Original subtitles

- Tonight on "The Proof Is Out There."

A newly released military video captures a bizarre collision

with an unknown object.

- I have never seen a hellfire missile hit a solid object

and bounce off.

Never.

- [Tony] Could this strange skull be of otherworldly origin?

- They posited that this could be evidence

of a human alien hybrid.

- [Tony] Is this the most convincing Bigfoot video

ever recorded?

- The real showstopper of this video is

the creature's apparent strength.

- [Tony] Is this photo evidence

the infamous Amityville house was really haunted?

- There is something horrifying that has manifested there.

- [Tony] And could thousands

of people really be sharing the same dream

of a mysterious mall?

- Some people wonder whether they are subjects

of some kind of a mass psychological experiment.

[dramatic music]

- [Tony] Around the globe are videos....

- [Witness] Oh, there he goes.

- [Tony] Photos,

and sounds that defy explanation.

[static squealing]

- [Expert] 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.

- [Expert] What's exciting is nobody really knows.

- Extraordinary claims need extraordinary proof.

- 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.

- [Witness] It's coming towards us.

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

- 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.

[dramatic music]

Good evening, everyone,

and welcome to "The Proof Is Out There."

From an active war zone, to Capitol hearing halls,

to headlines around the world, the video we're about

to show you has gone on a head-spinning journey,

stunning spectators at every turn.

Now, we're taking a look.

Washington D.C., September 9th, 2025.

The House Oversight Committee's Task Force

on the declassification of federal secrets is holding

a special hearing.

- Good morning, and welcome

to the hearing regarding UAP disclosures.

- [Tony] A panel of UAP witnesses testifies

to the Task Force,

but perhaps the greatest revelation comes

from one congressman.

- Representative, Eric Burlison, from Missouri provided

this video from a top secret source.

- [Tony] The infrared video takes us to Yemen

in October, 2024.

It's shot from an MQ-9 Reaper Drone

as it tracks a white, orb-like object,

zipping over open water.

- This object in the middle doesn't have any obvious signs

of propulsion.

There is no heat signature.

So we don't know, really, what we're looking at.

- [Tony] The object is considered

enough of a threat that moments later,

another MQ-9 launches a hellfire missile at it.

And that's when this thing goes from unidentified

to truly astonishing.

- What happens is the unexpected.

The missile doesn't blow up and the object doesn't blow up.

[film rewinding]

- [Tony] The missile seems to just bounce off the object,

whatever it is.

- [Luis] What you see is a scattering of parts,

what looks like some sort of ejectile.

It'll deviate from its course slightly,

but then, it keeps on going.

- [Tony] The video quickly makes headlines,

and investigators dig into it.

- During the time this video was recorded,

we were conducting

a lot of operations around Yemen.

It's a very hot area, operationally speaking.

- [Tony] In fact, Yemen's Iran-backed Houthis took credit

for a drone attack on Israel just one day

before this video was taken.

For some, that means this must be a Houthi drone,

sideswiped by a hellfire missile.

But for others, it's not nearly that simple.

- Hellfire missiles are precision-guided,

air-to-ground weapons.

They are used to strike high value targets,

such as armored vehicles, bunkers,

and personnel.

[missile exploding]

- I have never, in my professional experience,

ever seen a hellfire missile hit a solid object

and bounce off, never.

- [Tony] That's why many remain convinced

that this video is proof of an alien craft,

immune to our weaponry.

- [Luis] I suspect Representative Burlison

released this video because he wanted to show, yet again,

here's an example of the U.S. government not knowing

what the heck's in our skies.

- The Pentagon had no comment on the case out of Yemen,

but on Capitol Hill,

the so-called hellfire UFO made plenty of waves.

The panel of UAP witnesses largely agreed

that what they saw in the video scared them.

So should the rest of us be worried too?

[suspenseful music] [computer whirring]

We begin with the object's strange shape.

- It appears to be just a white blob.

So we can't see any evident wings

that would be consistent with a drone or a aircraft.

- [Tony] Then, there's the object's speed to consider.

- [Tim] When we see the actual missile

that engages this object,

the missile that's targeting it is notably traveling faster.

And so, I get the impression that

what I'm seeing here is slow moving.

So that leads me to believe that it's not a missile.

- [Tony] So, could it really be a UFO?

- It could be a UFO from the standpoint,

the fact that you don't know what it is.

But we've fired at these objects in the past,

and they are able to shoot off at incredible speeds

and avoid anything that we would fire at them.

