tonight when I arrive

at the headquarters of the Big Life Foundation.

Jambo.

Greeting me is the head coordinator for Big Life's Predator Protection Program,

Maasai Warrior and Elder, Daniel Ole Sambu.

-Daniel. -[Daniel] Hi, Josh.

Nice to meet you.

[Josh] Founded in 2010, Big Life protects over 1.6 million acres

here in East Africa.

Their programs include anti-rhino poaching and efforts

to mitigate elephant-human conflict, but one of

the main focuses is their Predator Protection Program,

established because Kenya's growing population

is expanding into lions' natural territory,

which can have deadly consequences.

The program protects human and lion alike,

compensating Maasai farmers for livestock killed by lions

if they agree to not retaliate.

[Josh] In fact, this is one of the few lion populations

in all of Africa that's actually growing.

-That's incredible. -Yep.

[Josh] Big Life uses patrol vehicles, aerial surveillance,

and satellite collars that ping the location of various lions.

They then track these animals to determine which could be

problematic before they attack.

So this is Osunash?

And so, why is Osunash collared?

[Josh] Walking literally right through a homestead.

They tried to kill him?

Wow.

Thanks to Big Life, Osunash is still alive and on their radar.

This is a lion to keep an eye on?

OK, along with these satellite collars,

how do you know when there have been attacks?

An animal's been killed, though? OK.

I'm very interested, I would love to see this process.

[Josh] OK, let's do it.

[Josh] The fact that livestock has been killed may mean that lions

are edging close to this settlement.

Quick action is needed to make sure human and animal

are protected. So we pile into our 4x4s

and drive 30 miles to the site of the attack.

[suspenseful music plays]

Got some cattle here. Be careful.

There's a killer out there.

It's late in the day, a dangerous time to head

into the bush, as this is when lions tend to go on the prowl.

OK, this is us.

OK, here we go.

[suspenseful music plays]

[Josh] The livestock owner, Ntawuasa Meeli, is a member of

the Maasai tribe who have survived for centuries

tending to grazing animals, primarily cattle,

but also goats and sheep.

-[speaking foreign language] -[Josh] Hi, I'm Josh.

And so, where did the kill take place?

[speaking foreign language]

Please?

We know we're in the problem lion Osunash's territory,

so every step here is fraught with danger.

It's so overgrown in here, you could totally understand

how a predator could be lurking in here.

[suspenseful music plays]

Oh, my word.

Look at this.

[ominous chord strike]

-[suspenseful music plays] -Oh my word.

Look at this.

So this is a sheep that has just been ripped open.

[Josh] I'm in Kenya, working with the Big Life Foundation.

A predator is killing livestock here in the territory of

an aggressive lion named Osunash.

Their goal is to find whether he is responsible for this

latest kill and to discover his current whereabouts.

I'm hoping that by tracking this sheep's killer,

it will shed light on the 1898 slaughter...

[roaring]

...of 135 people by a pair of lions

known as the Ghost and the Darkness.

[Daniel speaking]

-Oh, these puncture marks. -[Daniel] Yes.

Oh, my word. It's like a vampire attack.

[Josh] We have reports from Patterson with the Tsavo lions

that it would take workers by the throat.

So no question in your mind, this is a lion attack?

[Josh] Lions want a meal, not a fight.

They will often incapacitate their prey by the throat,

in the case of humans, killing nearly instantly,

which explains why attacks on the railway workers at Tsavo

encountered little resistance.

[roaring]

Did you see the attack?

[speaking foreign language]

Two lions?

Do you know if they were male or female?

[speaking foreign language]

-Two male lions? -[Daniel] Yes.

Just like Tsavo, two male lions.

And is this the first time these lions have

come down here?

Wow.

Wow. This is, like...

Tsavo part two.

Could these two lions that he's describing be

around here right now?

Scary.

[Josh] This community is now at risk, as are the lions,

since the Maasai will defend themselves if necessary.

So we need to find these two killer cats.

As night falls, we begin the search by turning

to the most likely suspect, the aggressive lion named

Osunash that Big Life has already been tracking.

It's possible that he has taken on a partner and is attacking

the local livestock.

[suspenseful music plays]

To help us locate Osunash, we pick up Jeremiah Somita Purka,

assistant biologist for the Lion Guardians,

a Maasai conservation group that works with Big Life.

