Original subtitles

Tonight on the "Proof is Out There"...

Is a UFO swimming over Colorado?

What the are those?

Is a poltergeist destroying this office?

To the layperson, this video

is the pinpoint definition of paranormal activity.

Did this elephant learn to talk?

Jo-ah.

Jo-ah.

And you know about the rings of Saturn,

but can you solve the mystery of its hexagon?

Around the globe are videos...

What are those things?

It's moving.

Photos and sounds that defy explanation.

We don't know where they come from,

who made them or how they operate.

What are they?

Some sort of bizarre mutation.

What's exciting is nobody really knows.

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.

We'll analyze each one with top experts.

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

And pass the verdict on what it is.

This video is clearly fake.

The proof, starts now.

Good evening and welcome to the "Proof is Out There".

Although famous for its natural beauty,

Colorado Springs is also known

for its numerous military bases

like the United States Air Force Academy

and its large number of UFO sightings,

as our next video will show you.

If you want to see something truly unique

while visiting the area, I suggest you look up.

August 29th, 2021, Colorado Springs, Colorado,

Josh Stoner is driving when he spots this in the sky.

That's in the sky right now, everybody.

Two mysterious, somewhat menacing objects

hover in the distance.

They begin undulating about, independent from one another.

In the footage you can hear Josh's utter confusion

and we understand why.

What the are those?

Field researcher Ken Gerhard says,

"These airborne objects move more like something

you'd see deep in the ocean."

Whoa, that's crazy!

Both of them look like they're alive.

It's displaying some tentacles or limbs or something.

It actually looks like some type of octopus or squid.

Tentacled creatures from outer space

are a common theme in the horror fiction

of writers like H.P. Lovecraft.

Could it be possible that we are looking

at real evidence of interstellar visitors from beyond?

There are actually many reports

of what researchers view to be UFOs that are alive.

Unidentified flying objects that either look like

giant disc-shaped objects made out of flesh

or in some cases octopus, squid or jellyfish type of animals

that are floating through the air.

Celebrated US astronaut Leland Melvin,

who has clocked over 560 hours in space,

believes he saw a translucent, curved, organic-looking thing

hovering around the payload bay doors

during his time on the space shuttle Atlantis in 2009.

It's a fascinating theory,

but we'd be remiss not to point out the unique area below,

which is dotted with military installations

and air force bases.

Could these sites be related

to the strange events in the clouds above?

In 2019, the military demonstrated

a new type of drone technology.

Consisting of micro drones,

the drones are a collective organism utilizing one brain

for decision making and these micro drones

actually adapt to each other and interact like a swarm

or a hive of individual units.

It was recently reported that the US

is developing swarm technology that could be used

to thwart a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan.

If the objective behind this micro drone technology

is to confuse the enemy,

then what a better alignment than the shape

of a giant octopus or squid flying through the air

with flowing tentacles.

Scarily enough, it's not just the military

that's using advanced drone technology.

Several years ago a drone carrying

six pounds of methamphetamines

crashed on the US Mexican border.

Local authorities said this was hardly

the first time this had happened.

To find out more about what's in the skies overhead,

we turned to our experts.

First things first,

we checked in with video authenticator Michael Primeau,

to test the legitimacy of this video.

Using some scientific methodology,

we can confirm that these objects are in the air

and are traveling throughout the air

and were being photographed that way

based on the natural movements

of the camera at that distance.

So it's real, but what is it?

Astronomer and video analyst, Marc D'Antonio

is doubtful that this is some living UFO.

The problem that I have with that theory

is that you can see that in some cases

those tentacles separate from the object and come back.

If we zoom into the video,

we can see that this may not actually

be a solid singular, structure.

You would expect the alien entity to be cohesive

and that tells me that these are separate objects

all working in unison with each other.

So are they tiny drones in a drone swarm?

D'Antonio says, "Not so fast."

So with a military drone technology,

one of the things you would probably expect

is that you'll have one leader and the others will follow.

But in this particular case,

we're watching the leader change every split second.

It's changing all the time.

You would expect that there would be one cohesive leader

with the rest following in a formation.

This is too random.

But, before we admit that we're stumped,

D'Antonio thinks he knows exactly what this is.

We know, in nature,

that this is something we've seen before.

A starling is a small bird.

In this particular case

we have hundreds and hundreds of them.