So the fact that this was a hit rules out,

to me, in my mind, the UFO.

- [Tim] Obviously, it was presented by lawmakers

as a UFO that was unaffected by a missile,

but you can also have instances

where the target itself is a soft target.

So it's not triggering the fuse mechanism

of the anti-missile system.

So let's say a lighter than air, a balloon.

If you shoot a missile at a balloon, the potential exists

that it doesn't cause that incoming missile to go off

and destroy the balloon.

It's too soft, it deflects off of it.

- [Rich] Since we know that even the Chinese were launching

these kind of balloons over the United States,

it's conceivable that this could have been

a Chinese spy balloon.

- [Tony] And remember, reconnaissance balloons,

like the Chinese spy balloon,

carry their surveillance tech

in a payload that hangs below.

- [Rich] So this hellfire missile

would have been trying to target the balloon.

Instead of hitting the balloon, per se,

it hit the payload below, and that's the parts

and pieces that are breaking off.

It kind of like deforms a little bit, changes shape,

but it stays afloat,

because the actual balloon was not hit by the missile.

[suspenseful music] [keyboard clacking]

- We're calling this one a mystery balloon,

because we don't know who sent it flying

over Yemen or why.

We could only hope the military gets that info

before our enemies finish gathering their info.

Now, let's switch from balloons to the bard,

to believe or not to believe.

That is the question.

You know when it comes to skulls,

it's easy to identify what's human and what's not, right?

Ah, but the one you're about to see might be proof

of a human-alien hybrid.

This story goes back to the 1930s.

We're in Chihuahua, Mexico,

and an American teenager on vacation

comes across an abandoned mine.

Inside is a shallow grave, hiding a buried secret

and a mystery that's centuries old.

- The story that I got goes

that she saw, laying on the ground, a complete skeleton.

And then, she noticed outside of the ground,

there was another hand coming out,

and the hand looked deformed.

And it was intertwined with this skull.

So she dug that up

and noticed it was a very small, misshapen skeleton.

And the misshapen skull became known

as the Starchild Skull.

- [Tony] The so-called Starchild Skull appears

to be made of strong, but thin bone,

with a bulbus cranium, a flat top,

and smooth, shallow eye sockets

that almost make a heart shape.

Compare it to a human skull,

and well, there's almost no comparison.

- [Aaron] Clearly, this doesn't look like a regular skull.

The eye sockets are very oval, they're shallow,

and the optic nerve canal is positioned lower

than it would be on a normal skull.

- [Tony] Eventually,

the skull comes into the possession

of former neonatal nurse, Melanie Young.

She finds it so compelling and so odd

that she shares it with researchers in the UFO world.

- That's what I imagine the eye socket of one

of those gray aliens to look like.

- [Tony] The specialists radiocarbon date the bones

back to the 12th century.

- What they found is that there was this strange, reddish hue

that they couldn't identify.

And they posited that this could be evidence

of a human-alien hybrid.

And indeed, the skull was discovered alongside

a skull of an adult human female,

leading that researcher to suggest

that this could have been the human mother

of the Starchild.

- Initial DNA results on the skull showed

that 265 base pairs were human,

but 342 were of unknown origin,

not belonging to any species found on Earth.

Could the Starchild's father be an alien?

[suspenseful music] [keyboard clicking]

Our experts have numerous anomalies to unpack here.

First, this skull's dense, reddish appearance.

- We know this skull is about 900 years old

and it was buried in the dirt.

Lithification allows other chemicals,

organics that are in the soil

to absorb into the porous cranium.

And so, even though

the chemical analysis that was done on this skull

might suggest it's alien,

I think it's just being thrown off

because of the processes in which it was found.

- [Tony] Okay, but what about those initial DNA results

that showed something not of this world?

- This thing is 900 years old.

DNA is gonna degrade over time, so it's very plausible

that the segments that they couldn't match were

just degraded DNA that couldn't really be read well.

Multiple repetitive DNA testing was done

on the Starchild DNA and testing did reveal

that this DNA was 100% human.

- [Tony] Yet, we still have to account

for the most striking anomaly of all,

the skull's strange shape.

Turns out there may be a sad,

but earthly explanation.

- [Lisa] To me, this looks like it could be hydrocephalus.

Hydrocephalus is when you make too much cerebral spinal fluid,

which is the fluid in the center of the brain.

And the skull of an infant is very malleable.

