All language subtitles for The UnBelievable with Dan Aykroyd s02e03 Fantastic Beings.eng

[tense music]

- What if I told you a
500-pound bear

helped take on the
Nazi war machine?

[tank booming]
[tense music continues]

- One day he goes
into the showers,

and what's in the shower?

A German spy.

[spy screams]

- Or a pack of feral dogs
raised a human child.

- What they discover is nothing
they could have ever imagined.

- The police try
and grab the child,

but she barks and snarls just
like the dogs she's been with.

[dog barking]

- How about an elite force
of drug-sniffing gerbils?

- Now, in prison,
snitches get stitches

and the gerbils started
getting whacked.

[intense music]

- These are beings so fantastic

they are truly unbelievable.

[suspenseful music]

[suspenseful music continues]

[suspenseful music fading]

- Some say when you
rescue a stray dog,

they really rescue you.

That may sound like a cliche,

but for one battered
battalion of American soldiers

during World War I,
it's literally true.

[tense music]

In the muddy trenches
on the Western Front,

a German spy sneaks his way
towards the Allied command.

He is careful to stay
low and keep silent.

[dramatic music]

Suddenly,

he hears the unmistakable
growl of an attack dog.

- Pretty quickly, he realizes

I have to get away from this
animal, but

the dog is having none of that.

And the next thing
the German spy feels

is the teeth sinking
into the back of his leg.

And pretty soon the dog is
chewing anything it can reach

and barking hysterically.

[dog barking]
[spy screaming]

- [Dan] For him, the
war is over.

For his canine captor,
it's just another

in a long series of
battlefield triumphs.

His name is Sergeant Stubby.

[inspiring music]

- Your typical
military working dogs

would be a German
Shepherd or a Rottweiler,

but this is not your typical
military working dog.

This is a 25-pound
stray American lap dog.

- He's a sort of mixed breed

of more likely Boston Terrier.

They're basically meant
to pal around with you

and be friendly.

- [Dan] Stubby's
unbelievable journey

from stray to terror
of the trenches

begins a year earlier in 1917.

[tense music]

- You have a young army private

by the name of
John Robert Conroy

who's training at
Yale University.

This small stray
dog comes up to him

with a thumb-like tail.

And it's wagging as
it comes up to him.

And for Conroy, it's
love at first sight.

And he's like, I'm
gonna call you Stubby.

[tense music]

- Even though the camp
has a no-dog policy,

the 102nd Infantry 26th
Yankee Division decides

to bring Stubby on as
their official mascot.

He starts picking up tricks.

He even learns how to
salute a superior officer.

- [Dan] Sergeant Stubby goes
from mascot to active duty

when his unit is sent into
combat in February of 1918.

[artillery booming]

- Disaster strikes Stubby early,

and he's injured by
a mustard gas attack

that he's not
supposed to survive.

Low and behold, not only
does this not kill Stubby,

but he recovers with
this new superpower.

He is able to sense
mustard gas from miles away

where nobody else would
even know it's coming.

[tense music]

- Stubby's newfound
skills are put to the test

during an early morning attack.

While the men of
the unit are asleep,

there's a mustard gas attack

and Stubby is the
first one to smell it.

[tense music continues]

- [Dan] Thanks to
Stubby, all 200 men

of the company
survive the attack.

Whatever the task, Stubby
somehow always delivers,

eventually becoming the first
dog in U.S. Army history

to reach the rank of sergeant.

- By the end of the
war, Stubby has fought

in 17 different battles.

He's earned the Purple Heart

and he's earned multiple
medals with valor.

- He's a part of
post-war parades.

Of course, he's
the crowd favorite.

And then in 1926,
Stubby passes away

in the arms of John Conroy,
and his obituary

is printed in both

"The Washington Post"
and "The New York Times."

- You could still see
Sergeant Stubby today.

He is stuffed and mounted
in the Smithsonian Museum.

Go see him sometime
and give him a salute.

[dramatic music]

- If a 25-pound lap
dog could strike fear

in the hearts of his enemies,

imagine what a 500-pound
beast could do.

[artillery booming]
[tense music]

It's the height of World War II.

