All language subtitles for Weird.Or.What.S01E10.WEBRip.x264-ION10

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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.

Does the brain
have the power to kill?

Can the mind become
our most powerful weapon?

The U.S. Army
investigates the paranormal,

asking if future conflicts

could be fought
using mind control.

A boy loses his thumb
in a horrific accident,

only to have it grow back,

thanks to a
mysterious magical powder.

Can we really
regenerate our limbs?

And in Indonesia --

an incredible
archeological find.

Did humans
once share the earth

with a race of hobbits?

Yup...

it's a weird world.

And I love it.

Throughout time,

magicians,
psychics and mentalists

have claimed that
they can move or lift objects,

walk through walls

and affect
the outcome of events --

or even cause bodily harm,
using only the power of thought.

But do these paranormal powers
actually exist?

Can humans really
use their mind to affect matter?

"But come on,"
I hear you say,

"Psychic power, for real?"

"What levelheaded person

"would possibly take
such a crazy idea seriously?"

Well, how about
the United States Army?

One, two, three, four!

William Shatner:
In the late 1970s,

the U.S. military
did something very strange.

A group of top soldiers

started to investigate
whether the mind

could be used as a weapon.

Among them
was U.S. Army colonel

John Alexander.

We had been blindsided

by the Soviets
on several occasions,

and so,
we had some senior leaders

who were
willing to explore,

uh, very unique areas.

And paranormal phenomena
was one of those.

William Shatner:
The Army set up
a top-secret outfit

called the
Stargate Project

to harness paranormal powers
for military use.

Some soldiers felt
they had already

experienced the paranormal,

while advancing
through enemy territory

in the jungles
of Vietnam.

They called it
point man syndrome.

John Alexander:
When certain people
are on point,

uh, they sense things,
like where are mines,

where are ambushes
and whatnot.

Other people
don't have that.

Why? Don't know.

William Shatner:
John Alexander

investigated psychokinesis,

the ability to move objects
just by thinking.

His experimentation
started with spoon bending.

We had a session
at my house.

General Stubblebine,

who was the head
of INSCOM at the time,

was present,

and we had
a truly phenomenal event

occur directly
in front of us.

William Shatner:
At this top-secret session,

a psychic
was asked to demonstrate

the power of the mind.

The guy held up a fork,

and this thing
just dropped over 90 degrees.

And we saw that,
and we said,

"Wow, need to look into

"how you can
do that sort of thing."

And so,
that led to the process,

and we set up
a program to do that.

I ended up
being able to teach this,

and we used it,

not because bending cutlery
makes any sense at all.

It was to get mindset.

It was how do you
convince people not to think

within the box,
if you will.

William Shatner:
Alexander focused
his unit's time and resources

into learning
this psychokinesis.

Amazingly, it wasn't long before
he started to get results.

This particular one
was a lieutenant colonel.

He was holding these forks
just like this.

They used to be matched.

Um, this thing dropped
over a full 90 degrees,

with all of us watching,

came back up

and went to
where it is now.

And you can see...

that however you look at it,

those are
dramatically different --

absolutely no
physical force involved.

William Shatner:
Encouraged by their
fork-bending success,

Alexander
and General Stubblebine

started programs
to train soldiers

to use
other paranormal powers,

like remote viewing.

Remote viewing is
a means of data acquisition.

I guess you'd colloquially
call it psychic spying.

Uh, you had an individual
who was in a chamber --

in that case,
usually, at Fort Meade.

They were given
specific targets,

although they knew
nothing about the target--

And said,

"Tell us about what's going on
at that location."

William Shatner:
The Russians had built
a huge concrete structure,

but U.S. intelligence
had no idea what it was for.

Alexander asked
remote viewer number one,

Joe McMoneagle,

to use his psychic powers
to see inside.

And he
described the building.

All they gave him, initially,
by the way, were coordinates.

Described the building,

then went inside,
looked and says,

"There's a big
submarine in there,"

and he described it and says,
"It's double hulled."

"Most interesting

"is that the missiles
are forward of the sail."

Before that,
all of them had been behind --

and a number
of other technologies,

to which our boat builder said,
"You can't do that."

