Original subtitles

Prophetic visions,

mysterious writings,

and an otherworldly harbinger of doom.

There are moments in our history

that baffle even the most strident skeptics

and delve into the realm of high weirdness.

Rasputin carries with him this ability to heal.

Fearful of where these visions come from,

the devil, or from an angelic being?

Point Pleasant, West Virginia.

A mysterious creature is sighted that causes mass hysteria,

but is this otherworldly creature

trying to warn the local people of impending doom?

They wonder what this creature could be.

In early 20th century China,

a scholar finds mysterious markings

that could unlock age-old mysteries.

There was something unusual

about the dragon bones that he bought

and that was the script that was carved into them.

In 1916, Grigori Rasputin,

the enigmatic mystic at the heart of the Russian court,

delivers a chilling prophecy.

He warns Tsar Nicholas II that disaster awaits,

foreseeing the violent end of the Romanov family

and the collapse of the empire.

As whispers of revolution grow louder,

Rasputin's vision becomes a dark omen,

casting an eerie shadow over the palace.

The royal family stands on the brink,

unaware of the storm about to strike.

In 1916, Russia is crumbling

under the weight of World War I.

Its soldiers are ill-equipped.

Some of them don't even have guns.

There are foods shortages at home.

Tsar Nicolas' leadership has been called into question.

There's social unrest in the cities.

Russia is a country on the brink.

The royal family faces growing discontent

as Tsar Nicholas II's Leadership fails to address

the many crises Russia is facing

both at home and on the frontlines.

Making matters worse, the elite feel

that it is one of Tsar and Tsarina's favorites at court,

the monk Rasputin, who is to blame.

The Russian elite despise Rasputin

and see him as a dangerous individual

spewing lies to the Tsar and Tsarina.

In the early years, Rasputin finds a way to combine religion

with spirituality as a way to gain power,

and we see that he becomes the go-to man

for people trying to heal their ailments.

But is he really healing them or is he doing something else?

But who is Rasputin,

the mad monk with visions of doom

that has enchanted the royal family?

Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin was born sometime

in the late 1860s, early 1870s, in a small Siberian town.

Rasputin grows up in a peasant family.

His father was a farmer and coachman.

Russia at the time is under the control of Alexander III

and the country is facing widespread poverty

and social unrest.

A theory known as nominative determinism

stipulates that your name can define your career.

In Rasputin's case, it was quite the opposite.

This name was given to him later in life

as his reputation defined him.

Because in Russian the common noun 'Rasputa'

translates as 'immoral, debauched, good-for-nothing,'

which is very fitting for Rasputin.

As a child, Rasputin is known for wild behavior

and lacks formal education,

remaining illiterate into early adulthood.

This wildness will be used by Rasputin later in life

to further build his reputation

of being connected to other realms.

In his young adulthood, he experiences religious visions

and shows an unusual interest in spirituality

for someone of his background.

Rasputin decided to explore his spiritual side

and left for a pilgrimage across Russia.

Though it's unclear whether this was a voluntary sojourn

motivated by a religious conversion

or something forced upon him as penance for an act of theft.

It's clear from the experience

and the way he writes about it

that he was transformed by it,

and that from this experience,

when he returned to his village,

this is when he laid the foundations

for what would become a charismatic ministry.

The thing that's interesting about Rasputin

is the fact that he comes from Siberia

and the form of Orthodox Christianity that's there,

this Orthodoxy of the People, is a lot more grounded,

earthy, it's shamanic,

and I use that word very specifically

because the Tungusic language and the Tungusic people

that come from that same area, Siberia, China, Mongolia,

are the progenitors of that word.

Siberia is an important geographic region, expanse,

because it's disconnected from cosmopolitan areas.

It's remote and it's wild.

And in Siberia, the Russian Orthodox Church's beliefs

commingle with folklore

and ancient Pagan beliefs and rituals.

Here, Rasputin begins to gain attention

for his intense religious fervor

and alleged healing abilities,

gathering a small group of followers

dedicated to his teachings.

On some level, I think references to Rasputin

having dark charisma or this very powerful aura,

I think it might be a little overblown.

I've read that he's very much a handsome man.

He had very phosphorescent eyes, a nice beard.

He was tall, supposedly well built.

And he might just have been a guy

who really knew how to work what he had.

Which enables him to entrap people.

He's almost like an occult leader.