Any kind of internal pressure is gonna push outward

and change the shape of the skull.

- [Tony] Melanie has since donated the skull,

now identified as belonging to a five or six-year-old boy,

to a Mexican archeology museum.

- I wanted to find out, was it human

and what was wrong with it?

And I did.

And I wanted to take it back to its people

and put it back to bed.

[pensive music] [keyboard clacking]

- Our verdict, the Starchild was indeed a human

who likely fell victim to an ancient case

of hydrocephalus.

Fortunately, there are now treatments that allow children

with this condition to lead fairly normal lives.

- This next classic UFO encounter

dates back to the 1930s,

and it is still sparking debate today.

It's part of a curious pattern,

sightings of strange craft around Christmas time.

That's right.

For some, the holiday season means mistletoes and UFOs.

It's winter of 1937 in Vancouver, Canada,

and 21-year-old Leonard Lamoureux

is on leave from the Army.

- He's actually with his brother, Wilfred,

and they're going down to City Hall in downtown Vancouver

and they're going down to City Hall in downtown Vancouver

to see the Christmas lights.

- [Tony] Leonard sets his camera up on a tripod

to capture the holiday spirit.

And that's when it happens.

- All of a sudden, he looks up in the sky

and he sees this strange sort of object

hovering above City Hall,

and he snaps this famous Canadian UFO photo.

- [Tony] It's a bright oval object,

wrapped in a strange glow,

and it appears to be moving fast.

- We can even see sort of pixelation that we see kind

of follow it, almost like a contrail towards the back.

Sadly, Leonard passed away in 1992,

but he did pass the story on to his daughter, Deborah.

According to Deborah, Leonard explained

that he had never seen anything fly

so fast before.

- [Tony] He also told her the object flew horizontally,

then stopped.

That's when he snapped the photo.

Finally, it shot up into the sky.

- We have to remember, it's 1937,

so any aircraft that exists

during this time would not resemble this at all.

- [Tony] That said, primitive rockets did exist.

- [MJ] On March 16th, 1926,

Robert Goddard launched the first rocket ever,

this, basically, tube filled with fuel up into the air.

- [Tony] So it could be an early rocket

or an early UFO.

- It's not until really the 1950s

that the word UFO is even used in popular culture.

So this is this classic UFO photo

before UFOs were UFOs.

- [Tony] You might say the first Christmas UFO was the star

of Bethlehem, which led the way

to Jesus's birthplace in the Book of Matthew.

Some believe that star may have been a supernova,

but how about this Christmas anomaly?

[suspenseful music] [keyboard clicking]

Because of its shape,

we start by considering an astronomical explanation.

Could this be a meteor?

- A meteor would be much smaller

than what you'd see on this right here.

It'd be a blur, basically, in a camera,

especially the camera back at this time period.

It would be probably just a streak if it were there at all.

- [Tony] What about an early rocket launch?

- [Rich] It looks like it's got a front-leading edge

of something around it,

and then, it looks like that there's also

some sort of a trail.

- [Tony] That more closely resembles a modern rocket,

not the primitive rockets of the time.

Since this is an old photo, could this just be an artifact

of the camera or film processing?

- There is apparent degradation to the image

and a lot of bright spots.

So either it was photographed that way

or the object was influencing that environment

in an overexposed, or too bright method

that was overwhelming the film camera

when it was capturing that information.

- [Tony] That might be an important hint,

because in 1937, a nighttime photograph

would have required a longer exposure.

That means the camera shutter is open longer

to allow more light to hit the film.

So this overexposed nighttime photo must be a long exposure,

and that reveals something to us.

- [Michael] Typically with longer exposure,

if objects are moving throughout that scene,

there are blurring artifacts that are created.

You typically see that with long exposure

of like traffic with lighting.

So you see like the headlights are all smeared

as it drives through the environment that it's in.

- [Tony] Remember, Leonard told Deborah

the object flew horizontally and stopped.

- So because this object is so clearly depicted,

it would have to have been

in that position for a longer period of time.

- [Tony] So the photo matches his description of the event.

- The eyewitness very well could have experienced this

in reality and captured it,

but without additional information, no one can say

with a high degree of certainty.

- [Rich] I'm gonna say that if you want to call

that an unidentified flying object, you'd be right

to be able to say something like that,

to be able to say something like that,

because it's unusual looking,

and it's unusual shape.

But does it actually prove that it is a UFO?