The haggard and
homesick soldiers

of Poland's 22nd Artillery
Division are en route

to join the Allied
forces in the UK

when they stop at a
train station in Iran.

- Polish troops are
bartering with the locals

when a young Iranian boy
comes up with a sack,

in which there's something
squirming around.

And when those Polish
soldiers open that sack up,

what they see is a bear cub.

[tense music continues]

- For the soldiers who
also feel orphaned,

it's love at first sight.

- [Dan] Smitten, they
immediately make the trade

for the adorable orphan cub

and name him Wojtek,
which means happy warrior.

[emotional music]

- They teach him how to salute.

They wrestle around with them.

He's a huge morale boost.

- And they're
feeding it chocolate.

They're feeding it cigarettes,

which it eats as
opposed to smoking them.

And the bear loves beer.

- Wojtek gets bigger and bigger,

and he's not a bear cub anymore.

He's a 500-pound apex predator.

- [Dan] Still, Wojtek
keeps his lovable charm.

He learns to play fetch
with oranges troops throw

for their grenade practices.

[tense music continues]

- They even developed
this hazing ritual

where Wojtek takes
a green recruit

and pulls them up in the air

and acts like he's
about to eat them,

but it all ends up
just being a prank.

- [Dan] By 1944, a full-grown
Wojtek is ready to join

his brothers in arms
on the front lines in Italy.

[intense music]

- The unit ultimately
deploys to the Liri Valley

and is involved in the
fighting at Monte Cassino.

And it's an environment
of mountainous terrain

where they experience regularly

that advancing artillery
ammunition, to the

guns that need
it, is a big problem.

It's physically very taxing
for the two-legged members

of the company to
complete the mission.

And they find that quickly

what they can do is strap
artillery ammunition to Wojtek.

- [Dan] Wojtek uses his
brown bear super strength

to carry 100-pound crates

of highly-explosive artillery
shells to the front line,

doing the work of at least
4 men in a single trip.

- He can move this
ammunition uphill

and down valley with great ease,

and he does it
throughout the campaign

to such an end that eventually,

within their distinctive
unit insignia,

they feature a bear
carrying ammunition.

- In fact, Private
Wojtek is so successful

in his mission with
the ammunition cases

that he earns
himself a promotion,

and he is now Corporal Wojtek,

which has him outranking
some of the many people

who serve with him.

- [Dan] Despite these successes,

Wojtek does have a few flaws.

- In war, supplies are limited.

And one of those limited
supplies is water.

Wojtek's got this bad habit
of breaking into the showers

and taking these long showers
with all the team's water.

[tense music]

- One day he goes
into the showers,

and what's in the shower?

A German spy.

[dramatic booming]

Who starts screaming
at the top of his lungs

in being confronted this way,

and that, of course,
alerts the entire camp.

And now the German
spy has been captured,

care of Corporal Wojtek.

[tense music]
[Wojtek growling quietly]

- When the war ends,
an arrangement is made

by which Wojtek is transferred
to a zoo in Scotland

where he lives out
his remaining years.

[tense somber music]

[inquisitive music]

- It's unclear if the zoo

continued Wojtek's
daily beer rations,

but I for one hope they did.

He certainly earned it.

- Even for highly-trained law
enforcement personnel, there's

nothing more dangerous
than going undercover.

Now imagine the risks

if you're an unarmed,
four-inch-tall rodent.

[tense music]

- It's 1982 and there
is a problem in the

Canadian penitentiary system.

They are plagued by
contraband drug smuggling.

Most of the drugs are being
smuggled in by visitors.

And so, as a result,
the authorities wanna create

a sort of secret detection
system that's going

to alert them when somebody
is smuggling drugs in.

- [Dan] The system the
authorities have come up with is

so innovative it's unbelievable.

- The Canadian prison system
hires drug-sniffing gerbils,

and it's called Operation Probe.

- [Dan] How exactly are gerbils
drafted for Operation Probe?

- A research lab called
General Behavior Systems

discovers that gerbils
have very sensitive noses,

far more sensitive than any
of the equipment the lab has.

- They also learned that
gerbils can detect spikes

in adrenaline, which,

if you're trying to bring
drugs into a prison,

would understandably
then reveal yourself.

- And they're a lot smaller
than, say, a drug-sniffing dog.

