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William Shatner:
You know what?

I've been
around for a while.

I've traveled the world,
met some interesting people,

done some crazy things.

So, you might just think

there's not much
that could take me by surprise.

You'd be wrong.

The world is full
of stories and science

and things that amaze and
confound me every single day,

incredible mysteries
that keep me awake at night.

Some I can answer.

Others just defy logic.

Like in Death Valley,
where rocks seem to be

moving across the desert
under their own steam.

Is there an explanation?

Or the strange,
unexplained lights

spotted in the mountains
of North Carolina.

Are they the ghosts
of Native American warriors?

And a secret tribe is redefining
the limits of human endurance.

They can run
400 miles in one race.

Are they superhuman?

Yep...

it's a weird world.

And I love it.

You know,
there are some things

that we all depend on that
really don't get enough credit.

I mean,
where would we be

without the humble rock?

Think about it.

The earth's outer layer,

the very ground under our feet,
is made of rock.

This was mankind's
first technology.

Since the Stone Age,

the entire history
of human advancement

can be traced back
to this little guy.

We've used rock as tools,

as material
to build our civilizations.

We've mined rock
for the precious metals inside.

Without rock,
there would be no modern world.

In short, rocks rock!

Death Valley, California.

Here, in a harsh,
hot and deadly terrain,

mysterious natural forces
are at work.

Rocks appear to be
moving around,

totally independently,

on perfectly flat ground.

This strange and
seemingly impossible phenomenon

has defied explanation
for more than 60 years.

Now Weird or What is going to

put an incredible
new theory to the test.

The mystery unfolds
3600' above sea level,

in a three-mile long,

dry lakebed known as
the Racetrack Playa.

Surrounded by mountains,

the playa is home to
hundreds of dolomite fragments,

from tiny pebbles
to 700-lb. boulders,

all of which cruise
across this level surface,

in all directions,

covering distances
of up to a mile,

leaving behind a tell-tale
winding trail in the dirt.

Park Ranger Bob Greenburg
knows the rocks on his watch

are moving around,

but neither he nor anyone

has ever
actually seen it happen.

Bob Greenburg:
Well, people have
tried to stay out.

The weather's too harsh,

they can't deal
with the high wind,

the 100-mile-an-hour wind.

Plus, it gets
pretty cold out there.

One reason we know,

before we had
today's technologies,

they moved --

there was a study done
where they actually went out

and put pegs
next to particular rocks,

and they'd come out periodically
and see if it had moved.

But more recently,
we've put video cameras out,

and either
the weather kills them

or someone has taken them.

William Shatner:
But questions remain --

how fast do they move?

How often?

How can supposedly
inanimate objects

be moving at all?

Over the years,

there have been
plenty of wild theories,

and Ranger Greenburg
has heard them all.

I've heard leprechauns,
which I find entertaining.

Some people accuse the rangers

of going out
and pushing them around.

Oh, boy,
we don't do that, no.

Yeah,
I guess, possibly,

someone could go out there
and create a hoax,

but they'd have to be
pretty driven to do that.

I'm going to guess
this one's graffiti.

Crazy explanations aside,

there's no denying there's
a genuine mystery afoot here.

Stones that weigh
anywhere from seven to 700 lb.

are sailing across
a dry desert floor,

and no one
has ever seen it happen.

Is that weird, or what?

So, what's going on here?

Geologist Dr. Paula Messina

has spent years studying
the stones of Racetrack Playa

and theorizing
how they might be moving.

She believes
the answer could lie

with Death Valley's
strange wind patterns.

Paula Messina:
The playa itself is
like a mosaic of microclimates,

that we find that
wind speed in one location

can be as much as six times
greater as in another location.

And I've measured the wind,

simultaneously
at different spots,

to know that this is true.

So, rocks that are
fairly close to one another

will do totally different things

because the nature of the wind

is different at
different parts of the playa.

