We know that the legendary Bigfoot
is indigenous to the Pacific Northwest.
But it is far
from the only enigmatic hominid
said to walk the Earth.
Australia's yowie
are also described as a hairy ape-like creature,
A team of researchers there say
they recently shot some high-tech footage
that proves it really exists.
[host]
Queensland-based yowie researcher
Dean Harrison and his team are testing out infrared cameras
at Springbrook National Park.
They picked this spot
because they believed they've seen traces
of yowie activity among the brush.
And, that night, they captured this mysterious footage.
[dramatic music]
The thermal imagery seems to show a solitary figure
hiding behind or even hugging a large tree trunk.
[Harrison]
They hug a tree, pretend they are part of a tree
because of the human in the area.
They just blend. So, you see him
just putting his head in.
[host]
Now, it looks like there's a couple.
[Harrison]
and one is bending to pick up something.
[host]
what looks like one of the creatures' heads.
It looks cone-shaped.
The figures are large with wide shoulders
and ape-like proportions.
Field researcher Cliff Barackman,
who has been to Australia to study the yowie,
says the footage aligns with descriptions
from indigenous peoples going back centuries.
[Barackman]
have drawing on the walls of caves
depicting these things.
They're prevalent
in their storytelling traditions as well.
But then, the settlers came in the late 1700s
and they too started running into yowies.
Which is another very strong indicator
that they are a real biological animal.
Now, Bigfoot-like creatures
are part of folklore the world over.
Nepal has the yeti.
Mongolia has the alma.
And one theory is that they are all descended
from a single Asian ancestor,
some of whom made it to Australia
while others crossed the Bering Land Bridge,
came to North America, and evolved into Bigfoot.
If this video is real,
it could help prove that theory.
But that's a big "if".
[Primeau] There's some sort of...
subject, creature, person,
if you will. It's something that's...
emitting a heat signature.
And, as we go through different FLIR filter arrays,
this object's movement is...
consistent. There is something happening in here
that's moving around.
[host]
Now, the head comes into better view.
It appears to have a pronounced sagittal crest,
a ridge of bone along the top of the cranium.
It's similar to what's seen
in the skulls of the early hominid
Australopithecus, which some believe
to be the common ancestor of Bigfoot,
yowie, and other similar creatures.
But Primeau is cautious.
Although we have not found any evidence
to support that the recording was fabricated,
we have no idea what is being depicted here.
[host]
analyzes the anatomy of the figures.
What we can see clearly at one point
is that there are two animals pictured.
It also looks like it's a bipedal animal,
which means it walks on two legs.
[host]
But here is a key fact.
There are no known primates native to Australia.
In fact, the only bipedal animals are
the cassowary and the kangaroo, which look nothing like this.
So, how do we explain the heat signatures
and those head shapes?
Furman thinks she may have the answer.
People wearing headlamps.
That would explain why the heads
have a slightly strange shape.
[host]
were either misidentified
or they're participants in an elaborate hoax.
Maybe Australia's version of the Patterson-Gimlin film,
if that was a hoax too.
But anthropologist Kathy Strain
says that, in this case, size does matter.
The research team went back to the spot in daylight
and measured the tree matching the thermal footage
as best they could to get a sense
of the size of the figures in the infrared video.
[Strain]
The possibility of them being human
is highly unlikely.
I came to the conclusion that what this video shows
are two real yowies.
I think it is one of the most significant films taken
in at least 50 years.
[dramatic music]
So, yes!
There's a possibility that this is a hoax.
But, based on Professor Strain's estimate
of the creatures' height,
we're going to say these are possible yowies.
[host]
Amarillo, Texas.
It's around 1:25 am, and the zoo's security cameras
are keeping their sleepless eyes
on its animals,
when they capture this.
A strange figure just outside the zoo's perimeter
lurks in the darkness.
As we push in,
the figure appears to be
standing in two legs
just on the other side
of the fence, looking inside.
Shocked by the size of the creature
and its rather wolf-like head,
the Amarillo Zoo has begun asking the general public
for help figuring out what this UAO,
unidentified Amarillo object, could be.
Take another look.
This bipedal creature is quite puzzling.
The image goes viral,
with thousands of people viewing it.
Now, let's take a closer look at this image.
A lot of folks have said
they can discern fur
on this thing's arms,
and pointed ears on its head.
On the other hand, some people
say it's standing like a human
and it looks like it's wearing pants.
And they see this
as a jacket.
As for me...
I have no idea.
[host]
cites the figure's resemblance
to an infamous creature from folklore.
[Gerhard]
it could in fact be a chupacabra,
a famous creature that has been talked about
throughout Latin American culture
since the 1990s,
and is a blood-sucking type of creature.
The name chupacabra actually means "goat sucker"
because it's been alleged
that these creatures will drink the blood
of goats and other small farm animals.
I've examined the remains of several creatures
that have been called chupacabras.
And all of those animals displayed very
dog-like features.
Pointy ears, long snouts,
strange skin,
long fangs,
other physical abnormalities.