All right, so, Daniel, walk me through this.

What's he using?

[Josh] OK.

The device is essentially an antenna, which picks up

electromagnetic radio signals pinging from

the animal's transmitter.

And how far can you be from the collared lion?

So you point it toward the signal?

-Yeah. -[Josh] Got it.

-We're listening for beeps? -[Daniel] Yeah.

Jeremiah, let us know if you get a signal.

Yeah.

[suspenseful music plays]

-[Josh] Super overgrown in here. -[Daniel] Yeah.

This is barely meeting the definition of a road.

[laughter]

[two beeps]

-Do you have a signal? -[Jeremiah] Yeah.

Where?

[Josh] My heart is racing.

Being behind the wheel of a safari Jeep

on the African veldt is a dream come true.

But what's out here waiting for us could also be a nightmare.

-[suspenseful music plays] -[beeping]

[Josh] We pull over to try and detect the direction

the signal is coming from.

My cameraman switches over to low light night vision

to follow the action.

-[beeping] -[suspenseful music plays]

[Josh] Stronger now?

[Josh] Our team is outfitted with state-of-the-art night vision

scopes and thermal cameras.

It's essential tech if we want to find Osunash

before Osunash finds us...

something Colonel Patterson could never have dreamed of

when he hunted the Tsavo man-eaters.

[Josh] Have nothing on the night vision.

[quiet growl]

What the hell was that? What was that?

[Josh] Elephant?

Oh, right there.

There is an elephant.

Super close.

[suspenseful music plays]

I got no lion.

[quiet roar]

[distant groan]

[whispers] That's a lion?

[Josh, whispers] No question.

-Yeah. -Oh, my god.

[Josh] Where are they?

[animals grumbling]

I'm gonna try to get it on the thermal.

[Daniel] Yeah.

[Josh] In the East African bush, our team is on the hunt

for a lion that could be responsible for a series of

recent livestock attacks.

We're hoping that an aggressor lion can show us how

the infamous Man-eaters of Tsavo were able to run rampant

for nine agonizing months in 1898.

[suspenseful music plays]

[groan]

I don't see anything moving around back there.

No heat signatures.

That lion sounded so close.

I don't see it on here, though.

[suspenseful music plays]

I see our elephant for sure. He's moving off.

[trumpet]

Whoa, what's that?

Another elephant. We got two elephants now.

[Josh] But no lions.

Let's try the tracker one more time.

You still hear them?

[Josh] Signal's gone?

[Daniel] Yeah.

Signal's coming from inside the Jeep.

[Daniel laughing]

We should relocate or stay here?

OK, let's do it.

Let's go, guys.

-[engine purring] -[ominous music plays]

[beeping]

-[Jeremiah] -Left somewhere, OK.

[suspenseful music plays]

OK, we're off-roading it now.

[Josh] Straight ahead, OK.

It's pretty disconcerting to be driving toward a lion

in the dark.

Signal's good?

[Jeremiah] Yeah.

[beeping continues]

We've got an opening here. Anybody see them?

Anybody see them?

-[Daniel] See the lion? -Oh, lion!

-[Jeremiah] Yeah, see the lion? -Oh, there's two.

-[Josh] Two lions right there. -[Daniel] Two.

-Oh, my word. -[Daniel] Look at them -- two, two.

Two lions. Oh, my god.

[suspenseful music plays]

Turn these lights off. We have two lions right here.

-Yes. -One of these is Osunash?

[Josh] So that lion's collared, there.

And this is...another male lion. We have two males here.

Incredible.

Right there.

And no sign of, like,

a pride anywhere, just the two of them.

[Josh] So they're rogues right now.

[Josh] It appears that we've found the pair of lions that could be

responsible for the livestock attacks.

[Josh] And will they share kills?

Wow, and this is like our famous Tsavo Lions.

They were, it seems, working as a pair.

Mm-hmm.

Just because they're disinterested,

that doesn't mean they're not aware of us, right?

Wow, and so, if they do get interested,

how fast could that lion get from over there to here?

-Sorry, 50 miles an hour? -Yeah.

And am I safe standing up in this open-air Jeep?

-They have an 18-foot vertical? -[Daniel] Yep.

Holy [bleep].

