Original subtitles

- Tonight, on The Proof is Out There.

A mysterious object flies over a military base.

Did it come from the water?

- You do see what appear to be,

like, these tendrils or tentacles.

- [Tony] Is a giant creature

lurking off the coast of Alabama?

- There actually is a pretty long and rich tradition

of sea monster accounts in the Gulf of Mexico.

- [Tony] Did an alien invasion take place at a shopping mall?

- Based on the human beings,

it seems like this is maybe 8 to 10 feet tall.

- [Tony] And we've seen an alleged Bigfoot

wandering around Louisiana before.

Did a trail cam just spot him again?

- The smallest estimate for this animal

would be seven feet tall.

[dramatic music]

- Around the globe are videos,

[witness screaming]

photos,

[creature screeching]

and sounds that defy explanation.

[electrical buzzing]

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

who made them, or how they operate.

- [Tony] What are they?

- [MJ] Some sort of bizarre mutation.

- [Marc] 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.

- [Witness] It's coming towards us.

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

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

- [Tony] And pass a verdict on what it is.

- This video was clearly faked.

- The proof starts now.

[dramatic music]

Good evening and welcome to The Proof is Out There.

For the past decade,

American investigative journalist Jeremy Corbell

has been at the forefront of UFO reporting.

He's leaked several videos and photos

of UFOs captured by the military,

which have stumped the experts.

And this next one might be the weirdest one yet.

It's October 2017.

We are at a US joint operations base somewhere in Iraq.

It's a quiet night at this sensitive military installation.

A targeting system scans the sky for threats,

when it's forward looking infrared, or FLIR camera,

captures something no one expected.

A jellyfish-like object moves across the sky.

There's an organically shaped mass at the top

with what looks like tendrils hanging from it.

Despite its brisk clip,

the object maintains an eerily rigid shape

seemingly undisturbed by the air it flies through.

Jeremy Corbell obtained and then released the video

to instant headlines, but this is just a clip.

He says the Department of Defense

is withholding the full length version,

which reveals the true extent

of the object's anomalous capabilities.

- Every witness that described seeing the full footage

describes the object going out over a lake,

dropping into the lake for about 17 minutes,

and then shooting off at a 45 degree angle.

- [Tony] That's important because those

alleged capabilities align with the Pentagon's

official investigations into what the government calls UAP,

unidentified anomalous phenomena.

- One of the observables we had in the Pentagon

was trans-medium travel,

the ability to operate in multiple different

domains and environments.

And if this thing did indeed go underwater,

well, it would certainly foot that bill

as being trans-medium.

- [Tony] Not only that, but it may represent the return

of a little known type of sighting.

- I think people would be really surprised to learn

that these type of objects

have been reported for decades

and they actually are referred to as jellyfish UFOs.

- [Tony] One of the most famous instances

was a 1977 mass sighting

over the Soviet city of Petrozavodsk.

This photo captures what witnesses described

as a huge glowing jellyfish with a bright red center,

and this wasn't the only sighting of its kind

back in the 1970s.

- I had the personal privilege of speaking

to an elderly gentleman who described, in Washington DC,

in the broad daylight,

what appeared to be a luminous jellyfish.

And he said it looked almost like a parachute

as it was going up, had this multicolored

of red and black and it reminded him of molten lava.

- [Tony] But why are these so-called jellyfish

making a sudden return five decades later?

Have they gravitated from our nation's capital

to our nation's military installations?

That's the concern.

- What's so troubling here is

that this is a very significant potential threat

to the safety and wellbeing of the individuals

on this military installation.

Imagine if these things can fly now

over controlled US military airspace

completely anonymously and unchallenged.

Let me be clear, UAP are real.

Advanced technologies not made by our government

or any other government

are monitoring sensitive military installations

around the globe.

- Here on Proof, we've analyzed several other trans-medium UFOs,

but none of them looked anything like this, right?

Look at these appendages here, and here, and here.

They seem to come down from this irregularly shaped mass

right there in the center,

and then at the top, there are these nodules

there, and there, and there.

What are they, antenna?

I can't make heads or tails

of what it is we're actually seeing here.

Maybe our experts can.

[tense music]

Since World War I, camo nets have been used

to soften the appearance

of harsh edges on everything from helmets

to entire vehicles.