[keyboard clicking] [static hissing]

- Our verdict? Unexplained.

While we are not ready to call this a genuine UFO,

we can't ignore the fact that the eyewitness testimony,

even if secondhand, is consistent with the photo.

Here's hoping that further evidence

will one day present itself.

And if extraterrestrials do celebrate,

we wish them a merry Christmas?

- Depending on which Bigfoot researcher you ask,

the legendary beast could be up to 20

or 30 times stronger than the average person.

Keep that in mind as we investigate this next case.

It allegedly begins in the wilds of the Canadian Rockies

in Alberta, where hunters find

what they think is a primitive shelter near their campsite.

But on closer inspection,

it seems more like a nest.

- What really caught their attention were bones

associated with this location.

The bones belong to a variety of animals,

but also, mixed in with these other bones,

apparently, were human bones.

- [Tony] As the story goes,

they report the nest to law enforcement,

who investigate the scene,

presumably collect the bones, and leave,

putting up police tape.

The hunters come back, apparently, sometime later,

setting up a trail camera, and then, capturing this.

Look behind the police tape

at what appears to be a dark figure

among the foliage,

one that's about to make itself known.

- The real showstopper of this video though

is the creature's apparent strength.

- [Tony] Whatever it is starts aggressively

tossing around trees.

No small feet, and keep in mind, the ground is wet.

- Wood, particularly damp wood, is quite heavy.

But this figure seems to lift

and fling these trees like they're toothpicks.

[tree thudding]

- [Tony] The video is posted online in November of 2023,

and of course, it goes viral.

The hunters remain anonymous,

but whoever they are, some believe

they captured video of the mighty Sasquatch.

- People seem to be impressed by how it lines up

with the typical Sasquatch description,

totally covered in hair,

dark in color, pretty wide and thick.

Perhaps that's musculature.

- [Tony] Sasquatch sightings date back

at least 300 years in North America.

And while most describe a shy creature,

some mention these kinds of hostile displays.

- In some cases, there seems to be some aggression,

like a Sasquatch chasing after a person,

throwing rocks or breaking large trees

as some sort of show of strength.

There's something there that they don't want you

to have access to.

The only other naturally occurring animal

that this figure here could be confused for is a black bear.

But black bears don't really pick things up

in their front paws and throw them about.

- [Tony] Bears also don't build nests

like the one described in this story,

but Bigfoot might.

This 2001 video, captured in the Marble Mountains,

claims to show an actual Bigfoot nest.

And according to researchers, this is common practice

for the creature, as it is for most great apes.

So what do our experts think?

[suspenseful music] [keyboard clicking]

- If this were a crime scene, it would be heavily monitored,

especially for something as serious

as having human remains discovered.

And it doesn't look like we're seeing that here.

It looks like an abandoned, taped off area,

which is something that anybody could do.

- [Tony] Even stranger,

there's no official record of the crime.

And there are inconsistencies with the footage.

- [Stephanie] The thing that's making me think

that it's not caught on a trail camera is just

that it's missing the date and timestamp.

But something that is really suspicious is

the video editing.

Not only do you not see the Bigfoot enter the footage,

but also, when it's moving the branches,

there's some clear video edits.

- [Tony] In addition, our experts agree

that the Bigfoot's behavior here seems peculiar.

Remember, it's supposedly trail cam footage.

No humans are present.

- Generally, when an animal behaves this way,

there's an intention behind it,

but it doesn't kind of follow through with its display,

which could be construed as aggressive,

but it doesn't seem to be reacting to anything.

- Although these trees are tall, they're really thin,

and it looks like they're dead.

Even if these trees weren't dead, it is not improbable

for a human to be able to lift something of this weight.

In fact, there are the Scottish Highland games

where both men and women compete

to lift large planks of tree wood called cabers,

and they flip them vertically.

So something like this is not superhuman strength.

- [Tony] But the deciding factor comes courtesy

of this being 4K footage.

We zoomed in on the creature.

- [Stephanie] When we zoom in on this,

the face looks exactly like a human face,

just painted in a different color.

You can clearly make out two eyes, a nose,

nothing about this is distinct from a human face.

[suspenseful music] [keyboard clicking]

- [Tony] Our verdict, this is a hoax.

It's one of those videos

that proves nothing more than the old adage,

if it seems too good to be true, it probably is,

especially in the Bigfoot community.

Now, we're moving from terror in the woods

to terror in the suburbs.