So you're not gonna
tip somebody off.

So these gerbils are perfect.

[tense music]

- So they test this device

at Warkworth
medium-security prison.

- The gerbils are placed
in a box that sits

next to the checkpoint guard.

If the gerbil smells drugs,

it hits a lever that
lights up the red light.

If it doesn't smell drugs,

it hits a lever that
illuminates the green light.

- As it turns out, they
are quite successful

in sniffing out
the various drugs

that were being smuggled in,

whether it be marijuana or
hash or heroin or cocaine.

- [David] It's so successful

that they expand it to
three other prisons.

- [Dan] But eventually, the
program reveals a weakness.

- These gerbils, yes, they
have a great sense of smell,

but they smell and their
urine is particularly pungent.

That right there eliminates the
clandestine element of this.

If you could walk up to this box

and you smell that
there's a gerbil there,

now you know that
they're using that

to sense drugs coming
into the prison.

- [Dan] Then the initiative
hits another much darker snag.

- Now in prison,
snitches get stitches.

And once somebody figured out
they were being ratted out

by these gerbils, they took
'em out in a prison hit.

- After the first
team is killed,

a second box of gerbils is sent.

And that team is also killed.

- [Dan] An autopsy
later confirms

that the tiny informants
were poisoned.

- So the entire program
only cost about $70,000.

But after the gerbils
started getting whacked,

it became more
and more expensive

to train more and more gerbils,

so they had to just shut
down the whole program.

[intense music]

- After Operation
Probe is shelved,

the surviving gerbils live
out the rest of their lives

in relative obscurity,

unlike the celebrated
heroes in our next story.

[tense music]

In January of 1925,

Alaska is experiencing one
of its worst winters on record.

And in the middle of this,
the remote town of Nome

is suffering from a deadly
outbreak of diptheria.

- Diptheria is a
nasty infection, which,

in the case of
children and the elderly,

kills almost half the
people it infects.

There's an antitoxin that
can halt the infection.

The bad news for Nome is
that it's really far away.

- [Dan] Because of the
freezing temperatures,

officials realize
there's only one way

to deliver the antitoxin:

by dog sled.

- If you had one dog sled team,

that trip alone would
take about a month.

They don't have a month.

- [Dan] In these
freezing conditions,

the serum will
last just six days.

They'll have to
come up with a way to

make the journey in record time.

[dramatic music]

- What the Alaskans decide to do

is to have several dog teams

that will take
the medicine in legs,

one leg to the next,

all the way to this
remote village.

- [Dan] 20 dog teams
and their human handlers

volunteer for the
treacherous journey.

- At the time of the mission,

the most well-regarded musher

is a man named Leonhard Seppala.

Leonhard has to decide
of all of his dogs

who is gonna be the
one to lead his team

on this arduous mission.

The typical work life
for a Siberian husky is

normally around 8 to 10 years,

but he decides on his dog Togo,

who is a 12-year-old dog.

- [Dan] While the average
distance for each team

is 50 miles,

Togo's leg will be a
staggering 91 miles.

[tense music]

- Togo is old for this job,

but he has an unbeatable record.

The team of dogs
always trust him

and Seppala just
knows intuitively,

this is the dog to be
able to lead this group.

This is like a lotta
pressure on a dog.

[tense music]

- [Dan] The serum is
picked up on January 27th

and makes its way to

Togo's team in less than 4 days.

Togo must now lead
the most perilous leg

of the journey in record time.

- [Yohuru] Crossing the
notoriously treacherous

Norton Sound,
Seppala hears the ice crack

and knows his team's in trouble.

- [Dan] The crack widens,

making a gap the sled
team can't cross.

- So panic naturally
starts to set in.

So what Seppala does
is he grabs a line,

he ties it around
Togo, picks him up,

and he physically throws
him across the ice.

Once Togo sticks the landing,

he immediately starts
to pull on that line

to try to bring in
the rest of the team.

But as Togo is pulling,
the line snaps.

[snapping sound]
[tense music]

- This is a complete nightmare,

but Togo does a pretty
ingenious thing.

He snags the end of
the rope that's loose

and he starts to roll it around
himself, closing the divide,

which brings the
entire crew to safety.

