All language subtitles for The UnXplained s08e10 Mystery Of The Dinosaurs.eng

[William Shatner] Monstrous
ancient beasts

who once roamed our planet

lay hidden beneath our feet...

...apocalyptic disasters

that transformed
prehistoric Earth...

...and cutting-edge technology
that could one day

resurrect the dinosaurs.

[roars]

Stegosaurus,

velociraptor, triceratops

and the mighty
Tyrannosaurus rex.

It's intriguing to think
that, millions of years ago,

colossal creatures
reigned supreme on our planet.

And while scientists have been
studying the giant fossils

of what we call "dinosaurs"
since the early 1800s,

the fact is, we know very little

about these
extraordinary beasts.

What more can be revealed

about the existence
and extinction

of the most baffling behemoths
to ever roam the Earth?

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

? ?

It's funny to think
that a group of long-extinct,

incomprehensibly massive
"giant lizards"

are as beloved to us
as a puppy dog.

Today, dinosaurs are an enduring
fixture in popular culture,

but what do we really know

about these extraordinary,
diverse creatures

who have captivated
our imagination for centuries?

Dinosaurs are a hugely
fascinating group of animals

for a massive chunk of humanity.

It's like people of all groups,

all nationalities, all ages-

from young kids to old people-

everyone's interested
in dinosaurs.

I mean, the whole idea
that there's a group

of often gigantic reptiles that
lived millions of years ago,

is one of the key things

that makes us
really interested in them.

[Ben McGee] I think
dinosaurs are central

in the collective
social imagination now

because they hint
at the existence

of a full and complete
alien Earth

that none of us experienced.

When we discovered "them,"

the giant lizards,
something totally different

than the life we have today,

well, that has a mystique to it
that just doesn't go away.

But we really, ultimately,
don't know much

about the dinosaurs
and the world they inhabited.

[Nick Longrich] The first
dinosaur to be excavated

that was named
would be Megalosaurus,

and this was described in 1825

by William Buckland,
an early paleontologist.

And at the time, they thought
it was a bear-like creature.

They didn't really know
that Megalosaurus

was a dinosaur then because
the concept of "dinosaur"

had not yet been invented.

That fell to another
paleontologist, Richard Owen,

working at the British Museum
in London,

who recognized that animals
like Megalosaurus

were a completely
new group of reptiles

that he named "Dinosauria."

Today, every week or so,

new dinosaurs
are being discovered.

There are so many species

being discovered, you literally
can't keep track of them.

I think the latest count
is something between

1,300 and 1,400 known species,

and dozens of new species
are found every year.

Assuming dinosaur diversity
was roughly comparable

to modern
large mammal diversity,

that would suggest
that something like

a quarter of a million species
might have existed.

[Shatner] Dinosaur fossils
have been found

on all seven continents.

Paleontologists have unearthed
giant, lumbering herbivores...

...swift, two-legged predators,

monstrous creatures
that roamed the ocean depths

and flying reptiles that were
the size of a fighter jet.

And despite everything
we've uncovered,

these creatures are still one
of Earth's greatest mysteries.

The Field Museum of Natural
History, Chicago, Illinois.

Every year, more than
a million people come to see

the museum's
most popular attraction,

the most remarkable
Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton

ever found,

a fossilized monster
affectionately called Sue.

[Jingmai O'Connor] Sue
the T. rex

is the most famous fossil
in the world.

It's famous
because it's the most complete

adult T. rex
that has ever been discovered

in 120 years of T. rex research.

And we have about 73%
of the bones,

so 280 of the 350 bones
that make up the skeleton.

Sue was first found near
Faith, South Dakota, in 1990.

It was found by Sue Hendrickson

and a team
of commercial paleontologists

that were looking for fossils.

[Naish] This is
one of the biggest,

most powerful land predators
that's ever existed.

It has a total length
of roundabout 13 meters.

It would have weighed
roundabout ten tons.

Tyrannosaurus rex has
an incredibly broad,

hugely powerful,
very heavily muscled skull

and its teeth are rounded
and cross-sectioned.

