Original subtitles

- Tonight on "The Proof Is Out There,"

a family terrified by a creature chasing their car.

[Passenger screaming]

- [Tony] Could this be a Yeti?

- I mean, these are the things nightmares are made of.

- [Tony] What nearly hit a passenger jet

flying over New York City?

- These things can and absolutely will be

an air safety issue.

- [Tony] A famous mass UFO sighting.

Was it fact or faked?

- I think the fact that hundreds of people

reported seeing something means that something

means that something was actually there.

- [Tony] And could this be the ghost of a

deceased high school student

trying to get back into the game?

- Is that horrific tragedy actually connected

to the ghost that we see in this video?

[intense music]

- [Tony] Around the globe are videos.

[passengers scream]

Photos.

And sounds that defy explanation.

[high pitch squealing]

[intense music]

- [Reporter] We don't know where they come from,

who made them, or how they operate.

- [Tony] What are they?

- [Expert] Some sort of bizarre mutation.

- [Analyst] What's exciting is nobody really knows.

- Extraordinary claims need extraordinary proof.

[intense music]

- 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.

- [Camerawoman] It's coming towards us!

- [Tony] We'll analyze each one with top experts.

[metal clashes]

- 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.

[intense music]

Good evening everyone and welcome to

"The Proof Is Out There."

Let's talk about air travel.

The procedure typically involves baggage check,

security, boarding, take off,

and UFO sighting?

March 25, 2024.

It's a beautiful day above New York City.

Michelle Reyes is on a commercial airline

preparing for landing at Laguardia Airport.

Michelle pulls out her phone to record the skyline

out her window, but Michelle's shot is interrupted

by something speeding by.

[intense music]

Let's play that back in slow motion.

[disc reeling]

A black, oblong object enters frame right,

just above the horizon.

The object appears to be tilted slightly forward.

In less than a second, it exits frame left,

leaving Michelle unsure if she saw anything at all

until she watches that video back.

- When I looked back, there was something in there,

so I was like, all right, I'm not going crazy.

I definitely did see something.

I posted it online just to see if someone can say,

like hey, this is not out of the ordinary

and we see this all the time.

I was just really curious.

- [Tony] Many online share Michelle's curiosity,

so much so that her

video is picked up

by multiple national news outlets.

Across the country, people are perplexed

by Michelle's sighting and it's not hard to see why.

- There's been a lot of reports of these larger,

cylinder-shaped or cigar-shaped craft.

So, people looking at this and saying they see

a cylindrical UFO, I can certainly understand

why they would see that.

- [Tony] In fact,

these cylindrical UFOs have crossed paths

with commercial aircraft in recent years.

- There was an incident in 2021

with an American Airlines pilot flying to Phoenix, Arizona

reported over New Mexico seeing a large cylindrical object

fly directly over his own aircraft.

- [Tony] But these near misses didn't just start

in the last few years.

They actually go back almost as far

as the modern UFO age, as we know it.

In 1948, two commercial pilots were flying over Alabama

in the early morning hours

when they saw a wingless, cylindrical craft

speeding toward their plane.

The pilots veered to the side,

dodging a near collision.

What's worrisome is that these near misses

seam to be getting more frequent as the years go on.

Long Island-based researchers, Gerry and John Tedesco

have seen it themselves

not far from where Michelle Reyes recorded her sighting.

- It was October of '23, early morning,

and I was just videotaping flight traffic

in and out of the airport

and on the extreme zoom, I saw an airliner

making its rotation to come into JFK

and I saw this object passing the path of the airliner.

- These cylinder-shaped objects seem to be showing up

quite often in these reports.

So it's consistent, it's a persistent pattern.

It's something that's gotta be taken seriously.

- [Tony] That's because if objects like these

are sharing the skies with civilian aircraft,

it's a problem.

- The greatest concern here is that air traffic control

did see this and didn't report it.

That is proof positive that these things

can and absolutely will be an air safety issue

if we don't do something about it.

