Original subtitles

♪♪

KISH: It is part of who I am.

JESSICA: If someone told me, "You can't do it,"

then I'm just gonna do it.

FLORIAN: It got kind of into a self-challenge.

It went this way. It came this way.

FLORIAN: The next challenge was basically to do it live.

CAMPBELL: 100 years ago, Robert Ripley went on a quest

to the farthest reaches of the globe

in search of the extraordinary and unusual.

Today, the adventure continues,

searching for the world's most bizarre,

astonishing secrets...

♪♪

...on "Ripley's Believe It or Not!"

♪♪

There are limits to the physical world,

and most of us happily exist within that framework,

but a rare few seem to transcend everything we thought we knew.

I'm Bruce Campbell, and these are the people

who defy all expectations,

from the limits of human endurance

to the laws of physics themselves.

If you're not amazed by the end of this, check your pulse.

♪♪

Florian Kohler has been running the table for over a decade.

Today, he will have to push himself harder than ever

in order to break a record held by a billiard legend...

♪♪

...himself.

My name is Florian Kohler, also known as "Venom,"

and my profession is to basically show off

in pool halls.

I'm a professional pool-trick-shot artist,

and I'm a two-times World Cup of Trick Shot champion.

♪♪

I'm mainly known for being as extreme as possible.

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

CAMPBELL: For 30-year-old Florian Kohler,

the felt of the pool table is a blank canvas.

The balls are his paint,

the cue stick his brush.

♪♪

FLORIAN: A trick shot is kind of a special thing to me,

and I really believe it's in crossing

in between sports and art.

♪♪

I started from basically nothing.

I had no parents that played pool.

I remember I was driving, and I hear this ad on the radio,

somebody selling a pool table for really cheap.

I told my parents. Back then, I was just 17.

And they decided to buy it for my birthday.

I had no idea how to play pool.

You know, kind of looked online, and I saw trick shots,

and I was like, "Aw, I'm gonna learn trick shots,

and it'll teach me how to play pool."

And the mind-set with trick shots

was to be creative and invent something new,

and I really got into it and got --

it got kind of into a self-challenge.

♪♪

CAMPBELL: In just a year,

Florian mastered all the classic trick shots.

What really I needed to do was to make it more extreme.

Really, it was the same shot the last 60 years,

and everybody just copied those guys.

They invented the shots, and I was like,

"Why does nobody invent something new?"

And I just really got hooked into this new thing

and try to create something special,

you know, make my own mark out of it.

♪♪

CAMPBELL: Florian set to work creating his own trick shots,

recording them and posting them online under the name Venom,

and still it wasn't enough.

FLORIAN: The next challenge was basically to do it live.

It's one thing to do videos.

It's a totally other things to do live shows,

and I discovered that you didn't have to

make it one time every hour.

You had to make it, you know, every three tries.

So it kind of changed my mind-set again.

♪♪

Boom! First shot goes in, and the people cheering on you.

It's, like, "Wow. It's actually --

oh, it's so good."

So then you make the second one, and people cheer more,

and then you kind of push your limits,

but from there, it just kept going,

and the word kind of spread that,

"Huh. So the guy is not only just good on the Internet.

He can actually do it live."

Because I think I wasn't a pool player by nature,

so, you know, most of those guys are --

they played pool since they're 8 years old

and learn the real game and then do trick shots.

I came up from trick shots, so I have no limits,

and to me, it was just a blank piece of paper

that I could draw something new on it,

and I was able to just really create something special.

♪♪

IANA: Florian has a repertoire

of hundreds of tricks, thousands.

I don't know. I've lost count.

♪♪

I'm mostly known for what we call massé shots,

which is when you hold the cue vertical,

and you impact the cue ball vertical

and try to make it spin a lot.

We're gonna go red ball here

and another red ball right there.

It's a long-rail massé, so basically I'm gonna

hit the cue ball up all the way into the red,

make the red in the corner, cue ball come back,

hit the other red.

