Original subtitles

An elusive killer with a taste for blood.

An ancient mountain shrine where demons emerge from the underworld.

And a frightening creature that roams the frozen forest and hungers

for human flesh.

From an early age, we're all told stories of scary monsters that lurk in

shadows. From the big bad wolf and blood -sucking vampires to evil witches and

dangerous beasts, we learn early on that the world can be a frightening place.

But what if some of these tall tales are based on real life?

All around the globe, there are accounts of terrifying creatures that defy our

understanding of the natural world.

Could the reports of gruesome beings with glowing eyes or three -toed savages

hiding in remote swamps be true?

Well, that is what we'll try and find out.

Vlad the Impaler.

Lycan of Arcadia.

Nosferatu.

The Beast of Jevudan.

These are the names of grotesque and terrifying monsters.

Unearthly creatures that, according to legend, thrived on human blood and

feasted on human flesh.

But could they actually be real?

New Orleans, Louisiana, 1903.

Police arrive upon a gruesome scene.

A local prostitute lies bloody and battered on the street.

Her leg is shattered in three places.

Based on eyewitness accounts, it's believed she intentionally leapt from a

balcony 20 feet above.

She'd been with a wealthy man.

He'd been friendly, generous, funny, kind. He'd made no advances, though he

for her time.

But then he attacked her.

He moved upon her with unnatural swiftness.

He wrapped his arms around her, pulled her head to the side, and began to,

quote, rip at her flesh.

Her attacker was a man by the name of Jacques Saint -Germain, an affluent,

-known fixture in the New Orleans upper class who claimed to be a direct

descendant of French nobility.

Historical accounts describe him as a charming ladies' man, celebrated

throughout the French Quarter for his tales of adventure and elaborately

parties. But curiously, his guests never see him partake of so much as a morsel

of the food he serves.

Instead, he reportedly got all of his sustenance from bottles that were

to be filled with red wine.

But when police went to question Jacques Saint -Germain about the murder of the

prostitute, they found that his preferred wine was of a very unusual

When they went to the house in the morning, it was entirely empty. No

everything was gone. Jacques had completely disappeared.

However, on the second floor, according to the story, they found bottles of wine

mixed with human blood.

Bottles of wine mixed with human blood.

Was Jacques Saint -Germain merely a demented killer who preyed upon a

woman?

Or could his taste for blood have had a more disturbing explanation?

Jacques Saint -Germain resided in New Orleans in the early part of the 20th

century. And one must look back in history at an eerily similar -looking

named Comte Saint -Germain, who lived in Paris, France, over a century earlier.

The similarities between the two gentlemen are pretty striking.

Comte Saint -Germain was known to the French court in the 1700s. He was a

mysterious figure. He was rumored to be an alchemist.

And he let the rumor slip that he had found the secret to...

eternal life through his alchemy.

He would speak as if he had lived in the 1500s, and he never looked a day over

40 years old.

We have portraits of the original Count Saint -Germain when he's 40 years old.

Jacques Saint -Germain was also 40 years old when he disappeared, and some

people commented that he looked like the man in the portrait.

Early 40s, maybe 5 foot 6 inches tall, like 140 pounds.

Pale skin and high cheekbones, thin lips, hot nose, long curling dark hair,

large blue -gray eyes.

He's elegant, he's charming, he's French.

He spends money like it's water.

Many people say that Jacques Saint -Germain and the Count Saint -Germain

same person.

Jacques Saint -Germain and the Count de Saint -Germain.

One and the same?

If so, that would have made him almost 170 years old at the time of his

disappearance from New Orleans in 1903.

That is...

If he ever really disappeared.

Even down to modern times, there have been sightings of St. Germain wandering

our streets late at night.

People will say that they have encountered him, and now and then one of

disappears.

This is actually an account from some people I know fairly well.

A few years ago at Halloween, there in the middle of the crowd on Burton

when the crowd just parted itself, almost of its own accord, and there was

standing by himself in the middle of the crowd.

Maybe five foot six.

Somewhat slight of build with a long dark coat.

And sunglasses on at night.

Raised his head up like he was sniffing the air.

And the crowd kept partying around him.

And then they said he just vanished.

They swear that actually happens.

And in New Orleans, how can I not believe it?