[suspenseful music] [air whooshing]

- In 2023, a New York Times investigation found that

near misses involving commercial aircraft

were happening multiple times a week, nationwide.

Will our investigation reveal another kind

of safety threat in our skies?

[mysterious music] [keys clicking]

Could this indeed be a cylindrical UFO

crossing paths with this commercial plane?

Well, while from the side, it might look like a cylinder,

it might be something else entirely.

- When you do closer analysis, you can actually see

that there's something kinda spinning.

So, it could be just a large disc.

- [Tony] Still sound like aliens?

Not so fast.

In 2019, Romanian engineers successful built

their own flying saucer,

called the All Directional Flying Object, or ADIFO,

in other words, a disc-shaped drone.

But, wouldn't something like that have been noticed?

- The pilots would've been able to see it coming by

and explain it.

Air traffic control would've picked it up.

This was not picked up by any radar system.

- [Tony] So, is this just something ordinary

captured in a way that makes it look extraordinary?

- You've got the aircraft going north,

the wind coming from the opposite direction,

which is really meaning that this is going maybe wind speed.

So you have the aircraft and then the wind speed

carrying it aloft creates this effect

where it's zooming by.

I think that it's more like a party balloon.

- [Tony] Specifically, we're thinking of those

number-shaped balloons that people usually get

to denote their age.

The theory is one of those numeric balloons

may have gone astray.

- I think it's a zero.

The beginning of the clip, top right-hand corner,

there is the aircraft wing.

So, what you're able to see is that this object

is just beyond and so, the size matches.

The winds were moving along in such a way

that it's potentially coming from Staten Island.

Everything matches up in terms of it being

a zero balloon and she happened to see it

as they were going by.

[suspenseful music] [keys clicking]

- Our verdict, party balloon.

See how this zero- shaped balloon looks

turned on its side?

That's what we think Michelle saw

when she looked out her plane window.

It's amazing what a change of perspective can do.

[intense music]

Now, we're going to bounce from New York to Russia.

Zdorovat'sya is the proper way to greet

a stranger over there

unless that stranger is some sort of strange creature.

Then, you may wanna get the heck out of there.

2016, the Russian Republic of Bashkortostan.

The sun is setting as a family of three

documents their drive down a desolate stretch of road.

Suddenly, one of them spots something strange

in the distance.

The driver reverses for a better look and sees this.

[passenger screaming]

[ominous music]

A mysterious hunched figure is peeking out

from the tall greenery.

The figure suddenly lunges forward,

arms flailing in the air.

The car tries to stay ahead at a safe distance,

but the dark silhouette remains in hot pursuit.

Upon first glance, the figure appears to be human in shape,

but it moves at an incredible speed

and its appearance has this family extremely frightened.

- It's running after the vehicle,

despite the fact that the vehicle is going really fast.

It seems that they are legitimately terrified

in this video.

[passenger screaming]

- [Tony] Many internet sleuths believe that this figure

was more beast than man

and Igor Burtsev, Director of Russia's

International Center of Hominology, agrees.

Burtsev things this video might show proof

of the infamous beast known as the Yeti.

- [Tony] In Russia, the Yeti is no laughing matter.

- Scientists in Russia have taken this subject seriously

all the way back until the 1960s.

- [Tony] And that fear may have been justified.

Viewers might remember our previous investigation

of a potential Yeti massacre

during a 1959 expedition through Russia's Dyatlov Pass.

- The people on the expedition were found dead

with obvious blunt force trauma all over their bodies.

And their tongues seemingly ripped out of their skull,

a very, very traumatic and unusual

circumstance of death, to say the least.

- [Tony] A photo was left behind that some thought

revealed a Yeti responsible for the attack.

And while our analysis determined it to be

a photo of one of the hikers,

many still believe in the Yeti theory.

- There is a definite history of Yetis being aggressive.

Seven, eight feet tall, 1,000 pounds,

four-foot shoulders, completely covered in hair.

I mean, these are the things nightmares are made of.

[passengers screaming] [intense music]

- It turns out this isn't the first Yeti sighting

within the Republic of Bashkortostan.

