Original subtitles

[Josh] The first man to summit Mount Everest

is called back to the Himalayas by an ancient legend.

Yeti! Yeti!

[Josh] ...abandoned half a world away in the Arctic,

a scientific mission pushes men to the brink of starvation.

Please.

[Josh] Desperate and freezing, they'll turn to any food source to survive.

And an obsessed filmmaker

in search of a terrifying mythical creature...

Perhaps he knows he's being hunted.

[Josh] ...goes off the map to dig up the truth.

Are the monsters real?

These Explorers Club members are about to find out.

Welcome to the world-famous Explorers Club.

For over 100 years,

this has been a gathering place

for trailblazers,

the people who dare to venture higher, further, and faster.

As a member of this exclusive club,

I'm bringing one-of-a-kind access to its archives.

This is incredible.

...artifacts.

Oh, my word.

...and my fellow explorers.

This is actual lunar dust.

Unbelievable.

The expeditions planned here

have tested the boundaries of human possibility.

Its flag has flown on death-defying voyages

into the unknown that forever changed our world.

These are the greatest adventures of all time.

These are...

Tales from the Explorers Club.

In 1953,

legendary mountaineer and honorary Explorers Club president

Sir Edmund Hillary earned his place in the highest echelon of explorers

when he, along with Sherpa Tenzing Norgay,

became the first to reach the top of Mount Everest.

Explorers, by their very nature,

go above and beyond the edges of maps

where warnings caution, "Here there be monsters."

In the case of Hillary's follow-up expedition

into the heart of the Himalayas,

finding a monster was kind of the point.

In Asia's snow-capped mountains,

Edmund Hillary found himself in hot pursuit of the legendary yeti.

[Yeti growls]

After conquering Everest,

Hillary sets his sights on an even more ambitious feat.

As if climbing the world's tallest peak wasn't dangerous enough,

his new goal is summiting without the use of supplemental oxygen.

For Hillary to even attempt the climb without oxygen

will require intensive and costly scientific research.

To solicit investment in his admittedly dry research,

Hillary needs to engage in some sly salesmanship,

much like famous showman PT Barnum and his traveling circus,

his solution taps into humankind's fascination with monsters,

a topic very familiar to legendary theme park designer

Joe Rohde.

So he has this idea that to...

to gain attention, to gain funding, to get eyeballs on this thing,

that he'll build the trip with a hook, the yeti, the abominable snowman.

There is all this mystery around this

'cause there have been some photographs of footprints.

[Josh] So he's kind of got like a side hustle going here.

Right? He's got the thing he wants to do,

but he's sold it as a yeti hunt.

Yes. And because he does this

and because he's so famous and he does this,

it just whips up the mythology all the more.

-[Josh] Right. -So he goes to the World Book Encyclopedia.

He gets them to write him a grant.

He gets like the equivalent in our money today of like a million bucks.

[Josh] With funding secured,

Hillary heads to the Himalayas,

where his buzzy side hustle is soon to take centerstage.

The specimen in front of me is the stuff of pure lore.

Without a doubt, it's one of the more bizarre artifacts

in the Explorers Club research collection.

There are those who believed Hillary obtained tangible proof of the yeti

when he returned with a purported scalp from the legendary beast.

The story of how this relic ends up here

is almost as epic as the yeti itself.

When we picture the yeti,

we generally imagine a hulking, white-furred creature

lurking high up in the snowy Himalayas.

Going as far back as 326 BCE,

incredible tales of the Yeti spin their way out of the shadows

of these holy mountains.

Alexander the Great hears tales of a strange beast

during his foray into the Indus Valley,

home to one of the world's oldest civilizations.

In 1921, British soldier and explorer

Charles Howard-Bury

reports sightings of a dark creature...

[Yeti growls]

...and enormous footprints on Everest.

His Sherpas say it'smetoh-kangmi or man-bear snowman.

When a journalist mistranslates this

and his headline reads

"Abominable Snowman," a modern legend is Born.

Then in 1951, during the Mt. Everest reconnaissance expedition

that would lay the groundwork for Hillary and Norgay's historic summit,

British mountaineer Eric Shipton

captured photographs of unusual footprints

west of Everest base camp on the border of Nepal and Tibet.

Shipton is Britain's preeminent mountaineer.