So could this be a drone

using that time tested technique?

- You'll see at one point in the video,

you can see several people in this area.

You know what a body temperature of a person is,

and so this is not something

that's hotter than you know, 98 degrees.

So when it comes to any types of military machinery,

anything like that, that run cold

or able to fly at at a cold temperature,

really nothing comes to mind.

- [Tony] So is this a genuine UFO?

Certain intel says otherwise.

- I reached out to sources within the Pentagon.

They said that this video actually

had been explained by analysts.

They didn't unfortunately tell me

what that was because it's classified.

- [Tony] But don't worry,

we have our own analysts on the case,

zeroing in on an important clue.

- We can see what appears to be a flag

very briefly in the video,

and this enables us to estimate

the wind speed at approximately 10 miles per hour,

which is consistent with the motion

of the object in question.

And so it's possible that this could be a bunch of balloons.

- [Tony] This object does appear to drift with the wind

just like a balloon, except for one key detail.

- We never see any change of shape at all.

It seems like the object in the video is too rigid

to be a cluster of balloons.

- [Tony] And if this craft really dove into the water,

then sped away, as Jeremy Corbell has claimed,

how could it be balloons?

He says it's time to release the rest of this footage.

- UFOs is not a matter of belief.

It's true.

So I ask that our American government

please release the last bit of this footage,

because it is astonishing.

[tense music]

- Our verdict, unidentified object.

This thing defied expectations at every turn.

Camouflaged drone? Too cold.

Balloons in the wind? Too rigid.

But until we see the full video,

we can't call this a genuine UFO.

Now let's talk about something else

that's making waves, literally.

Anyone who watches our show regularly

has probably noticed a recent increase in reports

of strange sea creatures spotted all around the world.

Well, now, it looks like even Alabama

might have its own Loch Ness monster.

November 16th, 2023.

It's an overcast day at the Gulf Shores in Alabama.

Gavin Cox is hanging out on an oceanside deck

when he suddenly spots something peculiar

off in the distance.

Hiding behind the waves,

a long, black object emerges from the ocean.

It appears thick and almost serpent like.

As the front end submerges,

we briefly see a snake-like tail

curving out of the water surface

before the entire figure disappears back into the deep.

Take another look as the specimen reveals itself

from the water's surface.

While Alabama might seem like a strange place

to spot a potential sea monster,

the surrounding area has some surprising history.

- There actually is a pretty long and rich tradition

of sea monster accounts in the Gulf of Mexico.

One of the oldest accounts dates back to May 13th, 1872,

a Captain Hassell of the Norwegian vessel, the St. Olaf,

describes seeing a giant serpentine animal

about 70 feet in length, brownish in color,

with a snake-like head

and four fin-like protrusions coming out of its back.

- [Tony] According to Captain Hassel's log,

this strange animal was observed by the entire crew

for a full 10 minutes.

- And then fast forward to 1908,

The New York Times reported

that the steamer, Livingstone encountered

a giant 200 foot sea serpent

while traveling from Fonterra, Mexico

and that it was observed by the captain

and crew for a number of minutes.

15 crew members submitted sworn affidavits

that were verified by local police officers.

So we do have many accounts

dating back at least a century or more

of giant serpentine animals,

completely unknown to science,

that had been spotted in the Gulf of Mexico.

- Back in 1962, a group of five teenagers

took a raft out into the waters from Pensacola, Florida.

Only one returned.

The sole survivor claimed his four friends

were picked off one by one by a giant sea creature.

He even drew this picture to describe what he saw.

So is it possible we have something huge

and hungry living in the Gulf?

Let's ask our experts.

[tense music]

Some have suggested that perhaps what we are really seeing

is an oar fish, which are known to grow up to 36 feet long.

They've actually been popping up on shore recently

- Oar fish are extremely long bodied fish

that are distributed throughout the globe.

They're a pelagic species,

meaning they live out in open water

in the larger parts of the oceans.

There have been oar fish documented

in the Gulf of Mexico,

but it doesn't seem to be a very dense population of animals

and in fact, a lot of species that grow to very large sizes

will start out smaller in inshore areas

and then move offshore.

So the idea that this is an extremely large

oar fish is pretty unlikely.