In an earlier season, we covered another 2016 sighting

that took place on the snow-capped Ural Mountains

and while we determined that one to be a hoax,

does this incident prove that the creature

actually does exist?

Let's check in with our experts.

[suspenseful music] [keys clicking]

It is well known that brown bears live in this area.

Could that simply be what we have here?

- It seems to be running too well to be a bear.

The way that it's carrying its arms

are not how a bear would.

You can make out the head at certain points

and we don't see the snout or the ears of a bear.

So, we can definitely rule out a bear.

- [Tony] And while we've seen animals charge

vehicles before, they generally don't do it without cause.

[elephant trumpets]

- There are some animals during mating season,

they can have really high testosterone

and they can be angry and easily triggered.

But, I don't think any type of screaming or noise

that the people were making would've set this creature off.

- [Tony] But so many Yeti signings have been hoaxed.

So we need to ask, could this just be a guy in a suit?

- This is a difficult one.

It seems very spontaneous

and the figure portrays something that

is conceivably non-human form

with a considerable arm span.

- [Tony] However, when incorporating other elements

of the footage, the true scale of the humanoid

begins to reveal itself.

- There's one shot where it's running up

alongside the road.

With that road as more of a scale of size,

it doesn't look that big.

It looks almost man size to me.

- I don't think that this seems to be

such a big, gigantic figure that

it's impossible that it's a person.

- A big person running looks very different

than a little person running

just because of the inertia of the mass of their limbs.

It just strikes me as more moderate in height.

- [Tony] Due to the poor quality of the footage,

our experts can't say whether or not this is proof

of an actual Russian Yeti.

- Ultimately, you have to just rely on what

evidence is there.

In the end, I'd have to say that I don't

have an explanation.

[passengers screaming]

[suspenseful music] [keys clicking]

- Our verdict, indeterminate biped.

While there are Yeti hoaxes coming out

of Russia all the time,

there is a possibility that this is the real deal.

But without further evidence, we just can't confirm

whether this two-legged figure

is man or beast.

- You know, often when we hear about a UFO sighting,

it involves a lone eyewitness.

So, it's easy to be skeptical.

But our next encounter has reportedly been seen

by hundreds of people.

No wonder the story is considered

one of the biggest mass sightings in UFO history.

April 1966, it's midday in Westall,

a suburb of Melbourne, Australia.

- Students and teachers from the Westall High School

and the Westall State School went outside

to enjoy a lovely day and they all saw

something strange in the sky.

[intense music]

- [Tony] This black and white photo,

allegedly taken by one of several hundred eyewitnesses,

depicts a crystal clear flying saucer

hanging in the sky over the trees.

It has a domed top, a large spotlight on the bottom,

and a rim of lights wrapping around it.

Some eyewitnesses recall multiple UFOs that day.

Others, just one.

Eyewitness, Phyll Tierney, who was 15 at the time,

recalls three in total.

But this photo matches her recollection

of them almost exactly.

- They were very streamlined, just silver

with a rounded bottom, a middle flat form,

and then, rounded area on the top.

I was just mesmerized with what I was looking at.

- [Tony] Remember, those claims come from

hundreds of people, students and teachers alike.

Joy Clarke, who was 12 at the time,

recounts what happened next.

- They went up in the sky and they disappeared

down over to the back of

an area called The Grange.

Now, The Grange was bush land, pine trees.

They disappeared down there for quite a while

and some of the kids had actually jumped the fence

and taken off through The Grange

to catch up with them.

- [Tony] One of the students who follows the UFOs

down to The Grange is 11 year old, Terry Peck.

- I ran through The Grange and I just stood and stared

because it was really only four or five meters

in front of me.

- [Tony] After briefly hovering in The Grange,

eyewitnesses say the UFOs shot off into the sky,

leaving hundreds of eyewitnesses on the ground perplexed.

As the story spreads, more eyewitnesses emerge.

- This wasn't the only sighting in the area.