They're more like-
kind of like railroad spikes.

This dinosaur was able to take
among the most powerful bites

of any land-living animal
in history.

So, it is an awesome animal.

It makes perfect sense
that people

are really obsessed
with this incredible animal.

[Shatner] Scientists
have estimated

that there was once
two and a half billion

T. rex dinosaurs on Earth.

Yet, so far,
we've only found about 30

relatively complete skeletons.

And this astonishing
low percentage of discovery

can be applied
to many other species

who have laid buried
for millions of years.

I'm sure that humans have been
tripping over dinosaur bones

for thousands of years,

but they weren't recognized
as fossils.

The oldest known dinosaur
that we can see right now

is a dinosaur from Tanzania
that is called Nyasasaurus.

It's about
237 million years old.

But we don't know
the total number of dinosaurs

that ever existed
and probably never will.

If we go back to the turn
of the last century,

to, say, 1900,

there was one new
dinosaur species discovered

and published about every year.

By 1970, it was half a dozen.

Now it's one a week.

I would guess that we haven't
even come close to discovering

one percent of the dinosaur
species that ever lived.

And then there are
certain environments

that just don't
preserve geologically.

For example, there were
probably alpine dinosaurs.

Think of today's mountain goats
and bighorn sheep.

Well, mountains erode.

In order to form fossils,
you need places

that collect sediment,
not places that shed sediment.

So, there are, there are
just some dinosaurs

that we will not discover,
I think, ever.

-[snarling]
-[Longrich] There's a huge

amount of diversity out there
waiting to be found.

And sometimes, we find something
that completely surprises us,

that kind of overturns
our thinking.

One of the strangest out there
is there's an animal

called Yi qi, from China...

...and it has these bat-like
membranous wings

it could fly on.

But the absolute
strangest dinosaurs,

in my mind, would have
to be the alvarezsaurs.

And I described
one of these animals,

a little animal
called Albertonykus.

They have these
incredibly short forelimbs,

but they're very stoutly built,

and they had
a single hooked claw.

They'd take these claws,
rip into logs,

rip into termite nests,

and put their long,
little snout down there

and eat the insects.

So, dinosaur anteaters.
In my mind,

that's the strangest thing
they ever came up with.

[Shatner] Paleontologists
have unearthed

all kinds of bizarre
dinosaur species,

including Spicomellus,

an armored tank with spikes
fused directly to its ribs,

and Deinocheirus,

a massive omnivore
that combines traits

from several different branches
of the dinosaur family tree.

Yet, there are
countless questions

that remain unanswered.

[Naish] We are still
just scratching the surface.

We only know a tiny percentage

of the things that we would like
to know and which we could know.

There's a massive wealth
of dinosaur finds

still yet to be made.

What kind of animals dinosaurs
were like when they were alive,

what their social behavior
was like,

how they interacted
with one another,

exactly what they looked like

and exactly what they did
with their appearances,

how they interacted
with one another

during, like, mating displays.

We know almost nothing.

[Longrich] The evolutionary
relationships of dinosaurs,

when they evolved, where they
evolved, when they went extinct,

a lot of these things
we still need to understand.

How are all these
various species related?

How is a T. rex
related to a brontosaurus,

related to a triceratops,

and the- related
to a velociraptor?

Because if we had
a complete evolutionary tree,

we could see when
certain link groups appeared

and where they appeared
and how their anatomy evolved.

It would help us piece together
their evolution

in a far more complete way.

And we're trying to build
something like that,

but it's incredibly difficult,

and nobody can
seem to agree on the answer.

There's still a lot
to be discovered.

[Shatner] The Yucat�n Peninsula,
Mexico.

Hidden beneath layers of
limestone and ocean sediment

lies a scar
more than 100 miles wide.

It's the remnants
of an ancient asteroid impact

that reshaped all life
on planet Earth.

Today, it's known
as the Chicxulub crater,

and it's believed
to be the smoking gun

in a planetary murder mystery.