They're safe moving in a flock.

One becomes a leader, one second,

another becomes a leader, another second.

While it still remains somewhat of a mystery,

scientists theorize that starling's move like this

in order to confuse airborne predators

like the peregrine falcon.

That is something that looks like this octopus in the sky

to people who may not know what this is.

And it does look very strange,

but that's what we're seeing here,

a murmuration of starlings.

Our verdict...

A murmuration of starlings.

This creature looks so otherworldly

because it isn't just one creature, it's many.

It wasn't micro drones this time,

but given the Space Force Installation

in Colorado Springs,

we're going to keep our eyes on the skies.

We're currently living in the Second Golden Age of UFOs,

which obviously means there was a First Golden Age.

It happened in the 1940s and '50s

and one of the most compelling pieces of evidence

was a photo of a flying saucer

that fascinated and perplexed researchers for decades.

But was it a UFO or not?

It's around 7:30 PM on May 11th, 1950

in McMinnville, Oregon.

Evelyn Trent goes out to feed her animals

behind the farmhouse she and her husband Paul live in.

While attending to her chores,

she is astonished by what she sees in the sky.

She runs towards the house, yelling for Paul

to grab their trusty folding camera.

They manage to snap two photographs.

Both photos show a large metallic-looking

disc-shaped object hovering in the sky.

In one shot, power lines can clearly be seen

above and below the object.

In another shot, the UFO appears to be trapezoidal in shape

with what looks like an antenna or beacon.

Journalist Erin McCarthy says,

the Trent photos soon become iconic.

The 1950s were considered the Golden Age of UFOs

for a couple of reasons.

In June, 1947, we have Kenneth Arnold, a pilot,

seeing some really strange UFOs over Mount Rainier

and the media coverage of that

gave us the term 'flying saucer'.

In July of 1947, we have the crash at Roswell,

which really kicked UFO mania into high gear

in the United States.

Then in 1948, a veteran combat pilot,

George Gorman reports an altercation

with a speeding, glowing orb from the cockpit

of his P-51 Mustang over Fargo, North Dakota.

By 1950, the floodgates were open.

So in the midst of all of these things,

you have the Trent case.

The Trent photos were first published in 1950.

They went on to be circulated and scrutinized

in newspapers across the country for more than two decades.

But in 1976 they'd received

their most exhaustive analysis yet

when Bruce Maccabee, an optical physicist for the US Navy,

conducted his own examination of the negatives.

Bruce Maccabee determined that they were not tampered with

in any way, and he also determined

that the line of sight for the two photos

converged behind the power lines,

which in his opinion meant that the object was genuine.

The story of what happened to the original negatives

is its own controversy.

For some reason, Bruce Maccabee held onto them for 25 years.

The family thought they'd been lost.

A newspaper later claimed ownership,

which prompted an ugly legal battle between the paper

and the family over this incredible piece of UFO history.

You can only imagine what the UFO community

makes of all of this.

Let's see if our experts can shed any new light

on this age old mystery.

First off, we take the photographs

to astrophotography expert, Andrew McCarthy.

He has his doubts about the authenticity of the images.

There's a few ways you can produce

this type of effect in camera,

throw a hubcap like a Frisbee.

But I think that would produce motion blur

that would be very evident in the photos.

There is another way it could be done, however.

You could simply tie an object to the power lines

and have it dangle there.

Using nylon string, it might not be visible

and it would look like the object

was floating some distance away.

I think the most likely answer here

is there was some small object that resembled a craft

that was hung from the power lines in this photo.

But what would the family have to gain

by staging such an elaborate hoax?

Rich Hoffman, the Head of the Scientific Coalition

for UAP Studies, points out that the Trents

never seemed to exploit their photos for financial gain.

There was no intent on trying to make money

or selling a story.

In fact, their belief was that what they were seeing

was something that might have been from the US government

and they were questioning whether

they should even talk about it at all.

Hoffman acknowledges that our military,

as well as others,

was experimenting with various exotic

flight technologies at the time, including V-toll vehicles,

which stands for Vertical Takeoff and Landing Aircraft.

You have the Avro disc that was created

to build like a flying saucer, kind of, platform,

which had a jet engine that was pointing down

with a large blade and it helped to lift the object up.

Hoffman also points out

that one examiner's careful scrutiny of the lines of sight

and the relative position of the power lines in each photo

eliminates the wire dangling theory.