"If you build
a submarine that big,

"it would go to depth
and crush and whatnot."

Well, guess what?

It became known as
the Typhoon class submarine.

Again,
our intelligence community

had totally missed it

because we had not heard
that there were changes coming,

and we also
did not believe --

you know,
this cerebral centrism --

that anybody else
could do it.

Unknown to the U.S.,
the Russians had developed

a new, ultra-secret
class of submarine,

the largest in the world,

with multiple
titanium pressure hulls.

And now,
thanks to the supposed

paranormal power
of a U.S. Army soldier,

the Russians' secret was out.

Was this result
an incredible stroke of luck,

a coincidence,

or had the military
application of remote viewing,

psychic espionage,

actually paid off?

There's usually
a pretty simple explanation

for what seems to be
an extraordinary event.

William Shatner:
Jim Underdown has
devoted his life

to testing claims
of paranormal powers.

We take it upon ourselves
to use science to explain

why some people
hold some of these beliefs.

William Shatner:
The Center for Inquiry

invites people
to prove their powers

in a scientifically sound
testing environment.

We had a woman who, um,

claimed to look
inside the human body

and tell if a kidney
was missing or not.

Uh, she failed her test.

We had people who claimed
to be able to send words

from one person to another.

Um, he failed.

So, lots of people come forward
with these claims.

Zero are successful.

William Shatner:
In fact, Underdown thinks

their claimed powers
have more to do with magicians

than with the supernatural.

Magicians are helpful
in making inquiries

into some of these claims

because we
suspect fraud sometimes,

and sometimes,
the simplest parlour magic trick

is employed in the guise
of supernatural power.

William Shatner:
Skeptic investigator
and magician Mark Edward

knows how
spoon bending is done,

and it's got nothing to do
with paranormal powers.

A lot of people are
interested in spoon bending,

so I'm gonna just show you

how easy it really is,
if you focus your mind.

So, focus on "bend."

Think of "bend."

Yeah, yes, I can feel it
starting to loosen.

Yes, slightly.

A little more.

Keep concentrating.

There we go, yes.

Jim:
Whoa!

A lot of psychic energy
in the room,

and let's just try
and get this part.

This is really good.

You'll see it just droop.

William Shatner:
Mark is a magician,

so he can't reveal
how the trick is done,

but it goes
something like this.

The spoon is already bent,

but Mark is hiding the handle
behind his fingers.

Mark has a false handle,

which he pinches to make it
look like the spoon is straight.

Releasing his grip
makes the false handle drop,

so it looks like
the spoon is bending.

When Mark
shows us the bent spoon,

he's actually diverting
attention away from the fact

he's pocketing
the false handle.

Try and get this part.
This is really good.

It is impossible to think

that the spoon could
bend on its own

without cheating.

In order for the spoon
to bend on its own,

you have to cheat.

There is no
physical way to do that.

William Shatner:
For Jim Underdown,
spoon bending is representative

of the vast majority
of claims of paranormal ability,

including the ones
researched by the U.S. Army.

So, did the U.S. military
waste millions of tax dollars

on paranormal research?

After all,
it's all nonsense, right?

Well, maybe not.

You see,
it's not just the Army

that has taken
such spookiness seriously.

Researchers at Stanford
and Princeton universities

studied phenomena
like ESP and psychokinesis

for 30 years.

And today,

some scientists
believe laboratory evidence

for such psychic ability
might actually exist.

♪

William Shatner:
Can we move distant objects

and even kill people

just by using our minds?

In the late 1970s,

the U.S. military decided

to investigate
the power of psychokinesis.

Dean Radin
is a parapsychologist

at the
Institute of Noetic Sciences.

He's devised an experiment

intended to produce
evidence that psychokinesis

might actually exist.

This is an experiment
looking at the relationship

between mind and matter.

William Shatner:
Radin believes the human mind

is capable of
interacting with something

far smaller than spoons --

photons,

the subatomic particles
that make up light.

Lisa is asked
to place her attention

on an optical system,
which has a laser beam in it.