William Shatner:
These super-localized winds

can reach up to
90 miles an hour,

due to the valley's
unique narrow canyons

and mountain passes
that constrict the wind flow,

causing it
to accelerate dramatically.

Paula Messina:
Air is a fluid,

and there are certain rules
that fluids live by,

and one of them is when you
constrict the flow of a fluid,

it speeds up.

It's a little bit
like putting your finger

at the end
of a garden hose.

The water will spray out
a lot faster when you do that

than when you
just leave the hose going.

And in the Racetrack,

there are
two topographic carvers.

They're notches.

They're like mountain passes,

and air comes
from the west to the east

in the predominant motion
out here in the southwest.

And it's coming up from
a place called Saline Valley,

but it has to go through

one or two
of these very narrow canyons

in order to get
to the Racetrack.

So, I think that the air
is moving very fast

when it gets through
those two notches,

and that amplifies
the wind speed on the Racetrack.

William Shatner:
So, could this
garden hose theory

solve the mystery
of the sailing stones?

Are the rocks
of the Racetrack Playa

being subjected to some kind
of natural wind tunnel?

The theory
has never been tested,

until now.

Hmm, okay.

Maybe I should leave this
to the professionals.

Wow!

Bruce Borrowman

is a science teacher
with a passion for stones.

Bruce Borrowman:
That's a keeper.

William Shatner:
And especially
the sailing stones.

Borrowman has been chasing
the wind theory for years.

Now he's ready
to put it to the test

by attempting to recreate
the atmospheric conditions

of Death Valley
in a wind tunnel.

Bruce Borrowman:
It seemed like just
a logical explanation to me

to take what
we think happens in nature

and test it
on a smaller scale.

William Shatner:
Borrowman can't bring
a perfectly calibrated

wind tunnel to the playa,

so he brought the playa
to the wind tunnel.

Bruce Borrowman:
This is a mixture
of sand and clay.

We spread it out last night
on the test bed,

and then, as the moisture
evaporated out of this,

the clay dried out,
and it fractured.

When you go out
on the playa,

this is exactly
what it looks like.

William Shatner:
Having created
the perfectly flat,

dry and cracked
conditions of the playa,

Borrowman adds the rocks --

five of them,
ranging from 1 lb. to 20 lb.

Bruce Borrowman:
So, let's go ahead
and turn this baby on...

and let's slide some rocks.

Rock and roll.

John: We're rolling.

So, what's our velocity now?

John: We're at 50.

Anybody see anything moving?

There goes one.

John: Sixty.

There goes rock number one,
rolling off.

William Shatner:
Even with winds
of over 70 miles an hour,

the experiment
is inconclusive.

The stones roll,

but they need to slide to
create the distinctive tracks.

And the only rocks
that move are small.

The biggest rocks,
like those on the playa,

refuse to budge.

William Shatner:
So, even with winds
over 70 miles an hour,

the experiment
is a blustery bust.

The stones just don't sail.

My experiment
isn't working too well either.

There's something missing here,
but what could it be?

Back on the playa,

Ranger Bob
thinks he has the answer.

Bob Greenburg:
You need rocks,
wind and some kind of lubricant.

William Shatner:
A dusty desert valley

seemingly offers
little in the way of lubricant,

but when the seasons change,
so does the playa.

Paula Messina:
Here we are in the winter,

and the temperature
is very cold.

And, in fact,
it's been raining.

So, even though this place gets
only about 2" of rain a year,

we're seeing
a significant event,

in terms of the weather,
in Death Valley right now.

William Shatner:
And with these rains,
the usually dry lakebed

becomes a shallow lake
once again.

So, Borrowman brings in
another variable --

water.

Bruce Borrowman:
So, what we're doing now

is we've tried to simulate

the flooding conditions
on the playa.

William Shatner:
With a small amount of water,
the stones begin to move.

John:
50 miles an hour.

Look at rock one.

There it goes.

There goes two.

John:
Two is starting to slide,

and so is four.

