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William Shatner:
You know what?

I've been around for a while.

I've travelled 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.

Can people move from the present
into the past or future?

Eyewitnesses report a woman
materializing from thin air.

Could she be
a time traveller?

An ancient stone structure
suggests the incredible.

Did ancient Pagan worshippers

practice human sacrifice
in New Hampshire?

Plants seem to
possess strange powers,

allowing them
to detect human thought.

Are they sentient beings
with dark intent?

Om-nom!

Yep...

it's a weird world.

And I love it.

One minute.

I'm sorry,
I just--

I couldn't
put this book down --

The Time Machine,
written in 1895 by H.G. Wells.

With this one book,

a hot new science fiction
genre was born --

the time travel story.

Now, of course,
there are endless books,

films and TV shows
on the subject

of the mind-boggling paradoxes
of journeying across time.

Great stuff.

Shame the concept
of time travel is just fiction,

isn't it?

Isn't it?

On July 15th, 2006,

famed science fiction author
Whitley Strieber,

best known for his books
The Hunger and Communion,

was out at the theatre
with his wife, Anne,

and her friend Starfire Tor.

Little did they know
what would happen that night

would rival anything
found in Whitley's books.

Nothing seems
impossible to me anymore.

I haven't talked
about it very much.

William Shatner:
After dinner,

Anne and her friend
went into what they thought

was an empty ladies room.

Well, it's a
very small room,

about 10 x 12.

There was nobody
in that room except for

Anne Strieber and myself.

Whitley Strieber:
So, I was standing
on these steps.

No one went in it after
the two of them went in it,

and I was watching
the entire time.

Anne was
a little bit before me,

and she left

and said she would
wait for me outside.

So, I went outside,
stood by the door,

waiting for Starfire.

As I slightly
rounded the corner,

coming out of the stall,

a woman just materialized.

Whoa!

She didn't seem to
understand where she was.

She seemed confused,

and then she just
left the room.

Anne Strieber:
While I was standing there,

a woman came out.

Starfire Tor:
I go out the door
to the ladies room,

and Anne Strieber
rushes up to me,

very, very excited.

She says, "A lady came out,
but she didn't go in!

"A lady came out,
but she didn't go in!"

This was pretty amazing

because we knew no one
was in there when we went in.

So, how could
someone have come out

who was never in there
in the first place?

No one, absolutely no one,
went in that bathroom.

William Shatner:
Who was this mysterious woman?

And how could she
have appeared from nowhere?

For the eyewitnesses,

this is no ghost story.

For them,
the answer is much weirder.

Starfire Tor:
Something altered the timelines.

We were brought together

like a bad edit of a film,

and that's how
we almost collided.

Right.

Two women go
into an empty bathroom,

and three women come out.

Is it really possible
this mystery woman

slipped through
from another time?

Is that weird, or what?

I'd say that's the weirdest
'weird or what' yet.

Yeah, it's pretty far out,

but, remarkably,

time travel
may indeed be possible,

and proof could soon be found
in a 17-mile tunnel,

deep underground

at the border
of France and Switzerland.

This is the
Large Hadron Collider,

an atom smasher designed

to recreate conditions
that last existed

just after the Big Bang,

when the universe was less than

a trillionth of a second old.

Scientists at the LHC are trying

to understand what happened

in that critical moment

to make our universe
what it is.

By solving this,
they hope to shed light

on some of the most fundamental
unanswered questions in physics.

Michio Kaku:
With the Large Hadron Collider,

perhaps, one day,
we'll be able to answer

these cosmic questions.

What happened
before the Big Bang?

Is it possible to go
through a black hole?

Can you bend time
into a pretzel?

We're now entering the cusp,

the cusp of human progress.

A hundred years ago,
think how primitive we are.

A hundred years from now,

think of how advanced computers,
artificial intelligence will be.

Right now,
we're at the most

interesting point
in human history,

the cusp when we're gonna
rocket through the universe.