At his side is legendary sherpa

and world class climber Tenzing Norgay

who will summit Everest with Hillary only two years later.

The credentials of these two revered mountain men

means their words carry weight.

So when Norgay says...

Yeti.

[Josh] ...the world takes notice.

After Norway's endorsement of the creature's existence,

efforts to track it only accelerate more.

In 1959,

the US State Department issues regulations governing mountain climbing expeditions in Nepal

relating to the yeti with Foreign Dispatch 75, AKA,

and I am not making this up.

The Yeti Memo.

To avoid international incident,

it strictly forbids killing a yeti...

I got to catch him alive?

[Josh] ...unless a matter of life and death.

And if you find yourself face to face with a yeti,

well, it probably already is.

By the time Hillary sets out on the expedition in September of 1960,

he's already had near brushes with the beast.

Case in point,

he's a member of the Expedition Party in 1951

when Shipton snapped his intriguing pictures.

And in 1952, Hillary examines a strange scrap of skin

studded in blue black fur on the slopes of Cho Oyu,

only 12 miles west of Everest.

Oh, and by the way, both mountains are found

in the Malangnur Range, Sanskrit for "great ape".

Believing the skin belongs to a yeti,

sherpa porters toss it aside in fear.

The following year, Hillary and Norgay find curious tracks

on the fateful Everest expedition

that takes them all the way to the top.

Fast-forward roughly half a century,

I too answered the call of that haunting howl.

-There we go. -[man] Awesome.

[Josh] See that?

One, two, three, four, five toes.

In 2007, I came by my own hard-to-explain evidence in Nepal.

In the shadow of Everest, I discovered a huge print.

The cast is now in the Yeti Museum

of the Expedition Everest attraction at Disney's Animal Kingdom.

Even though I was eluded by the actual monster,

I'd give it another shot in a heartbeat.

I mean, who doesn't want to find a yeti?

Sir Edmund Hillary wouldn't mind being the one to do it.

His team sets out from Katmandu.

Members include a glaciologist

and a space physiologist

to study the effects of hiking at altitude without supplemental oxygen.

On the yeti side, he enlists Marlin Perkins,

director of Chicago's Lincoln Park Zoo,

future TV host, and fellow skeptic.

Meanwhile, a second team treks to the Mingbo Valley

to construct base camp at 19,000 feet.

Hillary's crew beelines for the wild area

where Shipton took his photos.

The men camp near Dudh Kunda...

holy stomping grounds of the Hindu god Vishnu.

At this altitude, the air might be thin,

but the atmosphere is thick with sacred lore.

Hillary and Perkins are diligent but doubtful.

Neither one knows it yet, but the legend of the hairy Himalayan hulk

is about to become all too real.

Early in the expedition,

the typically fearless sherpas

encounter something in the snow that leaves them terrified.

Yeti! Yeti!

Yeti!

[distant growl]

Explorers Club member and honorary president Sir Edmund Hillary

was a legend in his own right.

The first man to summit Mount Everest was back in the Himalayas.

The world famous climber was looking for proof of another legend, the yeti,

said to be shrouded in the mist of these deadly mountains.

Yeti!

Yeti! Yeti!

[Josh] Sherpas find a series of strange footprints on the Ripimu glacier.

A wave of excitement crashes through camp.

They quickly packed cameras, measuring tape, sketchbooks, tranquilizers,

and keeping in mind the famous Yeti Memo,

they take a gun, you know, just in case.

Suddenly Hillary's skepticism is put to the test

because now he's tracking a yeti.

At 18,000 feet,

Hillary and Perkins follow a series of large tracks left in the snow.

All right, Ed, I'm gonna measure this.

Let's see what we've got.

[Josh] The individual prints are roughly 30 inches apart,

suggesting a stride wider than the average human.

Identifying the tracks isn't easy,

even for an experienced naturalist like Marlin Perkins.

They follow the trail for a mile,

noting the size and shape of the prints are inconsistent.

As the day draws on, they come to realize

the true nature of these mysterious prints.

No, Ed.

I think we can close the book on this one.

It looks like they're together only because they melted together,

which would mean it's a very small animal.

This may be evidence of a fox or a wolf.

Maybe even a snow leopard.

It's no yeti.

[Josh] The sun's rays are melting the snow.

As they do, groups of smaller prints

left by a bounding animal

are combining to create larger, amorphous shapes.