A second photo emerged in the wake of this incident

that was allegedly taken just days earlier,

showing a very similar silver disc object flying in the sky.

- [Tony] Look odd?

We turn the photo on its side and yet again,

we have a flying, metallic, dome-shaped object.

But despite the avalanche of eyewitness accounts,

some are quick to dismiss these sightings.

- The principal told us it was a weather balloon

and if we spoke to the media or anybody else,

we would get into big trouble.

- [Tony] It's been speculated that the alleged

balloon in question was part of the secretive Project Hibal.

- The Hibal Program was a

joint US-Australian program

to test atmospheric radiation levels in the 1960s.

So, the object might have been a high altitude balloon,

but the Hibal explanation doesn't totally fit

what the witnesses said they saw.

- No way in hell do I think that was a Hibal balloon.

- How could a balloon take off that fast

and turn on its side and go like that,

straight up in the air?

- We know what we saw.

They were some sort of aircraft, but in saucer shape.

I would lay my life down.

Wasn't a balloon.

[intense music] [air whooshing]

- Take a look at these sketches.

This is what Phyll remembers

and this is what Terry remembers.

See the dome tops?

This one even has those lights around the rim.

They definitely look a lot more like flying saucers

than deflated balloons to me.

So, let's give these eyewitnesses the investigation

this case deserves.

[suspenseful music] [keys clicking]

Hundreds of witnesses and two photos

that might prove it all.

Does that mean something really did happen in Westall?

- I think the fact that hundreds of people reported

seeing something means that something was actually there.

It doesn't meant that it was an alien spaceship,

but it means that there was something in the air.

- [Tony] So, we don't think the sighting itself is a hoax.

However, the same can't be said for that

black-and-white photo.

- The lighting itself seems weirdly inconsistent.

We've got these very, very dark trees in the foreground.

We have some light on the grass here,

but that would be coming from above.

This looks like it's kind of lit from below.

It doesn't seem like something that's actually there

in this scene.

- [Tony] And that could be an important clue.

- In the days of film and even with cameras today,

you could take a single photo of a terrain like this

and then take a second photo and overlay it on top

and that appears to be what's happened here.

It seems like a photo was taken of this.

Maybe it was a model.

Maybe it was a lamp.

And overlaid into a photo of the ground.

- [Tony] Chances are whoever made this photo

heard the Westall eyewitness accounts

and simply matched their descriptions.

As for that other photo from four days earlier?

- I think what we're actually looking at here

is probably something like a bowl

being tossed up in the sky in front of this building

and you can get very similar looking effects.

I've done essentially the same, ya know,

replicated it and I just went and I took the bowl,

tossed it up in the air and if we were to take

this shot here and just crop out

the bottom half of this, we'd get a UFO.

[tense music]

[suspenseful music] [keys clicking]

- Our verdict, these two photos are likely hoaxes,

but the Westall incident itself,

with hundreds of credible witnesses,

that still remains unexplained.

We may never know with certainty what happened in Westall,

but we're pretty sure it wasn't a balloon.

[swatter slapping]

And if you, if you suffer from this condition,

you may wanna cover your eyes during this next segment.

July 27th, 2024.

It's a warm summer weekend in the town of Westerly

at one of Rhode Island's most popular state beaches.

Vacationers have packed the sandy shores,

but a peaceful day quickly turns into

the stuff of nightmares.

- [Beachgoer] Wow. - [Woman] Oh my God.

[beachgoers scream]

- [Tony] People scream as a dark swarm of flying insects

invade the shore.

- [Camerawoman] This is insane!

- [Tony] Watch as these unwanted guests multiply

until thousands of them are blotting out the sky

and sending the crowd into a total panic.

- [Camerawoman] I've never seen anything

like this in my life.

- [Tony] By zooming in closer,

we can see what appears to be

an airborne armada of dragonflies.

- There were thousands of 'em,

thousands upon thousands of them.

We went from a beautiful day to almost darkness

with all of these dragonflies everywhere.

People were screaming and taking cover.