William Shatner:
A complete understanding

of how the entire universe
is really constructed

might enable
future physicists

to find a way to manipulate
the fabric of space-time itself

and travel into
the past or future.

But can we really
manipulate time?

To find out,

we first need
to investigate time itself.

Isaac Newton
imagined time as an arrow,

always travelling
straightforward

in one direction.

But then,
Albert Einstein came along

and said that time
is more like a river

that can meander,

flow at different speeds,

and even eddy
back upon itself.

Dan Falk:
We look at a river,

and we think the spot
on the river where we are

is something like
the present moment,

and then upstream from us
is the future.

This is coming towards us.

It's relentless.

It's sort of inevitable.

In a moment,
what was up there

is gonna be here,

and downstream from us,
we can think of as the past.

So, these are events
that have already happened.

So, there you have it.

You've got the future;
you've got the present moment.

You've got the past.

William Shatner:
Is it possible

to go against
the flow of time,

into the future?

Or move
even further downstream,

into the past?

William Shatner:
Going back in time
is simple, theoretically.

All we need to do

is beat light
to its destination --

travel faster
than light speed.

How fast is that?

Well, as Albert Einstein
figured out,

light travels at a fixed
and constant speed,

throughout the universe,

of 186,000 miles per second.

And the Space Shuttle can travel
around five miles per second.

So, we have
a bit of a problem.

But our hopes of meeting
our ancestors aren't over yet.

Modern physicists have built
on Einstein's theories

and discovered that although
we may not be able to beat light

in a head-to-head race,

we might be able to cheat
and take a short cut.

Going back in time is simple,
theoretically.

To do this,

a time traveller would need
to bend the fabric of space,

connecting two distant points,

to create a theoretical tunnel
through space and time

known as a wormhole.

Think of Alice in Wonderland.

She had a looking glass,
and she put her hand through it,

and her hand went
to the other side of forever.

That is a wormhole.

William Shatner:
But could we manipulate

the very fabric
of time and space?

Michio Kaku:
If we have something called

negative matter
or negative energy,

it might be possible to build
a gateway to another universe,

a gateway to
another point in space or time.

Now, of course,
in science fiction,

we have the
dilithium crystals of Star Trek.

People talk about spice.

People talk about
other exotic chemicals

that will
open these gateways.

Well, I'm a physicist.

To us, it's negative matter
or negative energy.

Negative energy,

we can actually create
in the laboratory.

That's already been done

but only
in microscopic quantities.

Negative matter,
we've never seen before.

If we can find a negative matter
meteorite in outer space,

just perhaps
maybe we can harness it

to open a gateway
to another universe.

William Shatner:
The only problem is
the amount of energy required

to punch a hole to the
other side of the universe

is impossible for us to achieve
with our current technology.

We're talking about
the energy of a black hole,

the energy of a star,

in order to
bend time into a pretzel.

What do you mean it's
impractical to go back in time?

Can't make a wormhole?

What's wrong
with these eggheads?

Okay, so,
travelling into the past

might be a tad
beyond our reach,

but here's
something surprising.

Most physicists
believe it's possible,

relatively easy,
in fact,

to travel
into the future.

♪

William Shatner:
A woman mysteriously
appears from nowhere

in Los Angeles.

Eyewitnesses claim
she's a time traveller.

It's weird, or what?

Could a person
really move through time?

Well, as it turns out,

travelling to the future
is not only possible,

it's actually
relatively easy.

How do you exploit
Einstein's theory of relativity

to travel
into the future?

Well, it turns out
it's not that hard to do.

Now, it's hard from
an engineering point of view.

You just need a really fast
spaceship, which we don't have.

But if you had one,
here's what you do.

You just go on a long journey
and come back home.

William Shatner:
Remarkably, this is possible,

because time
behaves differently

when an object or person
travels at high velocities.

It's called time dilation.