Chicxulub refers to
a impact crater

that was made by,
uh, an asteroid

that was about
seven miles in diameter

that impacted our planet
66 million years ago

in what is today
the Yucat�n Peninsula.

This is the major cause
of the mass extinction

that wiped out the dinosaurs.

And it's only been very recently
that the first site

has been put forth as actually
capturing that catastrophe.

[Shatner] The theory that
an asteroid killed the dinosaurs

was only first proposed in 1980,

by Nobel prize-winning
physicist Luis Alvarez

and his geologist son Walter.

The Alvarez hypothesis
initially faced skepticism

in the scientific community,

but in 1991, opinions changed

when the Chicxulub crater
was identified

as the ancient impact site.

And just how
could one single asteroid

decimate life
across the entire planet?

[McGee] A impactor came in
with an explosive power

which is almost unthinkable.

Millions and millions
of times stronger

than the strongest
nuclear weapons ever built.

It would have been things
that don't seem comprehendible.

It heats up the air
around you to the point

that it can light
wet vegetation on fire.

You've got shock waves traveling
faster than the speed of sound,

leveling everything
within a thousand miles.

A giant global tsunami
thousands of feet tall.

And then, all of this material
that was shot out into space,

fine portions of it end up
circling the upper atmosphere,

and they start
to block out the Sun.

And that is what kicks off
the ecological disaster

that ends up killing
80% of the life on Earth.

[O'Connor] One thing
I think is so fascinating

is that if this asteroid hit
our planet a few hours earlier

or a few hours later,

it would have hit
a different spot, right,

because the planet's
always rotating,

and if it had,

it would not have caused
a mass extinction.

It hit in a shallow
marine shelf,

and in this shelf, you have
all these sulfur minerals

that, when blasted
up into the air,

then caused a chain reaction
of events.

[Longrich] Temperatures plunge,

large parts of the world
just start freezing.

and things that rely
on sunlight,

things like plants,

uh, things like algae,

uh, that form that basis
of the food chain,

they can't photosynthesize.

Basically,
there's no more food left,

and the entire ecosystem
collapses.

I think a lot of dinosaurs
might have been able to hide out

in little burrows
and try and survive the cold

and try and survive the fallout,
but there's still

a lot we don't know about
exactly how this went down.

[Shatner] While most
scientists believe

a devastating asteroid impact
was the sole cause

of the extinction
of the dinosaurs,

it's far from unanimous.

Because around the same time,
66 million years ago,

there was also a catastrophic
volcanic eruption

on a truly apocalyptic scale.

[Naish] Several other
important things

were happening at the same time

as the Chicxulub impact event.

For example, we know that there
was a massive outpouring of lava

in central India, resulting in
incredibly thick lava deposits

known as the Deccan Traps.

People have often asked,
could those

actually be responsible
for the extinction of dinosaurs

rather than
the Chicxulub impact event?

[McGee] The Deccan Traps were

a style of volcanism
that we don't see today,

where you have
a giant fissure open up

and huge quantities of gas
and dust are released.

So, some have alleged that
it could be that the asteroid

did it on its own,
and it could be

that it had help
from the Deccan Traps.

[Shatner] It's surprising
to think that plausible theories

about an extinction event
are recent discoveries.

But perhaps more shocking

is the consensus
that our planet is still home

to living, breathing dinosaurs.

Birds are dinosaurs.

And every time a scientist said,

"Hmm, I think birds
are living dinosaurs,"

they did so
by studying archaeopteryx,

which is the oldest bird
ever found.

The first one ever found
was found in 1855,

and was only identified
as an archaeopteryx, uh,

when John Ostrom came around

in, like, the late '60s,
early '70s.

Archaeopteryx
is the single fossil responsible

for our current understanding
that dinosaurs are not extinct,

and that birds
are living dinosaurs.

And I would argue
that that's one

of the most
transformative things

that we have learned about
the natural world

in the last 50 years.

[Longrich] Birds are not
dinosaur relatives,

they are the direct descendants
of dinosaurs.