Whether he's called the Count or Jacques, there are many who believe that

vampire who haunted the streets of New Orleans for over a century still...

Walks the streets at night.

If true, could it mean that other seemingly absurd tales of undead

living among us are also true?

Vampires are just part of the human imagination.

Going back to time immemorial.

In folklore, there are so many different ways to become a vampire or to destroy

a vampire or to avoid a vampire.

The idea of the wooden stake recoiling from the crucifix.

The destruction by sunlight.

Vampires liked the night because they could skulk around and cover their

terrible deeds in the shadows.

In Romanian, the word for vampire includes the word valhola.

which really means werewolf. So you have werewolf, vampire, vampire.

So sometimes I can see how people can coalesce and come out with something

that's a mixture.

The werewolf and the vampire merge and morph and inform each other.

When Bram Stoker wrote his novel, Dracula had the power to become a wolf.

He was a werewolf. He was a blood -sucking vampire as well.

And it was the kind of arbitrary grab bag of characteristics that he chose

we are still mostly playing with today.

Vampires?

Werewolves? Could these creatures actually exist?

And is it possible that there is a space between the known and unknown where the

supernatural crosses into our reality?

Perhaps further evidence can be found at a strange temple complex that some

believe is the gateway to hell itself.

High in the mountains of central China, along the banks of the Yangtze River,

lies a complex of shrines and temples that is known as Hangdu Ghost City.

According to Chinese legend, Fengdu is considered to be a place where our world

meets the underworld.

As you're approaching Fengdu City on Ming Mountain, you're imagining

that's going to be beautiful, but instead you see these depictions of

images and devilish creatures are actually devouring human beings.

One of the first things that you encounter when entering the complex is

a gate that is shaped as the head of a demon.

And you have to enter it through its open mouth. So it's a very impressive

sight that the visitor encounters.

Walking through this complex is like walking through hell itself.

It's supposedly the place where the devil actually resides.

The vast array of devilish statues and carvings found throughout Fengdu have

earned the city a ghoulish reputation.

But why did the ancient Chinese feel the need to create an entire city filled

with such ghastly depictions of the forces of evil?

Well, Fengdu Ghost City is believed to have been first built during the Han

Dynasty, around the year 218.

The city was constructed to represent Chinese beliefs about the afterlife and

how a person's soul is judged after death.

The Fengdu Ghost City is a type of purgatory space in Chinese conceptions

underworld.

It's a place where the souls of recently deceased people are brought so that

they can be in front of the court of the underworld and tried and judged.

for all of the actions, the good deeds and the misdeeds that they perform

their life.

If their karmic balance is positive, then after their judgment, they are

to various celestial realms where they can enjoy nicer afterlife.

If your misdeeds overshadowed your good deeds during your life, then you will be

unable to complete this trial and you will be presented for judgment forthwith

and then...

Carry out your sentence.

The final judgment takes place inside the oldest temple in the city, where a

person's soul is put on trial by King Yama, the gatekeeper to hell.

This main building, which is actually King Yama's court, is presided over by a

statue of King Yama, very fearsome in appearance.

King Yama is the overseer of the underworld in the Chinese tradition.

So he judges the deeds and misdeeds of the deceased and oversees all of this

distribution of post -mortem justice.

So he's bringing down the full power of the underworld state to bear on the

people that he judges.

And he is also flanked by a retinue of demons.

Their role is to dole out the punishment and to make sure that the punishment is

respected.

For those who don't go straight to the celestial realm, they have to spend a

certain amount of time in the 18 levels of hell.

And you have a variety of hells. You have the hell of burning oil.

You have the hell of fire.

You have the blood pool hell in which you have to spend a time sometimes close

to eternity.

The fact that this has become a major site that is open to the public and that

people can visit perhaps serves as a kind of warning.

or an incitement for people to live more moral lives and to be kinder to others.

The idea that your soul can be doomed to hell for eternity is concerning, to say

the least, but it also raises an intriguing question.

What led people to believe that this particular location was so strongly

connected to the devil and hell in the first place?

There's a long history of connecting Fungi to the gate of hell, the

or the gate of demons. And this is considered to be the actual gate to

the courts of the underworld.

It's the actual entrance portal to the netherworld.

This portal to hell is actually a two -way portal.