Dr. Bruce Maccabee said,

"If I stood in this spot and I took this photo..."

and he drew a line to where that line of sight would be.

And then he moves over to the next spot

where the object is now seen

in a different position when it's tilted up,

where the lines would converge at

would be beyond the telephone wires,

which then indicates that it was not connected

to the telephone lines.

Maccabee's analysis proves the two lines of sight

don't converge directly under the wires,

which is what we'd expect in the case of a hanging model.

So I completely rule out that it's a hoax

or anything contrived and I go with this being a UFO.

Our verdict...

We're calling this a genuine UFO, at least for now.

The hard math in Hoffman and Maccabee's

line of sight analysis seems to blow up

McCarthy's power line theory and a lack of motion blur

contradicts any thrown disc theory.

The debate proves one thing,

while the photos can't be confirmed,

they are also quite hard to debunk.

We can sometimes be here late investigating stories,

but once we're done, we lock up and the next day

everything is right where we left it.

But we can't say the same for the office

we're about to show you.

We're in Porto, Portugal around 2017.

It's late at night in the basement office

of a completely empty advertising agency.

But tonight someone or something is still here

doing a different kind of business.

Look, security camera footage shows a flickering desk lamp

through the doorway of a dark room.

Suddenly the room becomes illuminated.

Then out of nowhere, bam!

Seconds later, a set of desk drawers goes crazy.

Then the eerie flickering lamp resumes.

Journalist Alexis Brooks says at first glance,

this looks like the work of a poltergeist.

Poltergeist is a German word

that means noisy ghost or noisy spirit.

Most people became familiar

with this supernatural being

from the 1982 horror film of the same name.

A classic poltergeist situation,

you will see doors slamming open and close,

lights going on and off,

all of which we saw in this footage.

According to legend,

poltergeists can be powerful enough

to throw people across rooms and leave visible bite marks.

Brooks says the energy of the environment

might bring them about.

It's been said that poltergeist activity

can actually be produced by extreme emotional effects

from a living human being.

Could there have been some bad juju going on?

Local legend offers a theory

that could be the key to this mystery.

Not far from the office was a convent

that was home to the last surviving nun

from the disbanded order of the Sao Bento de Ave Maria.

It was destroyed to build a train station

after her death in the late 1800s

and it said the nun still seeks revenge

against those who brought about her order's extinction.

The question is, is this nun angry

about the demolition of the convent?

In certain cultures,

the vengeful ghosts are said to be female.

So wouldn't it be any surprise that this nun

roams these halls to this day.

The convent of Sao Bento de Ave Maria

was struggling long before the final nun died

and the order was forced to sell

its prized silver in the public square.

So could the ghost of that angry last nun

actually be creating all of this chaos?

Let's see if our experts can find

the cause of this creepiness.

First, physicist Matthew Szydagis analyzes

if this could have been seismic activity.

Porto was a few hundred miles north of the Gloria Fault,

which has triggered several large quakes

along the Eurasia Africa plate boundary.

In the year that this video was allegedly taken, 2017,

we don't really have records of any major earthquakes,

at least in Portugal.

Moreover, some of the effects we're seeing

such as the drawers popping out of the desk right here,

seem a bit too localized

in order to explain this as a tremor.

Another theory is Porto's coastal tides.

In this area there are underground springs

which could explain not only

what we're seeing in this video,

but poltergeist activity claims in general.

In other words,

the fast moving underground water

could cause a building's foundation walls

and furnishings to shake and shift.

But after reviewing the video a few times,

Szydagis concludes another explanation is more likely.

He notices that the video is telling too perfect a story.

In this video we have a beginning

and an end that refer to each other.

We've got the flashing lights

and then at the end we have that in reverse.

That makes for a beautiful visual story

and that's a hint to me

that this is a well choreographed fake video.

What's more science writer Mick West

can demonstrate how this supernatural activity

would be easy to reproduce manually with everyday tools.

What I would use for that is just simple fishing line.

If you're in just regular office lighting

and you're in a relatively low resolution video

like you have here, you wouldn't be able to see it.

And this can pull quite a lot.

I could quite easily pull this drawer open

just using some, kind of, fishing line like I have here.

Another curious detail.

The person who gave us this video

declined our request for an on-camera interview.