William Shatner:
Hidden from view,

a laser shoots
a beam of photons

through two tiny slits
etched in a slide

to create an
interference pattern.

Dean Radin:
She's at a distance.

She's not able
to see the beam itself,

but she's asked to imagine
that she could see the beam.

William Shatner:
According to his theory,

if psychokinesis exists,

the subject should be
able to influence

the nature
of the interference pattern

just by thinking
about the photons.

Dean Radin:
This picture here
is showing what the camera sees

in the double-slit system.

And here, we're measuring
what's happening in her brain.

So, we want to see,
is there a relationship

between the EEG
and the interference pattern?

If we can show
that the relationship exists,

then that's showing
a mind/matter interconnection.

William Shatner:
The experiment begins.

Computer:
Welcome to the
double-slit experiment.

Please relax.

Okay.

Computer:
Please influence the beam now.

William Shatner:
The subject is asked to imagine,

in her mind's eye,
the interference pattern.

Computer:
You may now relax.

William Shatner:
Then she's told to
ignore the pattern completely.

At the conclusion
of the experiment,

the images
of the interference pattern

are compared to the EEG readout.

Dean Radin:
These--

These colours are showing
the degree of correlation.

If it's positive,
we get a redder colour,

and so,
this is interesting.

This suggests
that when Lisa

is paying attention
to the optical system,

we actually see a change
in the optical system,

even though
she's doing it in her mind.

William Shatner:
Could this be coincidence?

Dean Radin:
If we see red,

it means that
there's a relationship.

If we see
this kind of red,

it means it's a highly
significant relationship.

It's meaningful

that the relationship
that we're seeing is not chance.

It's a real effect.

William Shatner:
So, maybe the mind
can affect matter, after all.

However, Radin's findings
are controversial,

and the majority
of scientists remain skeptical

about psychokinesis.

Nevertheless,

anecdotal reports
suggest that the U.S. military

restarted
its paranormal research

in the wake of 9/11.

Probably, the
biggest thing that happened

was causing people to think
and think differently

and to think beyond
the realm of the possible,

as they knew it.

So, whether psychokinesis

turns out to be
a genuine phenomena,

embraced by those
with open minds,

or merely
cynical sleights of hand,

the U.S. military's
investigation

into whether the mind could be
used as a psychic weapon

is definitely...

weird, or what?

A boy loses his thumb
in a horrific accident,

only to have it grow back.

Can we really
regenerate our limbs?

♪

Ow!

Almost lost
a finger there.

Need to hang onto that
little pinky for a while yet.

But did you know that if
I were a salamander or a newt,

it wouldn't be
such a big deal?

If they lose a limb or a tail,
they can grow another.

Wouldn't that
kind of ability be cool?

But why would a newt
be chopping vegetables?

Oh!

But could humans do the same

and regenerate their limbs?

Sounds like science fiction.

Well, it's not.

As this next story will show,

the future
is most definitely here.

2009, South Florida.

A typical day
for the Meraz family.

Father Froylan goes outside

to begin
washing the family car.

He is accompanied
by his two small sons,

Froylan Junior
and 14-month-old Jeevan,

while mother
Jeanette is inside.

What happened next would be

the beginning
of a bizarre journey

into the scientific unknown.

Froylan Meraz:
He was stepping out.

He was coming out
from the house to the outside,

when Jeevan was following him.

He never noticed

that Jeevan was behind him.

He shut the door like
a "normally" kid will do,

and, um, Jeevan was grabbing
the edge of the door,

and he shut the door.

William Shatner:
In an instant,
Jeevan's right thumb is cut off,

just below the nail.

I grabbed some rag --

a towel from the kitchen.

So, I put it
around his finger.

Froylan Meraz:
So, we were like,
"We need to rush,"

yeah, 'cause he was
losing a lot of blood.

I believe she was
on her second towel,

um, I mean, of blood.

So, we just
rushed to the hospital.

William Shatner:
As they rush to
get medical help,

Jeanette and Froylan
have no idea

just how badly injured
their son is.

The toddler's thumb
receives treatment,

but the parents are told

that since the rest
of his thumb is missing,

the boy's thumb will be
disfigured for life.