[dramatic music]

- [Dan] Together, Togo
and the team complete

their critical 91-mile
leg in just over a day.

[victorious music]

- The final leg of the trip
is just 50 miles to Nome,

and musher Gunnar Kaasen,

he decides to go for speed

and endurance over experience,

and he will give the lead dog
role to a three-year-old dog

that's never done anything
like this before named Balto.

- It's a dangerous move.

This dog doesn't have
as much experience,

and what if they hit a crevasse,
will the dog know what to do?

It's risky.

[tense music]

- [Dan] Balto leads Gunnar
and his team out of Bluff

as they head into
chest-deep snow drifts

and unforgiving winds.

- At one point during the run,

the winds are so treacherous
Balto and his team are actually

lifted airborne off the ground.

But when they land, Balto is
able to keep his team together

and keep them moving
toward their goal.

[awe-inspiring music]

- [Dan] In the early morning
hours of February 2nd,

Balto and his team
arrive in Nome,

a month-long journey
completed in only five days

and just before
the serum expires.

[tense music]

- The world has been following
this story on the radio.

So everybody is
in rapt attention.

And Balto is there, the face
of the entire operation,

and he gets all of the
love, all of the fanfare.

- [Sami] He gets a statue
of him in Central Park,

4,000 miles away
from Nome, Alaska.

There's an animated movie
about Balto's heroics,

- But, ultimately, Togo
does get some love.

He gets a statue of his own in
New York City's Seward Park.

- Every March, sled dog
teams from around the world

compete in the Iditarod

as they emulate the unbelievable
life-and-death mission

pulled off by Togo and Balto.

[tense music]

- In the entertainment business,
sibling acts have always brought

in big audiences.

From the Bee Gees to
the Jonas Brothers,

even the Blues Brothers,

but no sibling act in history
has shared a bond tighter

than the early 20th
century performers,

Jean and Jacques Libbera.

[tense music]

- Coming outta the
19th century and going

into the early 20th, sideshows,

circuses, you name it,

entertainment is really
taking off in a very new way.

- Of course, then you
have Coney Island,

which has sword
swallowers, fire breathers,

people walking on broken glass,

any number of unusual

and bizarre and
strange performances.

- [Dan] But perhaps the
strangest attraction

is known as the
double-bodied man.

- So Jean steps out.

He's dressed immaculately
in a tuxedo, looking good.

He has a shawl though that's
draping over a part of him.

- [Dan] What's underneath
is what makes

audiences gasp and even faint.

- [Greg] Jean has another person
coming out of his abdomen.

- [Dan] His name is Jacques
and he's Jean's parasitic twin.

[tense music]

- The incidence of parasitic

or vestigial twins
is really rare.

Literally one in a million.

They form very similar to
how identical twins form.

There's a moment when
the fertilized egg splits

into two complete embryos.

But in the case of vestigial
or parasitic twins,

that split is incomplete.

Because conjoined
vestigial parasitic twins

often share organs
with each other,

trying to separate
them surgically

would've probably
killed them both.

- So for Jean, things
are quite difficult

because Jean, for all
intents and purposes,

is a completely
normal human being.

But Jacques, on the other hand,

has a very rudimentary
nervous system,

so there is no consciousness

and there is no conscious
or voluntary movement.

- As Jean would find
out later in life,

Jacques's head is, in fact,
embedded within his abdomen.

- And it's only
approximately six centimeters

in circumference.

With a skull this small in size,

Jacques would not have
any kind of consciousness

or any awareness of
what was going on.

- In that era, it's
pretty hard to find a job

when you have the condition
that Jean Libbera has,

with his brother Jacques
coming out of his abdomen.

[eerie music]

And pretty quickly, he's drawn

to the life that most people

of massive physical
difference are drawn,

to the circuses and sideshows.

- [Dan] Soon, Jean and
Jacques are performing

around the world,
amassing a fortune

and dazzling audiences.

- Audiences are both thrilled

and terrified to see it,

especially when
Jacques actually moves.

This is unique, it's terrifying.

It's all sorts of different
emotions all at the same time.

- But in reality, given how

underdeveloped
Jacques' brain is,

these probably weren't
conscious movements,

but probably more reflexive.