♪♪

CAMPBELL: Florian pushes massé shots to the extreme,

curving the ball around the table in unexpected ways.

He also holds five Guinness World Records titles

for other billiard skills.

FLORIAN: The first one, but it's kind of a funny one --

so I own the longest cue in the world, about 17 feet.

So I show up for the world-record shoots,

and they told me, "You have to make all eight balls."

I'm like, "Wow. That's not so easy."

♪♪

Then I have the fastest 15-balls jump shot...

♪♪

...fastest 15 balls one-handed.

♪♪

Then I have the longest spin,

trying to spin the cue ball as long as possible...

♪♪

...and the most balls jumped over an obstacle in a minute.

♪♪

CAMPBELL: Today, he doesn't just want to break his own record.

He wants to shatter it.

I've been working a lot on trying to beat my world record

for the longest spin.

It's 23 seconds as of right now.

My main goal is to beat 30 seconds.

I truly believe it's reachable, and I think over 30 seconds

is gonna make it nearly impossible

for people to beat it.

CAMPBELL: For this challenge,

precision is as important as power.

Florian must strike the cue ball off-center

to send it spinning and hard enough

for the spin to sustain itself.

But too hard, and the ball will travel across the table

and hit the bank, where friction will slow its rotation.

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

Come on, ball. Stay spinning.

Come on.

Come on. Keep spinning, spinning, ball.

♪♪

Still going, still going, still going.

And stop.

MAN: 32.27!

Yeah! Told you I was gonna beat 30 seconds.

Not bad.

♪♪

The first love I have for the game --

it really is creating new shots, and I really never thought

I was gonna be able to make it as a living.

♪♪

Florian used trick shots to defy logic,

but sometimes the greatest trick of all

is staying alive.

Picture this -- you're trapped at the bottom of the ocean

in total darkness

with just a tiny pocket of air to breathe for three days.

That's a neat trick.

♪♪

Around 4:00 a.m. on May 26th, 2013,

off the coast of Nigeria in Western Africa...

♪♪

...a tugboat hits a rogue wave

in the churning waters of the Atlantic Ocean.

The ship's cook, Harrison Okene,

is the only member of the 12-man crew

who happens to be awake.

Then the boat starts sinking.

♪♪

♪♪

Trapped in the belly of the boat,

98 feet below the surface,

Harrison has only seconds to react as the vessel floods.

Luckily, there's an air pocket.

♪♪

ALVAREZ: So it's creating an extension of my personality,

making myself a sort of character.

♪♪

There is a new way to see through any kind of darkness,

through any kind of challenge.

♪♪

♪♪

In May 2013, off the western coast of Africa,

a rogue wave bears down on a helpless tugboat,

and one crew member, Harrison Okene,

is about to test the limits of human survival.

♪♪

He's now stuck 98 feet underwater in the pitch black

with no food and barely any oxygen.

There's no more sound coming from any of his 11 crewmates

and no way to know if any of them are still alive.

♪♪

♪♪

Growing up in a small Nigerian town,

all Harrison wanted was to follow

in his mother's footsteps.

After learning from his mom

and working in several different restaurants,

Harrison got a job as a cook aboard a ship in 2011.

Harrison eventually got over his queasiness.

Now, two years later, stuck inside a shipwreck,

he wishes he'd stayed on land for good.

♪♪

After three days of torture with no food or drinkable water,

time is running out.

As Harrison waits to die, a team of South African divers

is dispatched from their base 150 miles away

to recover the crew's remains.

But getting into the tugboat won't be easy.

Nico and his team smash through doors, room by room...

♪♪

...finding one dead body after another.

Horribly, there are no survivors.

♪♪

[ Heavy breathing through mask ]

MAN: Okay, sir, have you come into the next deck

onto the main deck?

-Look at this. -What's that?

-Okay. Oof. -All right. You found one, yeah?

