Original subtitles

- Tonight on "the proof is out there."

is the dead creature in this video an experiment gone wrong?

- [erika] what the heck is this?

- [tony] is this video of ufos

flying in formation real or fake?

- [man] holy (beep).

- [tony] and what did this pilot see

in the sky above mexico?

- [erik] that is a unidentified flying object, bro.

It's pulsating too, man; that is nuts! (laughing)

(pensive orchestral music)

- [tony] around the globe are videos--

- [erika] what the heck is this?

- [tony] photos, and sounds that defy explanation.

(low humming)

- [man] is it some kind of unidentified object?

- [man] a plane that was literally frozen in the air.

- [tony] what are they?

- [man] some sort of bizarre mutation.

- Extraordinary claims need extraordinary proof.

- I'm tony harris.

And as a journalist for more than 30 years,

I've followed the facts where they take me.

Now, I'm bringing that spirit of investigation

to the world's strangest sounds and images.

(creature squealing)

we'll analyze each one with top experts.

- It's a credible case, it's a credible video.

- [tony] and pass a verdict on what it is.

- This video was clearly faked.

- The proof starts now.

(pensive music)

hi, everyone.

Boy, have we been busy.

We've been collecting and analyzing

some very strange videos

and we're ready to issue some verdicts on what they are.

First up, a macabre discovery

that led to theories of secret experiments,

coverups, and mutant monkeys.

(eerie music)

it's a breezy February afternoon

in charleston, south carolina.

Erika constantine is walking her dog, river,

on a local beach when she sees something lying on the sand.

- Take a good look.

It appears to be the grisly remains of a strange creature,

mostly rotting bones,

what could've been legs or flippers,

razor-sharp teeth, and no eyes.

Beyond that, erika can only wonder.

I mean, what would you think?

- I was like, "holy (beep), I just found something weird."

- [tony] a theory emerges that the creature had escaped

from a facility on a nearby island.

It's called morgan island, but it has a nickname:

"monkey island."

- in the 1970s, the united states government

imported thousands of rhesus monkeys from puerto rico

and placed them onto the island.

- [tony] the monkeys were released into the wild to breed

and occasionally rounded up to be test subjects

at a us government lab,

a lab that was trying to develop cures for various diseases.

But nearby residents said there was more to it.

- Locals in the town have this belief

that the lab is the site of some pretty intense

biological weapons testing,

that the government might be engaging in genetic experiments

to mutate these monkeys.

- [tony] decades later, there are 4,000 monkeys there.

And reportedly, they display strange behavior,

like burial rituals for their dead, as if they've evolved.

A few years back, one even turned up in someone's yard

seven miles away. (monkey screeching)

- of course, when anything does wash up onshore,

you're going to have people automatically say,

"it must be from this island that the government owns

"and it's a big secret; no one's allowed to visit."

it's kind of a mysterious place.

- So, what is going on in south carolina?

Our rule here is to keep an open mind

while taking a hard, honest look at these videos.

So, we pulled in two top biologists

to analyze the footage, and this is what they turned up.

Dr. Shea conger is a marine biologist.

The first thing she did

was try to figure out if it really was a monkey.

- This animal has the skeletal structure of a primate.

There is a population of several thousand of these animals

in a nearby location on morgan island.

It's not totally implausible

that one can wash up on a beach nearby.

- [tony] conger uses something called dentition analysis,

the study of the teeth.

Look closely at the premolars and molars in back.

- [shea] you can see that there's

a triangular shape to these.

If this were a primate,

we would expect that these would be more square-shaped.

That's what leads me to deduce

that this is maybe not a primate.

- [tony] so, even thought the skeleton looks like a monkey,

the teeth say it's something else.

A seal or sea lion seems logical,

but congers says those bones mean only one thing:

Legs, not flippers.

Conger has another theory.

- [shea] this, as a whole, looks very much to me

like a small carnivorous mammal.