- Oar fish are typically found in extremely deep water

like 600 to 3,000 feet,

and the only time they're found on the surface

is usually when they're ill

or have already passed away.

- [Tony] In fact, some question if

what we're looking at is even biological.

- The area that we would expect the head to be found at

has sort of a weird hook shape to it

that doesn't seem normal for any living animal.

Looks a little bit weird,

it looks a little more slender than the rest of it

and doesn't seem to really match up with everything else.

- [Tony] If this isn't an actual life form, then what is it?

- This might actually be some sort of inanimate object,

perhaps some plank of wood, or a tree that's out to sea.

Additionally, the fact that it's kind of bobbing

up and down with the water

shows that it's not really in control of its own buoyancy

or direction of movement,

and that's something I would expect to see

in something like a floating log.

- [Tony] But in this case, our experts disagree.

- You get some kind of a neck or a hump

that comes outta the water.

That to me tells me it's not just a log.

This looks like it could be a biological animal.

That being said, I'm having a hard time telling what this is

and to me it seems like it's a bit of a mystery.

- Our verdict, we're calling this one unexplained.

Without further investigation, our experts aren't certain

what this specimen could actually be.

So it's still possible the Alabama coast

could have its very own sea monster,

and of course we'll be keeping our eyes out

for further intel.

- Is it possible that beings from another planet

could already be walking the Earth?

Some people think the invasion started long ago

and a recent video sparked a media frenzy

when an alien allegedly appeared,

of all places, outside a shopping mall.

It's January 1st, 2024.

At 8:30 PM, police squad cars swarm

an unfolding emergency at Miami's

Bayside Marketplace Mall.

It's a chaotic scene as an onlooker pulls out

his smartphone and records the action from above.

Local resident, Ryan Landy, was watching

from a nearby balcony.

- We went out onto our balcony because we heard the screaming.

Police cars started showing up in droves.

People were just screaming and running through the streets

almost getting hit by cars.

We couldn't figure out what they were running from.

They were running for their lives.

- [Tony] This video posted on the internet

shows a frenzy of flashing cop cars

and figures scrambling in all directions.

Then as it was posted online,

the video uses emoji hands to show something

that looks truly out of this world.

Did you catch it?

The quality of the video is very poor,

but look again as we slow it down.

It appears to be a giant figure,

larger than the cars and people surrounding it

and blurry as if cloaked or camouflaged.

And it casts a large shadow, which you can see here.

- Watching all of this, we were just really confused

and really fascinated.

We were just spending the entire time trying to figure out

what was going on and we really couldn't.

- According to people online, this footage seems

to show a really tall, alien-like figure

around 10 feet or so tall,

and they thought that that could explain

why so many police were called to the mall.

The clips took off and were viewed on social media

more than seven million times.

- [Tony] Media outlets from around the globe

report on the public's paranoia over monstrous aliens

on the loose in Miami.

- Some think that the reason we're seeing

more of these aliens is not because

they're coming from outer space,

but because they've been here all along.

- [Tony] It's a new concept involving homegrown entities

known as cryptoterrestrials.

- A cryptoterrestrial is a civilization that, in theory,

has existed alongside humanity for millennia.

The idea is that there was some kind of cataclysmic event

that wiped most of them off the face of the Earth

and the ones that survived are using advanced technology

that helps them stay undetected

in areas like the very deep sea or very far underground.

- [Tony] In 2024, two Harvard scholars

published a scientific paper

that claims the sightings of so-called aliens

might actually be these survivors

of a long lost, Earth-bound race gradually reemerging.

- So some people are wondering if cryptoterrestrials

are actually making their way into society more and more.

- There are those who believe

that these so-called cryptoterrestrials

may have influenced the human race over the millennia,

as seen through our mythology and folklore.

Could ancient accounts of sunken civilizations

such as Atlantis or Lemuria

actually be describing cryptoterrestrials?

And if so, why would those

that remain be interested in a Miami shopping mall?

[tense music]

Could we be looking at some overgrown human

or animal in this footage?

- Just based on the human beings that we've seen in this video,

it seems like this is maybe eight to 10 feet tall.

I don't see really any arm movements.

It almost seems like it's kind of like, wobbly and going slow.