Bruce Borrowman:
There goes four.

We got two and four to slide
at 70 miles an hour.

We've kind of peaked now.

William Shatner:
Even after adding
water to the mix,

the wind theory
is looking doubtful.

But in the most bizarre way,

the extreme conditions
in Death Valley

could yet provide the answer.

In winter, the playa's
nighttime temperature

drops from
searing to freezing.

Any water on the valley floor
soon turns to ice.

This fact,

combined with an afternoon
watching winter sports,

may have led
Dr. Messina to the answer.

Paula Messina:
I saw curling
for the first time

in one of the winter Olympics
a few years ago.

It was one of those
eureka moments.

I thought about the rocks.

I thought about, "Gee,
this is really interesting,

"to see how little force it
takes to get something to move

"when there's
almost no friction."

As a Canadian,

I consider myself somewhat
an authority on winter sports.

So, let's think about

the marvelous
mechanics of curling.

A 40-lb. granite rock is
pushed down the ice at a target.

The weight of the stone
and the force applied

melts just enough ice

under the rock

to reduce the friction
to practically nothing,

allowing the rock to skim across
the ice with the merest flick.

So, could the sailing stones
of Death Valley

be acting in a similar way?

Could the science behind
an Olympic sport

explain this mystery?

Back at the wind tunnel,

it's time for one last try.

♪

William Shatner:
Rocks, some weighing
hundreds of pounds,

are gliding mysteriously
across a desert playa

in Death Valley,

untouched by human hand.

But how?

Bruce Borrowman
is trying to find out.

He's going to test a theory
that the rocks

are effectively sailing across
a thin layer of ice,

like curling stones.

Borrowman lowers the friction
by turning the cracked surface

of his mini playa
into a makeshift curling rink.

What we're trying
to simulate here

is that the playa
has flooded.

Freezing temperatures,

frozen solid surface

with a thin layer
of water on it,

and we're gonna
test this again just this way.

John:
40, 45.

Bruce Borrowman:
There goes one, yeah.

One at 45.

John:
There goes rock three.

There goes rock three.

John: 53, 54.

Bruce Borrowman:
Oh, perfect!

Whoo!

Beautiful!

Oh, beautiful!

Aw, really nice.

William Shatner:
With a thin,

slippery coat of mud
now covering the ice below,

the rocks sail along gracefully

when hit with wind speeds
known to exist in Death Valley,

leaving trails in the mud

identical to the ones
on the playa.

Bruce Borrowman:
This shows that if the right
conditions exist in nature

and all of these different
components come together

in the right proportions,

it works,
it happens.

It's a logical explanation.

It's not a mystery.

William Shatner:
But a mystery remains.

Some trails are so twisty
that even wind tunnels

can't explain
their erratic paths,

and the stones are
just as active in the summer,

when there is no ice
to help them sail.

I don't want to get
too philosophical,

but it's like,

yeah, there's always
going to be a mystery.

And, and...

and when there
are no mysteries,

life is gonna
be boring, right?

Our planet is a
truly mysterious place,

filled with many phenomena
that we simply cannot explain.

In the USA,
the hills of North Carolina

are home to one such
extraordinary mystery.

Male Witness:
Oh, look at it.
Look at it moving.

Look at it moving down.

It's going down the ridge.

It's heading down.

Female Witness:
Oh, my god.

That is smoking.

Look at that;
it's in the mountain.

Spooky, glowing orbs
that regularly

rise above the mountains

and disappear
into the horizon --

are these weird lights UFOs?

Ghosts?

Or, even better,
inter-dimensional beings?

Let's see if we can
get to the bottom of this.

Northwest of
Hickory, North Carolina,

lies Brown Mountain,

a one-and-a-half-mile-long ridge
on the Pisgah National Forest.

Its appearance
belies a strange history.

The first recorded sighting
of mysterious lights

was reported in 1771.

People have been
seeing them ever since.