- [tony] that means it could be a raccoon or a coyote.

But when our other expert,

wildlife biologist lucy eckersley, focuses on the skull,

she suggests it could be something way more exotic.

- This could be something really interesting.

It could be a big cat species,

maybe something like a leopard.

- [tony] that may sound like a stretch,

but eckersley says the cheekbone might be feline

because of its flatness.

- [lucy] looking at the teeth and the zygomatics,

the cheekbones, that looks like it could be

mummified remains of a leopard

that have been swept in a weather event

and moved somewhere else down the coast.

- [tony] but what is a leopard,

a animal native to africa and asia,

doing on a beach in south carolina?

One theory: It fell off a boat.

It's happened before.

Decades ago, a giraffe reportedly drowned

in the waters near brooklyn, new york,

while trying to escape from a ship heading to a zoo.

Another possibility:

Looking at the atlantic currents,

a dead leopard may have floated up

from one of those wildlife ranches

in florida. (leopard roaring)

but after further review, eckersley agrees with conger.

Because of a pronounced snout,

it's more likely to be something like a coyote.

To know for sure, we'd need a dna test,

but erika says the remains of the creature

were destroyed by animal control.

- That's only gonna add to the conspiratorial fire, right?

People are automatically gonna go to,

"this must be a coverup."

- okay, folks, so is it proof or not?

Well, it's not a mutant monkey or a seal.

That initial take on the cheekbone

had us thinking leopard.

But our verdict: Coyote.

As they say, you never know what the tide will bring in.

- Next, we wanna show you a video that blew up social media:

A series of ufos over miami.

But we wanna know, is it real?

(pulsing industrial music)

miami, florida.

In June of 2020, a man on the balcony

of a downtown high rise

appears to capture something in the sky,

and it's jaw-dropping.

- [man] wow.

No bull(beep).

Here's the sky.

Got the sky over here, downtown, my house, my hand.

What the (beep) is that?

Ho-ly (beep).

- [tony] let's push in on that.

At first glance, I'm gonna say it looks like

a triangular craft rimmed by five lights.

But a closer look reveals there's a sixth light,

and one light is much brighter.

And then--

- [man] what is that?

What the (beep)?

- [tony] the lights fan out

like they are six different craft.

As the witness continues

his play-by-play-- - [man] ho--

- [tony] they zoom off into space at warp speed.

- [man] oh, wait, wait.

Bye.

- [tony] author and journalist alexis brooks

has written and spoken extensively about ufos.

- So, the question becomes, "could this be a ufo?"

there are a lotta people having a lot of sightings,

particularly in more recent years.

In fact, it's been known that a sighting is reported

every eight seconds globally.

- [tony] the lights remind some of another weird phenomenon.

For decades, orbs called the hessdalen lights

have been seen over norway, sometimes hovering,

sometimes shooting off at speeds

estimated at 20,000 miles per hour.

Always silent, the hessdalen lights have been known

to sterilize soil near where they are sighted.

Explanations include ufos

or an anomaly caused by gases released from the earth.

Yet the miami footage is more orderly;

really, like ufos flying in formation.

It quickly goes viral.

- [man] what is that?

Ho...

Oh, wait, wait.

Bye.

(laughing) holy (beep), it's incredible.

Wow.

- So, what accounts for the strange lights?

We have two video experts ready to weigh in.

(soft electronic music)

forensic video analyst michael primeau

examines video evidence for court cases.

And he doesn't just focus on what we're seeing

but also on what we're hearing.

- When we investigate these types of recordings,

we detect that there is a human reaction time,

where the brain needs to essentially catch up.

And in this particular case,

we don't see any kind of reaction time

to a unnatural phenomenon such as this.

- [man] downtown, my house, my hand.

- It's almost as if the operator

knows exactly what's gonna happen.

When it happens, he's reacting almost perfectly.

There is no reaction time.

- [man] oh, wait, wait.

Bye.