[Josh] This explains why so many of the human victims at Tsavo

simply vanished from their tents.

[roar]

With lions having such keen senses, lightning speed,

and the ability to target their prey's throat,

the railway workers didn't stand a chance.

Oh, he's up.

[Josh] Oh, he's moving. He's moving.

Osunash is still sleeping, but the other lion's now up.

[roar]

[roaring continues]

That is terrifying.

Imagine being a worker at this railway camp in a tent

and hearing this.

Totally.

That noise, it sounds like it's amplified.

-[Daniel] Yes. -I mean, it sounds like it's bigger than that animal.

-[roaring] -[suspenseful chord strike]

Oh, he's walking this way. He's walking this way.

I mean, he's really coming this way.

Oh, they're moving.

[suspenseful music plays]

OK, all right, they're on the move.

Here we go.

[suspenseful music plays]

The Big Life team wants to make additional observations,

so it's crucial for us to keep them in our sights.

-See them? -[Daniel] Yeah.

[Josh] Only one of them has a tracking collar...

...and the last thing you want with these apex predators

is a surprise.

You see them, where?

[Josh] Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, I see.

-Only one? -Yeah.

Yeah, I've seen a vision.

So where the hell's the other one?

I don't see.

Where's the other one?

[suspenseful chords playing]

Where's the other one?

Brian? Can I see that thermal?

[Brian] Yeah.

[suspenseful music plays]

[Josh] We're tracking a pair of rogue lions whose profile closely

matches the infamous Tsavo man-eaters that ate

up to 135 people at the end of the 19th century.

The hope is that this modern pair can show us

how they did it. The only problem is,

we seem to have misplaced one of them.

Let's see if we can get it on the thermal.

OK, I got a heat signature on one of them

in the grass over there.

And two. I got both of them.

20 feet apart, straight ahead.

Wow, the minute they walk away, it's like they're gone.

[Daniel] Yeah.

So they've moved a little to kind of obscure themselves

more in the brush, it looks like. -[Daniel] Yeah.

[Josh] So, what do you think they're doing?

To hunt us?

Oh, sorry.

You know, I keep thinking about, like, using this

technology, a night scope or thermal images, we can see

these lions at night, what it must have been like

for Patterson and these guys trying to hunt lions, you know,

in the dark...

without the benefit of any of this technology --

must have been hugely challenging and scary.

They're really good at hiding.

[Josh] Not to mention that 120 years ago, Patterson couldn't exactly

take shelter in a safari truck.

At least here we have this very open landscape.

[Josh] Right.

Ah...so with no elephants to knock down all of this foliage,

it was even harder to see these lions.

[Josh] Wow.

[Josh] This, it turns out, is one of the keys to why

the Tsavo man-eaters were able to kill for so long.

The area around the bridge was overgrown,

a perfect and preferred camouflage for these

straw-colored killers who become, well, invisible

inside the tall, overgrown brush.

The workers saw these lions as ghosts, as demons,

something that just vanished into the darkness,

the Ghost and the Darkness.

But when you come out here, you realize that's just

their natural state. They are elusive.

They are able to slip off into the night.

[Josh] Much like the Velociraptors testing the fences in "Jurassic Park,"

the Tsavo lions likely took advantage of

the spread out workers' tents to strike in different places,

minimizing their chances of detection.

Clever boys.

[Josh] In time, the lions move off into brush so deep

our 4x4 can't follow.

But Daniel and Big Life now know that Osunash is prowling

with a partner.

They will continue to observe and, if necessary,

even relocate these lions if they continue to get too close

to local homesteads.

As for me, I now have a sense of how the Man-eaters of Tsavo

eluded Patterson for so long, but one final mystery remains.

Why did these lions become man-eaters?

An ultra-rare occurrence for predators that prefer buffalo,

zebra, and other large herbivores.

It's a question that has baffled scientists

since the killings, but that may be about to change.

Julian is part of a team that's examining the lion's remains.

And now, they've found possible new evidence

in this century-old investigation.

So, I fly half a world away...

back to the Windy City.

Julian.

-Hey, good to see you, man. -[Julian] Josh.

Welcome back to The Field Museum.

-Always happy to be here. -Great to have you here.

-This is Tom Gnoske. -Awesome to meet you.

-Welcome to Chicago. -Hey, thank you very much.