- [Tony] So could this be some cryptoterrestrial?

- If there were another species living amongst us,

you would think we would see some sort of physical remains.

We don't see any fossils or markings

or anything left behind at all.

And if it was truly cryptic,

it doesn't make sense for one to be walking around

in such a densely populated area as Miami.

- [Tony] But what then was the reason

for this massive police response?

- What happened at the mall is

that there were about 50 kids playing with fireworks.

This triggered people calling the cops

and they signaled a citywide three,

which means that all cops in the area

had to deploy to the scene to get it under control.

- [Tony] Okay, so the police were there

to bust some juveniles.

Then what the heck are we looking at in this video?

For that answer, we require some forensic video analysis.

- They put two different versions of the recording

with these different perspectives

in the same sequence.

So I applied video analysis methodology

to compare them side by side,

and when we flip the one and play them simultaneously,

you can see that it's the same events

at two different quality levels

and we were able to essentially debunk

what was represented here.

- Seeing the two images next to each other,

a clearer picture unfolds.

The alien was the police.

- It's my opinion that this recording has been compressed

to a high degree, misrepresenting

what was originally occurring on the ground.

Whether or not that was done intentionally, I don't know,

but with a higher quality version,

you can see the distinct characteristics

of these three individual subjects and not one.

And the Miami Police Department confirmed

that these were three individual officers.

[tense music]

- Our verdict, thanks to our expert's handiwork,

we can clearly see that it's actually

just three officers walking side by side.

Whether it was an intended prank or not remains unknown,

but the only thing haunting the mall that evening

was a rowdy group of teens.

And given a choice, I'd rather deal with the giant alien.

- Trail cameras are everywhere.

Believe us, we know.

We've seen them capture everything

from a woman pretending to eat a deer carcass

to a naked guy who may have been tripping on mushrooms,

walking on all fours.

Did one of these cameras also capture Bigfoot?

Take a look.

June 29th, 2013, the sun is just starting

to come up in Vernon Parish, Louisiana

when a trail camera is triggered by a murder of crows.

While these unassuming birds were the focus

of the automatic snapshot,

it's what's captured in the distance

that has people talking.

A strange figure looms in the background

lurking near a hunting blind.

When we zoom in, we can see that it's upright on two legs

and is a uniform dark color.

- It's really hard to tell what this is,

but obviously it's super, super creepy.

This figure is pretty big compared to the hunting blind.

Some people have said that they can see

muscle definition on the figure.

The area is also very lush.

There are lots of potential food sources

from animals to plants, and there's also water.

So it's pretty much a great place for a creature

that doesn't wanna be detected to hang out.

- [Tony] This parish in Louisiana is no stranger

to menacing Bigfoot encounters.

Back in 1988, three teenagers

reported seeing a large grayish brown beast

approximately seven feet tall

in a friend's backyard near where this photo was taken.

According to the report, the boys ran away

after the creature roared at them, and there's more.

In a previous episode, we covered this video

of another purported Bigfoot out of Louisiana

called the Honey Island Swamp Monster.

It would reportedly attack wildlife in the area

and scavenge for scraps in hunting camps.

Are all these accounts one type of creature

simply looking for food?

- A lot of Bigfoot researchers do think

that Sasquatch is a scavenger.

Some people believe that what we're seeing in this photo

is actually the start of a hunt.

- So Bigfoot could be a scavenger,

but could it also be a killer?

In the late '40s and early '50s,

residents of the small cannery town

of Portlock, Alaska were shaken

by a series of unexplained deaths.

Townsfolk were found violently torn apart.

Many speculated that a bigfoot was behind these attacks.

Did these hunters in Louisiana escape a similar fate?

[tense music]

First, could this just be a local animal?

- The Louisiana Black Bear,

one of the 16 subspecies of black bear in the United States

does live in this area.

They do sometimes stand on their hind legs to get food,

but I don't think we're seeing a black bear.

You can see that the hips are just

much higher up on the body.

This doesn't have a long enough torso to be a black bear,

and in this photo the hind legs are way too tall.

- [Tony] What other bipedal creature might this be?

Well, we need to consider the most obvious answer.

- I definitely think that this is a person.

Everything is congruent with what a human being

can look like.