Dan Falk:
If you move fast enough,

your clock will disagree

from a clock
that's been left at home.

A similar thing can happen
if you spend a lot of time

in a strong
gravitational field,

like near a black hole,
for example.

William Shatner:
This amazing feat

has actually
already been accomplished.

Russian cosmonaut
Sergei Krikalev

has spent more time in space
than any other human being.

From 1988 to 2005,

Krikalev spent 803 days

orbiting the earth
at high speed.

At times,

Krikalev was travelling

at 17,000 miles per hour --

nowhere near
the speed of light

but fast enough
to travel forward in time.

It's only about
1/50 of a second,

so it's almost
too small to even notice,

but he has aged
just a little bit less than--

Let's say,
if he had had a twin brother

who had stayed on the ground,

he's just a little bit younger

than his brother
would have been.

William Shatner:
Using this theory,

it may be possible
to travel

thousands of years
into the future.

Imagine travelling all the way
around the circumference

of the milky way galaxy,
our galaxy.

Now, it's very big,

it's about
150,000 light years around.

So, it's going to
take a long time.

You start accelerating
at a rate of one G,

which is the normal
force of gravity

that you feel
just sitting here.

So, you have
this very mild acceleration,

but you keep it up long enough,
you eventually go very fast.

When you get halfway around,
you start decelerating,

and, after many,
many more years,

you end up back on earth,
where you started from.

Here's the thing.

To someone who
has stayed at home

and just watched you go

and is waiting
for your return,

they have a long wait
'cause it's going to take

150,000 years
before you come back.

But for you,

from your point of view
onboard this spaceship,

only 23 years will have passed.

William Shatner:
So, although
it seems impossible,

time travel is,

theoretically at least, real.

And the Large Hadron Collider

could yet witness
science fiction

become
functioning science fact.

So, is it possible

the mystery figure
that appeared that night

in Los Angeles

was really a time traveller?

Perhaps even from a future
where science had finally

answered the
secrets of the universe

and were now able
to manipulate time?

Could be!

So, one day,
if somebody knocks on your door

and claims to be your
great great great great great

great great granddaughter,

don't slam the door.

William Shatner:
Is that weird, or what?

A mysterious set

of stone structures
in rural New Hampshire --

could this be
a place of Pagan worship

and human sacrifice
thousands of years old?

The astronomical alignments

are one of the
key pieces of evidence

that this site is ancient.

William Shatner:
Does this mean

ancient Europeans
crossed the Atlantic

thousands of years
before Columbus?

David Brody:
So, it really does open up

a whole different way to
look at North American history.

William Shatner:
What is this place?

Who built it?

And what could
its existence mean for America?

♪

Could an innocent-looking
pile of rocks,

tucked away in the corner
of a farmer's field

in the
northeastern United States

challenge everything we think
we know about American history?

What if
the first European

to arrive
in North America

wasn't Christopher Columbus
or even a Viking?

What if,

instead of coming to New England
in search of religious freedom,

the first European
settlers came...

to practice human sacrifice?

In Salem, New Hampshire,

a mysterious grouping
of Megalithic stones,

standing 14' high,

surround a compound that houses
a maze of 8'-long chambers

and crypts
set into the ground.

The centerpiece --

a huge stone slab

that looks like
a sacrificial table.

This is Dennis Stone.

His family has owned the site
for three generations,

and he has an amazing theory.

Stone believes that this is
the oldest man-made structure

in the entire United States.

If it is,
in fact, ancient

and was built
by old world people,

this would demonstrate

that people crossed
the Atlantic Ocean

a few thousand years
before Christopher Columbus

or even the Vikings
came to America.

Sounds crazy, doesn't it,

the very idea that
explorers pre-dating Columbus

by millennia

might have crossed the Atlantic
and made America their home?

Well...

before you dismiss the idea,
consider this.