So not only can the deceased enter it to get to the netherworld, but you have

demons of the netherworld who are allowed to leave.

who can emerge from it and sometimes wreak havoc in the world of the living.

The notion that Fandugo City could be a portal to hell may sound far -fetched to

some.

But on the other hand, there are similar places throughout the world that are

also thought to serve as bridges where Satan crosses over from his realm into

ours.

The idea of a portal to the underworld, Doorway to Hell shows up in many

different cultures and various locations.

There are certain caves in the Mediterranean area. That is how you

someone returns from Hades.

There's a burning bowl in Turkmenistan. It's actually a natural geological

formation, but it is continually burning, and it looks like a gateway to

you would descend there.

The concept was always, if Satan shows up on the earth, people ask, how did he

get here?

Does he have a magic power where he can just appear and just disappear?

Or is there a way to a shortcut?

And what happened in a lot of religions is you had to have some kind of way to

get from the underworld up to the terrestrial plane. And so you needed to

cave or some kind of portal.

These can be in graveyards. They can be in old mines.

There's been a number of these reported over time.

These places have developed a folklore or mythology that they are dangerous,

scary places you should not be.

And the belief about portals to hell is that these are places where the

dimensional walls are thin.

These are places where it's easier for Satan and his minions to cross over.

Could it really be true that Satan and his demons use portals to spread across

the earth?

According to many systems of belief, the answer is yes.

And there are some who believe that once Satan has entered our world, he has the

ability to take many different forms.

It's recorded in ancient literature that these forces,

who we call Shadim, or demons.

It is well known that they can sometimes materialize into physical form, and

they would look like whatever form they would choose.

In Christian demonology, angels don't have bodies.

Demons don't have bodies.

So they can take whatever form they want. They're natural shapeshifters.

So we need to understand that these entities, they're not relegated to the

ancient past.

These interactions.

Miami, Florida, October 30, 2023.

A group of psychiatrists from the University of Miami School of Medicine

an intriguing and unsettling study.

Their report documents a rare mental illness that is known as Wendigo

Wendigo psychosis is a kind of controversial condition in which a

believed to have intense cravings for human flesh.

This could result from isolation, lack of food, in which a person ends up

getting a condition of high anxiety that just sort of comes out in this bizarre

cannibalistic craving.

While Wendigo psychosis continues to be studied by medical professionals, the

name of this disturbing condition actually has its origins in Native

lore.

For centuries, when Native people heard the word Wendigo, they understood it to

be not a form of mental illness, but rather a terrifying monster.

The Wendigo.

is a creature that comes to us from Algonquin tradition. So the Ojibwe

the Cree people, right around the Great Lakes area in both the U .S. and in

Canada.

This is an area of the world, the Great Lakes region, where winters are harsh.

And starvation, that was a common thing.

The key theme to the Wendigo story is that this is a creature that eats human

beings.

Wendigo is a word from the Algonquin language which translates into evil

spirit that devours mankind.

Descriptions of the creature vary from tribe to tribe, but in general, the

Wendigo is a very tall giant with glowing red eyes, rows of sharp

teeth, and an extremely long tongue.

Many cultures believe that the Wendigo is the most fearsome and deadly creature

ever to set foot in North America. It has an insatiable hunger for human

The more it eats, the bigger it becomes.

A skeletal monster that becomes bigger and stronger with each human it devours.

It's undoubtedly terrifying to say the least. But could the legend of the

Wendigo actually be true?

Well... According to Native American tradition, it is.

And perhaps the most haunting part of the legend is that these hideous

were once human beings.

According to the Native American stories, the process for somebody

Wendigo is either an evil spirit possesses the person and then becomes

Wendigo.

Or the person simply transforms into the monster.

If you dreamed of the Wendigo, that would welcome the Wendigo to come and

you. So there were multiple ways that you could be possessed by the Wendigo.

While Native American legends of Wendigo transformations might be easily

dismissed as parables rather than real events, that may not be the case.

Perhaps those compelling argument that Wendigo possession is in fact real can

found by examining the horrific story of a 19th century Cree trapper named

Swift Runner.

The story of Swift Runner is one of the most gruesome and heartbreaking tales of

a person becoming a Wendigo.

During the winter of 1878 and 79, Swift Runner took off with his family to their

winter hunting grounds.

But then the game disappeared.

Times were tough and food was scarce.