This is the most rational conclusion

and explains the discrepancy in form and size.

Hillary's skepticism remains intact.

He's going to need something more concrete.

Soon, he gets it.

The team finds no shortage of tall tales and bizarre artifacts.

With a keen eye, Perkins debunks all that crosses his path,

blue bear pelts, goat skin, red panda fur,

and sure, a dried human hand for good measure.

But in the village of Khumjung,

the team is presented with a perplexing cultural relic,

purported to be the scalp of a yeti.

An old woman in the village claimed the scalp was 240 years old.

That's when the villagers are said

to have lured the yetis down from the mountain

and a local monk managed to scalp one of them.

[woman speaking in foreign language]

She's saying this scalp is 240 years old.

[Edmund] And this is the scalp?

[man] Yes, this is yeti scalp.

The villagers led down yeti from mountain and scalped him.

[Josh] In the wake of so many easily debunked items,

Hillary's team isn't convinced.

I suspect even though this is a consecrated item,

it's just a local animal.

[Josh] But it's puzzling enough that they want it analyzed overseas.

She's saying bad luck and disaster will befall on the village

if scalp was taken.

[Josh] Hillary manages to strike a deal.

He can take the scalp abroad for one month,

but a village elder must accompany the relic.

Hillary and the elders sign their names to a contract.

Even after it's examined by scientists,

Hillary is unsure what to make of it.

[Edmund speaking]

[Josh] In the following months,

experts from around the world,

including the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago,

are quick to rain on the yeti parade.

They conclude the scalp is likely fake,

constructed from the skin of a serow,

a goat-like animal found in the Himalayas.

But an analysis published in an academic journal

affiliated with the Sapienza University of Rome

concludes that despite similarities to the serow, it's not an exact match.

An animal of unknown origin

cannot be absolutely ruled out.

The door of possibility has been left ajar.

As promised, the original scalp is returned to Nepal

and to this day sits guarded in a locked box at the monastery in Khumjung.

So then what is this item in the Explorers Club collection?

An incredible replica commissioned by Marlin Perkins

and presented to the Explorers Club in 1998

by Sir Edmund Hillary and Dr. Carol Perkins,

Explorers Club member, conservationist and Marlin's widow.

It is a reminder of the importance of legend and folklore

in the world of exploration.

And I got to say, it's a great match.

I should know, during my 2019 expedition,

I was able to obtain through no little amount of haggling...

Look at that.

...a hair sample from the original artifact.

And we have a sample.

The gold standard of proof today is, of course, DNA.

But in 1960, DNA analysis didn't exist.

This begs the question is there a real yeti scalp in Nepal?

Unfortunately, the hair sample I obtained was compromised

by an unidentified preservative

that couldn't be removed without destroying the DNA.

Despite this setback, I pressed on.

To investigate further, I met with Jim Dines,

the then collections manager of mammalogy

at the Natural History Museum of LA County.

So we sent you a lot of photos.

And were you able to make anything of them?

Actually, yes.

Take a look at this.

We have a three-dimensional model

that's been stitched together

from all of these different photographs.

And as you can see, as this model is turning,

it gives us a fantastic view

of what the object looks like in three dimensions.

This is definitely from a mammal,

so they look like fibers.

But those are actually mammal hairs.

They have texture to them. They have length. They have color.

We can definitely say this is from some sort of mammal.

[Josh] So final analysis,

are we able to close the books on this?

The final analysis, no, we're not able to close the books on this one.

[Josh] So it goes for the mystery of the yeti,

a legend that refuses to die.

While those who braved the Himalayas in search of the yeti

are concerned with the monster in the mountain,

the explorers on the 19th century Lady Franklin Bay Expedition

in the Arctic were faced with something even more terrifying,

the monster within.

The man in this portrait

is Explorers Club member Adolphus Greely.

And this is his horror story.

The year is 1881.

It's Christmas near the North Pole.

At a remote Arctic research outpost at 81 degrees north latitude,

farther north than any scientific station on Earth,

25 men gather around a table,

overflowing with food and drink.

[man] Thank you, sir.

[Josh] After arduous months spent collecting data for the US government,

they reward themselves with a banquet fit for kings.

Merry Christmas to you all.

-Merry Christmas. -Merry Christmas.

[Josh] Despite the brutal cold,

isolation, and hardships,

morale is high and bellies are full.