It was only in 1960

that the Norwegian
archeologist Anne Ingstad

was ridiculed
when she proposed her idea

that Vikings
had settled North America

in the 12th century.

But it turned out to be true.

Ingstad's discovery
changed history,

and the Viking settlement

she found
in Newfoundland, Canada,

is now an official
world heritage site.

Could this structure
have been built

by mysterious
ancient travellers?

Stone believes
similarities between his site

and archeological sites
in Europe

hold the key
to uncovering the truth.

We have
a couple of chambers here

that are very reminiscent
of chambers found

in France, Ireland,

Spain, the Netherlands.

One of the purposes
we know of

is that they were used
for astronomical alignments,

and it's also stones that align
with cross-quarter days,

days in between the seasons.

The ancient Celts and other
cultures actually set up stones,

which would mark these times.

William Shatner:
The Celts --

a diverse group
of tribes that dominated

much of Central Europe
until around 1600 years ago.

Stone remnants
of Celtic structures,

including
elaborate burial chambers,

can be found
all over Europe.

It has also been suggested
that the Celts were involved

in the construction of England's
most famous ancient megalith,

Stonehenge --

a site some believe
was created

as a giant astronomical tool,

its stones aligned
to the solstice positions

of the sun and moon.

Did Celts come
and settle America

a thousand years
before Columbus?

In the 1970s,
Barry Fell,

again,
a professor at Harvard,

stumbled upon a stone
carved here on site,

and the kind of writing
that was on the stone

was something called
Iberian Punic.

The Iberian peninsula area,

at that time,
housed the Celts.

William Shatner:
David Brody is an amateur
archeological researcher.

He supports the idea
that the Celts, not Columbus,

were the first Europeans
to reach the New World.

We think of the Celts
as being from Ireland, but,

actually, they originated
in central Europe

and then went down
to the Iberian peninsula.

But it's the Celts leaving
the Iberian peninsula region

that I think came over here

and established the site
at America's Stonehenge.

This place is becoming

weirder and weirder
by the minute.

So, who the heck was it

hanging around these woods
all that time ago?

And what where they doing?

Could this site in New England
share the same purpose

as the original Stonehenge
in old England --

a prehistoric monument
of huge,

carefully aligned stones,

assembled by ancient Britons

for some mysterious
pagan purpose?

♪

William Shatner:
In the forests outside
of Salem, New Hampshire --

a bizarre stone structure
with several huge chambers

and what looks like
a huge sacrificial table.

Could this be proof
ancient Celts came to America?

If the Celts did build
this American Stonehenge

as a religious site,

then Dennis Stone
has some striking ideas

as to what ceremonies
would have been performed here.

I'm standing next to
the sacrificial table.

It's one of the main features
at America's Stonehenge.

This table measures
about 9' in length,

6' in width,

and it sits
on four stone legs.

On the surface
of the stone,

there's a
rectangular cutout or groove

that's been made
on the surface,

and it has a little runoff.

So, if a ceremony of some type
was taking place,

a fluid could run
through the channel

and then
run off the stone,

into a vase, perhaps.

William Shatner:
Although little
is directly known

of the Celts'
religious practices,

the Romans who fought them,
and even Julius Caesar himself,

often described
how Celtic Druids or Priests

carried out human sacrifice
to honour their many pagan gods.

The discovery of various

ancient sites
of ritualized murder

in Europe may support this.

The stone table in Salem
also has another,

even more bizarre feature

Dennis Stone calls
an oracle tube.

Dennis Stone:
This tube goes through about 8',

comes out underneath
the sacrificial table.

A voice would
project out under the table,

during a ceremony, perhaps,

and people would
hear the voice

and think it was a god
or spirit talking to them.

I am the god
of the underworld.

I accept your sacrifice.

Remember,
always obey the priest.

When ancient man
went to the effort

to build
something this elaborate,

it was done for
religious purposes,

and, again,
that takes me back to the Celts,

perhaps 500 B.C.