- [Dan] Yet somehow the
most shocking aspect

of their unbelievable life is

how normal Jean is
able to make it.

- He's able to meet a
woman, they fall in love.

They even have children.

- What's really remarkable
is not his success

as a circus performer,

but the fact that
he's walking around

with an entire person
attached to him

and he figures out
how to be normal.

I think that's amazing.

[inquisitive music fading]

- Unfortunately, not every
sideshow performer finds

their happily ever after.

Consider the extraordinary
tale of Julia Pastrana,

which begins in
19th-century Mexico.

[tense music]

- A group of herdsmen are
out looking for their cattle.

They end up in a cave

and they find a young mother.

She has a baby, and the baby
is very strange looking.

[ominous music]

- They realize something
pretty quickly about the child.

She's covered completely in
hair, just like a little wolf.

- They learn that her
name is Julia Pastrana.

Her mother has been
hiding her for two years

because of a myth in the
region, the nahualli.

- So Julia's born and
she's covered in hair.

This feeds right into the idea
of the nahualli, shapeshifters,

a concept that goes back to
pre-Columbian Mesoamerica.

So the village is terrified.

They're afraid
that she's a shapeshifter

who can turn into a werewolf.

[tense music]

- The herders take
pity on the situation.

They bring the mother and
the child back down to the city.

But Julia Pastrana's mother dies

and she's placed
in an orphanage.

- [Dan] Soon after,
Julia is adopted

by the governor of
Sinaloa, Pedro Sanchez.

- Governor Sanchez takes
her and educates her.

She learns how to speak
English and French,

in addition to Spanish,
and he trains her voice.

She develops this beautiful
mezzo-soprano voice,

and it is, in fact,
very captivating.

[angelic music]

- Regretfully, the
governor's intentions

are not the greatest.

Really he's investing
in Julia in order

to make her into a sideshow.

- [Dan] In 1854,
the governor sells

the 20-year-old
Julia to a promoter

who takes her to New York.

- So now Julia's in
the United States,

and she catches the
eye of Theodore Lent,

a showman who knows how to
make real money off of her.

- [Dan] Proving himself a master
in 19th-century clickbait,

Lent advertises Julia

as the Ugliest Woman in
the World, Bear Woman,

and a particularly cruel
moniker, Baboon Lady.

- The audience goes expecting
to see this beast woman,

and instead Julia is cultured
and cultivated and charming.

And she puts on
a beautiful show.

She sings, she dances,
she's well dressed, and

Lent realizes he has a winner.

- [Dan] He even takes
their relationship to the

next level by marrying Julia.

[curious music]
[crowd clapping]

- The crowds show up.
The money's pouring in.

Theodore now basically has all
the control he needs and wants.

- [Dan] Soon the newlyweds
are touring the world,

and selling out shows.

- Lent is not in
love with Julia.

Lent is in love with money,

and he doesn't want
anyone getting a peek

at Julia unless they've paid.

So he makes her wear a veil
whenever she's in public.

- Following Lent and
Julia's marriage,

eventually she's pregnant

and she gives birth
to a son in Moscow.

[tense music]

And unfortunately, the son
is dead within a few days

and Julia, because of
difficulties of the birth,

is dead within a
few days as well.

[somber music]

- [Dan] Shockingly,
Julia's story

gets even more unbelievable.

- Lent, being every bit the
monstrous showman that he is,

decides that he must
keep the show going.

[ominous music]

So the way to do
that, of course, is

to have Julia taxidermied,

along with his
and her infant son.

[somber music]

- [Dan] Lent continues
touring with the bodies

until he passes away in 1884.

- This still isn't the
end of Julia's story.

Her body is passed around
from sideshows to museums

for more than a century.

- It's not until
2013 that finally,

through some activist efforts,

she's returned back to her
native Mexico and laid to rest.

And so finally, some very long
overdue dignity is restored

to an at-rest Julia Pastrana.

[somber music continues]

- Coming up,
dogs may be man's best friend,

but could they also
be your parents?

- Of all the fantastic adventure
tales ever sold to Hollywood,

few compete with the legend
of Tarzan, king of the jungle.

They've made more than 50 of
these movies in over a century.