Whoever cooked this ham is a kitchen witch of only good fortune.

[Josh] But winter is closing in.

[man] A little brisk outside, isn't it?

I hadn't noticed myself.

The gift that keeps on giving.

[Josh] Little to these polar pioneers suspect

their grossly underfunded mission's next feast might not come for years.

And the items on the menu might include each other.

On July 7th, 1881, as part of the first International Polar Year,

a global scientific effort to study the North and South Poles,

the eager American crew of the Lady Franklin Bay Expedition

departed St John's, Newfoundland,

bound for the Arctic north of Greenland.

Led by their lieutenant meteorologist Adolphus Greely,

their two-year objective is to gather comprehensive data on the Arctic climate.

It was smooth sailing aboard the SS Proteus,

a small steam powered Arctic vessel.

Deceived by unusually warm weather and fueled by enthusiasm,

these young men had no idea what they'd signed up for.

As if the mission isn't challenging enough,

the expedition is grossly underfunded,

and the men, most of whom are recruited from a branch of the US Army

that manages communication and information systems,

aren't exactly tough-as-nails soldiers.

They are well unprepared

for one of the world's most inhospitable environments.

On August 11th,

Proteus delivered the 25-man team to the eastern shore of Ellesmere Island.

Though they expected to be resupplied the following summer,

it would be years before these men saw another ship.

Best get back to work.

We'll be losing daylight soon enough.

Aye, sir.

[Josh] The crew settles into building their research base,

Fort Conger.

Compared to a prison by some,

their home away from home is a single-story three-room hut,

about 60 feet long, 16 feet wide, and 10 feet high.

Outside are lean-tos, well stocked for now.

Hunting in September and October adds 6,000 pounds of meat,

including musk oxen, seal, duck and hare.

Explorers Club fellow Dr. Sarah Parcak

uses advanced satellite technology

to find long lost archeological sites.

Little did Greely and his men know,

they're about to become long lost themselves.

Did things go sideways for them right away?

No, they're able to do their work.

They're able to do their science.

And on top of that, they're able to have fun.

They're playing chess.

That's check, my friend.

They're going outside. They're having a good time.

You know, this is not a group of people who are struggling.

Does anybody else fancy a game?

If we put a ration of rum on it, we'll see what happens.

But the sun is about to go down for 137 days.

[Josh] The high point was their first Christmas in 1881.

In spite of the constant darkness,

the men managed to find holiday light and five-star cuisine.

This from the Explorers Club's archives

is the actual handwritten menu from that day.

It includes classics like mock turtle soup, salmon,

crab salad, spiced musk ox tongue.

And to our merry stay here.

Here you go.

Those are exquisite.

[Josh] Plum pudding with wine sauce.

Several kinds of ice cream, of course.

And to top it all off, eggnog, rum, cigars and candies

from the finest confectioner in New York City.

Empty.

Gentlemen, to Lady Franklin and her bay.

And her bay!

[laughter]

Let's cheers to that.

Cheers, fellas.

[Josh] None of the men eating this lavish feast had any idea

that by the end of their mission,

they'd be reduced to eating scraps.

Too weak to move, nor could they have ever predicted

they might soon find themselves added to the menu.

Scientific progress continues.

The soldiers record tidal conditions and aurora observations

and gather lists of animal and mineral specimens.

What they're about to note is that their first summer was an anomaly.

As days return, the ocean remains an icy expanse.

In his personal journal from the Explorers Club Archive,

Sergeant William Cross observed the conditions

by quoting famed poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

The ice was here, the ice was there, the ice was all around.

In July of 1882, the crew awaits a resupply vessel.

They need provisions.

They've prepared scientific papers to send back.

They hope to exchange letters with loved ones

and receive news from home.

They don't even know that President Garfield has been assassinated.

However, not one, but two Julys come and go without a word.

No ships, no reinforcements, no communication.

It's not for lack of trying, one ship is turned back by ice

and is only able to leave a small cache

farther to the south.

Another attempt by the Proteus

is thwarted when its hull is crushed by pack ice and its cargo lost.

The men only know this much, they're on their own.

An emergency plan calls for Greely

to move his men 250 miles south to Cape Sabine,

where provisions should be awaiting them.

But Greely continues to wait,

fearing that the trek through the Arctic wilderness may be a suicide mission.