That's the type of thing
that they did all over Europe

at that time

and would have done here
if they came to America.

William Shatner:
America settled

by Iron Age Europeans.

It's an explosive theory,

but not one exactly shared
by many experts.

James Gage:
Research since the 1940s

has shown there's
a great deal of differences

between what we find in Ireland
and what is found at this site.

There are major differences
in the architectural styles.

There are differences
in the engineering

of how the buildings
are put together.

William Shatner:
An expert in
prehistoric stone structures,

James Gage also believes
that an ancient civilization

built this place,

but, based on carvings
in the stones themselves,

his theory is that
the structure was created

by a more local people,
Native Americans.

First and foremost

is the large number
of Native American artifacts

that have been
found at the site.

And these artifacts
range from, you know,

scrapers and projectile points,
stuff we normally expect,

to paint cups

and rubbing stones.

This evidence
also includes clay pottery

that they were
actually manufacturing on site.

One of the more interesting
features about this site

is it has
a number of peck grooves,

chipped-out stone basins,

and they've all been created
by pecking out the stone,

using a hammer stone.

And this pecking technique

is very distinctive
to the Native Americans.

The Celtic culture was
a fairly advanced civilization.

It had metal tools.

They were
making gold artifacts.

We would expect them to use,

you know,
more advanced technology,

other than
just simple hammer stones.

William Shatner:
The Native American theory
makes obvious sense,

but not according
to David Brody.

Native Americans
of this area of the country

did not
typically build with stone.

They had stone tools,

and they used stone
to build their hearths,

but they didn't build
these elaborate structures,

typically,
out of stone.

Once in a while,
we see a sweat lodge,

but there's too many
of these chambers here.

In addition,
the Native American tribes,

although a lot
of their history

has been wiped out
in the New England region,

they don't take ownership
of this site

like they take ownership
of other sites

that they believe
they did build.

So, I'm not gonna tell you
that they didn't do it,

but I think
the weight of the evidence

is more in favour of some kind
of ancient seafaring,

European civilization.

William Shatner:
So, while these
experts can't agree

which ancient civilization
built the American Stonehenge,

another archeologist,
Kenny Feder,

believes whoever is responsible

wasn't ancient at all.

Kenny Feder:
Celts in New England
3,000 years ago?

I don't think so, but, okay.

Archeological sites
where people were so neat

that they picked
every stinking artifact up

and left no
physical evidence behind?

Not bloody likely.

Okay, it looks like
we're back to square one.

So, who could it have been

that built those
incredibly weird structures?

Was it the Celts?

Unlikely.

The Native Americans?

Maybe not.

Well, how about another,
slightly less romantic theory?

What if it was assembled

by a couple of drunken
18th century farmers?

If America's Stonehenge
is what I think it is,

which is 19th century
idiosyncratic structures,

that doesn't make it
any less important

than if it's
a 3,000-year-old site

with Celts traipsing around
in southern New England.

Makes it
of different significance,

but I don't think
it makes it less significant.

It just makes it different.

William Shatner:
Feder's theory is the structures

were constructed
by the descendants of the Celts,

the better-known
European settlers

that came in the centuries
after Christopher Columbus,

bringing with them

traditional ways
of building stone structures.

Kenny Feder:
Yeah, damn right,
they were Celts,

but they were Celts
from the 1800s and 1700s

because those were
the people who moved here.

William Shatner:
Good point,

but can the more recent
Celtic immigration theory

explain the existence

of the site's
most macabre-looking object?

Why does American Stonehenge

have a sacrificial table?

♪

William Shatner:
A mysterious stone structure

sits in the forests
of New Hampshire.

Some believe this is proof
that ancient Celtic

tribes of Europe
came to America,

others that Native Americans
built this site.

The strangest part
of this American Stonehenge?

A 9'-long stone table
some experts think

could have been used
for human sacrifice.

Archeologist Kenny Feder
dismisses such ideas.