During this particularly brutal winter, he actually killed and ate his wife and

his children.

And according to the story, Swift Runner had been possessed by the spirit of the

Wendigo. Swift Runner said an evil presence overcame him.

When authorities took him back to the grounds, they discovered something out

a horror movie.

bones thrown all about, skulls everywhere.

He was eventually arrested and sent to Edmonton and was hanged for being a

Wendigo.

Did Swift Runner commit shocking crimes because he was possessed by the Wendigo,

as some people believed at the time?

Or was he simply afflicted with an extreme form of psychosis, as the modern

medical community now claims?

Just like many tales regarding monsters of myth and legend, the truth remains

elusive.

The key defining feature of the Wendigo is about cannibalism.

We can see that as a supernatural creature, or we can see it as a medical

condition. But as far as anyone can tell, the Wendigo psychosis.

is pretty specific to that cultural area.

And there are things known as culture -bound conditions that only happen to

people from a given cultural background.

Now, the fact that we have a science referring to the Wendigo, it doesn't

that the Wendigo exists.

but it just underscores the fact that the Wendigo has transformed from Native

American tales to something we're talking about in modern times.

The possibility of contracting a psychosis that would make you crave

is terrifying, to say the least.

But Wendigo is not the only creature to be concerned about encountering.

If you find yourself lost in the swampland of rural Arkansas, you just

might come face to face with a dangerous being known as the Falk Monster.

Falk, Arkansas.

Population 733.

This small town near the eastern border of Texas appears similar to hundreds of

other rural communities in the region.

The single highway cuts through the town, which is surrounded by vast woods,

creeks, and acres of mosquito -ridden swampland.

Falk, Arkansas is thousands of acres of very swampy area.

And within that, there is plenty of places that creatures could find

and could easily survive.

The woods and the swampy bottoms are just so thick that they could travel

through these woods and not be seen very much, if at all.

This rugged landscape is teeming with wildlife.

But according to locals, there is a massive monstrous creature that stands

from all others because it bears an uncanny resemblance to a human.

They call it the Falk Monster.

By physical description, the Falk Monster, it's very large, 7 to 10 feet

Very thick, long, matted down hair.

usually dark brown or a reddish tint.

It's a biped walking and running upright on its hind leg.

The creature is often known to elicit a frightening power.

It's often said to have a very terrible rank odor. It's said to be similar to a

Bigfoot, yet more scraggly, more rugged -looking.

And witnesses often have a very emotional reaction because of the fear

creature. It's estimated that there have been hundreds of sightings of the Falk

monster dating back to the 1800s.

And locals are convinced that tangible evidence of the beast exists.

Over the years, people have made numerous plaster casts of unusually

footprints said to have been left.

by the massive creature.

Today, many of them are preserved in a town museum known as the Monster Mart.

I like to look at the Monster Mart as a place that is preserving the history of

our town folklore here.

We got people from all over the world coming in, 36 foreign countries, 50

states.

You see a lot of cast here. Most of them are big.

Are these strange footprints proof that a giant hairy beast roams the swamplands

of southwest Arkansas?

Perhaps. But, of course, many residents don't need convincing because they claim

to have actually seen the fog monster with their own eyes.

Back in the early 70s, my friend Karen and I were riding in the back of a

truck, and all of a sudden, we saw this thing step out from behind a big tree.

It was probably about three and a half feet across the shoulders, and it turned

and took another step and was gone into the pond thicket.

That's why we never went in the woods anymore after that, because we knew how

big it was, and that thing would snap you like a twig.

About 2004, I'm in a little canoe, and I hear splashes.

I could see the image, the silhouette.

of something with two legs standing up this thing was hairy it's big legs big

trunk it was very impressive looking after a while he just turned around and

just walked off in the marsh and i didn't see him again no i at that point

believed in the monster or that there was something else out there but my mind

started getting open to the possibility at that point many believe that the

monster is not only real but Also, quite dangerous.

The most infamous incident that cemented the Falk Monster's menacing reputation

occurred on May 2, 1971, when it reportedly attacked a local

man named Bobby Ford.

One of the most sensational and well -known encounters with the Falk Monster

originates at what's known as the Ford House.

On a Saturday night, the Ford family started to hear something creeping

on the porch.

And all of a sudden, this big hairy hand came in through the window.