And it made many wonder, is this really a man of God

who can spread the good news of the Gospel and heal people,

or is he tapping into much darker satanic forces?

Embracing the role of the wandering holy man,

he travels across Russia,

visiting various religious sites

and sharing his spiritual insights.

Some are drawn to his unconventional approach to faith,

but there are many who question

the source of his new-found piety.

We need to understand that Rasputin,

as he began to sell his ideas of a religious leader,

was himself a product of a unique

and very, very robust, eclectic, religious world in Siberia.

This is a place with many diverse religious traditions.

Many of them oppositional to the existing Russian Orthodoxy.

Many believe that Rasputin

is influenced by the Khlysty,

an underground Christian sect

known for its alternative doctrine.

The Khlysty are an extremely religious group of people.

They prioritize this sort of antinomic perspective,

which basically said that grace is achieved

through faith alone.

Rather than finding God

through traditional hierarchies and theology,

one finds God through personal expression and salvation.

But the Khlysty movement is seen by some

to have a darker, hidden truth

behind the seemingly holy facade

In finding that salvation,

one needs to push sinning to its extreme

to get to a point of pleasure in experiencing God.

Now, that pleasure often takes the form of orgies.

People also liked to talk about their ecstatic practice

within the perspective of sex

and having a lot of sex present based in debauchery

and things that are salacious.

Rooted in many ancient traditions,

this form of magic involves harnessing sexual energy

for spiritual enlightenment, or magika.

While definitive evidence of Rasputin's membership

in the Khlysty is lacking,

some accounts suggest that he is exposed to their teachings.

Now, this is 19th-century Russia.

It's very conservative.

And as Rasputin is trying to gain momentum

in the elite circles,

this rumor around sex magic

starts to tarnish his reputation.

Rasputin has embraced deeper mysteries

as part of his ministry.

And one of the key parts of his ministry

are his prophetic visions that he shares with his followers.

As a young adult in Siberia,

Rasputin begins to experience visions.

And during these visions,

he goes into deep prayer and contemplation,

and it's at this time that he believes

he is being communicated to by God.

On a pilgrimage to the monastery of Verkhoturye,

Rasputin experiences a profound vision

in which he sees the Virgin Mary crying

and all of the saints conversing with him.

As a result of this vision, he comes to believe

that his life has a higher spiritual purpose.

Early on, we know that Rasputin

was already engaging in prophecy.

And in fact, one prophecy in particular comes up early on,

and that is his prediction

about the end of the Romanov dynasty.

These early prophetic experiences

lay the groundwork for the rest of his career.

With his growing reputation,

Rasputin travels to the capital of Russia, St. Petersburg,

in the early 1900s to take his ministry to new heights.

In 1905, he is introduced to influential members

of the clergy and even Russian aristocrats.

Rumors soon take hold of Rasputin engaging

in an affair with the wife of a general.

According to one version of the story,

a witness bursts into the room where they were engaged

in sadomasochistic sexual acts

with Rasputin beating the woman with a paddle or a stick,

and she was screaming out, "He was Christ!"

over and over again.

Rasputin's intermingling between religiosity on one hand,

and sadomasochistic sex on the other

does seem to suggest the antimonial belief

that was of course central to the Khlysty belief system.

Although there's no evidence also

that those Russian Khlysts did that either.

In any respect, all it did was cement Rasputin's reputation

as a very unusual person.

Word of Rasputin reaches the royal family,

particularly Tsarina Alexandra,

who is desperate to find relief

for her son Alexei's hemophilia,

a condition that causes severe bleeding.

The Tsar's palace is awash with mystics

and the occult and people who can proclaim

some sort of connection with the divine,

which is very, very different

to how most of cosmopolitan Russian society lived.

And there's also at this time a feeling

that the Tsars need to connect more with their people.

So here comes Rasputin who claims that he can heal people,

who claims a religiosity rooted

in the folklore of the people.

The royal family in many ways are outsiders,

and Rasputin is an outsider.

As a result, they put their faith in Rasputin

because they believe that he understands them

and is the only one who can help them.

In October 1906,

Rasputin meets Tsar Nicholas II and Tsarina Alexandra

and impresses them with his piety

and seeming ability to soothe their son.

He prays over Alexei, and remarkably,

the boy's condition appears to improve.

Following this encounter, Rasputin begins to visit

the royal family more frequently,

becoming a trusted advisor to the tsarina herself

and frequently offering spiritual advice.