-There's someone alive. -He's alive? He's alive?

-He's alive. -Okay. Keep him there.

MAN: Keep him there.

Okay.

All right.

All right. Get him out of the water.

We don't want hypothermia.

-Okay. Stand up. -Get him back up there.

All right. Now you mustn't panic, yeah?

What's your name? -Harrison. Harrison.

-Harrison? -Yes, sir.

MAN: All right. Let's go.

♪♪

CAMPBELL: Against all odds,

Harrison makes it to the medical station,

but because he's been underwater for so long,

he needs to spend the next three days

in a decompression chamber.

Harrison's experience has left him terrified of water

and tormented by insomnia,

but he's been trying to overcome his trauma.

Believe it or not, for the last six months,

he's been training to get a commercial diver's license.

Today, he's leaving the controlled confines of a pool

and heading out into a lake for the first time.

♪♪

It's funny how the world works.

One man's darkness is another man's light.

In Southern California, there's a guy who found a way

to envision the world without his eyes.

♪♪

KISH: There is a new way to see.

We can create ways to see

through any kind of darkness, through any kind of challenge,

through any kind of apprehension or fear.

♪♪

DEVECCHIO: Daniel is an amazing individual.

If you didn't get a chance

to observe the fact that he was blind,

you would never know that he was.

[ Clicking ]

♪♪

CAMPBELL: The world went dark for Daniel Kish at age 1,

but all on his own, he developed a new way to see...

...a sonar system that humans aren't supposed to have,

believe it...or not.

♪♪

JESSICA: It's hard enough for someone with hands to fly.

No one has ever been certified to fly an airplane

with their feet, so it was almost like

having to create a new way to fly an airplane.

♪♪

♪♪

California native Daniel Kish lost his eyesight as a baby,

but that hasn't stopped him from doing anything...

and everything.

♪♪

♪ Ooh-whoo-ooh-ooh-ooh

I'm Daniel Kish.

I am the president of World Access for the Blind.

My blindness does not define me.

It just is part of who I am.

53-year-old Daniel Kish had retinal cancer

when he was a baby.

My first eye was removed at the age of 7 months

and my second at 13 months.

CAMPBELL: But Daniel's mother didn't want him to feel different.

KISH: When I was very, very little, I misbehaved,

and my mom sent me to my room,

and my grandmother's response was,

"How can you discipline that child?

You don't even know if he's going to live."

My mom's response was, "Yes, but if he is going to live,

I'm not going to have a spoiled brat on my hands."

My parents didn't have negative assumptions

or biases about blindness.

CAMPBELL: Neither did Daniel.

Before he could even walk,

without any input from experts or adults,

Daniel began developing a skill called echolocation.

Human echolocation is a way of seeing with sound.

So, if you're using light,

your brain uses patterns of reflected light

to build images of what's around you,

and if you're using echolocation,

you're throwing out sound.

It bounces off of things around you, comes back,

and your brain can build images from those patterns.

[ Bats screeching ]

CAMPBELL: Echolocation is common in bats,

toothed whales, dolphins,

and some species of birds and shrews.

[ Shrew squeaking ]

Who knew a blind little boy could learn this skill, too?

♪♪

Animals emit clicks, whistles, or even ultrasound waves

to sense their surroundings.

Daniel adapted his own technique --

pulling his tongue down from the roof of his mouth

to make a click.

[ Clicking ]

By all reports, I began clicking and finding my own way around

somewhere between 15 and 18 months.

It was just something that seemed natural for me to do.

[ Clicking ]

CAMPBELL: Daniel is the founder and president

of a California advocacy group

called World Access for the Blind.

So far, he's shared his gift with 500 blind children.

[ Clicking ]

In front of us here, we have a tree

more up close in the foreground,

but really, farther away, we have the echo off the house.

KISH: Of course, there are houses

surrounding the one that we're hearing.

The houses are large.

[ Clicking ]

And the important part --

it's not the click in the mouth.