A handful of birds
managed to survive

that extinction event somehow

and then radiate and give rise
to all modern birds.

If you want to see a really
primitive dinosaur-like bird,

probably your best bet would be
either a chicken or a duck.

It's possible
the early duck-like

and chicken-like birds
may have lived alongside T. rex.

[Lance Geiger] In some ways,
that's freaky.

I mean, a chicken
bears a startling amount

of genetic comparison
to a Tyrannosaurus rex.

That's just kind of
amazing to think,

because you look at a chicken,
you don't think

of the giant apex predator.

But there are certainly birds,

like the shoebill stork

or the cassowary,
that are very large,

sometimes, you know,
four, five feet tall,

which is kind of terrifying
for a bird, right?

So, we're still in the era
of the dinosaurs.

They're just, you know,
now they're shoebill storks.

[O'Connor] The idea
that birds are living dinosaurs

drastically changes how you look
at animals alive on our planet.

But then, there is so much

we do not know about
the biology of dinosaurs.

Like, very fundamental
questions.

Like, okay, for example,
take archaeopteryx.

There's features
of archaeopteryx

that tell us
this thing could fly.

But how it flew is a mystery.

It's a very fundamental question

that we still don't understand,
and there's so much more.

Every other paleontologist
you ask

is gonna have their own set
of burning questions

that they are dedicating
their lives to trying to answer.

For every question
we attempt to answer,

we usually just create ten
more questions for ourselves.

There is a lot we don't know.

Who would have thought
that a chicken

shares the skeletal traits
of a Tyrannosaurus rex?

shares the skeletal traits
of a Tyrannosaurus rex?

So, if the birds we see each day

are considered
"living dinosaurs,"

is it possible
that other prehistoric species

may have survived and evolved

to become creatures
of myth and legend?

[Shatner] The Great Wall
of China, May 2024.

Along the Jiankou section

of this serpentine wonder
of the world,

scientists from the Beijing
Institute of Archaeology

discover the sculpture
of a dragon's head

carved into stone.

For 6,000 years,
China has revered

these powerful,
serpent-like beings.

But where did the belief

in these legendary creatures
come from?

[Naish] Throughout history,
people have come up

with ideas about
enormous, mythical,

predatory reptiles
that have special powers.

They were able to fly

or they could breathe fire

or they were impervious
to weapons.

And a really popular idea
which just never goes away

is, surely, these stories
about these creatures-

dragons- surely,
they're based on fossils.

Fossils like those of dinosaurs.

[Shatner] Could dragon legends
trace back to ancient people

stumbling upon dinosaur bones
and mistaking them for monsters?

It's a compelling idea.

But does it fully explain
why dragon stories appear

in so many cultures
separated by oceans

and thousands of years?

We can see the word "dragon"
being referred to

different creatures
at different time periods

in many, many different cultures
around the world.

Uh, it shows up in the Bible.

And one place
where you find a huge role

for winged feathered serpents
in the divine sense

is in Mesoamerica.

Quetzalcoatl from
the Aztec tradition.

Pretty much all over
Central America.

And in here, I really don't
think we can discount the role

that dinosaur fossils and other
evidence of dinosaurs played.

Dinosaur eggs, for example.

Everybody knows what an egg is.

What happens when you find
an egg that is clearly ancient?

So, these can influence
an already existing story,

provide confirmation,

and really help increase
everybody, uh, believing

that these things were real.

[Shatner] Discovering dinosaur
fossils proves that sometimes,

extraordinary monsters really
are rooted in real creatures.

While we know some dinosaurs did
evolve into modern-day birds,

is it possible
that other kinds of dinosaurs

are still hiding in
the remote corners of our world?

For well over a century,
legendary creatures like

the Loch Ness Monster

and Champ from Lake Champlain
in North America,

were all connected
to an ancient type of dinosaur,

or a marine reptile,
known as a plesiosaur.

[John Rhodes] These are
instances in which people have

sighted large swimming creatures
that resemble a plesiosaur.

And we hear
these repeated stories

over and over and over again.