So since we couldn't get the person who filmed this clip

to admit to staging the action,

we may never know the full story,

but our verdict is it's likely a hoax.

Our experts say it looks almost too perfect not to be.

That said, if you ever find yourself in Porto,

head to the Sao Bento Station and you may just

catch a glimpse of the ghost of the last nun.

We've brought you a number of stories over the years

about strange things that have washed up on shore.

they often turn out to be sea creatures.

But this latest beached object is something else entirely

and it may have a more nefarious purpose.

It's February, 2023 in the coastal city

of Hamamatsu, Japan.

Local resident Eihan Katsura has made his way to Enshu Beach

to document an unusual object that's washed up on the shore.

Eihan's photos and videos reveal

a large, spherical object embedded in the sand.

It's almost five feet in diameter,

made of metal with a light orange hue

and darker patches of rust.

On the upper right side is a small, protruding eyelet hook.

Officials surround the sphere

wearing protective helmets and masks.

Eihan says he just can't fathom how it ended up there.

Journalist MJ Banias explains

that given the location,

some wonder if it's an explosive device

sent by a nearby geopolitical foe.

A month after this orb washed up on the beach

in Hamamatsu City, the North Koreans publicly came out

and said that they were testing

underwater nuclear armed drones.

And then we found this.

In 2016, images were released showing North Korean leader,

Kim Jong Un standing next to a purported

miniaturized nuclear warhead that looks surprisingly

like this washed up object, if just a little bit smaller.

Yet, North Korea is not the only regional power

Japan is at odds with.

China has an interest in territorial expansion

and Japan is its closest neighbor.

So this could be some sort of surveillance device

used by the Chinese to monitor underwater traffic

or communications cables.

So, maybe this is a giant spy tool.

During the Cold War, the US Navy used vehicles,

similar in shape to this one,

to help eavesdrop on the Soviets.

In what was known as Operation Ivy Bells,

they wrapped a recording device around an undersea cable,

but there's another possibility that's even more exotic.

This could be what's called a USO

or an unidentified submersible object.

Some people believe that this resembles an object

that was recorded by the USS Omaha in the Pacific.

Basically a round object that had crashed into the ocean.

Sightings of USOs are less common than reports of UFOs,

but US Navy experts say unidentified submerged objects

pose a much greater threat to naval vessels

than flying ones.

Maybe that's why those Japanese investigators

first approached this washed up orb in protective gear.

Their initial examination yielded few answers.

Let's see what our experts can find out.

Military analyst Tim McMillan considers whether this object

could be an advanced piece of equipment

used for deep sea espionage or surveillance.

Based on the degree of rust on it,

this object is most likely iron, possibly steel.

That's not really a material that you would see used

in any type of underwater espionage.

Because it would be something

that would be highly susceptible to oxidation.

And obviously if you're sneaking in a listening device,

this is not something you're going to

want to keep going back and forth to repair and fix.

So if this isn't a surveillance device,

then could it be a weapon of war

from somewhere like North Korea?

North Korea is often involved in all sorts of claims

of having weapons capable of delivering nuclear explosions.

One of which, at least is claimed,

to be possibly shaped similar to the object

we're seeing here in in this image.

If that was the case, this would just be

the warhead component of whatever that is.

And I would hardly call it a successful nuclear device,

if the the warhead has separated from the delivery system,

we don't have a boom.

Just to be sure, officials eventually x-rayed

this mysterious object and discovered that it's hollow,

without any explosives inside.

So could this actually be a USO created

using a sophisticated alien cloaking technology?

Again, McMillan says it's iron

or steel composition suggests otherwise.

It's a very durable material,

but it's a very heavy material and it corrodes

rather quickly in underwater, salt water environments.

And so it's not going to be a material

that's conducive, really,

for any type of exotic extraterrestrial craft.

Archeologist Ed Barnhart believes

this object's exterior design

provides the clue to its prosaic purpose.

There's really no distinguishing features

on its surface, except for two little eyelets.

Things that look like they could attach a rope or a chain.

It now takes a shape that's very well known

and that is mooring buoy.

They're these big metal balls that have chains

that link them to anchors at the bottom

of a deep spot of the ocean.

Our verdict...

This is a mooring buoy that was likely

floating out far at sea

when it got loose from the chain,

attaching it to a heavy anchor at the ocean floor.

That freed the buoy to drift to the shores of Japan.