But is Rasputin actually healing

the young prince or is there something else at play?

So Alexei has hemophilia,

which is a propensity to bleed or bruise

if you run into things and such.

And Aspirin is a blood thinner, so when you take Aspirin,

it would actually make those symptoms worse.

And so he was on those blood thinners, the "Aspirin,"

when Rasputin first met him,

and simply by removing that you're now thickening the blood

a little more which is going to make those incidents

less likely to occur.

It's going to seem like he's getting better.

Regardless of the reasons,

Rasputin's methods are effective

in helping the young prince's condition.

This wins him support within the royal family.

Rasputin manages to position himself

as the protector of the heir's health.

At the same time, he's able to skillfully navigate

the politics and the dynamics

of the upper echelons of Russian society

while maintaining this image as a humble mystic.

But not everyone in Russia is in love

with this wild prophet from Siberia.

According to some stories, in 1907,

Rasputin returns to his home village

supposedly followed by a group of young women.

There, he is met by religious authorities

who place him under arrest.

He's accused of holding heretical beliefs

and suggested that he has connections

to the Khlysty movement.

The investigation goes all the way up

to the Russian parliament, the Duma.

But eventually, it's quashed by the royal court

who seem to be protecting him.

Now, of course, Rasputin's association

with the Russian royal family

is very beneficial to him personally,

but it also comes with a downside.

Many nobles and clergy view him with suspicion,

some would even say contempt.

And the rumors about his background, his immoral behavior,

his drinking, his affairs with the wives of generals

and other high-ranking individuals

cause a lot of antagonism.

And one of the most controversial aspects

of Rasputin's life at this time

is his relationship with the tsarina herself.

Rumors begin to swirl about perhaps

an inappropriate relationship

between Rasputin and the tsarina.

The rumors are spread by the political elite

and enemies of Rasputin who believe that the royal family

is being unduly influenced by him

and that Nicholas is being undermined by his presence.

While these rumors

are not substantiated by fact, they spread.

And soon many in Russia see Rasputin

as a threat to the nation of Russia itself.

Rasputin's enemies believe

that he's a bad influence on the royal family

and that his position undermines their authority.

Yet, at the same time that Rasputin is offering solace

to the royal family, to people outside of that,

he represents everything that's wrong with it.

A lot of Russians start to believe that Rasputin

is actually a con man,

going about his days targeting vulnerable people,

including the tsar and tsarina.

But in an ironic twist of fate,

it is only Rasputin who can save the Romanov dynasty

and Russia from destruction.

As the country is on the verge of crisis,

Rasputin reportedly receives a prophetic vision,

one that would doom both the nation and its royals.

On June 28, 1914, the archduke Franz Ferdinand,

the heir to the Austria-Hungarian throne, is assassinated.

Two weeks later, Rasputin is stabbed

in an assassination attempt by a fanatical woman.

The attempt on Rasputin's life would have a profound impact

on the course of Russia's involvement with the war.

What are the chances that anti-war Rasputin

is nearly killed,

that Archduke Franz Ferdinand is assassinated?

Is this just a strange coincidence,

or is there almost a darker force

pushing Russia towards the calamity

that would be World War I?

Russia is now at war with Germany,

Austria-Hungary, and the other Central Powers.

As war rages on, Rasputin makes many powerful enemies.

As the First World War rumbles on,

Rasputin becomes convinced through his visions

that it's just going to lead to more bloodshed

and calamity for the Russian nation.

Troubled by the growing chaos at home

and reports of massive casualties on the frontlines,

Rasputin continues to be haunted by visions

that spell doom for the Romanovs, and himself.

Yet, according to some, Rasputin cares more for the country

and its leaders than himself.

According to testimony, Rasputin said,

"I am not afraid for myself,

but I am afraid for the people and the royal family.

Because when they kill me,

things will go badly for the people.

And there won't be any Tsar."

The prophecy by Rasputin is really interesting,

because one could suspect that he already is aware

that he is in danger.

We're dealing with a man who rises to power

at a very volatile time in Russian history.

He is very aware of this.

He is a product of this peasant culture in Siberia

that was very much active at this time

and angry and politically engaged,

so it wouldn't be surprising

that he's using his knowledge of what is going on

in the kingdom more generally in order to make predictions.

Rasputin's influence over the royal court

seems to be diminishing as the war continues

and tensions mount on the home front.

Despite this, there are those working in the shadows

to undermine him and bring his influence to an end.