It's just we're not seeing a good picture of their face.

- [Tony] However, field researcher Cliff Barackman

hasn't just seen the photo.

He's gone to the location himself

and he isn't sold on the idea

that this is just some average human.

- I have been to the location.

That hunting blind gave me the opportunity

to do size comparisons.

Right next to the hunting blind

is a depression in the ground that is six inches deep.

If it was standing in that depression,

the smallest estimate for this animal

would be seven feet tall.

Now, that is not outside of the human range

by any means, but it is pretty big.

- [Tony] Barackman also reveals another key detail

that can't be seen in this particular image.

- What you don't see in this photograph is right here,

there is a cage that was specifically designed

for trapping hogs.

That's an easy meal if you're a primate.

On top of that, the crows that were in the foreground

of the picture were feeding on feed corn

that was thrown there to lure the hogs in it.

- And according to our expert, it's these crows

that rule out this picture as a potential hoax.

- If you are depending on the crows

to set off the trail camera at the right time,

that seems like a very unlikely way to hoax anything.

I think that it is more likely

that what we're seeing here

is an accidentally caught Sasquatch in the background

of a trail camera photograph that was triggered by crows.

[tense music]

- Our verdict, we're calling this one a potential Bigfoot.

While we can't confirm 100%

since our experts disagree,

Cliff Barackman's onsite investigation

definitely gives us pause before we dismiss this

as a hoax or misidentification.

- What do Pakistan, New Mexico, and Colombia have in common?

If you're a regular viewer,

you know that they're all locations

where strange flying objects have been caught on camera

by professional pilots.

This season, we continue the tradition near Hawaii.

August 9th, 2022, the Pacific Ocean.

Commercial airline pilot, Chris Van Voorhis

is about 90 minutes into a flight

from Honolulu to Los Angeles

when nearby pilot chatter calls his attention

to an anomaly in the sky.

- At this point in time, when we started looking outside,

we were able to pick up the anomaly

that they were talking about.

- [Tony] Through the cockpit window,

Chris records a bright orb appearing

to the northwest just below the Big Dipper.

- [Chris] Okay, there it is.

- [Tony] Let's slow it down and take a closer look.

The light moves around a bit before quickly disappearing.

- [Chris] Oh, dang it, it went away.

- [Tony] Chris continues recording

for more than two minutes

as the light intermittently disappears and reappears.

- We were rather awed by it and dismayed at the same time.

Nothing was seen on radar.

It would move and then it would go out.

Now sometimes, this is indicative of a satellite

and usually we'd see satellites

during either sunset or sunrise

and it would be reflecting the sun

from their solar arrays.

But this wasn't directly after sunset or sunrise.

- [Tony] But this sighting is far from a first

for either Chris or his fellow pilots.

- I've seen quite a bit up there

and I know quite a few pilots that have seen these orbs

or anomalies, maybe up to 50%.

- [Tony] Chris's video appeared in national news coverage

on the growing topic of pilot encounters.

- This is not unique.

There's videos captured like this all the time.

Needless to say, it's always a bad combination

to have a commercial airline flying in the vicinity

of an unknown object.

That is an air safety issue.

- [Tony] In fact, pilots overseas

are facing similar safety concerns.

- There's also reports by pilots in the European countries

of these strange lights.

One sighting wasn't on the pilot's radar

and air traffic control,

or ATC, also did not report the incident.

- [Tony] And these sightings can leave a lasting impression.

- This has changed my beliefs tremendously.

It's opened my mind to the possibilities

of everything from interdimensional travel

and portals, and time travel, and extra terrestrials.

- One of the more prominent pilot whistleblowers

is Ryan Graves, the first active duty US Navy aviator

to go public about regular UAP sightings.

He testified about his own encounter to Congress in 2023.

So did Chris see one too?

Our experts review the data.

[tense music]

Is this just a case of mistaken identity?

We first ask if this ball of light

could be natural, like a meteor or fireball.

- A fireball is a very fast moving object

and it looks like an object

that is leaving some sort of like a small trail.

In the video that we see here, we don't see trails.

- [Tony] So perhaps this light is emitting

from a manmade craft,

like the afterburners found at the rear of a jet.

Like Chris, we don't see it.