He thinks the structure
was constructed

within the last
few hundred years

by more recent
European settlers.

So, you're sort of
left with a choice.

Either there was this, like,
widespread practice

of human sacrifice
throughout New England,

or we've got
something else going on,

and I think it's
something else that's going on.

We do know
that stones like that

are found
throughout New England,

and they were used for a number
of kind of mundane purposes,

not sacrificing people but,

in fact,

maybe making apple cider
or producing lye soap.

The deal is that
an artifact like that,

an object like that,
is something that we--

In the modern world,
we suffer from cultural amnesia.

We don't press our own cider.

We don't make lye soap anymore,
so the objects,

the artifacts
from that period

that any little kid
would be able to tell you,

"Oh, yeah,
we use that for making soap,"

today,
it's mysterious.

William Shatner:
So, are the drainage grooves
on the four-tonne stone table

actually for apple juice,
not human blood?

It may be
the most plausible theory,

but the mystery
of the American Stonehenge

cannot be cleared up
quite so neatly.

Charcoal pits at the site
have been carbon dated

and believed to be
more than 2,000 years old,

and Dennis Stone still believes
his site is proof

that an ancient people

commemorated the coming
of the solstices here,

exactly as they
may have done

at the real Stonehenge.

Dennis Stone:
The astronomical alignments

are one of the
key pieces of evidence

that this site is ancient.

The alignments
do not work today.

They're off
a certain amount,

due to
the earth's tilt changing.

In 1977,

we took four years' worth
of survey data.

We sent it to the
Harvard Smithsonian Centre

for astrophysics
in Cambridge, Mass.

They ran it
through the computer,

and they said that if these were
used for astronomical purposes,

they would work
about 1800 B.C.,

plus or minus
about 200 years.

William Shatner:
American Stonehenge
could be proof

that ancient Europeans
travelled to North America

thousands of years
before Columbus.

Or it could be a rare example

of Native American
stone-building.

Or it's just a really weird
apple cider factory

built by colonial farmers.

Only one thing
is for certain --

the origins and purpose
of American Stonehenge

remains a mystery.

Is that weird, or what?

Most people
don't believe this,

but I have
a real green thumb.

The secret to my success?

I talk to my plants.

I stroke them,

and I give them
a little tender loving care.

Why?

Because I believe plants,
like humans,

are emotional beings.

They have feelings,
just like you and I do.

They love; they fear;

they can be affectionate;

and they can communicate.

You don't believe green matter
has grey matter?

No?

Well, watch this.

Of all the many
different organisms

that are on the planet earth,

common sense dictates

that mammals
are the most advanced --

capable of thought,
reasoning and emotions.

But shocking new evidence
suggests that plants

may possess
these abilities as well!

And, even more mysterious,

they may have
the power of ESP!

Is this science fiction?

(Screaming)

Or science fact?

Researchers attempt to establish

interspecies communication.

Is that weird, or what?

Our story begins in Italy,

where Carlo Cignozzi
runs a 24-acre vineyard

in the Tuscan hills.

A music lover,
Carlo was well known

to serenade his grape-pickers
with an accordion.

♪

William Shatner:
But in 2002,

Carlo would stumble upon

the true amazing power
music could have, when,

as an ecologically friendly way
of controlling pests

from ruining his crop,

Cignozzi placed loud speakers
all around his vineyard

to play 24-hour-a-day

classical music.

The pests were
frightened away,

but that's not all.

Something else happened,
something bizarre.

The grape vines
nearest the speakers

grew 50% larger

than the rest of the crop,

matured more quickly
and even grew

towards
the source of the music.

Giancarlo Cignozzi:
It's fantastic to see.

It's impossible to believe.

The branches are
four times more, for example.

The leaves are two times more.

So, the sound is like...

like light.

William Shatner:
So, why is this happening?

Is there a logical explanation,

or is the reason far stranger?