It is now August 9th, 1883.

All right, time passes,

and these expected resupplies don't show up.

So what do they do?

Well, Greely decides to take a huge risk.

He abandons the safety of Fort Conger...

-[Josh] Uh-huh. -...and decides to go south, right?

[Josh] And this is a big risk, right?

Because it's not like down the road there's some other,

you know, place they can post up at.

I mean, they're up there kind of in the middle of nowhere.

Right, you're in the middle of the Arctic.

They're desperate, right? They think, by leaving, at least they have a chance.

Well, when they leave, their boats get caught in an ice floe for 51 days.

-[Josh] Yikes. -Which is obviously a big problem.

Finally managed to break free

and they make it to Cape Sabine.

And things are going from bad to worse.

[Josh] With winter again upon them,

they erect a makeshift camp using rocks and an overturned whale boat.

Greely rations food, hoping it will last till spring.

But things do not look good.

Soon, the men are down to eating dog biscuits.

On January 18th, 1884,

Sergeant William Cross succumbed to scurvy and malnutrition.

He was the first to die.

Three months later, the casualties began to pile up.

One by one, Greely's men fall to the elements and starvation.

Circumstances are beyond dire.

Come on! Get up!

[Josh] Men eat tiny quarter inch shrimp.

Anything to give them sustenance.

One man died trying to harpoon a seal.

At one point, a bear appeared,

but they couldn't muster the energy to kill it.

They were too weak to bury their own dead

or even to sit up and eat.

They resorted to consuming candle wax,

boot soles, and bird droppings.

The men noticed, quote, "mental derangement"

in more than a few of their crewmates.

Things go from worse to way worse.

Private Charles B Henry pilfers

from what little remains of the pitiful provisions.

Greely decrees that the next time someone steals food,

they will be shot.

On June 6, 1884, Henry is again caught red handed.

But will Greely follow through with the death sentence

and take the life of one of his own men?

Lieutenant, don't kill me.

[Josh] Responsible for what lives remain

of the doomed Lady Franklin Bay Expedition,

first Lieutenant Adolphus Greely

has to decide whether to follow through on his threat

to execute any man caught stealing

from their rapidly depleting rations.

Private Charles Henry is caught with his hand

in the mess pot for the last time.

Please, lieutenant, don't kill me.

It won't happen again.

I swear on my life! I swear!

Sergeant, you may raise your sidearm.

[Josh] With starvation dominating their harsh reality,

theft cannot be tolerated.

God!

[Josh] Henry is executed.

Fire.

[gun fires]

[Josh] In a sad twist of fate,

help will finally arrive in just two weeks' time.

The men have been stationed at the world's northernmost scientific site

for three years, alone.

With popular outcry at home and abroad,

the government amps up rescue efforts.

On June 22nd, 1884,

Greely and fellow survivors hear the faint sound of ship bells in the distance.

Not one, but four ships pull up to the desolate camp at Cape Sabine.

This is an actual bell from the cutter USS Bear,

one of the ships that rescued the party.

Extraordinary. Can you imagine?

Three years go by, and you have no clue

if you'll ever be rescued.

These men faced true and utter hopelessness.

And then this.

[bell rings]

Must have been music to their ears.

Oh. Sorry.

Overseen by Commander Winfield Scott Schley,

the Greely Relief Expedition discovers only 7 men alive

from the original group of 25.

On the way home,

Joseph Ellison dies from complications from amputations.

Only six men make it back.

David Brainard, Henry Biederbick, Maurice Connell,

Julius Frederick, Francis Long, and Adolphus Greely.

They arrive at Portsmouth Harbor in New England

on August 1, 1884, and are greeted as heroes.

Only six men return home.

They're given a parade. They're promoted in rank.

But then these rumors start.

-Right? -Right.

-[Josh] Rumors of cannibalism. -Right.

Which Greely denies until his death.

When one of the officers was exhumed

and they looked carefully at the cut marks on one of his bones,

it's pretty likely that there was cannibalism.

[Josh] There's obviously this stigma,

once they're back in society, they don't want to talk about this.

But on the other hand, you think about the desperation of survival.

-People are gonna do what they have to do. -[Sarah] Right.

[Josh] Which has happened in many other cases.

Right. Who knows what any of us would be driven to in that situation.

[Josh] This haunting painting in the Explorers Club Library

depicts the moment of Greely's rescue.