[beachgoers screaming]

It was really, really, really bizarre.

- [Camerawoman] Holy!

- The story exploded.

The news picked it up.

There were viral clips.

It went wild.

- [Tony] Many online interpreted the event

as a biblical sign

and not a good one.

- In the bible, Moses warns that God will send

10 plagues to Egypt

and a cloud of locusts

will cover every tree and eat every crop

so that there's nothing left,

which led some to speculate that maybe

this swarm of dragonflies could portend

the end of the world.

- [Tony] And while some thought these bugs were an omen,

what if they escaped from a lab?

Or were even part of a test?

- In 2017, researchers at the

Howard Hughes Medical Institute announced a project

called DragonFlEye that would create cyborg insects.

The idea was to genetically modify the insects

by implanting light- sensitive steering neurons

in their spinal cords.

The dragonflies will also be equipped with

a tiny backpack that has solar panels.

In theory, the researchers will be able to

steer the dragonflies to whatever location they want

and collect data.

- [Tony] The hope is that these tiny cyborg insects

could be used to infiltrate areas too small for humans

to conduct surveillance and carry miniature payloads.

They could even influence honeybee flight patterns

to assist with pollination.

- It's also possible that the researchers

will take what they've learned from this project

and use it in biomedical uses.

The researchers foresee a ton of uses for these dragonflies.

[beachgoers screaming]

[intense music] [air whooshing]

- Did you know that an ancestral form of the dragonfly

was one of the first winged insects to evolve

almost 300 million years ago?

These massive forefathers, known as griffin flies,

filled the skies with wingspans more than two feet long.

As for what their modern day counterparts are up to

in Rhode Island, we turn to our experts.

[suspenseful music] [keys clicking]

First, we nix the idea that dragonflies

are a form of divine punishment.

- Dragonflies are actually good for crops.

In fact, they can be thought of as crop guardians

because they can eat pests.

They also rely on wetlands, so they indicate clean water.

For these reasons,

dragonflies actually benefit the ecosystem.

They do have serrated mandibles

that can crush their prey, but they will only

bite a human being when provoked

and it would just be a pinch.

- [Tony] But could this be a swarm of

mechanically-enhanced cyborg dragonflies,

like the ones seen here from

Draper Labs' DragonFlEye project?

- A main advantage for using cyborg dragonflies

would be to be undetected,

not to cause an absolute uproar.

I also think these guys move very erratically,

not something that was programmed

to move through the air.

They don't seem to have any sort of set flight plan.

- [Tony] There also doesn't appear to be any tech

that would suggest an enhanced organism.

- When we get our first upclose look,

I don't see any sort of sensors on these guys

or anything that would indicate

any sort of robotic material.

This appears like it might be a type of blue dasher,

which is a dragonfly that naturally occurs

in North America.

- [Tony] Okay, so the creatures might be natural,

but their behavior is not.

So what really happened here?

- Dragonflies can't live in saltwater

and sandy environments.

What likely happened is it was a mild winter

and there was a higher mosquito population.

This allowed blue dashers to grow in population

and there was an abundance of them, but then,

as summer came along, their wetland habitats

started drying up.

- [Tony] It's not clear from what wetland habitat

in the area these insects came,

but one thing is for sure.

They were likely awfully hungry.

- The disturbance has caused them to

travel very far in search of food.

These guys are gonna have to keep continuing their search

either north or south until they find a habitat

that's able to support them.

[suspenseful music] [keys clicking]

- Our verdict, blue dasher dragonflies

in search of habitat.

It seems humans aren't the only ones having a rough go of it

in this real estate market.

We hope our dragonflies find a nice new home

and while the beaches aren't ideal,

they have plenty of options since dragonflies

can be found on every continent except Antarctica.

- I'm sure most of us have heard strange sounds

in our house at one time or another.

As scary as that may be,

imagine if your house was 250 miles above the earth

connected to the International Space Station.

Could E.T. be phoning your home?

August 31st, 2024.

We're onboard the Starliner,

a NASA spacecraft designed to taxi crew

to and from the International Space Station.