- Then he instantly says, "okay, bye,"

and then he pans away from it.

It's very strange.

I would expect that an operator

doesn't simply move away after they see something like that.

They stay focused on it.

- [tony] marc d'antonio, another video analyst

with a degree in astronomy, pointed out something else.

Look at how the ufos move compared to the background

when the camera shakes.

- As we step through this frame by frame,

the clouds move and the object doesn't move with the clouds.

The object, frame by frame, is changing position,

while the clouds are more gently moving in one direction.

This is evidence of bad tracking, it's called,

and it's a process by which you put fake things

into real footage to make it look real.

- [tony] and the biggest red flag of all:

How could a cluster of ufos appear over downtown miami

and only one guy notice?

- Where are the other witnesses?

We had one.

- Oh (beep)!

- The man who says he made the video

declined our request for an interview.

Turns out, you can overlay orbs on video

with a simple smartphone app.

Our verdict is hoax, one that muddies the water

for people really trying to study ufos.

We'll call them out when we see them.

Es a serious look.

It comes to us from a pilot with nearly 30 years

of commercial and military experience.

He knows what should

and shouldn't be flying around up there.

And what he caught on camera can't be dismissed.

March 19th, 2020.

We're in the skies over monterrey, mexico,

on a cargo plane headed to memphis, tennessee.

About an hour into the flight,

while captain erik delgado is enjoying his dinner,

something catches his eye.

He pulls out his device and records this.

(dramatic music)

- [man] oh man, that is phenomenal!

- [eric] dude, I'm so glad you saw that!

And you saw it drop outta the sky and just--

- and just stop?

- [erik] (laughing) this is awesome, man!

And it's pulsating too, man, that is nuts!

- [tony] captain delgado says this thing

dropped straight down from above

and hit his plane with some kind of spotlight.

- It looked like a lighthouse

in some thin fog as it's turning,

so that really got my heart going.

- [tony] no doubt, a ufo shining a light on your plane

would be a terrifying moment.

- I thought it coulda been a safety issue

because initially this thing is turning into us,

and then it decided to park itself off our left wingtip.

- [tony] the glowing orb maintains its position,

pacing the plane.

Delgado says it stayed there for 25 minutes

before darting off at a sharp angle.

- At that point, the fear was gone

and then it was just, I was flabbergasted.

It was just wonderment, I guess.

- [tony] and there's more.

This is the part of mexico where delgado saw the ufo.

It's a short flight from central mexico's zone of silence,

a weird place that locals say blocks radio transmissions

and where ufos have been seen for centuries.

And check out this video:

Similar objects recorded by the mexican air force in 2004.

(speaking spanish)

(speaking spanish)

- I guess, now I can definitively say

we are not alone.

- So, what's the story down in mexico?

We passed captain delgado's video on

to some top aviation and video analysts,

and you need to hear what they have to say.

We turn back to marc d'antonio,

who has spent 15 years doing image and video analysis.

He first wanted to check

if this orb could actually be the planet venus,

which is sometimes mistaken for a ufo.

- Number one, venus doesn't move around in the sky

like they saw it.

And this object shown a light

inside the cockpit of the aircraft.

Planets don't have spotlights on 'em.

- [tony] so, could it have been a meteor

or a piece of space junk?

Fun fact: There are about 130 million

pieces of junk in our orbit.

But look at how this meteor leaves a long tail

and only for a few seconds.

That's not what this thing does.

Aviation expert tim mcmillan.

- Meteors fly into the atmosphere

at a speed of 25,000 or more.

You don't have something

that's following you for 30 minutes,

so we can scratch that off the list.

That's not gonna be a good explanation.

- [tony] mcmillan is equally convinced

this was not another plane.

- If you'd had another plane

that was flying in the vicinity,

it would be operating the lights that are on either wing,

so your green and red lights.

Anybody who's looked up in the sky has seen those blinking.

And so, you don't see anything else but that.