But is the story of
a boy raised by apes

in the jungle just fantasy?

Or is the legend of
Lord Greystoke

based on a real person?

[tense music]

- Tarzan, we have all
seen at least one.

And the reason why is that
it's a really compelling story.

It is based on Edgar Rice
Burroughs' book from 1912,

but Edgar Rice Burroughs
is never very forthcoming

about where he got this idea.

So where this concept

came from is a little bit hazy.

- [Dan] Some even accuse
him of stealing the idea

from Rudyard Kipling's
"Jungle Book,"

including Kipling himself.

- In 1959, everything
anyone thinks they know

about the Tarzan story gets
a little flipped on its head

because a journalist named
Thomas Llewellyn Jones writes an

an article for
"Man's Adventure Magazine."

- Jones claims that he's come
across a 1,500-page manuscript

that actually is the
story of the real Tarzan.

William Charles Mildin,
the 14th Earl of Streatham.

- [Dan] According to
the manuscript,

the Earl of Streatham runs away
from home at the age of 11

in search of adventures
on the high seas.

- We're told he becomes a
cabin boy on a steam ship.

Shipwrecked off the
African continent,

the earl survives, makes
it into the interior

where he is adopted
by a family of apes.

- He not only lives with them,

he is fully integrated,

having to climb through
the trees the way they do,

having to just basically
survive in a jungle.

[dramatic music]

By the time he sees
another European again,

he has a whole life for
himself in the jungle.

- And although he has
lost the power of speech,

is able to communicate with
them and they rescue him

and take him back home

where he resumes
his ancestral title.

- This tale is really
compelling and fascinating.

But the thing that continues to
divide people kind of 50-50 on

whether or not they think it's
real is that we don't know how

Edgar Rice Burroughs
allegedly got his hands

on this big honking
manuscript to write from.

- Is it true?

Well, if anything,
it speaks to our wish

to break out of the
boundaries of civilized life

and get back in touch
with our primate roots.

- Of course, Tarzan
isn't the oldest tale

of wild animal parenting.

You may have heard the legendary
story of Romulus and Remus,

twin sons of Mars, the war god.

They were abandoned near a
river and suckled by a she-wolf,

before growing up to found
the great city of Rome.

But could a child really
be raised by wolves?

Consider the curious
case of Oxana Malaya.

[tense music]

- In 1988, the police in a
Ukrainian village are called to

investigate a report
of child neglect,

and what they
discover is nothing

they could have ever imagined.

[tense music]
[dogs barking]

It appears to be a young girl

who is living with
a pack of dogs.

- When they try to
approach the girl,

the dogs take up a
defensive posture.

They snarl, they bark,

they circle around her.

They're protecting her.

[dramatic music]

- The police distract
the dogs with food

so they can try
and grab the child,

but she's running away
from them on all fours

and she doesn't talk.

She barks and snarls just
like the dogs she's been with.

- [Dan] Police learn Oxana
has been part of this pack

for five years.

- Her parents are very poor.

They have more children
than they can feed.

They both have an
alcohol problem.

When Oxana is about
three years old,

they lock her
outside in the cold.

But rather than perishing,
Oxana seeks refuge.

These scrappy dogs
which are semi-feral,

they allow the child to
cuddle with them for warmth

and she stays there.

[somber music]

- She winds up
living like the dogs.

She winds up walking like them,

communicating like them,

scratching like them,

scrounging for food scraps
which keep them all alive.

[tense music]

- The authorities do manage
to eventually collect Oxana,

but as she is being driven
away to an orphanage,

she tells the story that one of

those dogs followed
the car until it collapsed,

which probably broke her heart.

- [Dan] Sometime after
she's discovered,

a local news crew captures
shocking footage of Oxana.

- She laps up food
with her tongue,

she doesn't have
the power of speech,

and she remains a
ward of the state,

living in different
institutions and facilities

with the cognitive
intelligence of a six-year-old.

- She is diagnosed as
being a feral child,

which is something
that is extremely rare.

It is so rare, in fact,

that there are only
100 documented cases

of this condition
around the world.

- [Dan] Eventually, thanks
to years of intervention,

Oxana learns how to
speak fluent human.

- Oxana does achieve
something like a normal life.