Male Witness:
Oh, yeah, there.

Wow. See?

Female Witness:
There it goes.

William Shatner:
Paranormal investigator
Joshua Warren grew up watching

the mountain's
strange light show.

Joshua Warren:
I first saw the lights
when I was 12 or 13 years old.

This dark mountain
in front of us

lit up with a red,
flaring light,

and that light expanded,
and then it dwindled, twinkled.

And, uh, I was amazed

because I knew that there was
not supposed to be anything

commercial or artificial
on that mountain

that could produce
that kind of light.

And yet,
there it was,

and that inspired me

to discover
what was happening there.

William Shatner:
Joshua has captured
this remarkable phenomenon

on film many times.

Joshua Warren:
I've got, like,
six or eight of them

all lined up
across here, folks.

Male Witness:
God all mighty.

Joshua Warren:
See? See them all?

Male Witness:
Wow, Oh, man.

Joshua Warren:
That, for me,
was so clear.

I realized
there is something real

happening at Brown Mountain.

William Shatner:
Joshua has devoted his life

to researching
the Brown Mountain lights,

and now he thinks
he's discovered the truth.

Until now, there have been
hundreds of competing theories.

Many believe the lights
are produced by UFOs,

the glowing orbs perhaps being

some kind of
alien vehicle or probe.

Local resident Missy Hill
has a different explanation.

I believe that
the Brown Mountain lights

is a spiritually charged area.

It's the spirits of the dead

is what people are seeing.

Legend has it
that back in the year 1200,

Brown Mountain was
the site of a bloody war

between two Indian tribes.

The death toll was huge,

and it was said
the heartbroken spirits

of the warriors' wives

still wander the mountain
with lights,

looking for the remains
of their slain husbands.

(Speaking Norwegian)

William Shatner:
Brown Mountain
isn't the only place

where strange lights appear.

In central Norway,
strange, oblong lights

have been appearing
over the Hessdalen Valley

since the 1980s.

Southeast of Marfa, Texas,

unexplained lights have been
reported for 200 years.

Hovering balls of light
seem to float above the ground,

sometimes for up to
hours on end.

So, what's going on?

Are people seeing ghosts?

Or can science unravel
a very real mystery

that has endured
for hundreds of years?

♪

William Shatner:
In North Carolina --

mysterious
and unexplained lights.

Male Witness:
Oh, yeah, there. Wow. See?

Female Witness:
There it goes.

William Shatner:
Some believe
these are the spirits

of long dead
Native Americans.

Ghostly wanderings aside,

could there be a more
run-of-the-mill explanation

for the Brown Mountain lights?

In 1913,
the U.S. Geological Survey

proclaimed the lights

were train headlights
from a nearby valley.

Sounds plausible.

However, three years later,

a great flood
swept through that valley

and temporarily took out
the railroad bridges,

the roads
and all the power to the area.

And guess what?

The mysterious lights

continued to appear
above Brown Mountain.

So, can modern science

find an answer
to this enduring mystery?

Well, it seems there are
multiple explanations,

including swamp gas
or reflected starlight.

Dan Caton,

an astrophysicist
who has studied the phenomena,

also has a theory.

I got a lot of emails
from people who had seen them,

and what was
particularly interesting

were people who reported
seeing them

from several feet away.

So, this is not
going to be a distance

at which you're
going to confuse things.

And then I began to think
that this sounded a whole lot

like the reports
of ball lightning.

William Shatner:
An extremely rare phenomenon,

never successfully
captured on film,

ball lightning
is a luminous orb

that can be as large
as a soccer ball

and can hover above the ground

or move around wildly
for several seconds.

It has been observed

occurring just before
or after a lightning strike.

Daniel Caton:
We don't understand
ball lightning,

but it has been
reported for centuries

and seems to be real.

William Shatner:
But there's just
one problem with this theory.

Most sightings
of the Brown Mountain lights

occur on clear,
dry nights.