The Amityville Horror is one

of the most famous haunted house stories

in American history, inspiring books and films

with at least 45 sequels and counting.

Believers say it is not all fiction.

And this famous photograph is their proof.

It's 1974 in Amityville, Long Island.

Inside this charming Dutch colonial home,

a horrific crime is committed.

- On the evening of November 13th, 1974,

Ronald DeFeo Jr. brutally murdered his entire family,

two sisters, two brothers, both parents.

It haunted, first, the community,

then, the entire nation.

- [Tony] At his trial, DeFeo claims sinister voices told him

to murder his family.

In 1975, the Lutz family moves into the same house.

They claim it has unexplained cold spots.

When a priest blesses the home,

they say an unseen voice whispers, "Get out."

The Lutz's report terrifying ghost encounters

and flee the house after just a month.

Their experiences are the basis for the best-selling book.

After they leave,

paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren

are called in to check out the house.

They're joined by their colleague, Paul Bartz,

and a photographer.

The team sets up an automatic infrared camera upstairs,

and overnight, it captures this unsettling image.

- If you look at that photo, it's obviously a child.

The level of the child is at the doorknob.

It's too small to be an adult.

And there were no children in that house that day.

My grandfather said, "You can see, the eyes are glowing."

- [Tony] Take another look.

Some say this isn't just any little boy, it's a ghost.

- True believers speculate that the image in the photo is

that of John DeFeo, one of the younger brothers

who was murdered.

- [Chris] To me, it looks like John DeFeo.

There is something horrifying that has manifested there.

When trauma takes place in a home like this,

it can take on a life of its own.

It can become something destructive, like a poltergeist.

And I believe that's what was taking place

in the Amityville horror.

- In 2005, Lorraine Warren told a reporter that in 54 years

of working paranormal investigations,

no case affected her and Ed as deeply as Amityville.

But is this evidence they captured on camera

the real deal?

[suspenseful music] [keyboard clicking]

- Everything I'm seeing in the photo does indicate

this took place in camera.

I don't see overt evidence

that this was manipulated in any way.

- [Tony] Does that mean we're looking

at the spirit of John DeFeo?

- There are photographs of John DeFeo

that somewhat resemble what we see in the image here.

But I think if you look at it closely,

like, it's really just a superficial resemblance.

If you put the two images side by side, one thing

that really kind of conflates the comparison there is

these highlights that are over the eyes.

Now, from a distance,

it looks like these ghostly glowing eyes.

But when you get a lot closer, they don't really appear

to be exactly where the eyes are.

I think a more likely explanation is

that these white lights

that we see in the image are actually reflections

of the infrared lamp off the glasses of the person

who was in the photograph.

- [Tony] So who or what are we looking at here?

- [Mick] The most likely candidate is Paul Bartz.

He was someone who was around the house at that time.

He's the person who I think just fits physically the best

for what we see there.

And we can see very similar nose

and very similar small mouth.

The eyes hidden behind the glasses here.

Very similar hairline on this side and on this side.

And if we were to just to kind of take out his eyes here,

because he's wearing glasses, you can't really argue

that these aren't, you know,

almost identical looking parts of the face.

I think people interpret this as a child simply

because it's low down, behind the banister.

And a simple explanation is someone

who is just kneeling down, trying to stay out

of the shot of the camera.

I am about 98% certain that this image here is,

I am about 98% certain that this image here is,

in fact, this person here.

[suspenseful music] [keyboard clicking]

- Our verdict?

We're calling this a living person.

The Warrens, for their part,

never commented on the Paul Bartz theory.

And 50 years later, some still claim the house is haunted.

- The blockbuster film "Inception" is set in a world

where people can enter each other's dreams.

Well, our next story suggests

that this concept might be more than movie magic.

It's October of 2025 in Los Angeles

and actress Tara Rule has a good guess about

what will happen when she goes to bed.

Almost every night since she was a child,

Tara's dreamt of an elaborate mall complex.

- [Tara] Initially, it was confined to a mall

that also was a school.

And over the last, you know, 30 years of my life,

the world has kind of expanded.

I eventually started to just draw out

maps of this world in hopes

that it would stop the dreams.

- [Tony] This routine helps for a while,

until Tara sees a post from a stranger named Jessica Tilton,

who lives more than 1,300 miles away in San Antonio, Texas.

Turns out, Jessica made a map

of her own recurring dream world.

- I post a lot of things on my TikTok on a whim.