After this dropoff, the Starliner is docked

when Mission Commander Butch Wilmore reports

down to Johnson Space Center

that he hears something strange

coming out of a speaker.

[vibration noises echoing]

- [Tony] A steady beat pulsates in a constant interval.

The sound is uncanny.

Some might say, otherworldly.

Mission Control down in Houston confirms

they could hear the sound.

They just have no idea what it is.

But it is similar to a strange sound

captured from deep space back in the 1960s.

- This is reminding a lot of people

of what happened on Apollo 10.

When the astronauts were on the far side of the moon,

they heard a strange sound coming through

on their communications, almost like an

otherworldly music.

[staticky noises]

People immediately jumped to the idea

that it was some alien communication

that they were finally free to hear.

- [Tony] In fact, the United States has been trying

to capture extraterrestrial communications

for more than half a century using massive

radio telescopes, but modern advancements in astronomy

and technology have scientists using

new methods to try and eavesdrop on our

interstellar neighbors.

- In 2007, astronomers started looking for technosignatures

amid all of the audio sounds that they listened for.

This is any kind of signal that could

only have been made by technology.

- [Tony] Most of the sounds we've captured from space

are natural, like these eerie sounds of a black hole,

created by the pressure waves moving through

the cosmic cluster's hot gas.

[eerie whooshing]

Therefore, many scientists believe

the artificial sounds produced by these technosignatures

could help pinpoint the possible locations

of advanced extraterrestrial civilizations.

- When looking at the data from over 820 nearby stars,

in 2023, astronomers found eight signals

between 30 and 90 light years from Earth

that could be technosignatures.

[intense music] [air whooshing]

- Some think that our first communications

with aliens may actually happen through the internet.

The theory is that an exploratory race of aliens

would first inspect one of our communication satellites

and patch into our network before attempting

any type of physical contact.

Think about that the next time you're on Tinder.

But as far as what the Starliner heard,

let's see what our experts think.

[suspenseful music] [keys clicking]

First, we consider whether this sound

could be connected to the so-called music

heard on the Apollo mission back in 1969.

- The Apollo 10 crew happened to be hearing

something that they are interpreting as music.

[static pulsing]

But they realized it wasn't music.

It was interference that's actually happening.

- [Tony] Specifically,

interference between the mission's

two-manned spacecrafts, the lunar module,

and the command service module,

which both used VHF radios.

And as far as the Starliner sound being the

technosignature of some advanced faraway society,

[pulsating static]

well, there is a clue.

In fact, it's something very familiar.

- The Starliner recording had this peculiar sequence

of audible pulses that have a repetitive quality to them.

This is an example of a cell phone

exhibiting different kinds of acoustic feedback

and although this example has a very

wide variety of sounds present,

we can see intervals in the recording here

where we also see this repetitive impulse sound.

[squealing feedback]

[pulsating static]

- [Tony] The Starliner wasn't picking up

cell tower feedback, but is actually exhibiting

its own communications feedback issue.

- When the spacecraft is docked,

it has a kind of complicated interconnection

between the microphones in the various spacecraft

and that led to a feedback situation in which

sounds came out of the Starliner speaker

that were not intended.

- [Tony] In fact, the Starliner was plagued

by a string of malfunctions and leaks,

which forced the spaceship to return to Earth

without the astronauts.

They were stuck on the ISS for more than nine months

before returning to Earth in March 2025.

[suspenseful music] [keys clicking]

Our verdict, audio system feedback,

and while that explanation

may seem a bit underwhelming,

we're glad the brave astronauts aboard the ISS

didn't experience any extraterrestrial threats

during this historic mission.

- In the 1989 film, "Field of Dreams,"

a team of ghosts is conjured up

to play on a baseball field.

In our next story, we could be seeing

a similar phenomenon in a high school football game.

Let's take a look.

October 4th, 2013, Los Angeles, California.

It's football night at a high school

in the suburb of Sylmar.

A proud mom is in the stands as her daughter

begins her cheerleading routine.