No thunderstorms
means no ball lightning.

This is where
Joshua Warren's theory comes in.

He thinks
the Brown Mountain lights

are similar to ball lightning
but without the lightning.

Joshua Warren:
We've been able to reproduce
a similar phenomenon,

on a miniature scale,
in our lab.

Now, as you can see,

the stream of carbon
that's floating up in the smoke

has ignited this ball of plasma
at the top of the jar.

William Shatner: Well,
it's easy enough in the lab,

but to produce the effect
in nature

requires a source of energy,

energy that Joshua believes

is coming from
Brown Mountain itself.

Joshua Warren:
We're trying to measure

any kind of strange
electromagnetic interference.

Adjust for
some radio microwaves.

William Shatner:
Joshua claims
to have detected

erratic surges
in the natural levels

of electrical current
running through the ground.

Joshua Warren:
And we think that
could be because the mountain

stores up electricity over time
and then discharges it

to create what looks like
a ball of light.

William Shatner:
According to Joshua,

Brown Mountain
could be acting like

a giant electrical capacitor,

storing a constant trickle
of static electricity

between its rock strata

and then discharging it quickly
in very large bursts,

bursts strong enough
to turn the air into a plasma.

Plasma is a super-excited
form of ionized gas

that has released its electrons.

Our sun is a
massive ball of plasma,

and, closer to home,

plasma is used
to light up florescent tubes

and flat-screen plasma TVs.

Joshua has designed
an experiment he says proves

the Brown Mountain lights
are plasma balls

caused by the mountain itself.

Joshua Warren:
And we have a primary electrode
and a secondary electrode.

What makes it most interesting
is that we have

this array of third electrodes
here on the side,

and they reproduce
some of the angles

that we get from
the slope of Brown Mountain

to see how these interactions
might come together

and give us some type of
an interference pattern

that makes something
like ball lightning

hover in the middle
of that too.

I'm gonna apply some voltage.

If we were looking at, say,

a cliff on Brown Mountain,

this bottom wire
would represent

one discharge
coming from a shelf of earth.

The top wire would
represent the atmosphere,

which has its own charge.

The third wire would
represent another charge

coming from
another spot on the cliff

that happens to

intersect with
that original charge.

It's that intersection
that gives you the spin,

that gives you
what looks like a blob.

Right now,
you can see a plasma ball

that's hovering between
these three electrodes,

and we have created this
by reproducing

many of the conditions
at Brown Mountain.

Therefore,
we think that

a Brown Mountain light
is very similar

to the type of plasma
that you're seeing

that appears to be hovering
in the middle of this tube

but actually is just part of
a much larger electrical system.

William Shatner:
Plasma created in a lab

does seem to appear
strikingly similar

to the mysterious lights
witnessed on Brown Mountain.

Joshua is confident
he's found the answer.

The moment that I saw

that ball of light
appear hovering

between those electrodes,

I understood so many things
all at once

that I never understood before.

I think we have
a lot to learn,

still, about the way
our planet works.

That's why it seems to me
it's valuable to try to see

if we can recreate
these things that happen

that we cannot explain.

William Shatner:
But the Brown Mountain lights
are so unpredictable and rare

that studying them
scientifically

is virtually impossible.

For the foreseeable future,

it seems
this remarkable mystery

will remain weird, or what?

In the remote mountains
of northern Mexico,

a little known tribe
is redefining our knowledge

of the limits
of human endurance.

They can run
up to 435 miles --

16 times further
than a marathon --

in just over two days.

How could this be possible?

Experts are attempting
to uncover the secrets

to their superhuman ability.

Is it unique,
or do we all have it?

Finding the answer

could change the future
of medical science.

Is that weird, or what?

♪

Oh, I couldn't imagine
running a marathon --

over 26 miles.

I can hardly make it
around the block.

Oh, yeah,

today's elite
marathon runners

are quite
an incredible bunch.