♪

William Shatner:
A bizarre occurrence

in an Italian vineyard
seems to suggest

the incredible.

Grape vines
exposed to music

grow fatter and faster

than the rest of the crop

even growing
toward the music's source.

Could the soaring sounds

of Bach and Mozart's
delicate ditties

revolutionize the way
we treat our greenery?

Researchers have discovered
that popular tracks,

such as Simon & Garfunkel's
Bridge Over Troubled Water

and Beethoven's
Pastoral Symphony

improved milk yield
in dairy cows

by as much as
one litre per day.

Why?

Because calming music

was found to
reduce stress in the animals.

Happy moos equals more milk.

Could something similar
be happening with plants?

Could relaxed grapes
with impeccable musical taste

ripen quicker?

Could plants have
an intelligence

science has yet to fathom?

Botanist Dr. Jaideep Mathur

says that the grape vines'
response to music

can be simply explained.

Jaideep Mathur: Basically,
we are talking about vibrations.

Plants are able to,

uh, exhibit
primary perception.

They can pick up happenings
from their surroundings,

and that can be read out

as electrical impulses.

As far as
classical music is concerned,

perhaps there are certain tones,

certain timbre,

certain levels of vibration
that plants are

more responsive to
in that particular music.

William Shatner:
Sound waves are
vibrations in the air

made up
of different frequencies.

The vibrations caused
by the sound of music

can be felt by the plants
in their leaves or in the soil.

Research suggests

that plants
may respond to music

by increasing
the expression of the genes,

stimulating growth.

So, do plants
just feel music,

rather than hearing it?

Is the perceived
wrath of grapes,

or joy,

just a boring
biological response

based on sound vibrations?

Maybe.

But Susan Dudley,

a plant evolutionary ecologist,

has another theory

for why Carlo's grape vines
grow so dramatically,

and it may have
something to do

with how the plants
in the vineyards

are related to each other.

Every plant
has a mother and a father.

The vineyard in Tuscany
could be doing better

'cause they're planted
next to their siblings.

For some plants,
we know the plants do do better

when they're planted
next to their siblings,

and what my research does

is show a possible
mechanism for that,

that they're not producing
these competitive behaviours

when they're
with their siblings.

So, that's a plausible theory.

William Shatner:
To create a consistent grape,

most vineyards use cuttings

from healthy plants

and then graft them
onto rootstock.

This means that, often,
most of the vines

in a given field
are genetically related clones.

I went looking to see

whether plants could recognize
who their relatives were

and behave differently
with those relatives.

What we found is that plants

respond differently to liquid

in which
other seedlings had been in.

So, you put a seedling
in the liquid; you take it out.

You put your
test seedling in,

and you measure it,

and it will grow more roots
if that first seedling

was a stranger,

but it won't grow more roots
if that first seedling

was a sibling.

And we had a control,

where we just lifted them out
and put them back in again.

So, we definitely see
that there's something,

something soluble,

some kind of chemical, maybe,

that the roots probably
put into the liquid,

that they're responding to,
but we don't know what it is.

William Shatner:
Plants compete
for limited resources

like sunlight,
nutrients and water --

meaning there are winners
and losers in this equation.

Dudley's research has shown
that when certain plants

grow beside their kin,

they work together
for mutual survival

and are more likely
to ALL do well.

With a winery, usually,

vintners are planting
all the same kind,

and they're not planting
very different kinds together.

So, rather than better sharing
because they're different,

they might be sharing better

because they're less competitive
with each other.

Okay, okay.

Maybe I am barking up
the wrong tree.

Sorry.

Seriously.

What if
the grapes of Tuscany,

and plants in general,

don't ripen or respond
or grow tall and healthy

because they love music?

What if it's because

they love each other?

But can this sibling explanation
sufficiently solve the mystery

in the Italian vineyard?

Family ties
may make the vines grow better,

but why would only some vines

grow toward the speakers?