Now, could they be real?

Could some sort of
dinosaur aquatic life

during the dinosaur time have
survived just like the birds?

Eighty percent of the oceans
remain unexplored,

and so, what's down there?

Anything's possible.

[Shatner] Sightings
of massive creatures

said to resemble dinosaurs

are more widespread
than you might imagine.

In fact, it's believed
that a ferocious predator

lurks in one of the last
unexplored regions on Earth.

[Gerhard] From the remote
Kasai valley

of the African Congo,

there are accounts
of another type of dinosaur

that resembles
a Tyrannosaurus rex,

and it's known as the Kasai rex.

Allegedly, it was encountered
by a Swedish hunter

named J.C. Johanson
back in 1932.

While on a hunting excursion,
Johanson claimed

that he encountered this animal
that was bipedal,

about 40 feet long,

reddish in color
with black stripes,

and it was, in fact,
attacking elephants.

And he claims that he took
three shots at it...

...with only
one shot connecting,

and it ran off into the bush.

And then there's
the mokele-mbembe,

which means "the one who stops
the flow of the river."

It's typically seen
in the areas around Lake Tele,

the Likouala swamp,
the Sangha River.

And it's typically described as
about the size of an elephant,

a long, flexible neck
and a long tail.

Now, this physical description
doesn't match any known animals,

but it is almost
an exact description

of a small sauropod
type of dinosaur.

So, it almost seems as if

the African Congo
really sounds like a lost world.

[Shatner] Could unidentified
dinosaurs

really exist in the deep
recesses of our planet,

beyond the reach of science?

For some,
it's a distinct possibility.

And perhaps, long ago,
the very same question was asked

about giant,
fire-breathing dragons.

[Rhodes] You see the pictures
of these dinosaurs,

and most of it's born
out of our imagination.

It's not that fossil evidence
gives us a clear answer.

They might have
a few bones of a creature

and say,
"This is what it looked like,"

and I think
that's the same thing

that they did in ancient past.

They would look at the bones

and kind of have an idea
of what it might be.

It may not be
what they think it is,

but their imaginations
and their cultures

believed that was the actual
bones or fossils of a dragon.

Do medieval tales of dragons
and other monstrous creatures

suggest that dinosaurs

could have lived much longer
than we thought?

While it's possible
that evolution

may have helped some species
adapt and survive,

may have helped some species
adapt and survive,

today, scientists
are experimenting

with revolutionary technology

that could soon bring
the extinct back to life.

[Shatner reads on-screen text]

Colossal Biosciences,

a genetic engineering company,
and its partner,

announce they are the first
laboratories in the world

to successfully sequence the
entire Asian elephant genome.

This incredible achievement
could allow scientists

to do something
once believed impossible:

bring a prehistoric animal
back to life.

[Geiger] Colossal Biosciences

wants to use
genetic manipulation

in order to bring back animals
that have gone extinct.

For example, the woolly mammoth.

We have examples
that are frozen in permafrost.

And so, they hope
that you can maybe

take the genes
from a woolly mammoth,

you can gestate that
in an existing elephant,

and you've recreated
the mammoth.

[Lacovara] The woolly mammoth
went extinct just about

3,300 years ago.

And to do something like

bring back the woolly mammoth,

has deep implications
for medical technology,

it has deep implications
for modern conservation.

So, I think,
as a result of that,

we're going to see species that

would have gone extinct
in the near future

be pulled back
from the brink of oblivion.

[Shatner] Could it actually
be possible

to bring back a woolly mammoth?

While it sounds
like science fiction,

in 2024 and 2025,

Colossal Biosciences
announced the birth

of three bioengineered
dire wolf puppies,

a prehistoric species
that went extinct

around 12,000 years ago,

after combining fossilized DNA
with modern gray wolf cells.

And their fascinating work
begs an obvious question:

will mankind one day
resurrect a dinosaur?

So, de-extincting dinosaurs
is not really possible

because the DNA
is completely shattered

after millions of years.

It would be extraordinarily
difficult to reconstruct it.