Bobby Ford went outside and shot at it.

All of a sudden, something ran out from beside the house and attacked it.

He barely managed to escape, and whatever had happened shook him up so

they ended up having to transport him to the Texarkana Hospital, where he was

treated for shock and injuries as a result of this attack.

The Ford found a strange footprint, which looked large and somewhat human

yet had three toes.

And so something...

Very scary and something very unexplainable happened.

Following the publicity around the Ford incident, a farmer found a

track line of footprints that went across a soybean field.

And these tracks were roughly human -shaped, yet had three toes.

And this was investigated by the Miller County Sheriff's Office, the game

warden, wildlife officials.

And none of them could really explain what the heck these footprints were. So

that built credibility to what the Fords were saying.

Perhaps what's even more remarkable than the fact that inexplicable, three towed

tracks were found shortly after the Ford incident.

is that a plaster cast of those footprints can still be seen today in

monster mart.

Back in 1971, this cast was found in a soybean field back out in the country

about three and a half miles from here.

And here's my uncle's soybean field. And that's where they found petroleum

tracks. But it's a three -toed. And that was kind of unique for the monster down

here to have a three -toed.

Well, the outside world may be skeptical.

Many people in Falk, Arkansas remain utterly convinced that their town is

to a monster that is not the stuff of myth and legend, but rather flesh

and blood.

Do the three -toed tracks recovered from an Arkansas farmstead prove that a

dangerous beast is on the loose?

Maybe it's this physical evidence that will finally turn skeptics into

believers.

Like in the case of an extraordinary discovery in rural China that just might

authenticate the existence of giants.

Northern China, June 2021.

Paleontologists from China's Hebei GEO University analyze an astonishing

discovery from the bottom of an ancient well.

Their study is of the largest human skull ever found.

The extraordinary find makes headlines around the world and sparks intense

debate about this ancient skull, which scientists have nicknamed the Dragon

The Dragon Man skull is arguably the most mysterious cranium that's ever been

discovered in this world. It is the largest ever.

It's actually around nine inches long by six inches across.

And it was discovered in 1933 by a Chinese workman.

And because at the time that part of China was occupied by the Japanese, he

that the best thing to do was to hide it away in a well.

And it was left there until 2018.

When he revealed the location to his grandson, the grandson went and dug it

up, and it was still there in absolute perfect condition.

And he gave it to a local university, and it obviously came to the attention

the scientific community.

The Dragon Man skull is interesting because the cranial shape is shaped like

American football, being very elongated.

Whereas a modern human skull, Homo sapiens would be more rounded in shape.

The skull is generally very robust, including a very pronounced brow ridge.

The eye sockets on Dragon Man are also very large and more square in shape,

versus modern humans, which are smaller and more rounded.

Based off of what we know about the skull, it probably dates to around 200

years ago.

Dragon Man is such a new discovery that lots of ideas are coming out of the

field about exactly what does this population look like and how do they

to us.

Dragon Man is bringing us face to face for the first time with a new Asian

version of human, which very likely we also interbred with, whose DNA we

probably also carry in us today as well.

It's one of these finds which occasionally comes along which is really

what we know about our human story.

Experts agree that the discovery of the Dragon Man redefines our understanding

of humanity's past.

And there are some researchers who believe that further investigation of

skull will reveal shocking truths about this previously unknown cousin of man.

that the dragon man may well have been not only large in size but also of great

height, possibly as much as seven to seven and a half feet tall. And if you

to imagine them, just think that in the past you'd have had the small guys that

would have been the Neanderthals who were about five to five and a half feet

tall. You'd have had our own modern human ancestors that were around six

tall and you'd have had the much bigger, much stronger.

Dragon Man.

With the discovery of the Dragon Man skull, we might have the first real

evidence that giants once walked the Earth.

Is it possible that the Dragon Man was actually a giant?

Perhaps clues can be found by examining the numerous historical accounts of

people claiming to have encountered ancient giants.

Giants are a stark character of folklore throughout the world.

For example, the Bible clearly states that there were giants on the earth.

In North America, Native American cultures have many of these giant

For example, in Mi 'kmaq tradition, we find stories of giants that would hunt

people and eat them.

There are similar stories in Algonquin -speaking natives of North America as

well. And traditions, even up to a relatively recent time, would honor

ancient giants.