But then again,
they do have

the most sophisticated
modern training available --

advanced nutrition programs,
state of the art facilities,

physiotherapy,
sports psychologists,

world-class coaches --

everything to help them
push their bodies

to the extremes
of what's humanly possible.

But what if I told you
there is a mysterious

and virtually unknown
group of people who,

with no formal training,

can literally run circles
around most Olympians?

Completely normal men and women
who can run the equivalent

of not one but TEN Marathons,
back-to-back...

with a hangover.

In the remote
Sierra Madre mountains

of northwest Mexico

lies Copper Canyon,

a rugged region home to a tribe
called the Tarahumara

or the running people.

The Tarahumara have inhabited
this terrain for 500 years.

Their name comes from

their superhuman ability
to run superhuman distances --

without running shoes.

How do they do it?

Chris McDougal
is a former marathon runner.

He is astonished
by the Tarahumara's

extraordinary endurance.

I just assumed
it was a simple trick.

You just do one thing,
and you're good to go.

And then, when I
started to look into the tribe,

I realized that
this guy was not unique,

that this is an entire tribe
of people that can run distances

well beyond 100 miles.

They routinely run 200,
250 miles at a time

and not just some people
but all of them,

men and women,
old and young alike.

There are men
in their 70s and 80s

who are still running
150 miles at a time.

William Shatner:
Remarkably, the tribe record

for the single longest run

is a staggering 435 miles

in just over 48 hours.

435 miles is
the equivalent of running

from New York
to Cleveland, Ohio.

To run this distance,

over 16 times
further than a marathon,

in one session,
defies belief.

But even more remarkable
is how they do it.

Chris McDougal:
Either barefoot

or these thin, homemade sandals
made out of either deerskin or,

whenever people chuck old tires
down into the canyons,

they'll actually scamper out,

salvage the tires
and cut them into sandals.

So, men and women

capable of feats of endurance
that seem impossible.

Long distance runners

at the very pinnacle
of athleticism.

So, now,

this is the point in the story
where I'm supposed to

scratch my head and say,
"Oh, my, is it weird, or what?"

How can the Tarahumara people
be doing what they do?

But perhaps
the really weird thing

and the actual question
to be asking here is,

"Why can't
the rest of us normal folk

do what the Tarahumara do?"

I mean, why can't I run

hundreds of miles at a time?

What?

To look for answers,
let's talk to the experts.

Sports nutritionist
John Berardi

thinks that their
remote environment

plays an important role
in their extraordinary ability.

John Berardi:
These individuals

run as an integral part
of their culture.

They run for survival.

They run for
inter-village communication,

and they run for sport.

William Shatner:
The Tarahumara live to run.

They regularly compete
in 200- or 300-mile races

through rugged,
mountainous terrain.

Delivering mail,

they can run
up to 500 miles in a week.

So, you can imagine,
if you lived in a culture

where running was the only means
of athletic expression,

and you had to run
for survival as well,

you'd actually
get pretty good at running.

William Shatner:
So, how do the Tarahumara

run these superhuman distances?

Could diet be the answer?

During a 26-mile race,

an average marathon runner
will burn around 2600 calories.

To endure this distance,

their bodies need to consume
large amounts of carbohydrates,

like those found
in sports drinks.

Carbohydrates are stored
as glycogen in the muscles

and are gradually
converted to energy.

But on a 435-mile run,
it's estimated the Tarahumara

can burn up to
a staggering 43,000 calories.

Where do they
get this energy?

Chris McDougal
studied the Tarahumara's diet.

He was astonished
at what he found.

They drink like crazy,

particularly
at harvest time.

They do a thing
called tesquinadas,

and tesquinadas
are just full on,

anything goes,
drink till you die raves.

It actually serves a purpose.

When you live in a culture
where everyone relies

on his or her neighbour,

you can't afford to have
grudges and resentments.

So, every once in a while,
you need to blow off steam

and get it all
out of your system.