However, if one has complete
control over genetic code,

theoretically, I imagine
one could design any animal,

including maybe a dinosaur,
that you could create.

It's not
scientifically impossible.

It doesn't violate
the laws of physics.

But that would be a choice
for people to make

of what you bring back
and what you don't.

[Lacovara] To be a dinosaur,
you have to have

the first dinosaur
for an ancestor.

It's the same reason
that we're mammals.

We and hamsters and blue whales,

we all have the first mammal
for an ancestor.

So, imagine this family tree,

and the ancestor
is down at the bottom,

descendants are here.

Everything in that triangle
is part of that group.

And so, if you have
the first dinosaur

for an ancestor,
you are a dinosaur.

Birds have the first dinosaur
for an ancestor.

So, it might be possible,
through genetic engineering,

to tweak the genomes of birds
to get them to express

more of what you might call
their dinosaurian traits

so that we could
possibly create a facsimile

of a non-avian dinosaur.

[Shatner] Could we engineer
bird DNA

to bring dinosaurs back to life?

And if so,
how would that be achieved?

Well, some experts believe
the solution already exists.

[McGee] There's
a gene editing process

using what they call CRISPR,

when you try
and edit genetic code,

and while the act
of combining DNA

from different organisms
may not itself be problematic,

there are several things
that can actually go wrong.

Sometimes CRISPR will go in
and delete or change things

that weren't supposed
to be changed.

It's an accident.

Or there are also problems

where the CRISPR goes
to insert the section of DNA

it's trying to insert
in the right place,

but it overwrites too much.

[Vescovo] CRISPR, unfortunately,
can be quite unpredictable.

The quality controls
you must have are extreme.

We still don't quite know
how many things work

at the molecular level
when it comes to DNA,

cellular mechanics, tissues,
all of these things.

This is all very new technology,
and we're working through it,

but we're making
lots of discoveries.

When we look at these scenarios
of kind of playing God

and dealing
with extinct species,

there are many scenarios where
that could go completely wrong.

There are certain endeavors

that humans should
perhaps not pursue.

As cool as it would be
to see a living dinosaur,

it would be kind of
a Frankenstein-type scenario,

where these genes
are kind of manipulated

in weird and interesting ways.

[McGee] Some have alleged
that, in trying to create

a species that was once extinct,

you're gonna create
Frankenstein DNA,

a mishmash of genetics which is,
in some way, unnatural.

But it's worth noting
that we are all

Frankenstein DNA already.

Human beings share 60%
of our genome with flies.

It's just code.

Things like, you know,
the head should go on one side,

the-the legs
should go on the other.

Once you accept the idea
that we're already

Frankenstein snippets
of code, of DNA,

the idea of turning around
and swapping

little segments in and out

is suddenly a lot less alarming,
I think.

[Lacovara] If we were
to be able to bring back

ancient dinosaurs,
that's a whole different thing

than, say, bringing back
a woolly mammoth.

A woolly mammoth
belongs in this world.

For species that went extinct
in the near-term at our hands,

like the woolly mammoth,
like the dodo,

We have a moral obligation
to bring back

those creatures if we can.

This is their world,
and they can still play

an important role
in their ecosystems.

A T. rex, a Dreadnought,
a triceratops,

has no place in this world.

It's not the kind of thing
you would want to release

on the landscape.

I'm not sure
it's a fantastic idea.

There may come a day when
advances in genetic engineering

will resurrect a dinosaur.

will resurrect a dinosaur.

But if so, could humans coexist
with these mighty beasts?

Well, according to some,

it's already happened.

[Shatner reads on-screen text]

Heavy rains transform the region

as the Guadalupe River raises

26 feet in less than an hour.

Catastrophic flash floods
sweep away homes,

vehicles,

and claim an estimated 135 lives

in the sixth deadliest
freshwater flood disaster

in U.S. history.

But those raging waters
also reveal a new window

into Earth's prehistoric past.

During 2025, parts of Texas

were severely affected
by major flooding events.