- When a fighter jet is using afterburners,

It's the equivalent of just slamming your foot on the gas

in a car, and so you wouldn't see afterburners

just burning consistently over any length of time

because the act of putting your foot on the gas

burns a lot of fuel.

- [Tony] Okay, well, this is the middle of the Pacific.

Could it be some secret military technology

we were never meant to see?

- It is in this weird corridor in the Pacific

between California and Hawaii

that is frequently used by the government

for various testing.

- [Tony] In fact, the nearby Pacific Missile Range Facility

is the largest range of its kind

and is known to test advanced technology systems.

- So it's not totally out of the question,

but normally that's done in a very controlled setting

where it wouldn't be visible to the public.

- So while possible, the fact that Chris

and other commercial pilots were allowed to fly here

makes secret tech unlikely.

Then could it be a genuine UFO?

- I don't see any characteristics

that are unusual or anomalous,

but at the same time, I can't tell you what this is.

So categorically, it's a UFO.

And if you add into the mix the eyewitness testimony,

maybe this is more unusual than the video gives it credit.

[tense music]

- Our verdict, genuine UFO.

If you're a commercial pilot

or a veteran who wants to report a sighting,

Ryan Graves's non-profit,

Americans for Safe Aerospace, can help.

The organization provides a secure system

to collect information through its witness program.

And while you're at it, you may as well let us know too.

- The idea of giant menacing spiders

has been a popular conceit since the drive in B movies

of the 1950s.

But could there be some scientific truth

behind a gargantuan arachnid?

Take a look.

March 23rd, 2024, vacationing camper, Bruno Roos

and a group of friends have hiked to the picturesque top

of Mestre Alvaro in Brazil.

At around 3:30 in the morning, Bruno prepares his camera

to snap some late night picks

when he suddenly discovers he's not alone.

An enormous spider perches on the outside of Bruno's tent.

Its leg span is comparable

to the size of Bruno's flashlight,

which illuminates the creature as it moves.

It appears massive, big enough to make your stomach drop.

- [Tony] Some have compared this

to an eight legged legend from Africa,

the reputed giant Congolese spider known as J'ba Fofi.

- The most famous account involving the J'ba Fofi

involves a couple that was motoring

through the Belgian Congo in the year 1938,

when according to them,

there was a massive spider about three feet in diameter

crossing the road in front of their vehicle.

The local Baka people in the Congo

will talk about how these giant spiders

will actually set traps for people

that are traveling down these trails.

- [Tony] Both the Congo and South America

are known to have an abundance of large predatory arachnids.

Just take a look at this tarantula making a meal

out of an Opossum.

- Some of these monstrous spiders

are actually capable of eating small animals,

like birds, frogs, and even monkeys.

If something like a monstrous spider does exist,

I think we would expect to find it

deep in the African Congo or in South America.

- Have you ever wondered why the spiders from our legends

and novels are typically depicted as female?

Charlotte, Shelob, even the Greek myth of Arachni.

Well, it might be because of all of that web spinning,

which many cultures equate

with the historically women-led skill of weaving.

So whatever sex this is,

could it be a giant spider?

[tense music]

We first checked to make sure

that this sinister specimen is real,

and not some hairy legged hoax.

- This video may have gotten more attention

because the shadows make the spider appear bigger

than it is, but it's still a big spider.

There's nothing to suggest that it isn't real.

- [Tony] So could this spider be related to the stories

of giant spiders like the fearsome J'ba Fofi?

- While a spider could be very large,

I think it's highly improbable we would ever find one

large enough to be similar to what's described

as the Congolese spider.

There's a lot of physical constraints

that control spiders sizes.

- [Tony] One such constraint

is the spider's respiratory system.

They take in air through tiny exposed slits

on their abdomen.

It's fine for small creatures,

but the process is too limited

to provide enough oxygen for a larger body.

The question remains, what are we looking at?

And more importantly, could this big bugger

be eyeing human beings as potential prey?

- Based on the location and the size of the spider,

this one appears to be a Brazilian wandering spider,

which gets about seven inches.

So this one might be on the larger size of their scale.

- The Brazilian wandering spider

eats animals like mice, lizards, and frogs.

- It's not really natural for them

to try to chase down and hunt larger prey than themselves.