-Pleased to meet you. -[Josh] Pleasure.

Tom Gnoske, Chief Preparator at the museum, is a leading expert

on the Tsavo man-eaters and has been studying the killings

with Julian for years.

So, I understand there's new discoveries at hand here.

Right, so this isn't just an exhibit and a display.

These are research specimens.

[Josh] The skulls have been housed here for decades,

but now modern testing has yielded

new and sensational discoveries.

First, that this was a family affair.

That's right.

The Tsavo man-eaters were brothers who were

eight years old at the time of the massacre.

That's middle age for an African lion,

who generally live to be about 10-to-15 years old.

And in recent days, even, we've learned some things

that we'd really like to share with you if you want to

come upstairs with us. -I'd love to see it.

Yeah, let's go.

As we head upstairs, museum experts remove

the skulls from the display and carefully ferry them

to the imaging lab, where I get an up-close look

at history itself.

So Josh, here are the skulls of the man-eating lions

of Tsavo. -Come on.

These are the actual skulls of the lions?

Yes, in fact, this is the lion downstairs in the case

that's standing. -[Josh] Uh-huh.

[Tom] And the other one is the one that's crouching.

Wow. May I?

-Yes. -[Josh] Oh.

Oh, my word. Look at that.

And this is where he was shot in the face.

-This is where Patterson actually shot him? -[Julian] Right.

There's something about being up close and personal

with these teeth that really brings this home, right?

I mean, these are incredible predators.

But it is these very teeth that have Tom so excited.

All is not what it seems.

Josh, let's take a look at this skull,

especially on this side. Do you see anything unusual?

-I see a broken tooth. -Yes, a badly broken tooth.

And in fact, both of these lions have damaged teeth.

OK, so they may have had some serious toothaches.

So, Josh, if you had a damaged tooth like this and you were

in pain, what would you choose to eat?

I would probably be eating very soft foods, I take it.

I would be on an applesauce, mashed potatoes diet, probably.

So, in the case of lions, humans are an easier prey source.

[Josh] Here we have it.

One possible cause for the lions' behavior.

Bad teeth, perhaps hereditary, that sent them in search of

soft food that wouldn't fight back, AKA...us.

Wow.

We are the applesauce of the animal kingdom.

I think so. Definitely so.

Incredible.

And it's their poor dental state that's also responsible

for the team's latest revelations.

So, one of the really exciting discoveries that we found is

that we noticed the teeth were broken, and we looked inside.

Oh, right, because this is hollowed out.

[Tom] That's right.

And we found kind of a hard plug of some kind in a debris.

We started rooting around to remove it.

And this is what we found.

After we were able to pry it out and get it out of the way,

we found beneath that was a core

of compacted hairs. -Hairs of what?

-Well, let me show you. -OK, sure.

They lead me over to meet Collection Specialist Jessica Wadleigh,

who's here to help uncover additional revelations

about how humans ended up on the lions' menu.

Well, right in front of you, you have a bunch of the samples

from the hair collection.

Wait, all of this was found in this tooth?

Yeah, there were over a thousand hair samples found

in the tooth. -[Josh] That's all hair?

[Jessica] That's just one sample.

-That's one sample out of a thousand? -[Jessica] Yep.

[Josh] The samples are made up of tiny, broken pieces

from individual hairs.

So this was really compacted material.

It had the consistency of wood.

So a thousand different samples must be giving you just

an incredible amount of data as to what they were eating.

-It definitely is. -Wow.

To examine the hair samples, Jessica places them into

a polarized light microscope that creates a sharp,

high contrast image.

Several register as non-human,

but the species can't yet be identified.

One sample that can, though, is a crucial find.

This is one of our samples that we think could be buffalo.

One of the things that's surprising is that in all of

these samples, there's only two suspected buffalo hairs that

we were able to find.

So that seems weird, because buffalo is one of

the preferred prey animals for lions.

So why so few buffalo in their diet?

Well, the reason is that around 1890, there was

a disease that swept through East Africa called rinderpest,

or the great cattle plague that wiped out 80 to 90% of

the buffalo in the entire region.

[Josh] Wow -- 80 to 90%,

so the primary food source of these lions suddenly

just goes away.

It was wiped out, and they had to find an alternative.