- Now, at 576 miles an hour, we can also rule out drones

'cause there is no drone that I know of

that goes 576 miles an hour at 37,000 feet.

- [tony] and of course,

other aircraft are supposed to show up on radar.

But look at what happens

when delgado pans to the cockpit monitors.

- It may be the most inexplicable part

of this whole incident.

The orb never appears

on delgado's collision avoidance system

or air traffic control's radar.

- You would see, if there was another aircraft

in the vicinity where they're looking,

which is in this region, you'd see a plane on this.

So, we don't see that,

and so there's definitely not another aircraft.

- You now have a case that's really truly mysterious.

This looks like there's mystery here.

- That was a ufo.

You can look at the footage, form your own opinions.

I'm not the story.

The footage is the story.

- So, america, time for the answer.

Is it proof or not?

Well, it's not a planet, there are no wings,

and delgado said it followed him.

Now, we didn't see any evidence

of the spotlight he described, but our verdict?

A ufo,

which is technically any unidentified flying object.

- Our final video is from a major news event.

But while the story is recent,

the image suggests something truly ancient.

It's a sunny summer day in beirut, lebanon.

A stash of fireworks accidentally ignites,

and then this.

(explosion booming)

what you've just seen is an explosion

at a warehouse containing 2,700 tons

of highly-combustible ammonium nitrate

caused by those fireworks.

The massive explosion can be heard for a hundred miles

and makes headlines around the world.

(car alarms honking)

but it's what happened next that caught our attention.

A photographer snaps a photo of the smoke.

- [woman] oh my god.

Oh my god.

(beep)

(photo shutter snapping)

- [tony] as we get closer, we see what many people describe

as two eyes, a gaping mouth, and a tail.

It looks like a leering demonic face.

We returned to alexis brooks, who covers the unexplained,

and asked her to research

eyewitness accounts of the event.

- A number of individuals

representing a variety of age groups

but all living in the area all saw the image

and all felt inherently that this image

represented an evil that they feel is around them.

- Natural phenomenon or not,

this isn't the first time people have reported

evil faces near catastrophic events.

In 2020, a devil-like face was reported

in the wildfires raging across australia.

There was this demonic face in the smoke

above the notre dame cathedral fire.

But perhaps the most haunting was this face.

I don't have to tell you the date or the place.

(eerie music)

so, the question becomes,

"how unusual are these demon cloud formations?"

is there a scientific explanation

or are other forces at work?

Our experts,

renowned theoretical physicist dr. Michio kaku

and atmospheric scientists dr. Deanna hence,

have been digging into this mystery.

- Anytime you have a plume of extremely hot air

moving up in the atmosphere,

you can end up with these pockets

where there is no smoke or where there is smoke,

and that can lead to all sorts of funny shapes.

- [tony] according to hence,

the holes that look like eyes and a mouth

can be explained by the motion of heated gases

from the explosion.

Dr. Kaku says that after seeing shapes

similar to eyes and a mouth, our brains do the rest.

- When I see these fantastic images that

look like something spectacular in clouds,

I realize that this is probably something called pareidolia.

- [tony] pareidolia is the tendency

for your mind to see a face or other familiar shapes

in a random or unrelated object.

- We see it because our brain is hardwired

for seeking patterns.

It seeks out patterns, even where there's not patterns.

It was good for our evolution

because nine times outta 10 there was nothing there.

But one time outta 10,

there really was a tiger hiding in the bushes,

and it saved your life.

- Okay.

So, we've heard from our experts,

and they say the face in beirut

was made by the gases in the explosion.

The verdict: This is a natural phenomenon.

But there are certainly plenty of true believers out there

who feel these images are proof of evil forces at work.

And that's our show for tonight.

We wanna hear from you about these videos,

what you think of them,

and which ones you think we should feature next,

so drop us a line.

I'm tony harris,

reminding you to keep those cameras rolling.

(pensive music)