She has regained speech.

She works gainfully at a
farm taking care of animals

whose company she attests
to enjoy more than humans.

[dramatic music]
[dog barking]

- Perhaps no world is more
full of fantastic beings

than the one created by JRR
Tolkien in "Lord of the Rings."

And the Hobbits might be
the most beloved of all.

But what if these
lovable little heroes

weren't just a legend?

[curious music]

- It is 2003

and Australian archeologists
are excavating caves

on an island called
Flores, east of Bali,

and they come upon
a strange discovery.

- A skull emerges from the soil,

so small that they initially
think it must be from a child.

To anthropologists, skulls
and bones are like roadmaps.

They contain a
lot of information

if you know how to read them.

- [Dan] As scientists
continue excavating,

they find something
even stranger.

- As more bones
emerge from the soil,

it becomes clear
that this skeleton is

from a fully-mature
individual, probably a female,

that stood only 3 1/2 feet tall

and weighed somewhere in the
neighborhood of 55 pounds.

- This is an ancient human,

but it's not like anything

they've seen before
anywhere else.

Then they find more skeletons.

About 100 fossils,
about 13 individuals,

and they're all the same size.

They're all tiny.

- [Dan] But not everything

about these ancient
humans is tiny.

- There is no sign of
disease or deformity,

though she does have
rather large feet.

She appears to be a healthy,
well-proportioned individual.

And as more and
more of these small,

large-footed skeletons
come to light,

people start calling
them Hobbits.

- [Dan] Is it possible that
Hobbits once truly existed?

- This is an unknown branch
of the human family tree

that scientists named
Homo floresiensis

after the island on which
they were discovered.

- This is an incredible find,

but what would cause
something like this to happen?

The leading theory
is island dwarfism.

- [Dan] Island dwarfism argues

that large animals,
isolated on islands,

evolve smaller bodies because
they have limited resources

and no larger predators to
defend themselves against.

- Historically, island
dwarfism can lead

to unusual permutations,

from giant rats
to tiny elephants,

and even perhaps

Hobbit-like humans.

- We may never
know all the secrets of

these ancient little humans,

but what about a man
unique in recorded history

who has been both unusually
small and a giant?

[tense music]

- It's World War I. 1917.

Adam Rainer wants
to join the troops,

and he's 18 so he can qualify.

But Adam has a small problem.

[tense music]

- [Dan] At just 4'6",
Adam's well below

the Austrian Army's minimum
requirement of 4'10".

[dramatic music]

He's rejected from service,

and doctors diagnose
him with dwarfism.

- Strangely, Adam
doesn't come from a

family with a
history of dwarfism.

His parents and relatives
are all normal height.

- But there's another
strange anomaly.

His feet are incredibly
large for his size.

He would wear the
equivalent of a size 10.

- [Dan] Three years later,

the rest of his
body starts catching up.

- Throughout his 20s,

Adam continues to grow.

By the time he's 31,

he is now over seven feet tall.

Adam goes from being an
adult dwarf to a giant,

something never seen before

in all of recorded
human history.

- But there are problems
with Rainer's growth.

[ominous music]

His facial features
are starting to deform.

He's developing aches and pains.

His spine is starting to curve.

- Ultimately, Adam
reaches a height of 7'8",

and that's even with the
painful curvature of his spine.

- [Dan] How could Adam go
from being so small to so big?

For years, doctors are stumped.

- He finally meets some surgeons

who think they have
pinpointed the cause.

They spot a benign tumor
against his pituitary gland,

and one of the jobs of
the pituitary gland is

to regulate growth.

And so they think that the
pressure from this tumor

is causing the pituitary gland
to constantly send

chemical signals to
keep Adam's body growing.

[tense music]

- Rainer decides,
rather intelligently,

that this tumor
needs to come out.

- [Dan] He undergoes a
surgery to remove the tumor

and his growing stops.

But unfortunately, the
damage done to his body

from years of rapid
growth cannot be reversed.

- Rainer passes away
at the age of 51,

having been the only
man in recorded history

to have gone from being
a dwarf to a giant.

So despite that early demise,

there's that to be said for him.

- Doctors still have never
seen another case like his.