And floods are bad,

they cause all kinds of problems
for people and environments.

But one thing they do,
which is of interest

to people interested in fossils,

is floods obviously scour away
a lot of surface material,

like, you know,
sand and rocks and-and such.

And as a consequence,
they often reveal the bedrock,

rocks that you haven't
seen before.

And a major flood event
revealed a new set of tracks

laid down about
113 million years ago

made by a particularly big,
impressive predatory dinosaur.

An animal called
Acrocanthosaurus.

And the tracks
are really pristine.

They look really great.

[Shatner] Texas has long
been seen as a hot spot

for well-preserved
dinosaur tracks.

In 1972,
the Dinosaur Valley State Park

was established
to protect some of the most

pristine fossilized
dinosaur footprints...

...in the world.

[Williams] The Dinosaur
State Park

is right on the Paluxy River,

which is outside
of Glen Rose, Texas.

There's some beautiful
examples of cerapods

and therapod
dinosaur footprints there.

They've got prints
going left, right, all over.

It's like a major freeway
for all the dinosaurs

to come through.

But the interesting thing
about this area

is that there's also man prints

that are inside
of the... the mud strata,

or the limestone which
is from the Cretaceous period.

So, about 113 million years old.

It's perfectly preserved.

It creates a broader picture
and makes you wonder.

This is incredible.

So, I think there
is something going on.

I think we need to do
a little bit more evaluation

and we need to keep
an open mind and we need

to examine the facts
a little bit clearer.

So- and of course, that builds
the-the controversy, is:

did man coexist with dinosaur?

[Shatner] It's widely believed
that Homo sapiens,

the first anatomically
modern humans,

appeared around 65 million years

after non-avian dinosaurs
went extinct.

But not everyone
agrees with this theory.

Willie Dye,
a lecturing archeologist

at the Creation Evidence Museum

believes the Paluxy River
fossil site

provides clear evidence
that mankind

once walked with dinosaurs.

I just really enjoy-
especially, working in,

in Glen Rose
with the dinosaur tracks.

Eleven different species
of dinosaurs there.

And human footprints
all in the same area.

We've uncovered
over 600 dinosaur tracks

and over 90 human footprints

in the same
Cretaceous limestone.

You have the Delt track,
with the Acrocanthosaurus

stepping into a human footprint.

That's one of the most famous
ones that we have in there.

And then we've had,
uh, evolutionists

that say, "Impossible."

That's-that's their word.
"Impossible."

But yeah, you're looking
at the evidence right there.

[Shatner] The theory
that man and dinosaur coexisted

is related to an idea
known as creationism,

which includes the belief
that God created

both dinosaurs and human beings
around 6,000 years ago.

It is not accepted
by the scientific community.

But ever since dinosaur tracks
have been found

in the Paluxy River
over a century ago,

the site has been
a popular destination

to see where some believe
man and dinosaur

walked side by side.

[Williams] On the Paluxy River,

the prints were first found
by George Adams

and his brother
Ernest "Bull" Adams

back around 1908.

Even up into the 1930s,
people were coming down there

to talk to Ernest "Bull" Adams,

and just to see the man prints

and the huge dinosaur prints
that were alongside.

They were becoming so popular,

they started selling chunks
and blocks

of these dinosaur prints
to people.

And during the Great Depression,

people did what they had to
to make money.

They were running out
of prints to sell,

so George thought,
"Well, I can make some money

if I carve up a few fake ones."

And that was
a big mistake because

a lot of people now associate
the Glen Rose formation

with these "fake"
human footprints.

And he only made maybe
two or three of them.

And those are the ones that did
the most damage to this story.

But the prints
that are available now

are slowly degrading because of
carbonic acid in the rainwater.

It'll slowly destroy
the limestone,

to the point where you can't
tell if it's a dinosaur,

if it's a human footprint.

[Shatner] While the dinosaur
footprints are genuine,

the alleged human tracks
have been largely regarded

as manufactured
or misidentified.

But should the idea
be dismissed altogether?