And this is something that's prevalent in different parts of the world.

There are many skeptics who write off tales of giants as nothing more than

exaggeration or fantasy.

But there are others who insist that giants were, in fact, quite real.

And as evidenced, they point to accounts of large human bones being discovered

throughout North America.

During the mid -1800s, the Smithsonian Institution, had an edict where they

would collect all the different skeletons of Native American cultures

mounds, from caves, from all over the country, basically.

And they started finding these remarkable skeletons and discoveries

suggested there was a very advanced race of giants living in North America.

And even in their Smithsonian annual reports in the late 1800s, specifically

5th and the 12th annual reports,

They documented between seven and eight foot tall skeletons that their

Smithsonian employees actually dug up themselves.

And yet in 1910 onwards, when Ailes Hadleacher became the director of the

Smithsonian, he put a news report out saying giants are no more and tried to

delete this idea that giants ever existed, even though they discovered

themselves in the late 1800s.

So there's a definite mystery here when it comes to trying to find evidence of

these giant skeletons of North America.

Hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of these giant skeletons have been

But the problem with this is that all of them today have been lost.

Everything that was inside the Smithsonian Institute had to be given

they were just destroyed.

And so the importance of the discovery of the dragon man's skull is in the fact

that this archaic human that once existed in this region of China has been

brought back into reality and is being studied by the scientists today.

You can discover so much information from just a single bone.

It opens up a whole world of opportunity for what we could learn about them, who

humans are and where we came from.

Yucca Valley, California.

This rustic town located in the Mojave Desert is adjacent to Joshua Tree

National Park.

Each year, millions of people visit Joshua Tree to hike through its twisting

expanse of boulders and oddly shaped trees.

But unfortunately, many adventure seekers who trek into this wilderness

return.

On occasion, human remains have been found out in the area of the Joshua Tree

National Park.

And these are presumably hikers who have gone missing over the years.

So while it's a beautiful, striking -looking place, it's also very secluded

very dangerous.

It's easy to see how tourists hiking in Joshua Tree could get lost and fall

victim to the scorching temperatures of this desert environment.

However, some locals believe that mysterious deaths in the park are the

a frightening monster who is referred to as the Yucca Man.

The Yucca Man is seen in the southern regions of the California area.

Sightings of the Yucca Man date back to at least the 1960s.

It's described as being very tall, covered in hair over its entire body.

The Yucca Man is what you might call a desert -based Bigfoot. People go missing

in the Yucca Valley and its various campgrounds.

Part of the evolving lore of this creature is perhaps it is preying on

when it finds people who are vulnerable.

The idea that a giant monster roams this remote area and preys upon

unsuspecting hikers is chilling.

But according to local lore, another fearsome encounter involving the Yucca

allegedly took place at a nearby U .S. Marine Corps base.

One of the more famous Yucca Man encounters occurred in 1971 at the 29

Marine Base.

A Marine was on night duty and encountered this 8 -foot -tall blonde

Sasquatch creature.

He then became unconscious, and when he was found, his rifle was bent in half

with no explanation.

He was unharmed, but it's pretty scary to think of a Marine being knocked

unconscious and a rifle being bent in half.

While it's impossible to verify the young man's alleged run -ins with

personnel, many locals are convinced that this...

dangerous creature actually lives in the mojave desert and like other monsters

that have been widely reported by eyewitnesses but not officially

science the possibility of its existence both tantalizes and

terrifies we love believing in these creatures and monsters because we love

getting scared but we also love the unknown

Not knowing if we've discovered every species on the planet.

The mystery is the best part of it all.

We are often inclined to see belief in fantastical creatures as somewhat

irrational, maybe fantastical, something that isn't scientific.

And yet, there's news reports of people interacting with creatures that maybe we

can't identify.

That keeps it alive. It is not fundamentally proven false.

And that kind of monster is what we are continuing to be obsessed with.

So what do you think?

Are these dangerous and frightening creatures real or just a figment of our

imagination?

Could the stories we've been told about scary monsters be strictly fantasy?

Or are these tales based on actual experiences?

with terrifying entities. What exactly are people encountering when they come

against these strange savages?

It's a spine -tingling mystery, but one that's best explored from the comfort of

your own home, because nothing can guarantee your safety while the truth

these creatures of the night remains unexplained.