[tense music]

- We've explored a range of
fantastic beings

with incredible stories,

but sometimes what makes
a person so remarkable

are the unbelievable
circumstances

they are able to overcome.

Take the puzzling
tale of Kaspar Hauser.

[tense music]

- In 1828 in Nuremberg, Germany,

suddenly a teenager
arrives on the scene.

He is stumbling
through the streets.

He looks a mess.

He can speak, but he
speaks like a toddler.

- The only thing that
this boy keeps repeating,

as though he's been
trained to say it,

is that, "I want to be a
horseman like my father."

- The authorities don't
know anywhere else

they can possibly take this kid,

and so he ends up in prison.

It quickly becomes apparent

that Kaspar has a lot of
really unusual characteristics.

He can only drink water,
he can only eat bread.

Any other food, he starts
to gag and spit it back out.

He is very sensitive to light.

He can handle whispers, but
anything at like a normal tone

and certainly any sudden
loud noise terrifies him.

- He begins to gain the power
of speech and communication,

and he tells the story

of having been raised
in a darkened cell.

[dramatic music]

He would fall
asleep and wake up,

and there would be rye bread
and water waiting for him.

Sometimes he would drink what
he described as bitter water

and he would sleep
particularly deeply,

during which time his nails

and his hair were
apparently trimmed.

But beyond that, he really
had no human contact.

- [Dan] The fact that Kaspar
can communicate at all

after 16 years

in complete isolation
is beyond fantastic.

It's miraculous.

- There are critical
periods of time

where certain behaviors,
certain knowledge can be gained.

And after those windows
close, it's really impossible

to gain that knowledge again.

So for Kaspar, when
he's stuck in that cell,

he never gets to learn some of
the most basic things that other

humans learn, to talk,
to even think the right way

about the world around him.

- Eventually, a schoolmaster

named Friedrich
Daumer comes forward

as someone who is willing
to take on Kaspar's case.

- Daumer actually finds Hauser
to be incredibly intelligent,

and also, surprisingly,
an accomplished artist.

[tense music continues]

- [Dan] Then things start
to take a strange turn.

- One day when Daumer
goes down to his basement,

he sees Kaspar on the ground,
bleeding from his head.

Kaspar claims he's been
attacked by a hooded man

who tells him he'll be dead

before he leaves Nuremberg.

- [Dan] Is it possible that
someone is out to kill Kaspar?

And if so, why?

- Conspiracy theories

and speculative ideas
rise up around him,

one of which is that
he is a deposed prince.

- There are some interesting
pieces of evidence that

start to build
this rumor's veracity.

So one of the
prevailing theories is

that a princess of
Baden had a child

around the same time that
Kaspar would've been born

that was maybe not
going to survive.

And so that child is
switched with another baby,

which means that there is
now a stolen royal baby

and that maybe Kaspar is
this stolen Prince of Baden.

- [Dan] But just when you think

this story can't get
any more unbelievable,

consider what happens next.

[tense music]

- One day, Kaspar is
found stabbed in a park

right in his chest.

[tense music continues]

To make matters all
the more strange,

he's clutching a
note which reads,

"I'll let Kaspar
tell you who I am."

- [Dan] Sadly, three days
later, Kaspar Hauser dies.

[dramatic music]

- Cut to 2002 when

some very enterprising
scientists get

hair from brushes
that Kaspar has used,

and they get
mitochondrial DNA samples.

And from those, they
are able to compare them

to a descendant of
the House of Baden.

- [Dan] The descendant is

Astrid von Medinger nee von
Zallinger zu Stillendorf.

That's a name much more
royal than Kaspar Hauser.

- They find a partial match.

It's not absolute,

but it is significant enough

so that they cannot rule
out a shared ancestry.

- When Kaspar is buried,
his tombstone reads,

"Here lies Kaspar Hauser,
riddle of his time."

- The full answer to
this unbelievable mystery

requires a complete DNA test

from a close House
of Baden descendant.

But so far, no one
has volunteered.

Kaspar Hauser remains an enigma.

Whether it's heroic
animals saving lives

or humans beating
the odds to survive,

there will always
be fantastic beings

who defy nature's limits

and continue to
challenge our own ideas

of what is truly unbelievable.

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