[tense music]
During a two-month period in 2010,
more than 300 goats were slaughtered in rural Mexico.
Ranchers believed these deaths
resulted from a chupacabra stalking their livestock.
So, could this image be a chupacabra
stalking the zoo?
Our experts investigate.
[host]
begins by estimating the size of the creature.
To me
twelve feet high
and the animal looks like it's maybe
six feet behind the fence
which would make it smaller.
It appears to be about half the height of the fence.
This may be about seven and a half feet tall.
[host]
than the alleged size of a chupacabra.
And there's another issue.
The chupacabra is allegedly
a quadrupedal or four-legged animal,
but this appears to be bipedal rather than quadrupedal.
Bipedal means it's walking on two legs.
[host]
examines the creature's hair.
[Schuttler]
as being more hairless, with gray and scaly skin.
In this image, it seems to be
more shaggy. It seems to have long hair, especially on top,
so, it doesn't fit the description.
[host]
have been reported, Schuttler says the proof
has yet to be discovered.
Any evidence of animals
that were thought to be chupacabras,
it always ended up being
a canid species, like a coyote,
dog, or fox with mange.
[host]
that lives in the hair follicles of canines.
To rid themselves of the parasites,
canines will scratch their fur and skin until it falls off.
But the biggest red flag of all,
why the zoo only released
one image of such a startling discovery.
Camera traps,
when they're triggered,
they usually take multiple photos.
So, I would love to see the photos before and after.
There's rarely a singular photo of an animal
when the cameras are triggered.
I suspect this was a publicity stunt
by the Amarillo Zoo.
If they really wanted to figure out what this animal was,
there would definitely be more photos of it.
Now, hold on a second.
If this is a hoax,
then the zoo has been keeping up the deception for months.
Our verdict?
Unidentified creature.
A Seattle-based company
specializing in wireless cameras
donated 80 color night-vision cameras
to the Amarillo Zoo after this image went viral.
So, should this creature reappear,
there should be plenty of proof to determine what it is.
[host]
A local fishing guide
is going about a normal day in his lodge
when he spies something strange out of his window.
[dog barks]
Something dark and hairy
is huddled on the ground amongst the trees.
At first, it looks like a small bear,
and, then, it stands and nearly triples in height.
It's a huge wolf!
We only understand its scale when it lunges
at the regular-size dog who is defensively barking.
The animals quarrel
until the man goes to intervene.
-[man] Hey! Hey! -[host]
[tense music]
[barking]
This large shape suddenly...
becomes animated and springs up
and charges at the dog
and, much to my shock and horror,
it appears to be a wolf of...
mind-boggling proportions.
It's truly monstrous.
[host]
of the giant wolf's prominent stature in folklore.
[Ken]
of monstrous, blood-thirsty wolves.
In France, we have the Beast of Gevaudan.
In Alaska, there's something known as the Amarok
or demon wolf.
Nearby, in the Nahanni Valley of Canada,
we have something known as the Waheela.
The Nahanni Valley is also known as the Headless Valley
because the decapitated bodies of prospectors
and trappers have been found there
and have been linked to the legend
of this giant wolf-like Waheela.
So, we have these...
long enduring traditions of giant wolves,
and we have to wonder
if there might be a grain of truth to this legend.
[host]
that this wolf might be more familiar than we think.
A creature not from the realm of legend,
but from our own prehistory.
[Ken]
canis lupus,
two hundred pounds.
But if we go back over 10,000 years ago,
to the Pleistocene Epoch,
there were these monstrous bone-crashing wolves
known as dire wolves,
canis dirus.
A relic population of dire wolves
may have survived as recently as 4,000 years ago
in Arkansas's Ozarks.
We could be dealing with
a dire wolf genetic code that's been locked into modern wolves
and is now resurfacing in this remarkable individual.
[tense music]
An interesting note
about that French beast of Gevaudan.
Though that monster wolf lived on and kept killing
after being driven off by a young boy,
that kid was rewarded for his bravery.
King Louis XV paid for his education.
Now, let's get the educated opinion
on this specimen.
[host]
Some sort of mutation?
There is a phenomenon called an atavism,
where a creature has traits from its ancestors
preserved in its genes.
However, it's unlikely in this case,
as atavisms aren't likely to manifest
in the form of a canine size.
An extra toe is more likely.
Then, what's going on here?
Wildlife biologist Stephanie Schuttler
isn't crying wolf. She's crying hoax.
To me, it didn't look like the dog was in danger.
That was really suspicious,
so that's what makes me think that it was CGI.
[host]
we call in Michael Primeau,
our forensic video analyst.
It's my conclusion that...
there's no additional information
that was introduced into these recordings.
That would be...
similar to something that was CGI'd
or manufactured.
[host]
biologist Floyd Hayes discusses
the creature's resemblance to the dire wolf.
[Hayes]
a little bit larger than a wolf
with a larger head
and smaller feet.
[host]
shorter, stockier legs to keep them warmer
during the cold winter months.