Wasting their precious venom

on something a lot larger than them

that they can't actually consume

is not very energy efficient

and they definitely don't wanna do it.

[tense music]

- Our verdict, this is a Brazilian wandering spider

and a particularly monstrous one at that,

and while it's bite is easily treatable,

if you do see one of these guys,

I'd recommend leaving it alone.

- According to the International Cloud Atlas,

there are 10 basic types of clouds

and 27 subtypes distinguished by size, color, and shape.

All clouds share one common feature.

They're up in the sky, not rolling through parking lots.

But in this next story, the facts get a little foggy.

July 3rd, 2021, San Ramon, California.

Scott Brooks and Bear Matoza are driving through

a supermarket parking lot at night

when they spot something strange

floating out of the darkness.

They pull out their phones and record this.

A strange puffy object appears

to be tumbling across the asphalt.

It's about three to four feet tall and wide,

and it has an amorphous, cloud-like shape.

The camera pans to discover two more of these objects

as they slip slowly over the grassy medians

and parking spaces floating without a care in the world.

It was almost like a cloud.

It seemed to be, like, scooting around

a little bit more than it...

I don't know, it just, it wasn't windy,

but it was also kind of moving like it was.

It was just really strange.

- The first thought in my mind is, we're dead center

between multiple military bases.

That's sort of the Area 51 of California.

So that was something that struck me that I went,

hmm, maybe this is a radioactive material

that's coming from one of the military bases

or something like that.

- [Tony] Those concerns might be well-founded.

- It's happened before that the US government

and military has tested biological weapons

without people knowing.

- [Tony] In 1950, clandestine military tests

using non-lethal bacteria were conducted on a massive scale.

- Clouds containing bacteria were released from ships

over Norfolk, Virginia and on the coast by San Francisco.

And in that case, over 800,000 residents

were exposed to this bacteria.

In fact, no one knew that this had even happened until 1977.

The government hid all of these experiments for years.

- [Tony] Another theory, these clouds

could be a cutting edge space age substance: aerogels.

- Aerogels are effectively a gel-like substance,

but the liquid part of the gel has been replaced by gas,

which makes them extremely light.

Aerogels have been used as an insulating material

for space exploration.

NASA uses these kinds of materials

as an insulator in spacecraft.

- Aerogels were first developed in the 1930s,

but their importance as a lightweight insulation material

for NASA continues today,

including on futuristic projects like colonizing Mars.

So did some of this substance blow away

from one of the nearby bases,

or do we have our heads in the clouds?

Let's ask our experts.

[tense music]

Is what we're seeing on camera

a work of digital art created by a pair of hoaxers?

- I applied frame by frame visual analysis

of the recording.

I was confident in being able

to detect the authenticity of this

as a camera original file.

No evidence of trimming or manipulations

or CGI or anything like that.

- [Tony] The recording is real,

but the question remains, are we looking at clouds?

- To even get a cloud, you need to have water vapor,

and the wind is able to keep it suspended in the air.

This does not look like fog.

This looks like something that should not

be even considered a meteorological phenomenon.

- [Tony] So what about the eyewitnesses concern

that it's another secret military test

of some airborne weapon or gas?

- We have these objects interacting with each other.

It seems like they're rolling over each other.

In reality, a gas would not do that.

- [Tony] And how about the aerogel hypothesis

or some other manmade material?

- I have here, a sample of what's called aerogel.

It bears some similarity to the objects we see in the video.

However, these would be very large pieces of aerogel,

and aerogel is very expensive

since it has scientific and space travel applications.

Also, aerogel is very transparent.

So I don't think that this is a case of aerogel.

There are all kinds of new materials

we're inventing all the time.

This might be some kind of new material

that the general public isn't familiar with yet.

- [Tony] We even wondered if this could be a party trick

like this cloud generator.

But ultimately, we can only speculate.

- Without holding a sample and being able to test it,

I don't think we'll ever be able

to conclusively solve this mystery.

[tense music]

- Our verdict, unexplained.

For now, our experts are stumped.

We'll keep our eyes on the skies

and on the ground for more evidence.

And that's our show for tonight.

Thank you so much for watching,

and as always, keep those cameras rolling.

[dramatic music]