Despite his team's unthinkable hardships,

the expedition amassed significant scientific research,

much of it recovered by club member Robert Perry in 1899.

Only one in five men survived,

but the data they collected is still being referenced by climate scientists today.

They risked and lost their lives

in the pursuit of knowledge, true explorers to the end.

Despite the terrors they endured,

multiple members of the Lady Franklin Bay mission

go on to join the Explorers Club.

Greely even serves as the Club's first president.

He was 91 years old.

Some explorers are defined by their quest to survive against all odds.

Others have to do battle with their own obsessions,

especially when investigating tales of undiscovered creatures.

But not every legendary beast is the product of folklore

or a good campfire story.

Some turn out to be all too real.

It's the Roaring Twenties.

Belgian filmmaker and Explorers Club member Armand Denis

makes a small fortune in radio.

He moves to Hollywood.

And over the next few decades,

he builds on his love of travel and film

to innovate the field of wildlife television.

By the 1950s and '60s, he's a household name.

But his most intriguing tale of adventure comes from a 1934 trip

to what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo...

an Explorers Club supported expedition.

What you're seeing now is actual archival footage captured by Denis.

During the endeavor, Denis visits a camp

on the edge of the Ituri Rainforest

in the northeast of the vast African region

of what was then still the Belgian Congo,

a dark chapter in world history.

Its epilog is still being written today.

Over dinner with Denis' boisterous friend

and fellow Explorers Club member,

anthropologist Patrick Putnam.

The conversation turns to trophy hunting.

Putnam describes a fantastical bull elephant known as the King.

How's the trophy hunting?

Whoa, whoa, whoa.

Careful what you're saying.

The Elephant King might hear you.

And the King, he don't take kindly to hunters.

The Elephant King?

[Josh] Legend holds that the King is an old

but very dangerous elephant.

Its appearance is unmistakable,

thanks to its not two but four massive tusks.

A bull elephant with four tusks is unheard of.

None of the guests believe it.

Even Denis doubts it.

But his interest is piqued the next day

when Mabuti villagers expand on the legend,

they believe the King sees and knows all.

He spoils hunts and even kills villagers.

Their spears have no effect on the great elephant

with four tusks.

And yes, they've seen him many times.

That night, Denis dreams of the beast.

He decides that, whatever the cost,

he has to capture the King on film.

The Explorers Club emphasizes conservation over trophy taking,

and no member better exemplifies that end than Carl Akeley,

explorer, artist, conservationist,

and Chicago Field Museum's first chief taxidermist.

Oh, and he invented this, the Akeley pancake camera,

1 of only 400 ever made.

Though it's just slightly less mobile than a GoPro or an iPhone,

this camera revolutionized the ability to capture the natural world

in ways impossible for the existing technology of the time.

Relatively easy to transport,

it can be reloaded rapidly and can film in low light.

Its focus is clean and its movement smooth.

It was used for aerial reconnaissance during the First World War

and, naturally, by Hollywood after that.

And it is the tool of choice to document Denis's search for the King.

The villagers point Denis toward a low-lying area of swamp,

roughly 80 miles from camp.

He recruits a few willing local Mbuti guides

and sets off into the deadly wild.

Compelled by the heart of an explorer,

Denis needs to know if there's truth

behind the legend of the four-tusked elephant.

Thanks to a grant from Discovery,

Dr. Seheno Andriantsaralaza

has embarked on an Explorers Club expedition in Madagascar.

She's studying a species of tree there

that is shrouded in myth.

The baobab is said to have magical powers.

Legend holds that if you stare at it,

the tree can invoke memories of your past lives.

Seheno's interest in the tree, however, is strictly scientific,

as she's trying to determine how animals disperse its seeds

to help perpetuate the species.

The baobab is a marvel of nature,

native to the arid African Savannah,

it can store nearly 1,200 gallons of water in its trunk.

Little wonder it's known as the Tree of Life,

but it's also known as the upside-down tree,

thanks to the root like appearance of its tangled branches.

One legend holds that God gave hyenas the job of planting the trees,

and not being terribly bright, they buried the seeds upside down.

Armand Denis, fearless documentarian

and member of the Explorers Club,

is deep in the Congolese back country

in search of a mythical four-tusked elephant.

Days pass with no sign of the beast.