Some biologists believe the reason Australia is home

to so many deadly creatures is due to the fact

that it's an isolated continent.

One that's been drifting through the ocean

since breaking off from Antarctica 30 million years ago.

It's become a magnet for all forms of resilient species,

creating a pretty monstrous ecosystem

as two fishermen found out the hard way.

February, 2019, Kakadu National Park in Australia,

Andrew Rose and Tee Hokin are fishing in the Mary River,

when all of a sudden Andrew's line begins acting strangely.

He pulls it from the water and the friends discover this.

It was certainly a shock.

The creature itself, I'd never seen anything like it.

No eyes, sharp teeth.

Yeah, it was about six inches long.

The creature was not hooked in the lure,

but rather wrapped itself around it.

Andrew made sure to keep his distance

as the pair snapped pictures of the strange creature

before releasing it back into the Mary River.

We didn't know whether it was going to be toxic or what.

I didn't know if it was going to bite me,

poison me, kill me.

Considering the variety of deadly animals

that populate Australia,

Andrew was wise not to get too friendly

with the unknown creature, despite its diminutive stature.

I mean, this is the home of the Irukandji jellyfish,

who at only two centimeters long,

still has a venom 100 times more powerful than a cobra.

As for this thing,

we had to ask field researcher Ken Gerhard.

He says the key to what it is might be where it is.

Where this weird creature was captured

is actually in the Mary River in Northern Australia,

and this is the home to a legendary creature

known as the Mary River gharial.

A serpentine animal with a very long, skinny head

that's shaped like a crocodilian,

a long body with four paddles and a long tail.

Could this be a juvenile version

of the Mary River gharial?

Perhaps in its larval stage.

In the late 1800s, new settlers to this area

were told stories by the local Aboriginals

about the monstrous gharial that frequently

attacked their women and children.

And over the next century,

the giant gharial would be reported

for overturning boats in the water.

In the 1980s, a local fisherman actually claimed

that his boat was rammed by the Mary River gharial.

Gerhard also explores a more practical theory.

There's also a possibility

that what we could be dealing with here,

is some type of mutated animal.

A 2014 expose revealed

that rapid industrialization in neighboring Indonesia

has led to massive amounts of toxins and pollution

being dumped into the river systems.

The appearance of strange

and grotesque creatures like this one,

could be an indicator of how bad the situation is getting.

Genetic mutations from toxic environments

are nothing new on this show.

In the past we showed you a mutant two-headed snake

that our experts said could very well have been caused

by industrial pollution.

Is that what spawned this alien-like creature?

To find out, we turn to our experts.

We first sit down with marine biologist Dr. Shea Steingass

to discuss the idea that this mysterious creature

is the product of pollution from Indonesia.

A theory she finds flawed.

The Mary River flows to the sea,

and while we may see off-flow of pollutants like fertilizers

or chemicals that make their way through this system,

oftentimes the impacts of these chemicals

end up in the ocean itself

because that's where the rivers drain to.

So the effects that we would see from those pollutants

would probably be offshore

and not so much in the animals here.

So then what about the earlier theory

that this tiny terror could somehow be related

to the legendary Mary River gharial?

Those were prehistoric crocodiles

that had paddle-like limbs,

but we don't see any kind of limbs on this animal.

So this is not a gharial,

rather this is very clearly a mud-dwelling fish.

The fact that it can't see means that it lives

in the sediment or under the mud,

where eyesight really isn't even an asset, it's a liability.

We followed up with biologist Floyd Hayes,

who said he can identify not only the type of fish,

but the exact species.

You could identify it by the odd-shaped head,

and the eyes are covered with skin,

and it has a lot of weird bumps and skin folds on the head,

and also has a elongated body.

So this appears to be a species of worm goby

of the genus Taenioides.

They're about 13 or 14 species

that live in the Indo-Pacific area.

Our experts concur...

What we are looking at here is a mud-dwelling fish

known as the worm goby.

And while it might not be as dangerous as we first thought,

I'd still suggest keeping your hands inside the boat

while traveling down an Australian river.

Elephants might never forget,

but they also never talk, right?

I mean, we all remember Dumbo.

But hang on, over In Asia, there is a loquacious pachyderm

who's got something to say, so listen up.

2012, just outside Seoul, South Korea sits Everland,

the country's largest theme park.