I was like, "Guys, I go to Mall World every night.

Here's my sketch of it. I'm drawing a map."

And it just immediately started getting traction.

And after that, it just kept blowing up.

- [Tony] The similarities are uncanny.

Look for yourself.

You can see the same landmarks populating

the two dream worlds.

An impending tsunami, a rollercoaster like highway,

waterfront buildings,

and of course, that mall school complex right in the middle.

And the reason Jessica's post gains such traction is

because many others claim to enter Mall World

when they go to sleep.

- Mall World began as a somewhat underground theme,

but since 2021, its subreddit has amassed

well over 40,000 followers.

It wouldn't surprise me if you add a zero

to that in the near future.

It's been the subject of articles from Forbes,

to the New York Times.

- [Tony] One theory is that Mall World is an example

of the collective unconscious.

Psychiatrist Carl Jung proposed this theory

in the early 20th century.

It's the idea that all of us inherit certain symbols,

images, and archetypes at birth,

patterns we unconsciously tap into

throughout our lives.

But it may not be all sweet dreams.

- There's a longstanding fear

that symbols or archetypes could be used

to manipulate the collective unconscious.

Some people who have provided some

of the most vivid Mall World narratives vocally worry

that they might have been part

of a government program, either as kids,

or perhaps today, to hack into dreams,

to influence behavior.

- In 2024, in an experiment conducted

by the tech startup, REMspace,

two participants in separate,

induced, lucid dreams exchanged a word

from one person to the other.

This marked the first ever recorded

dream-to-dream communication.

So if that's possible, is it really impossible

that thousands of people dream of the same Mall World?

[suspenseful music] [keyboard clicking]

- The comparison between these two maps

wouldn't pass scientific peer review.

They are qualitatively maybe similar,

but I can point out features

that are in completely different locations.

It says airport this way.

Over here, the airport is over there.

Here, I see factory.

You could claim it's the same as warehouse.

Those are not synonymous to me in any way.

So even without going into some sort of mathematical

or statistical analysis, we can see

that these are not the same map.

- [Tony] Even if the maps aren't identical,

what explains the scale of the Mall World phenomenon?

Is it proof of clandestine government experimentation,

or is this all in our heads?

- A social contagion may be part of this,

where once one person shares their story,

it's gonna go viral, and now, we cannot trust

any additional stories.

This could lead to more people dreaming of this world,

not for some exotic reason,

but because they heard about it already on the internet.

- You can also ask, why malls?

What is it about malls that people are dreaming of?

Well, they're a cultural symbol.

I mean, they're kind of ubiquitous across the globe.

- [Matthew] Maybe the ancient Greeks had a shared dream

about the Parthenon, or perhaps, there was a shared dream

among ancient Egyptians of the pyramids.

And maybe Mall World is

just the contemporary version of that.

- It makes sense that a mall would be the perfect symbol

or shared space, where someone might have kind

of a collective unconscious experience.

[suspenseful music] [keyboard clacking]

- Our verdict?

Mall World remains unexplained.

Even if social contagion

can explain many of the cases,

some of the oral accounts are still too compelling to ignore

until we get more evidence.

And as it turns out, one of our very own proof staffers

goes to Mall World at night.

Sweet dreams, Brian.

- Our next story features a superhuman feat

that goes back more than a century.

But to this day, it is still a mystery

that punches above its weight.

February 14th, 1921, Paris, France.

Former bantamweight boxing champion,

Johnny Coulon, weighing in at just 110 pounds,

takes a strange act to the vaudeville stage.

- Johnny Coulon's act was so amazing

that it earned him the reputation of

that it earned him the reputation of

the unliftable man.

I can just imagine

what it must have been like when Johnny Coulon

was out there doing that act.

Oh, the audience must have been nuts.

- [Tony] Determined to uncover the secret,

a newsreel crew sets up an experiment

with a Swiss weightlifter,

and this is the footage they capture.

The weightlifter tries to lift Coulon,

but can't budge him, as Coulon seems

to simply apply pressure

to the man's wrist and neck.

- There was a lot of word out on Johnny

that there was some sort of electrical current

he could control in his body

and even push it out on the other people,

and that would be the reason why he couldn't be moved.

- [Tony] Even legendary boxer, Muhammad Ali,

tried his hand at lifting Coulon in 1961,

but the champ was defeated.

So what's the secret here?

Well, a rumor circulates

that Coulon picked up this power traveling in the far east.