But as mom captures the moment on video,

the camera also captures this.

[intense music]

As the cheerleaders complete an impressive maneuver,

a gray silhouette appears from the right side of the video.

It races across the track, arms raised,

only to seemingly disappear into thin air seconds later.

Let's watch that again.

Amazingly, none of those cheerleaders

seem to notice the apparition.

How is this possible?

- I said, "Oh my God, what is that?"

And I ran to my friends and,

"Can you believe that?

Can you see that?"

- [Tony] Local news media pick up the story,

kicking up a raft of questions and theories.

Some wonder if this sighting could be the spirit

of a deceased student tragically lost

in a car accident years earlier.

But there's an even quirkier theory

related to a local spot with a supernatural backstory.

- A few minutes down the road from this high school

is Sylmar's Gravity Hill.

The story of the Sylmar Gravity Hill

is that a group of children got into

some kind of school bus accident.

[tires squeal]

And they died.

[intense crash]

- [Tony] In the wake of this tragedy,

people have wondered if these deaths

are connected to a strange phenomenon at Gravity Hill.

- The story is that you go to the bottom of the hill

and you put your car in neutral

and it will start rolling up the hill

and it freaks people out.

- [Tony] As you can see in this footage,

some inexplicable force seems to be at work here.

And there are some who say that it's the spirits

of the children tragically killed in Sylmar

pushing cars up Gravity Hill.

Might they also be haunting the local high school?

- Is that horrific tragedy actually connected

to the ghost that we see in this video?

[ominous music] [air whooshing]

- When it comes to gridiron ghosts,

the the Gipper of Notre Dame may be the most iconic.

Star player, George Gipp, died of complications

from pneumonia in 1920.

Since then, there have been sightings of his ghost

all over campus.

Is it possible that Sylmar High School

has a ghost athlete of its own?

[suspenseful music] [keys clicking]

First, we wonder if it's possible

that the video capturing our ghost has been manipulated.

- The objects within the scene appear to be genuine.

That individual was running on the sidelines.

Now, do I know that for a fact?

Unfortunately, I do not because it's been recompressed.

- [Tony] What we're seeing here might not be

an intentional trick, but perception plays a big role

in some of these ghost stories,

like the legend of Gravity Hill.

It's not just in Sylmar.

Gravity Hills have been reported worldwide.

Check out this footage from Altadena, California

where we see another car inexplicably moving uphill.

- There's a place called Gravity Hill

where cars seem to go uphill all by themselves.

The reason is the human brain understands

where it's located in three dimensions

and if what's around you is tilted,

because you're sitting on a hill,

and the hill is tilted, that means your whole

frame of reference is also tilted.

And that things that are at rest can start to move.

It's an optical illusion.

- [Tony] Unlike Gravity Hill's ghosts,

the so-called apparition on this football field

was caught on camera.

Could it be the real deal?

- The things I notice about the video

is that it's shot at night,

which means that everything's a little bit blurry.

I think what we're actually seeing here

is actually just a person running through the shot.

When things move in a low frame rate

and long exposure video like this,

they're all going to be blurred if they're moving fast.

We see the motion in the cheerleaders

and we see it in this figure here.

- [Tony] A closer examination of the video

also reveals that it's not just the camera

who caught this runner.

- People thought that nobody noticed

this person running through,

but if you notice these two security guards.

This person turns around as if they're

following the person that just ran past them.

They're like, "What was that kid doing?"

Also, they're wearing very similar colors

to other people in the shot.

If we go back to them running through here,

looks like they're wearing some kind of purple sweatshirt.

That's probably just the team colors.

So, it's probably just a kid from the school.

[suspenseful music] [keys clicking]

- Our verdict, we believe this is an example

of a motion-blurred person, not a ghost.

And judging from his speed,

he could go pro.

- All over the world, we find legends of creatures

that look like us, only smaller.

Gnomes, elves, pixies, goblins, Mannegishi, Pukwudgies.

Okay, I'll stop.