Even the theory
that the dinosaurs were killed

by an asteroid impact was
only substantiated in the 1990s.

So, how can we say for certain
that we know everything

about the timeline
between man and dinosaur?

[Williams] We were always taught

in school that the dinosaurs
were here

and they ended
around 65 million years ago,

and then man came on the scene
millions of years after that.

We need to keep an open mind,

and we need to examine the facts
a little bit clearer

and we need to examine the facts
a little bit clearer

without having
a lot of this idealism

that man was here
at a certain time.

It deserves
a little bit more attention

than we've been giving it.

[Shatner] Sixty-six
million years ago,

an apocalyptic cataclysm

dramatically altered
the course of life on Earth,

and killed
all non-avian dinosaurs.

But what if an extinction event
never happened?

What would dinosaur evolution
look like?

[Naish] What would
the world be like had

that mass extinction event
not happened?

Would dinosaurs
have evolved intelligence

similar to that of primates,
or even humanlike dinosaurs?

And it was asked, most famously,

by the Canadian paleontologist
Dale Russell,

who, in 1981, actually proposed

that had non-bird dinosaurs
not become extinct,

they would ultimately
have given rise

to big-brained
humanoid dinosaurs.

And Russell actually worked
with a model maker

to produce a reconstruction
of what this creature,

this "dinosauroid,"
might have looked like.

And their creature looks
suspiciously like a small,

green, scaly humanoid.

[Longrich] Dale Russell had
this idea of a, a dinosauroid,

which is an intelligent,
tool-using dinosaur.

It walks upright,
it kind of looks like a human.

So, it seems like
science fiction.

And yet, these get at some
of the most profound questions

we can possibly ask
about evolution.

[Shatner] Big-brained
humanoid dinosaurs?

What would life have been
like for these dinosauroids?

Would they have developed
their own religious beliefs,

advanced technology or maybe
even their own space program?

Or might they have taken
another path entirely?

What if the dinosaurs
didn't go extinct?

What might that evolutionary
pathway have looked like?

The dinosaurs didn't
really do anything wrong.

They were highly diverse,
highly successful.

And then, cut down in a moment
by, basically, a fluke.

And then the asteroid impact
occurs and wiped them out.

And if it had veered off
a few thousand kilometers

in a different direction,

missed the Earth entirely,
they'd still be here.

One possibility
is they might have evolved

into something like us.

But it may well be
that dinosaurs

wouldn't have
evolved intelligence.

They wouldn't have
created civilizations.

I think a more likely scenario

is they kind of
would have kept doing

what they were already doing.

That being said,
we'll never really know.

So, it's a really
profound question,

but it's very difficult
to answer.

[Shatner] If non-avian dinosaurs
had been given

more time on the planet,
what might they have become?

It's a fascinating question,

but for now, the mystery
of Earth's prehistoric past

and its magnificent creatures

is yet to be uncovered.

Now, it's fair to say
that we're in a golden age

of dinosaur research,
because more people are looking

for dinosaur fossils than ever
before in the whole of history.

But one thing
that we always emphasize

is that we are still
just scratching the surface.

There are thousands
of dinosaur species

yet to discover
in all parts of the world.

What I love about paleontology
is the mystery.

Looking at these fossil bones

of these creatures that lived

millions and millions
of years ago,

I love how it's this
intersection between

science and your imagination.

You'll be like,
"Okay, this is my best

interpretation of the evidence,"

and then a few years later,
a new fossil comes around,

and it shows you
that you were completely wrong.

Evolution will produce
something crazier

than we could have imagined.

Based on the fossil record,

we know with certainty
that dinosaurs

walked the Earth
millions of years ago.

And in a very short time,
we've been able

to piece together an almost
incomprehensible picture

of a thriving planet

that is unrecognizable
to us today.

Yet, the truth is,
there are countless

unanswered questions
about Earth's prehistoric past.

So, while new discoveries
and modern technology

may surprise us,

it's not hard to believe
that the mysteries

of the dinosaurs
will forever remain...

...unexplained.

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