We were at the hospital
and waiting for the results.

The doctor told us that,

probably,
he was gonna

lose his thumb.

And that was a bad news for us,
at the moment.

William Shatner:
The Meraz family is devastated.

They believe their youngest son
will be permanently scarred

and partially disabled.

But days later, their
pediatrician offers some hope.

He sends them to see a doctor
named Juan Bravo.

He has a controversial new
treatment that can improve

Jeevan's condition.

The product simply is a powder
and is applied to the wound bed,

and, pretty much,
you reapply

and reapply
every 24, 48 hours,

and the tissue
regenerates underneath it.

William Shatner:
Could Jeevan's finger be saved

simply by using
a magic powder?

It's an extraordinary claim.

We called the mother,

and I remember
I called her and said,

"Listen,
we've come upon a product

"that is supposed to be
great for fingers."

"I got pictures
to show you."

"It should not have
any side effects

"or any
future complications for him,

"and, um, we would like
to try it with him."

And, uh,
she was all up for it.

William Shatner:
But Bravo's magic powder

had never been used
on a baby before.

With no guarantee
of success,

Jeanette and Froylan
would have to take a risk.

It was the first time that they
had used that on a baby.

So, I mean,
I believe they--

it was a first trial,

and we give them the yes.

William Shatner:
Knowing little
of the treatment's

mysterious healing power,

only days after
the first application,

Jeanette and Froylan
checked Jeevan's wound.

What they found
was astonishing.

We started seeing
that his finger

was starting to get a shape.

We were surprised.

We never thought
it was gonna work.

We applied powder every 48 hours
for the first two weeks,

and then we spread it out
to three times a week,

the third week.

And this really was no need,
after the third week.

William Shatner:
It seems like science fiction.

In just over three weeks,

the seemingly
miraculous has occurred.

After severing his digit,

Jeevan's thumb
has grown back --

nail,
fingerprint and all.

It looks like 99 per cent

equal to his left thumb.

Juan Bravo:
When we finally
removed the scab

that was formed
by the magic dust,

what was underneath it,
it was normal skin.

It was a normal finger.

It was like
it never happened.

It's hard to believe
that this finger was gonna

regenerate that fast
and heal that fast.

I'm very happy.

Yeah, I felt very happy

to see that, um,

his finger was grown.

William Shatner:
But did the powder alone
regenerate Jeevan's thumb?

If so, how?

Many pediatricians

and other medical experts
are skeptical.

They believe
Jeevan's thumb regenerating

is not that surprising.

It's an ability
that starts in the womb.

Steve Badylak:
We know that we can--

That pretty serious injuries

in fetuses
can be completely healed --

normal,
like there was never an injury.

What we do know,

and I think
everybody would agree,

is that young children,
for example,

if they cut off
the tips of their fingers,

they can
occasionally re-grow them.

That's not a miracle.

It was gonna happen anyway.

William Shatner:
But in 2005,

something
extraordinary happened.

What is
less easy to explain

is when you--

You get an individual
like a Lee Spievack.

William Shatner:
In 2004,

Lee Spievack,
a 60-year-old man,

had the tip
of his finger cut off

in a gruesome accident

caused by
a model airplane propeller.

Weeks later,
his finger grew back.

It was the first
documented case of an adult

regenerating a body part.

Remarkably,
Lee Spievack's doctor

suggested using
the same powder

Dr. Bravo applied
four years later on Jeevan.

Did it do the impossible

and regenerate
an adult human's finger?

Dr. Ashkan Ghavami is a plastic
and reconstructive surgeon.

He believes that it's
impossible, even in an adult.

Well, limb generation itself,

limb regeneration itself,

is more possible
in salamanders

and the lizard family.

In human beings, uh,

you can regenerate skin,
but to actually

regenerate
all the parts of a limb --

the bones, the skin,
the soft tissue, fat,

tendons, nerves --

that's impossible,
for that to occur.

William Shatner:
Impossible?

So, if the controversial
and mysterious white powder

doesn't regenerate
Jeevan's and Lee's

severed digits,
what did?