Could these legends be so widespread

because there's a kernel of truth to them?

And was one of these little creatures filmed,

of all places, inside a fast food joint?

October 8th, 2020.

Atchison, Kansas.

Savannah Stubbs is going through memories on her camera roll

and stumbles upon an old video she says

she took while she and her cousin

were at a fast food restaurant,

but it isn't until now that she says she notices

something truly shocking in the background.

Did you catch it?

Take a closer look.

Nothing seems out of the ordinary at first,

but when we zoom in behind Savannah's cousin,

there's something visible through the slit

of the garbage receptacle and it blinks.

[intense music]

It looks like the pale eyes of someone

or something hiding in the trash.

Look again as we clearly see those eyes move.

- My initial reaction upon seeing this

was actually laughter,

that this sort of stuff

makes me giggle quite a bit.

The internet is abuzz with what this could possibly be.

And it's kind of led some people to theorize

that there is a dwarf-like animal that inhabits such areas,

perhaps foraging off of the food that's thrown away

or God knows what.

- [Tony] One possible suspect,

a legendary figure from Germanic folklore.

- In German mythology, there is an epic

called the Nibelungenlied and in that epic,

there is a dwarf, Alberich.

Alberich guards treasure, is always after more gold

and that sort of stuff.

Some people wonder if this could be

some sort of mythological dwarf, like Alberich,

in which case, one man's trash is another man's treasure.

- [Tony] Or is the culprit something less fantastic

and frankly, more sympathetic?

- A more unusual theory is that this might be people

who are living underground.

We know that colonies of people

sometimes happen underground in places

that are safe, out of the weather,

and people band together to share resources.

- [Tony] New York City was once famous

for its mole people, a term used to describe

the unhoused who found sanctuary

in abandoned tunnels beneath the city's streets.

They often found sustenance by scavenging food

from restaurant dumpsters and trash bins.

- Unfortunately, these people sometimes gather

their food from the refuse.

Then, they maybe find some things to sell.

Maybe this guy here is heading off the trash at the pass.

[intense music] [air whooshing]

- This wouldn't be the first time we've investigated

strange subterranean dwellers.

Remember these creepy eyes discovered

peering from the darkness of a West Virginia sewer tunnel?

Yes, we concluded those peepers were a hoax.

But can the same be said about this trash man?

[suspenseful music] [keys clicking]

What do we have here?

Are we looking deep into the eyes of some

mythically small, human-like being?

- Well, of course, there will be those who

trend towards the more sensational explanation

that I don't think we have to invoke a little person

or a leprechaun explanation to accommodate

the size of this cabinet.

It's, ya know, three and a half, four feet up

and it's got, looks like at least a foot,

foot-and-a-half depth away from the

side of the counter there.

There's plenty of room for someone to be

kneeling or sitting and have their face

show up at that slit.

- [Tony] Even though those eyes are certainly creepy,

there's nothing out of the ordinary about their appearance.

- Well, we get a pretty good view of the eye line here

and it just looks like a typical face.

I don't see anything as an anatomist that would

pique my curiosity about this being unconventional

in any way.

- [Tony] The average human face has a space between the eyes

that's actually the width of one eye

and the entire head itself is five eyes wide.

That matches what we see here.

So, could this be a modern-day mole person?

Well, hang on.

Because the camera work itself indicates

the proper response here is not compassion, but amusement.

- It just seems too convenient that the

mysterious eyes appear center frame

as the presumed subject of the video

actually is walking through the frame.

That suggests that there was some specific attention

directed at that trash can.

It was a contrived circumstance.

So it was a good prank.

[suspenseful music] [keys clicking]

- Our verdict, hoax.

Even though we have no idea who is hiding

inside that trash bin,

we agree with Professor Meldrum that the camera position

makes it pretty clear that all three participants

were in on the stunt.

But hey, it was a good one.

And I'll be looking twice next time I throw something

into a public waste bin.

That's our show for tonight.

Thank you so much for watching.

And remember to keep those cameras rolling.

[intense music]