William Shatner:
During harvests
and before races,

the Tarahumara consume
large amounts of a corn beer,

called tesquino.

Could this be the key
to the extraordinary endurance

of the Tarahumara?

They actually may be increasing
their hydration status

and their glycogen status
with this corn beer.

It's very high
in carbohydrate,

and the alcohol content is low.

It's actually been
estimated that it would take

about four litres
to get intoxicated

using their corn beer
or their corn beverage.

So, if you think about it,

the amount of carbohydrates
that would come with that

and the amount
of just simple fluid load

would be very high.

William Shatner:
Amazingly,

loading up on
high-carb beer before a race

may help the Tarahumara,

but this alone
can't explain

their incredible
long-distance abilities.

So, what is it then?

What makes them so special?

Well, apparently, nothing.

They just never
stopped doing something that,

once upon a time,

we all did.

To uncover
the incredible truth,

we need to go back in time
and delve into humanity's

evolutionary history.

♪

William Shatner:
In the remote mountains
of northern Mexico,

a little known tribe
is redefining our knowledge

of the limits
of human endurance.

They can run
up to 435 miles --

16 times further
than a marathon --

in just over two days.

How could this be possible?

Experts are attempting
to uncover the secrets

to their superhuman ability.

Dan Lieberman thinks
the answer might be found

in humanity's shared
evolutionary history.

Dan Lieberman:
The Tarahumara's abilities
to run really long distances

really comes from our
evolutionary history as hunters.

We live in a world
that's so different

from the world
from which we evolved

that we have lost
a lot of those abilities.

William Shatner:
Hundreds of thousands
of years ago,

early human hunters
had to pursue their prey

over long distances.

They would literally
chase the animals

until they died
of heat exhaustion.

It's called persistence hunting

and is still practiced
by the Tarahumara today.

Dan Lieberman:
What you do is
you run at a speed

that makes an animal gallop.

Most quadrupeds,

the way they cool down
is by panting.

When an animal gallops,
it can't pant,

so it slowly heats up
and heats up and heats up,

but we, of course,
cool by sweating.

So, you can make an animal--

If you can chase an animal
and make it gallop

for 10 or 15 minutes
when it's really hot,

that animal will die.

Evolution has provided humans

with many ways
to endure long distances.

Were we born to run?

You know,
starting 2 million years ago,

we evolved these abilities
to run very long distances

in order to hunt.

And we have features
all throughout our bodies,

literally from
our heads to our toes,

that help us
run long distances,

both in terms of storing up
and releasing mechanical energy,

in terms of cooling,

in terms of recruiting energy
and storing energy.

And what the
Tarahumara have done

is they've kind of
kept those mechanisms,

and they keep developing them
as they grow up.

Most of us
have those abilities,

it's just that
we don't use them.

William Shatner:
With little or no
need for exercise,

Dan believes our
modern lifestyle is to blame.

Why would you want to
persistence hunt nowadays?

I mean, we can go
to our supermarket.

We can buy our meat,
you know, fully packaged,

in a container with,
you know, wrap all over it.

And, in fact, for the last
maybe 50 or 100,000 years,

people probably didn't
have to do that very much

because of the invention
of the bow and arrow.

So, this kind of hunting
is probably very ancient

and has become
much less common,

probably over the last 20-,
30-, 40-, 50,000 years.

Nobody's exactly sure when.

So, it turns out
that the Tarahumara

are just doing
what any of us

was designed to do
by evolution --

run!

Our bodies were honed over
hundreds of thousands of years

to be the perfect
long-distance endurance machine.

But what use
is having such a...

formidable tool,

if you don't know
how to use it properly?

You see, there is still
one crucial thing

that separates them from us --

technique.

When we started studying
barefoot running

and minimalist shoe running,

we learned that there were
some interesting aspects

to the way the Tarahumara run

that may be
actually of some use to us.

William Shatner:
The Tarahumara don't use
conventional running shoes.