♪

William Shatner:
An infant and an elderly man

both regenerate their fingers
after horrific accidents,

using a mysterious powder.

How is this possible?

Can body parts
really grow back

from just having
the affected areas sprinkled...

in some mysterious,
magical powder?

Apparently so,

and it turns out
this powder

is not so
magical after all.

It's made up
of something called ECM --

extracellular matrix.

What's ECM?

I dunno!

Steve Badylak
is a research professor

from the McGowan Institute

for regenerative medicine.

Extracellular matrix
is the glue that holds

all of the cells
in our body together.

All tissues,
as most people know,

are made up of cells,
different cell types --

skin cells,
muscle cells, heart cells.

So, extra cellular matrix
is what you might think of

as an instructive template

that all the cells in our--

in which
all the cells of our body live.

We can make powder forms.

We can make sheet forms
that look like sheets.

We can make
gels out of it.

And these are important

for different
therapeutic applications.

William Shatner:
Extracellular matrix

is the scaffolding
upon which

all tissue
in the body is built.

This mix of protein
and connective tissue

can signal the body
to start the process

of re-growth,
if applied to a wound.

Some scientists
believe it may be possible

to use an extracellular matrix,

one day,
to direct the process

of re-growing
an entire digit or limb.

It changes the default mechanism
of healing of the body.

It's something that, basically,
Mother Nature's been working on

for hundreds of millions
of years of R and D,

if you want to
think of it that way.

William Shatner:
So, where do scientists
get their ECM from?

Here's a clue.

What is a cute, cuddly,

pink farm animal
who has therapeutic

extracellular matrix
to re-grow limbs?

Pigs, right?

But why pigs?

Steve Badylak:
Pigs are a convenient

and abundant source
of extracellular matrix.

The tissues
from which they're made,

like skin,
small intestine,

urinary bladder,

are throwaway products
of the agricultural industry.

So, here's something.

Here's a tissue
that would have been waste,

or maybe
turned into fertilizer.

we're now using,
as a medical device,

a regenerative medicine tool

for the
reconstruction of tissue.

William Shatner:
And because pigs are
genetically similar to humans,

the proteins
from the pig bladder

will trigger
a response in us.

This is how
they harvest it.

Scott Johnson:
So, to prepare
the extracellular matrix,

we start with
the raw pig bladder,

and then,
by using an acrylic scraper,

we simply spread the tissue,

loosen the muscle fibre.

Using forceps,
then we grab that muscle

and literally pull and tear it
away from the underlying matrix.

So, that's the outside layer,

referred to
as the abluminal layer,

where the muscle is attached.

It then goes through

what is referred to
as a peracetic acid wash.

At the end of that stage,
the ECM is ready for use.

It can be freeze dried
and used as a dry sheet.

That sheet, then,
can either be used as is

or ground
into a fine powder.

William Shatner:
But not everyone
is convinced that ECM

is the answer
to the mystery.

Rocky Tuan is the director

of the Centre of Cellular
and Molecular Engineering.

He believes
there may be another explanation

why Lee Spievack
and Jeevan's

fingertips grew back.

They may have
a unique genetic predisposition.

The possibility of regenerating
a finger is definitely there,

as shown by Lee's results.

He may very well have a genetic

or maybe even
epi-genetic constitution

that allows him
to respond in this manner.

William Shatner:
Is it possible that people like

Jeevan and Lee
are able to regenerate

and others can't?

Could we exploit
their incredible abilities?

Before we find the answer,

far more research
needs to be done.

Rocky Tuan:
What we're trying to do
is trying to figure out how,

in rare instances,

people are able to grow,
what the mechanisms are,

and then, also,

in situations
where they can't regenerate,

and then try
to compare the two.

And by doing so,

we hope to identify

those factors
or cells or genes

that are
responsible for this process.

And that's how
we can move forward.

William Shatner:
One way this may be possible

is through
stem cell research.

Found throughout
growing embryos

but in only
certain places in adults,

stem cells are unique
because they can become

almost any type
of tissue in the body,

while other cell types,
like muscle or skin,

are fixed and unchangeable.