Could the answer
be far stranger than anything

even science fiction writers
might imagine?

(Screaming)

Could,
as many researchers believe,

vines and other plants
be sentient beings

capable of displaying
conscious choice?

I believe plants can sense.

Now, whether they can sense,

precisely,
our thoughts

or the thoughts
of other animals around them

really remains
to be proven.

So, I wouldn't go so far
as saying that, yeah,

they have the ESP
and everything.

However,
what I definitely can say

is they would be
influenced very easily

by changes
in their environment,

and that maybe reflects,

to a certain extent,
the thought process.

We do not know.

William Shatner:
Jaideep and his assistant, Zach,

are going to put the sentient
being theory to the test.

They're going to
hook up this plant

to a state-of-the-art polygraph.

Sensors will read
the subtle changes

in the plant's
electrical activity

to see how it responds
to various stimuli.

If there's a noticeable spike

in the plant's
electrical activity,

then that would suggest
that the plant

can read human thoughts.

Jaideep Mathur:
I'm absolutely curious

about what is the outcome
from this particular experiment

because it might actually
be an opening for the way

my own research direction

will move into,

because if there's a positive,
a positive response,

I would really love
to follow that up

in a more scientific manner.

William Shatner:
For their first experiment,

they're going to test
what many gardeners

believe to be a fact --

that plants respond well
to human touch.

Lightly brushing the leaves

and the stems of the plant.

Mathur:
No, sorry, Zach.

William Shatner:
But there's no response.

Now they're going to attempt
what few scientists

have ever tried before.

Threatening thoughts.

William Shatner:
They're going to see
if plants have ESP.

Mathur:
No response so far.

That's all I got.

Yeah.

We haven't gotten
any responses yet, eh?

William Shatner:
Since there is no response,

Jaideep and Zach
are going to

raise the intensity
of their next experiment.

They're going to threaten
the plant with violence.

Mathur:
Cut plant.

Hold on.

So, as soon as

you were on the way to cut it,

there is a huge spike.

That's really interesting

because it was
at a lower level,

spiked up,

came down,

went up again,

and then has now started
resting at another level.

So, the spike actually comes
prior to your action.

William Shatner: Amazingly,
before he could cut the plant,

there is a noticeable spike
on the lie detector,

indicating a physiological
response by the plant.

That would suggest
that the plant

could read Zach's mind.

This was almost
the perfect moment

for a plant
to have become anxious,

when you reached it
with the scissors

with a very clear intention,
at least in your mind, unspoken.

So, again, maybe,

maybe we are
looking at something real.

Scientifically speaking,

this hardly
would count as a result

unless we could
repeat it multiple times,

but the fact is--

and it's a very--

it comes as
a major surprise to me

because I was not
expecting this at all.

And we had already
gone through one plant

and looked at the other one

and gone through
different situations

where we realized
this is not happening.

And then, suddenly,

when Zach moves in
with the scissors and,

I guess,
with a very clear intention

of carrying the threat out,

there is a very,
very clear spike.

William Shatner:
So, if human beings
are ever going to prove

plants are sentient
or have ESP,

more research
needs to be done.

If it's ever proven true,

the implications
would be enormous.

It would shake
the very foundations

of our human existence

and necessitate
a dramatic change

in the way we relate
with this mysterious species.

Is that weird, or what?

So, three weird mysteries --

a multitude of even weirder
possible explanations.

A woman materializes
from nowhere

into an L.A. bathroom.

Did she use a wormhole
to travel through time?

Did she travel faster
than light speed?

Is any of this possible?

A mysterious stone structure
in New England --

proof that the ancient Celts
settled the United States?

Was this built
by Native Americans?

Or was it created

in more recent times
as a booze-making factory?

Vines in Italy seemingly
respond to the sounds of Mozart.

Are plants sentient beings
with human feelings and desires?

You decide.

Join me next time
for more stories

that will undoubtedly be...

weird, or what?