Large enough in fact that it houses a whole zoo.

Within that zoo, 22-year-old Koshik,

a young male Asian elephant

is being recorded in a large room.

He is a marvel to look at,

towering over his handler by several feet,

but if we listen closely,

it's clear he's even more amazing to hear.

Offscreen his handler tells Koshik, 'jo-ah',

'good' in Korean.

Jo-ah.

Koshik paces a bit

and then raises his trunk to his mouth.

And according to some, repeats the phrase back.

Jo-ah.

Let's hear that again.

Jo-ah.

Jo-ah.

Koshik allegedly knows six words, all in Korean

and uses them with regularity.

This clip of Koshik, the elephant,

started circulating in 2006 and it, kind of,

set the world on fire.

Koshik was able to speak in Korean.

'Hello', 'good', 'down', 'lie down' and 'no'.

Jo-ah.

Jo-ah.

Scientists ran a study and Korean speakers

could actually identify what Koshik was saying.

Jo-ah.

A very smart elephant, but all elephants are smart.

Elephants actually have the largest brain

of any land animal and are thought to equal dolphins

in terms of problem solving capability.

Nature philosophers like Pliny the Elder

believed they were even smart enough

to create their own religion.

Pliny thought that elephants actually participated

in religious activities because they would wave sticks at

and bathe during certain phases of the moon.

They exhibit ritual behavior.

Elephants will actually stroke the bodies

of the dead members of their herd

and they will sit with the bodies for quite some time.

According to journalist Erin McCarthy,

the old expression, "An elephant never forgets",

is actually quite accurate.

Some say these thought-provoking pachyderms

are even known to hold a grudge.

One instance involves an Indian woman who was rumored

to have assisted elephant poachers.

In 2022, a 70-year-old woman in India

was trampled by an elephant.

According to some reports,

the woman had actually been part of a group

that had thrown rocks at the elephant

in order to take her baby away.

She later died of her injuries.

At her funeral, it was reported that

that same elephant came back

and actually trampled her body again.

Which some have suggested means the elephant

was holding a grudge and even seeking revenge.

Jo-ah.

Jo-ah.

So does this sophisticated behavior

mean elephants can learn to talk?

Or are these sounds possibly some strange coincidence?

Elephants communicate with each other

with a number of sounds and vocalizations.

Some have actually wondered,

have they evolved to develop a language

to communicate with us?

According to ancient Indonesian legend,

the orangutan actually can speak, but chooses not to

out of fear that humans would enslave him.

Could the same be true of the elephant?

Our experts aren't working for peanuts,

so let's see what they have to say.

Forensic sound analyst Rob Maher says first things first.

What we are hearing is not actual talking, but whistling.

When we speak normally, we have air pressure

from our diaphragm in our lungs

and in our glottis we have vocal folds or vocal cords,

and the air that's being forced between them, vibrates.

Now, a whistle is not involving the glottis,

it's in the upper part of our mouth.

A person can either just use their lips and blow

or use their fingers.

But apparently this elephant is able to use

the shape of the trunk in such a way

to create these whistling sounds.

And so we are able to interpret

this interesting whistly sound as if it's an actual word.

Biologist Stephanie Manka

doesn't question Koshik's advanced intelligence,

but Manka is skeptical that what we are seeing here

is a real, live talking elephant.

Elephants vocalize a lot with each other.

Typically their sounds are in infrasonic,

which means that they are below the level of human hearing

and this elephant created these sounds

so that we could hear them

and probably looked for the human reaction.

Most likely it is mimicking words

that have been said by the trainer.

In fact, Asian and African elephants

have both been documented, mimicking a variety of sounds,

including crickets and truck engines.

A peek into Koshik's past may reveal

what motivated him to create these sounds.

Koshik was separated from

the rest of his herd at age five.

He was alone for a long part of his youth.

Elephants are very social creatures.

I do think that this elephant was trying to mimic sounds

that it heard other humans saying to each other

to get attention.

Jo-ah.

Our verdict...

We're calling this a case of mimicry and bonding.

Koshik is one smart elephant,

but he's not fluent in Korean-smart.

He doesn't know the sound, 'jo-ah' means 'good',

but he does know it creates a good connection

with the humans around him.

And hopefully he gets the love and attention

an elephant of his intellect, deserves.

You've probably heard of earth's polar vortices.