They're sort of like
a wild card in a game of poker.

Now, if scientists
can figure out

how to reprogram
any cell into a stem cell,

through genetic manipulation,

then it may be possible
to re-grow body parts

wherever there is damage.

If we can
instruct the body

to re-grow a body part,

then, uh...

why wouldn't we do that?

I don't think there's
any doubt that some day,

we will be
able to control

the way cells
act in the body.

In other words,
we will be able

to instruct the growth

of new tissues and organs.

But what we would like to do is
be able to re-grow your heart,

if you had a heart attack
that destroys so much

of the heart muscle
that you're going to die,

or to replace your kidney
to get you off of dialysis,

or to re-grow your esophagus,

so that you don't
have to go through

a life of misery,

after having it removed.

Instead, we will
grow you a new esophagus.

This is not science fiction.

Uh, it would have been
science fiction

30 or 40 years ago.

William Shatner:
This may eventually lead

to the holy grail
of all scientific discoveries --

eternal life.

The fountain of youth,

it has always been
the holy grail.

We may change
the life expectancy.

If you're able
to better locomote

because you have better
limbs and joints,

you'll be more fit,
for example,

and maybe you'll eat better

and feel better
and so on and so forth.

It'll probably affect
your life expectancy.

William Shatner:
Imagine a world
where no one gets old.

What will our civilization
look like in a hundred

or a thousand years?

Jeevan can say he had
something to do with that.

Is that weird, or what?

What if I was to tell you
that long ago,

in a time before time,

in a remote land at the
far edges of the known world,

lived a race
of tiny people

who lived in
constant mortal fear

of huge,
carnivorous dragons?

You might say,
"Big deal Shatner!"

"Like we haven't seen
Lord of the Rings!"

But what I'm talking about
isn't an epic tale of fiction

set in Middle Earth.

What I'm talking about
is a real race of Hobbits

that may once have existed

and fought real dragons,
right here,

on our Earth.

Now,
I dare you to tell me

that isn't weird,
or what?

The remote island of Flores,
in Southeast Asia,

has one of the most bizarre
ecosystems in the world --

inhabited by elephants,

giant rats

and the deadly
komodo dragon.

It is also the location
of one of the most

unbelievable archeological
discoveries of all time.

In 2001, a team of archeologists
travelled to the island.

They began excavating

deep in a cave
on the island of Flores

called Liang Bua.

Matt Tocheri:
Researchers started
excavating at Liang Bua,

this limestone cave
on Flores, Indonesia.

And during the first
two years of excavation,

they found some
small bits of human bone,

but they weren't sure
exactly what it was.

William Shatner:
But then, in 2003,

they discovered more remains --

a complete skeleton of a female,
roughly 30 years of age.

Carbon dating said she lived

around 18,000 years ago.

What confounded experts
was that she was unlike

any other human being that's
been ever known to have existed.

Matt Tocheri:
In looking at, uh,

our species,
it certainly does not fit in.

If it was
a member of our species,

it would be very strange.

William Shatner:
The reason is this.

Astonishing as it sounds,

it was only around 3' tall,

2½' shorter than
a modern North American woman.

Robert Martin:
It's a very small individual.

It was around three foot,

maybe a bit less
than 3' in height.

William Shatner:
This remarkable discovery

led this tiny,
full-grown human specimen

to be nicknamed the Hobbit.

Was science fiction
becoming science fact?

An undiscovered,
human-like species,

only 3' tall,

sharing an island
with komodo dragons

and giant rats.

Sounds too incredible?

The indigenous
population of Flores

think they know
what this species is --

the mythical Ebu Gogo --

a creature they believe
once inhabited the island.

The Ebu Gogo
are said to have been small,

hairy cave dwellers,

the same size
as the hobbit.

These creatures
are claimed to have survived

until as recently
as the last century.

Is the presence
of the hobbit's skeletons proof

that the legends
were actually true?

♪

William Shatner:
In 2003, archaeologists

make an astonishing discovery
on an Indonesian island.

They find the
complete skeleton of a human,

nearly 18,000 years old

and only 3' tall.