- There are those who believe that Coulon may have learned

to harness the mysterious force

known as Chi in East Asia.

It's known as the vital energy

that animates all things

and even a potential source of power.

[suspenseful music] [keyboard clicking]

- [Tony] So let's see what our experts make of all this.

First, did Coulon really travel to Asia to master Chi?

- In my research, it looks like he traveled

to the United States and Europe.

There's no evidence that he spent any time in India,

Japan, or Asia, where he would've learned the practice

and the art of Chi.

- [Tony] But is it possible that he wields

some kind of electrical power?

- [Lisa] If there was any kind of electrical shock being given,

you would see the recoil of the body being tossed.

You would see seizure or tremor activity.

You may even see the patient become unconscious,

but we don't see any of that here.

I highly doubt that there's any electricity

or electric shock or any energy being transmitted.

- [Tony] So what's really going on?

- The eye is drawn to that finger stuck into the neck.

And so, it appears like he's pressing

against the man's vagus nerve.

- [Lisa] By pushing on this nerve,

you would definitely slow down the heart rate,

decrease the amount of blood going up to the brain,

and this would make someone feel weaker.

But this is not the piece that's causing him

to be unable to lift.

- If you want to lift something heavy, you bring it in close

to your body, put it near your center of mass,

and that allows you

to lift heavy objects with the most leverage.

But Coulon here keeps himself at arm's length.

He's pressed away from the muscle man.

By being a distance, right,

you become effectively heavier

because, you know, your elbow is a pivot,

and so you are increasing the torque

or the rotational force downward,

given your body weight.

- [Tony] Watch, when Coulon repositions himself later

in the demonstration,

the Swiss athlete lifts him with ease.

- The key to being a good trickster isn't just being able

to pull off the stunt,

but being able to hide exactly how the stunt works.

So here, the eye is drawn to that finger stuck

into the neck, but that's not what's going on.

It's all leverage.

[suspenseful music] [keyboard clicking]

- Our verdict? Leverage.

Even if he didn't wield superpowers,

Coulon remained a superstar in his hometown of Chicago,

where he ran a boxing gym for over 50 years.

[dramatic music]

- [Tony] We have new developments

in a story we first brought to you

in a previous season.

Our team investigated this broadcast

from a mysterious shortwave radio station,

known by the call sign, UVB-76, which became known

as the Buzzer.

[buzzer sounds]

The monotonous repetitive sound had been on air

from the late '70s into the 21st century

before it finally fell silent in 2010.

Occasionally, it was interrupted

by a voice speaking Russian.

We spoke to an anonymous investigator

who became obsessed with finding its source.

- [Tony] Many believed the buzzer

could be connected to so-called numbers stations,

radio broadcasts that date back to World War I

and became increasingly common during the Cold War.

- A numbers station is a shortwave radio broadcast

that transmits coded sequences,

usually spoken numbers,

used by intelligence agencies

to send secret messages to spies.

- [Tony] Others suggested

it was connected to a nuclear deterrence system,

known as a dead hand switch.

- The theory is that if Russia is attacked and decimated,

the buzzer stops,

and then, nuclear weapons are automatically deployed

in retaliation to the West.

- [Tony] Our experts initially dismissed

that doomsday scenario.

- [Tim] In 2010, the signal ceased.

Very fortunately, we didn't see the launch of any missiles.

We didn't see apocalypse.

- Our initial verdict was

that the buzzer was probably a Russian numbers station,

but there was a lot that wasn't clear.

And now, there's a new development.

The buzzer is back.

- So in addition to the characteristic buzzer sound

that is broadcast on this particular channel,

there have also been spoken words in Russian.

- [Tony] That part, we can at least translate.

- [Tony] But the rest remains an enigma.

- [Rob] There's often another sequence of characters

or numbers that could indicate a postal code

or a zip code type of piece of information.

- [Tony] So the message is a mystery.

But what about the messengers?

- [Rob] On September 9th, 2025, which was just a day

before Russian drones invaded Polish airspace,

there was an increase in activity on this channel.

It seems that there may be indications

that Russia is actively managing and using this channel.

[suspenseful music] [keyboard clacking]

- So we are standing by our original verdict.

We think the new buzzer is likely

a reactivated Russian numbers station.

We still don't know what its messages mean,

and that may be exactly the point.

That's our show for tonight.

Thank you so much for watching.

And as always, keep those cameras rolling.

[dramatic music]