They run in thin,

homemade sandals
called huaraches,

or they run
completely barefoot.

Could this be the answer
to their superhuman abilities?

Sports scientist
Dr. Irene Davis

suspects that because the
Tarahumara run without shoes,

they run differently than most
modern marathon runners --

and that this may be the key

to their amazing endurance.

It's time to put
this theory to the test.

♪

William Shatner:
The Tarahumara --

a remote tribe
from northern Mexico

who can run
hundreds of miles at a time.

But how?

Sports scientist Dr. Irene Davis
wants to test her theory

that the fact
the Tarahumura run barefoot

is key to their
astonishing ability.

Irene Davis:
We're gonna start you up
and have you walk,

just to kind of
get you warmed up.

And then we'll
break it into a run,

and I want you to just land
your natural type of a landing.

We're gonna collect some data
with you running naturally.

William Shatner:
Wearing running shoes,

the test subject
lands on his heel first,

then the rest
of the foot connects.

In runner's terms,
this is called a heel strike

and has long been considered
the ideal running style.

But the experiment's results
offer a different perspective.

This is a skeleton
depiction of you running,

and that red arrow is actually
the ground reaction force,

as it goes through your heel
and through your foot

and actually up through
your center of mass.

Over here on this graph,
what you're seeing is this is

the ground reaction force
as you land.

What's interesting about this
is that you've got

a very distinct impact peak.

This impact is the area

that we think might be
related to injury.

Okay? So, you can see that
with each foot strike,

you get this
impact peak, okay?

William Shatner:
The test suggests that
when we run in shoes,

there is more impact
on our legs and feet,

increasing our chance of injury.

And that's because
the extra support

running shoes provide

actually prevents our muscles
from doing their job properly.

The shoes are
over supportive.

Then the muscles
aren't working so hard.

And if the muscles become weak,

you're gonna have a greater
tendency to get injured as well.

William Shatner:
But is there a difference

when the subject
runs in bare feet?

Irene Davis:
So, Jason,

are you thinking about
the way that you're landing,

or are you just
letting your feet land

the way they
want to naturally land?

Jason:
I'm letting
my feet naturally land

the way they want to land.

I feel I'm definitely landing
more mid-foot, forefoot.

I mean,
there's definitely less impact.

Irene Davis:
Now we're looking
at you running barefoot.

You can see that you're not
landing so much on your heel.

Do you see that you have
a less distinct impact peak?

Jason:
I think it's crazy

how much the force,
the impact,

how much
less impact there was.

In the end,
it seems the Tarahumara's secret

isn't a secret at all.

It's their birthright and,

apparently, ours too.

Could we all be superhuman
if we ran without shoes?

Probably not.

But finding the answer
to the mysteries

of the Tarahumara's
remarkable endurance

may take us a step closer

to understanding
the secrets of the human body.

I think there's an enormous
amount that we can learn

from people like
the Tarahumara,

because they teach us
about how our bodies

were designed to function.

They teach us about
basic human capabilities, right?

We still think
it's extraordinary

that they can run so far,

but, actually,
what they teach us

is that it's actually normal
that we can run so far.

William Shatner:
So, three bizarre mysteries,

yet many possible explanations.

Spookiness in Death Valley --

rocks and stones moving around
the flat desert floor

without human
or animal intervention.

But how?

An elaborate hoax? Aliens?

Or are these rocks

just acting
like natural curling stones?

Mysterious lights,

spotted for hundreds of years
on a U.S. mountain.

Are they the spirits
of long dead Native Americans?

Are they simply campfires?

Or is the mountain itself

conjuring a fantastic
natural phenomenon?

In Mexico, a remote tribe
capable of running

hundreds of miles at a time --

how can this be possible?

Is it their diet?

Their choice of footwear?

Or are the Tarahumara

simply doing what
all our early ancestors did?

Were humans born to run?

You decide.

Join me next time
for more stories

that will
undoubtedly be...

weird, or what?