It's known as the hobbit.

But what happened to them?

Some theorize that the hobbit
may have become extinct,

in part,
because they were eaten

by the island's
komodo dragon population.

Not nice.

But whatever their fate,

this extraordinary discovery
confronted scientists

with an
amazing possibility --

our human evolutionary history
is incomplete,

and the hobbit
is an entirely new species.

Briana Pobiner:
Knowing that there was a totally
different early human species,

living on earth,
coexisting with us,

that looks
so different than us

is something that was
really mind-blowing

to the scientific community.

Well, I thought
it was absolutely fantastic.

I think it adds
a real level of diversity

to our family tree.

And seeing something
that in some ways

looks so primitive
that is so recent in time,

is really this great experiment

in being human.

Matt Tocheri:
No matter what
you thought it was,

it's just an incredible find.

I remember,

when it was first announced,
you know, many, many scientists,

including myself,
were very skeptical about it.

I mean,
could this really be real?

But over time, you know,

the evidence has just been
consistently presented

that shows us that, yeah,

this is a legitimate
different species than our own.

William Shatner:
Whilst the discovery

of the hobbit excited many,

others were less convinced.

I had a different viewpoint
on this from the outset

because when I read that
first paper about the skeleton,

it just didn't fit.

And so, I looked for
an alternative explanation.

William Shatner:
So, is the hobbit skull
just a lone example,

or is there other evidence

that can prove it is
a new species of human relative?

Is there anything else
unique about the hobbit?

Well, it turns out

they do have one
distinctive characteristic

that many experts say

is proof that it is

a separate species.

Matt Tocheri
is a paleoanthropologist,

an expert
who studies ancient peoples.

He has studied bones
of the hobbit's wrist

and says that
the unique structure is proof

that it is a new species.

The reasons why I think
it's a different species

stem largely
from my own research,

which happens to be on the
evolution of the wrist in humans

and our close relatives,
the great apes.

So, there's been some
big changes to our wrists

in the last million years.

Well, Homo floresiensis
doesn't show those changes,

and so,
that basically says to me

that it must be descended
from an ancestor prior to that,

a million years ago,

because it doesn't
share the derived anatomy

we see in us and Neandertals.

William Shatner:
He has found that
a key bone in the hobbit's wrist

is more similar
to that of a chimpanzee or ape

and not
like a modern human's,

which means
that it is, in fact,

a new and unknown species
of human cousin.

Matt:
In terms of the wrist evidence,

you can see
that it's remarkably similar

to what we see
in chimpanzees.

Now, that doesn't mean
it's more closely related

to a chimpanzee,

because the hobbits
share anatomy with modern humans

and Neandertals
that chimpanzees don't.

But what the wrist shows to us
is that it retains the anatomy

of the primitive hominin.

And so, it must have
branched off prior to

this new morphology evolving,

and that's pretty amazing.

William Shatner:
This compelling evidence

would be presented to the
world's scientific community.

Since there were portions
of other hobbit skeletons found,

they classified it
as its own species,

with the Latin name
Homo floresiensis.

But anthropologist
Robert Martin

has a different theory

to explain
the mystery of the hobbit.

Robert Martin:
This skull is really

quite unusual.

The skeleton is quite unusual,
and so you can understand

why people said
it must be a new species.

It's a very
unusual individual.

William Shatner:
Robert Martin suggests
the hobbit's inclusion

into our evolutionary history

was based on
too little evidence.

Archeologists
only recovered one skull

among the skeletal remains.

Robert Martin:
And the point I
really want to emphasize

is that we have
fragments of other individuals,

but we only have one skull.

If they had found
two or three

or four skulls
that were all the same,

it would be much more
difficult to argue.

We should be very,
very careful about basing

huge interpretations
on single specimens.

William Shatner:
Dr. Martin agrees
the skull isn't consistent

with our evolutionary history.

He believes its small size

raises a big problem.

The hobbit's skeleton
is nearly 18,000 years old.

If what we know
about human evolution is true,

the hobbit's brain
should be larger than it is.