With the buffalo gone, we noticed there was a change

in their diet based on the layers we found

in the teeth, and we see that there's a transition from

wildlife to domestic animals.

And that probably indicates the arrival of

the railroad crews. -That's right.

And based on what we found in the samples, animals are not

the only thing that they ate.

Let's take a look here.

-Oh, and what is this? -This is a human hair.

This is human?

♪ I'm a lion ♪

♪ I'm chilling and I'm proud ♪

♪ I'm winning and I'm loud ♪

[Josh] While cruising through Tsavo National Park, I may have been

looking for the Big Five, but I found so much more.

[safari music plays]

Zebras.

Zebras, check.

Giraffes, check.

What the hell are those things called again?

Those things, check. I don't know.

Hakuna matata.

Little bumpy. OK, everybody hang on.

It's just me.

[trumpets]

-This is a human hair. -This is human?

[Jessica] Mm-hmm.

[Josh] In the imaging lab of Chicago's Field Museum,

scientists have made a potential breakthrough in

their examination of the lions of Tsavo, the discovery of

a human hair in one of the lion's teeth,

which definitively puts the man in man-eating.

This is just really astonishing because it's probably all that

remains of an individual, of a person that was killed

by this lion. -Yeah, very powerful.

It is very powerful, yeah. Wow.

I just cannot believe that this kind of evidence has just

been sitting trapped in this tooth all this time right here

in the museum.

It was just sitting there, kind of hidden in plain sight.

[Josh] And just a few days ago, the team discovered something

remarkable by examining the plug that held the hairs

in the lion's tooth.

Oh, my god. Are these hairs?

[Tom] Yeah, they're hairs.

-And are these human hairs? -Some of them, certainly.

-Really? -We can tell based on the structure of them,

and you can see when you zoom in here, some of these...

are a little bit more flat, which is indicative of

a human hair. -This is astounding.

The other thing that really surprised us about this

structure is all these pores in which the hairs are

embedded into, and that is kind of indicative of bone.

-Oh, this might be bone? -Yeah, it might be.

It's a very strong possibility that it's bone.

-Wow, so, could that be human then? -Absolutely.

We just aren't 100% certain until we do further analysis.

And, because it's the plug, it could represent the very

last thing that this lion ate. -Incredible.

Just astounding.

This is historic.

We have found a piece of a bone from the Tsavo man-eaters'

last meal.

And there's a distinct possibility that it came from

a human being.

So putting it all together as to why these lions became

man-eaters, it does seem like there's something of

a perfect storm here, right?

We have these two apex predators that had damaged teeth,

so they may have been looking for a more vulnerable food source.

We also have this plague hit, taking out their primary food

source of the buffalo.

And we have all of these railway workers arriving at

this moment with their own domesticated animals to build

a construction project right in the middle of their habitat.

Putting all that together, you really get a picture of how

these lions were driven into this activity.

I think that there was really no alternative for the lions.

It was either that or starve to death.

It's so crazy, you know, 126 years later, you're making

new discoveries here. -This is a big revelation.

More discoveries to be made with the lions of Tsavo.

Incredible. Well, thank you so much for your time.

I appreciate it. Tom, thank you so much.

-Julian. -[Julian] Good to see you again.

[Josh] A pleasure.

[Josh] The Man-eaters of Tsavo spent nine months

on their killing spree.

The consequences, however, have endured for over 120 years.

They became the physical embodiment of a nightmare,

the Ghost and the Darkness, which has made them into

monsters in the eyes of popular culture.

The truth, as it tends to be, is much more complicated.

The lion's behavior, it seems, can be ascribed not to

supernatural malice, but to a unique mix of primal

desperation and opportunity.

The first draft of the man-eaters' story

was written by their killer, Colonel Patterson,

whose account we now know was largely accurate.

But while the dots he connects are in the right place,

the picture he paints uses only one color, that of blood.

Instead, it is the lions' current custodians,

the scientists in Chicago, who will fill in the nuance,

one hair and tooth at a time, helping museum goers appreciate

these powerful and majestic animals in the context of

their national world.

And the conservationists in Africa will continue to apply

the lessons from the deadly history of Tsavo to ensure that

the intersection of man and lion is one of coexistence

and not of slaughter.

The Ghost and the Darkness finally brought into the light.