Your focus is on the echo coming back

at the speed of sound.

KISH: A spread...

is kind of spread out beyond that wall.

And you'll know exactly...

CAMPBELL: Today, Daniel and Brian

are teaching 9-year-old Nathan

to use echolocation so he can safely ride his bike.

So you'll be knowing exactly where you are as you move.

NIPP: Nathan was born blind.

He was born with something called Peters anomaly.

And basically it means that everything with you is fine

except your corneas don't develop in your eyes.

I just accepted Nathan's just gonna be blind.

So are you ready to get on your bike?

-Yeah. -All right.

Whenever you're ready, sir.

♪♪

KISH: We introduce various activities and exercises

that activate the auditory system to become more aware.

-Use that active tongue click... -To know where to go.

...to know where people are.

[ Clicking ]

How do you recognize the garage, Nathan?

It comes in after a big opening.

I can hear a lot of hollow in the open area.

[ Clicking ]Beautiful clicks.

[ Clicking ]

Yeah.

BUSHWAY: He's able to go in a straight line.

He's able to measure his distance

off the two sides of the alley.

He's able to turn around, so he's very aware of his space.

[ Laughs ]

[ Clicking ]

When Nathan first rode a bike, I was extremely proud of him.

I was just amazed at how he could possibly

do something like that.

Daniel's work is fantastic.

BUSHWAY: He was able to take this skill

and pass this along to other people.

Whoo-hoo-hoo-hoo!

[ Laughter ]

Man's greatest and deepest fear is fear of the dark,

fear of the unknown.

Blind people who've learned to see

through their own blindness have neutralized that fear.

BUSHWAY: What we've learned to do is see in the dark.

[ Clicking ]

♪♪

Against all odds, Daniel Kish is defying blindness

in his own way.

When it comes to physical limitations,

there's a woman in New York who is also breaking the rules.

♪ Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah ♪

♪ Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah

♪♪

I think the goth subculture

really does connect with my mind-set.

♪♪

ALVAREZ: I feel like I can be myself,

like there's a sense of freedom,

and I felt like I fit in.

I had to learn how to adapt,

and I had to learn how to make the changes

to be able to move forward.

My name is Shirley Alvarez.

I am The Tragic Doll.

♪♪

♪♪

CAMPBELL: When Shirley Alvarez was 9,

something terrifying started happening to her body.

I remember I was in school,

and I started feeling these, like, awful pains in my knees.

I remember even having a hard time sitting on the floor --

you know, an 8-year-old trying to sit on the floor,

and I'm trying to do the pretzel,

and I remember feeling so stiff.

Like, "Why can't I move?"

♪♪

My grandmother took me to her general doctor.

When I got there, there was a long staircase,

and instead of walking them up, I actually ended up crawling,

and I think that really shocked her

because I've always been such an active kid.

There was definitely something abnormal.

♪♪

Thank you.

CAMPBELL: Doctors diagnosed Shirley with scleroderma,

an autoimmune disease that's hardening her skin

and internal organs.

ALVAREZ: My parents had a hard time accepting it in the beginning,

just seeing all the changes, because it was very scary.

♪♪

I was diagnosed when I was a little girl,

and being able to walk and dance and be as independent,

and then, out of nowhere, I just get struck with a disease

that completely just changed my entire life.

CAMPBELL: But instead of holing up in her apartment,

Shirley is determined to get living...

♪♪

...even if it means turning her disease into a public persona.

[ Cheering ]

♪♪

♪♪

Plagued with the autoimmune disease scleroderma,

Shirley Alvarez is trapped in a body

that's turning to stone.

♪♪

Shirley's future is uncertain.

She doesn't just contend with tight skin.

All the soft tissue in her body is hardening,

including her internal organs.

Most people with this disease

don't live much beyond middle age.

♪♪

It's so beautiful.

But Shirley refuses to let that prognosis paralyze her life.