The wolf we see here is proportioned
much more similarly to our modern-day canine.
So, with all other possibilities unlikely,
Hayes says it's just a gray wolf.
But there's a surprise.
He did a size calculation
and found this specimen to be
one of the largest wolves ever documented.
Hayes says the dog looks like a type of husky,
which tend to grow a little over two feet tall
and around 60 pounds.
And the wolf looks about one and a half times larger
than the dog here.
Hayes guesses this wolf is about three feet tall
and 6.5 feet from end to end.
That's longer than most men are tall.
And what's more, it's nearly a record.
Compared to the largest wolf ever recorded,
Hayes thinks this is only half an inch shorter.
So, this wolf is truly a gargantuan.
Incredible.
Our verdict?
An actual wolf
who just happens to be quite large for his species.
This is not a supernatural creature,
but he is an outlier.
How he got that big is still a mystery.
But we know he's a loner
who probably branched off to form his own pack.
[host]
October 2021.
Johan Hui Bapju receives a disturbing phone call
from his mother regarding her chicken coop.
He offers to take a look,
but nothing could prepare him
for what he found.
-[dramatic music] -[unintelligible]
Oh, boy.
Their tail is really tangled.
[host]
Let's take another look.
What looks like a heap of black rats
is actually a heap of black rats
with their tails hopelessly entangled together.
There are 13 rats in this bundle
bound together for life.
[McCarthy]
looks like it has...
passed on to the next world.
And maybe that's for the best.
I wouldn't wanna be tied to...
a bunch of my brothers and sisters either.
[host]
a knot of rats like this has been discovered?
It's even got a name.
The Rat King.
The term Rat King is
thought to originate
from German.
It's a number of rats
whose tails have become
entangled so that they are
basically like a rodent super organism.
An older wiser rat
would sit atop a pile of younger rats
and they would serve all of his needs.
Unfortunately for Rat Kings,
they are considered to be
bad omens.
It's thought that they warn of the plague.
They're also associated with witchcraft.
[host]
were Rat Kings were found,
they were usually drowned in a well
or dumped in boiling water
before being brought to the local school teacher
to study them.
Because of their supernatural associations
and the rarity of their occurrences,
there's debate as to whether or not Rat Kings
are cruel man-made hoaxes.
[McCarthy]
of fabricating creatures for profit.
Think about P. T. Barnum's Fiji Mermaid,
George Hull's Cardiff Giant.
Back in the day,
people would take lizards and glue bat wings on them
and say, "Here, buy a dragon."
Or they'd stick a narwhal horn on a horse and say,
"This is a unicorn."
So, a hoax is definitely
not outside the realm of possibility.
Knots are complicated.
There's a whole area of mathematics
called Knot Theory
dedicated to studying these things in the abstract.
And the knots of the Rat King tails are complex too.
Scientist have attempted to recreate them
and they quickly discovered it was a lot harder than expected.
The knots they made looked too neat and intentional.
And those rats were dead.
Let's turn to our experts to see what they think
about this whole thing.
[suspenseful music]
[host]
to find out, is this real?
And, if so, how the heck does something like this happen?
One possibility is that it was faked
and somebody actually stuck the tails together.
But it could also be a natural phenomenon
and I think that's most likely in this case.
It's been suggested that perhaps they are stuck together
from birth, but that seems very unlikely
because these are fairly well grown
and they would likely starve to death
if they were stuck together for a few weeks.
[host]
to become parts of a Rat King,
how do they form?
[Hayes]
when the tails are stuck together.
This usually happens in black rats, which have
unusually long tails
compared to other species of rats.
And it happens mostly in cold countries
during the winter months.
And it is believed that their tails
are frozen together overnight
when they're huddling together for warmth
by water or urine
or sperm or food.
[host]
when we do some research of our own, we find
that temperatures in this area of Estonia
only had a low of 36 degrees Fahrenheit
the night before this Rat King was found.
Not cold enough to freeze.
And what's more, rats, contrary to their reputation,
groom themselves nearly as much as cats.
The idea that they could get stuck together
with dirt and grime seems unlikely.
So, we turn to wildlife biologist Stephanie Schuttler.
She says the Rat King legend carries a grain of truth.
Rats can be carriers of diseases
and parasites,
so, the fact that people thought Rat Kings
were bad omens
or carriers or signals of plague,
it's not that unreasonable of a leap.
[host]
but the COVID-19 epidemic was still ravaging Europe
when this video was shot.
And Schuttler says
there's another question gnawing at her.
Why do these rats lie down and accept their fates?
Why don't they fight back?
[Schuttler]
stuck or trying to escape from something,
they can do things like...
chew their own appendage off.
Like, this has happened
in leg traps
with animals like coyotes or wolves.
Why aren't these rats
chewing their own tails off to get away?
Our verdict?
It seems like Rat Kings form naturally,
but what we don't know is the why of it all.
Why aren't there more Rat Kings?
And why don't these rats make more of an effort
to escape?
It remains an unexplained mystery.