You have to go back
three million years

to find a brain this small,

but over the last
three million years,

the brain has got bigger
in every other single hominid

except this one.

So, that's a problem.

If we look at all
of the known hominid skulls

and plot out
the brain size,

you get
a very nice curve,

and the only thing
that doesn't fit

is this hobbit from Flores.

William Shatner:
So, he has an
amazing theory of his own.

He suggests
that the hobbit skeleton

actually belongs to
a modern human from Flores,

who suffered from
a congenital disease

known as microcephalia.

And microcephalic
simply means "small head."

It is a
developmental abnormality.

This is a cast of the skull
of a modern human microcephalic,

a small-brained modern human,

and this brain is exactly
the same size as in the hobbit.

William Shatner:
Another convincing
piece of evidence

is that this disease
also has another side effect.

It produces a small body,

just like the hobbit.

Is it possible

that the world's
scientific community is wrong?

♪

William Shatner:
A tiny skeleton,

only 3' tall,

is found on
an island in Indonesia --

nicknamed the hobbit.

Is this tiny creature
a modern human,

simply shrunk by disease,

or is it
a new species of human?

To add to the mystery,

completely new species
of long-extinct human relatives

have started
popping up all over.

Most recently,
in a remote cave in Siberia,

where a tiny, preserved,

human-like finger bone
was unearthed --

with DNA
unrelated to any of our

so-far-discovered,

proto-human pals.

Dr. Briana Pobiner
is an education specialist

from the Smithsonian Institute.

She believes the hobbit
is just one of many

previously
undiscovered species,

and more
will likely be found.

Briana Pobiner:
New fossils are
being found all the time.

They often fit very well

into the
early human family tree.

At least three other species
of early humans

have shared the earth
with our species,

Homo sapiens --

Homo erectus,

Homo Neandertalensis,
or Neandertals,

and Homo floresiensis,
the hobbit.

Potentially,
this new species,

found in southern Siberia,
this pinky bone,

could have even
been a fourth species.

William Shatner:
One of the ways
they've been able to determine

this pinky bone
belonged to a new species

was by examining its DNA.

Recent technological advances
make it possible

to sequence the genes
of long extinct species.

But mysteriously,

the hobbit's DNA
has never been examined.

Why?

It turns out

the original
DNA samples were damaged,

and, more bizarre,

since the first
scientific paper was published,

no one has been granted access
to the original skeleton.

Robert Martin
The specimen has been kept

pretty much under wraps
by the discoverers.

I requested
access to CAT scans...

uh, CT scans,

to check this out,
and I was refused access.

You're not allowed to publish
if you don't make the material

accessible
to other scientists.

William Shatner:
Despite the protests,
Homo floresiensis --

a.k.a. the hobbit --

is widely accepted
as a new species.

Briana Pobiner:
There's a lot
about human evolution

that's still a mystery.

In a way,
it's like putting together

the pieces of a puzzle.

In the last 10 or 15 years,

we've had an unprecedented
amount of discoveries

that tell us that
the human family tree

extends back about
double the amount of time

that we initially thought,

that the number of
human species on the family tree

is about double the number
that we originally thought.

So, these finds,
these new genetic finds,

the fossils,
the archeological evidence,

really is filling out
the human family tree,

shedding light on
some of the darker mysteries

of human evolution.

William Shatner:
So, hobbits might indeed exist,

but their true origins
may remain a mystery forever.

Is that weird, or what?

So, there you have it --

three weird mysteries,

each with
equally weird theories

to possibly explain them.

The U.S. military

investigates
the power of mind over matter.

What did they find?

Can we control objects

or even kill,

just by using our minds,

or is psychokinesis
just a trick of magic?

A young boy
and an elderly man

both re-grow their fingers

after horrific accidents.

Can we regenerate limbs

simply by using
powder extracted

from a pig bladder?

On an Indonesian island

inhabited by
deadly komodo dragons,

archaeologists discover
something extraordinary

that could rewrite the history
of human evolution --

a tiny, 3' skeleton.

Is this a new
species of human?

Do hobbits really exist?

You decide.

Join me next time
for more stories that will

undoubtedly be...

weird, or What?