They are large swaths of cold winds

that circle around both of the poles.

Here they're shaped pretty organically

with a swirling motion,

but look just a billion miles away, give or take,

and you'll find that Saturn has its own polar vortex.

And the one in the north sure looks like

it was designed, purposely, by something intelligent.

It's 2007, above the northern hemisphere of Saturn,

the Cassini spacecraft is beaming data back to earth,

showing a glimpse of Saturn's northern hemisphere.

But what's that almost perfectly equilateral polygon,

there, above the north pole?

British planetary scientist Leigh Fletcher

was amazed when he first observed this shape for himself.

When the hexagon jumped out at me, I was gobsmacked.

The question of what caused that

is one that still holds a lot of mystery.

Take another look.

Saturn is known for its rings,

but this hexagon is really bizarre,

no other planet has anything like it.

Science writer Amy Teitel says Leigh was the first

to see the hexagon during Saturn's long winter,

but it's been mystifying scientists for years.

This hexagon shape on Saturn's north pole

was first discovered by the Voyager satellites in the 1980s,

so it's been present on Saturn for decades.

What's strange is it seems

to have changed color from blue to gold

and it appears much larger than originally thought.

So why is it here?

To some, it's evidence of a spiritual belief

known as sacred geometry.

Sacred geometry is the idea that certain shapes

and patterns appear like that for a reason.

According to sacred geometry,

the hexagon represents a potential for life.

One of the most sacred shapes is the flower of life,

which is a shape created

of 19 identical overlapping circles.

We see this going back as far as the ancient Hindu

and Christian cultures.

But what or who could have created

this seemingly deliberate form above Saturn?

Author Jason Martell has an idea.

We know that humans are capable of weather manipulation

such as cloud seeding.

It's very possible that aliens

would have similar technology.

This hexagonal vortex could be some type

of delivery mechanism for the potential of life.

Think about that perfect monolith

from "2001: A Space Odyssey."

It wasn't just a cool, geometric artifact,

it was a mechanism for advancing intelligent life.

Could this sacred hexagon be something similar?

It sounds like a stretch,

but some think life may already be advancing near Saturn.

Saturn's Moon, Titan, is one

of the most interesting places for a lot of people

to look for life because it's chemically very similar

to early earth and it's got a lot of the things

that we think life needs to thrive.

The hexagonal formation could actually

be a key to unlocking secrets of the universe.

Mathematicians say the hexagon

is nature's most efficient shape.

With mechanically balanced angles at 120 degrees each,

it can hold the most weight

with the least amount of material.

But is Saturn's hexagonal vortex proof

that there is more to this shape?

Our experts explore all the angles.

This hexagonal shape isn't actually visible

on any of the other planets in our solar system,

it's truly unique to Saturn.

It's almost like a snowflake

in it's precision and its beauty.

So it is unique, but is that proof

it's the result of intelligent design?

That hexagon looks like it's something

that might have been created artificially,

but this is a natural resonance

that's based on the way the bands on Saturn operate

and the way the atmospheric currents flow.

And NASA geologist Dr. Bob Anderson

thinks he can explain how and why it was created.

This atmosphere is a fluid of gas,

and so as it's rotating,

it has what's called surface tension between the particles.

When two particles rub against each other,

they have like a tension to them.

The hexagon shape will fall out

when fluids of different densities flow past each other

and when they harden, they form a hexagon shape

because it's the most efficient way

to get into a stable configuration

when you are using gas and liquids.

In order to get this hexagon there,

all the conditions have to be right.

But how could the perfect conditions

last for decades?

These structures are so ingrained into the atmosphere

that they remain very constant.

A perfect example is Jupiter.

The great red spot has been seen since

around the time of Galileo.

And why has the hexagon changed colors

since the end of 2012?

Planetary scientist Leigh Fletcher says,

"The key is understanding that it takes more

than seven earth years for seasons to change on Saturn."

As sunlight returns to those springtime,

northern latitudes, you get these smoggy particles

being created by chemistry high up within the atmosphere,

that started to fill in the center of the hexagon

and making it appear gold.

Our verdict...

Surface tension is creating this natural phenomenon.

And if it is a sign from an alien or divine intelligence,

we're not intelligent enough to figure out

what it means just yet.

And that's our show for tonight.

Thank you so much for joining us, and as always,

keep those cameras rolling.