Club Vice President for Research and Education,

Trevor Wallace, has pursued pachyderms in Africa

and knows firsthand Denis had a bigger challenge ahead of him

than you might expect.

I heard down at the bar, you know how to track elephants.

You've learned this.

So as someone who doesn't know much about this, is this easy?

Is this hard? It seems like it should be easy.

-They're huge. -Yeah. How do you find an elephant?

It's harder to find the largest living land creature than you'd think.

Wow.

In Kenya, you have the benefit of this fine red dust,

so you can find the tracks.

Once you find the tracks, the toe marks,

the scuff marks in the front can show you the direction

-that the elephant's going. -Right.

But where these guys are in the Congo,

it's thickly vegetated. It's full-on dense forest.

So finding those tracks is going to be a lot more difficult.

[Josh] My only point of reference for this

is having been on safari,

there are times where like the jeep will stop

and someone says there's an elephant and you kind of go, "Where?"

And then you realize, "Oh, look, it's right there."

They do kind of just blend in sometimes, right?

Yeah. They're graceful.

As big as they are,

they move through the environment with such ease.

I mean, they're incredible creatures for that.

And sometimes you can actually stumble upon an elephant.

[Josh] For three days, Denis struggles to keep up with his Mbuti guides.

But on the fourth day, the thick forest opens up.

The men spot elephant dung and large footprints.

Six hours later, the Mbuti suddenly duck into the bush.

Just ahead, nine elephants are ripping leafy branches from the lush canopy.

Peering through binoculars,

Denis sees that one of them is a massive bull.

It turns staring straight at him.

But this elephant has just two tusks.

The guides aren't nearly as disappointed as Denis.

Two tusks.

There is no such thing as a king.

Perhaps he knows he's being hunted.

[Josh] A few hours later, in the town of Butembo,

a trader complains to Denis of paying an elephant tax.

The government made me pay for two elephants

when all four tusks came from one big bull.

[Josh] Denis can't believe his ears.

Could this be the elephant King?

Well, there's just one problem.

The tusks are being held in customs,

so he can't get his eyes on them.

But he decides to take a chance

and buys the tusks sight unseen.

And they ultimately end up where else?

Look at this. Oh, my word. They exist. They're real.

They absolutely do exist.

[Josh] All right. Denis made a good call.

[Lacey] He made an awesome call.

Each of these tusks is about 8 feet tall

-and weighs about 50 pounds. -[Josh] Wow.

Okay, so these are extraordinary,

but we only have the tusks, right?

Absolutely.

[Josh] So how does Denis know

that these aren't just from two different elephants?

He doesn't.

He becomes obsessed with finding the matching skull.

[Josh] Denis needs the skull the tusks were attached to.

Starting with the trader, Denis connects the dots.

A young man is said to have buried the skull out of respect

after removing the tusks from an elephant dead many days.

Soon Denis is digging like a man possessed.

This is the stuff legends are made of.

If the skull he's seeking is real, this is the spot.

Sure enough, he finds a decaying, pungent elephant skull.

Incredibly, it has not two but four tusk holes.

Denis sets off for home, determined to prove its authenticity.

So Denis has the skull.

-What does he do with it? -So he's got the skull.

He brings it to the American Museum of Natural History right here in New York.

And essentially, he gives it to the director of preparations.

And that's Dr. James Lippert Clark.

Ultimately, Clark takes the skull.

He takes the tusks. They slot right in.

It's a perfect match.

-Done deal. -Done deal.

[Josh] We got four tusks. We got one skull.

-Done. -So Hindu deity?

Ancient creature?

None of the above.

Ultimately, Clark determines that

although it's this really fearsome looking specimen,

it is just the result of a rare genetic mutation

of what would have otherwise been a totally normal elephant.

[Josh] This is such a fantastic story though, right?

We have this thing. Nobody believed it existed.

Denis goes out and finds it.

And we have this awesome example of science

finding the truth behind this fantastic legend.

Exploration of our world is a permanent mission.

The Explorers Club offers us inspirational models

of pioneers to emulate,

those who have investigated the unknown

at the top of the world,

those who have faced unimaginable hardship,

and those who believed when others doubted.

In my own travels, I've come to learn that legends and lore,

no matter how outlandish,

are often shadows of real mysteries waiting to be solved.

I can't wait to see what's next.

And I'm keeping my mind wide open.