Instead, she's turned herself into a goth icon

known as The Tragic Doll.

Oh, my God!

[ Cheering ]

I think The Tragic Doll embodies two different worlds.

I mean, there's the tragedy part.

You look at pictures when I was a kid,

and you don't recognize me.

Everything changed.

Then there's a doll part where it's the sweet me, unaffected.

Thank you. I love it.

I try to embrace that.

So it's creating an extension of my personality,

making myself a sort of character,

one that I can play with.

I can use The Tragic Doll concept

and explore and express myself in that way.

It embodies two different worlds --

dark and light.

It's accepting everything fully.

That's me really coming out of my skin

and expressing myself honestly,

showing you every aspect of who I am.

♪♪

Certain afflictions like Shirley's

can make a person feel like

they're trapped in their own body,

but some people refuse to let their shortcomings

hold them back or hold them down.

♪♪

Tucson native Jessica Cox is always on the move.

She's a successful author, speaker...

You can aspire to doing anything that you want to do.

CAMPBELL: ...Taekwondo black belt, and musician.

My name is Jessica Cox.

CAMPBELL: She does all this and more without arms.

Now Jessica is facing her greatest fear --

taking to the sky...

Okay. We're good.

CAMPBELL: ...using only her feet,

believe it...or not.

[ Radio chatter ]

♪♪

♪♪

[ Playing "Amazing Grace" ]

♪♪

Okay. That's it.

[ Laughing ] I shall walk away.

I was born in the '80s

in small-town Sierra Vista, Arizona.

When my parents first discovered that I didn't have arms,

that was a total shock.

The entire operating room

during my mom's C-section went silent

because no one expected this at all,

and for a time there, it was very devastating for my family.

CAMPBELL: From a young age, Jessica was fitted with prosthetics,

but it never felt right.

Well, as I started to develop and grow older

and started to become aware of my difference,

it was very difficult for me to come to terms with it.

I was very angry and frustrated about my difference.

Some of the kids came up and then called me, like,

Captain Hook or Robot Girl.

It was very dehumanizing, in a sense.

I didn't give her any slack, you know, in a sense

that she's gonna have to face a cruel world out there,

and the easier I was on her then,

that could make it harder for her later anyway.

CAMPBELL: Jessica knew that she had to make a change.

♪♪

JESSICA: There was a time in my life

when I started the first day of school

without my fake arms, and I made this commitment

that I would never wear them again.

[ Speaking foreign language ]

MAN: So we have our weapons, gonna be in our right hand.

JESSICA: I decided that I was just gonna do everything,

and if someone told me, "You can't do it,"

then I'm just gonna do it,

and it was just the best decision I ever made.

[ Speaking foreign language ]

CAMPBELL: Free from trying to fit in,

Jessica forged her own way.

WILLIAM: She ended up getting three black belts in Taekwondo.

She tried every sport there was.

She was involved with tap dancing.

My wife had her in every club in town.

♪♪

♪♪

CAMPBELL: Despite all her success,

Jessica has one weakness she can't overcome.

And you have to pull it back straightly even.

Okay.

My greatest fear -- flying.

There you go.

And it is not fear of heights.

I love being in high places.

We have a slight crosswind from the north,

be a left crosswind, 5 knots, 10 knots down the runway.

♪♪

I will climb and hike and do things like that,

so it's not heights.

Oil level's good. -Yep.

It's losing contact with the ground.

Just make sure there's no crack, no breaks,

everything's in order.

Ever since I was a little girl,

I would fall and not be able to stop myself from falling

because most people would catch themselves

with their hands and arms.

Okay. We'll get ready to go.

And so, for me, if I fell,

I would get probably hurt more so than the average person.

CAMPBELL: Now Jessica is ready to conquer her fear

once and for all by learning to pilot her own plane.

♪♪

Learning to fly can be daunting for anyone.

♪♪

For Jessica, it poses some unique challenges.

It's hard enough for someone with hands to fly.

WILLIAM: I think I might have been a little overconcerned --

not overconcerned, but concerned, yeah,

about her safety.

JESSICA: So it took a certain type of instructor

to be willing to teach me.

CAMPBELL: An instructor who could teach her to fly

with her feet.

♪♪

♪♪

Jessica Cox was born without arms,

but that hasn't stopped her from spreading her wings.

♪♪

JESSICA: No one has ever been certified to fly an airplane

with their feet, so it was almost like

having to create a new way to fly an airplane.

[ Radio chatter ]

♪♪

♪♪

Getting my pilot's certificate

was the most physically demanding thing for me,

but not only physically,

but it was emotionally demanding because of my fear.

♪♪

♪♪

JESSICA: I'm particular about when I like to fly.

I like smooth flying, but today was clearly a windy day,

and so the turbulence made me a little unsettled up there.

But, you know, you have to be prepared for anything.

It was a good flight.

We have a saying -- every flight you walk away from

after landing is a good flight.

[ Laughs ]

♪♪

Jessica pushed her limits with her feet,

but there's one woman who sets her own standard,

hands down.

Ayanna Williams considers herself an artist,

but her work is so unusual..

...it draws stares wherever she goes.

What do you do in the bathroom?

Same thing you do.

You just take a -- and go like this.

My name is Ayanna Williams.

I have the world's record for the longest nails

on a pair of hands for a female.

CAMPBELL: Retired manicurist Ayanna Williams

has been growing out her nails for 26 years.

Her babies require more attention

than a lot of real children,

and not only do they dominate her lifestyle,

they could be reshaping her body itself,

believe it...

...or not.

♪♪

Ayanna's nails range from 27 to 36 inches long, each,

for a sum total in excess of 20 feet,

the height of an adult giraffe.

They are her crowning glory.

Growing my nails -- it's a passion.

My nails are still growing, as a matter of fact,

they seem to be growing faster now that they're longer.

I think they're sexy, I think they're sensual,

and they make you different.

♪♪

When I paint my nails,

usually it takes me maybe about a week.

If I painted my nails with nail polish,

I would need at least two bottles,

and that's gonna only do one coat,

[ Laughs ] so probably need about four,

but I use acrylic paint now, it's much faster.

CAMPBELL: Ayanna has captured the record for longest nails on a female,

but the overall record remains out of reach.

♪♪

I know of a man who grew his nails for 66 years.

I have to give him his props for being brave enough

to even grow his nails to those lengths.

In 1952, Shridharth Chiral from India

won the record for longest nails on one hand --

five nails reaching 30 feet.

In 2018 he made a special trip to the U.S.

to cut the nails off in a Ripley's ceremony.

Nearly seven decades of growth gone

in a matter of minutes.

It had to feel liberating, still...

...the damage is done.

If you grow your nails too long, they make your hand deformed

because of the weight pulling down on the nails.

CAMPBELL: Just one of the challenges Ayanna faces.

There are so many limitations to having these nails.

They get in the way.

I have to have someone to help me all the time.

Sometimes I can't pull my pants up.

I've had 'em so long, I wonder if my nails

are a burden to my family.

♪♪

CAMPBELL: Has the time finally come

for Ayanna to get out the clippers?

♪♪

After almost 30 years of growing her nails,

Houston's own Ayanna Williams is toying with a big change.

I'm getting to that point.

Cut 'em off. [ Laughs ]

If someone offered me maybe $25,000 right now,

I'll take it.

CAMPBELL: Until then, she's holding onto her title

with both hands.

♪♪

They're the longest in the world,

and I like the attention I get.

Hey, I like it.

I'm with a world record holder right now.

Long live the long-nailed goddess,

the queen of nails, royal hotness,

I am that and more, me, the queen.

Don't get it twisted.

When all is said and done,

it's the folks who refuse to relent

that sear themselves into our memories,

making us believers.