In December of 1916,

there's a plot to assassinate Rasputin.

It's led by a group of aristocrats

led by a man named Felix Yusupov.

According to legend,

they lure Rasputin to Yusupov's palace,

and there they feed him cakes

which have been laced with cyanide.

But the cyanide doesn't take effect.

It seems that Rasputin is just fine.

So they try a different approach.

Yusupov pulls out a pistol and shoots Rasputin in the chest.

When Rasputin still doesn't die,

the other aristocrats begin shooting Rasputin too.

If that wasn't enough, they roll up the body in a carpet

and beat him with sticks.

Finally, they take the body and dump it into an icy river.

But this story of his death,

like so much of Rasputin's life,

is more legend than reality.

The story that came of a person so powerful

that you had to basically kill him four times to kill him,

that really helped his reputation grow big time.

And yeah, when we find out that that wasn't true,

it makes us think, okay,

maybe he was just a person who was very good

at playing what he did

and then took it a little too far and met his demise.

The assassins of Rasputin

are banished from Russia

but are protected from further prosecution

because of their high status in society.

With Rasputin dead, the grip he has on the Romanov family

and Russia is extinguished,

but the troubles for Russia are only beginning.

In February, just a couple of months later,

the Russian revolution begins

and Tsar Nicholas II is forced to abdicate.

A provisional government takes over

and the Romanov dynasty comes to an end.

Does this suggest that Rasputin was somehow connected

to a deeper, darker force that enabled him

to foretell what was going to unfold?

But the most chilling of Rasputin's prophecies

come true in 1918.

Tsar Nicholas and his family are being held captive

in a house by the Bolsheviks.

In a tragic moment, they are ordered downstairs

to the basement under false pretenses

and are summarily executed.

The death of the tsar and his family seems to confirm

the central promise of Rasputin's prophecy.

He said that if he was killed by aristocrats,

then the royal family would meet their end

by the hands of the Russian people.

To this very day, Rasputin remains a figure of intrigue.

Some maintain he was a great mystical healer,

others that he was a dark,

almost satanic force within Russian society.

Some of Rasputin's prophecies

spoke to national disasters,

while others live in the realm of folklore,

despite hundreds of eyewitness accounts.

In Point Pleasant, West Virginia,

sightings of a mysterious creature

could be a harbinger of future doom.

It is the late afternoon of December 15, 1967,

and the Silver Bridge, which links

Point Pleasant, West Virginia, and Gallipolis, Ohio,

trembles beneath the steady stream of rush-hour traffic.

The air is cold, and holiday shoppers

are trying to cross the river before dusk fully settles.

Suddenly, a deafening crack echoes over the water.

Without warning, the arc of the bridge

seems to shudder and twist.

In the next moments, the steel supports give way

and pieces of the bridge drop into the icy Ohio River below,

taking many vehicles along with it.

In the end, 46 people will lose their lives

from this terrible disaster.

No one can quite believe that the bridge had collapsed.

And although the authorities launched an investigation,

rumors at the time spread that people had seen

a strange creature around,

connected somehow.

The strange creature people claim to have seen

before the bridge collapse becomes known as the "Mothman."

The Mothman is a winged, red-eyed creature

allegedly spotted around Point Pleasant

in the months leading up to the disaster.

Some claim that the Mothman sightings are omens,

eerie portents of looming catastrophe.

They say the creature hovered near the bridge's supports,

its presence a dark foreshadowing of danger.

Many witnesses came forward to say

that before the bridge collapsed

and during this terrible tragedy,

the Mothman appeared, whether in the sky or nearby.

They saw this strange cryptid, this creature,

present in the area almost as a portent

of what was about to happen.

There is no evidence that there is anything

like a Mothman, but there's something being seen

before the Silver Bridge collapse.

In the weeks before the Silver Bridge collapse,

whispers spread through Point Pleasant

about the mysterious winged figure.

One of the first reported sightings of the Mothman

occurs on November 15, 1966,

when four young people claim their car

is chased by the Mothman down the highway.

Earlier, a local man named Newel Partridge

is at home watching television

when the screen suddenly goes dark.

A strange, humming noise fills the room,

and his German shepherd begins to howl outside.

Stepping onto his porch,

Partridge shines a flashlight toward the barn.

His beam catches two glowing red eyes

reflecting back at him,

much larger than those of any animal he knows.

The creature lurks for a moment

before vanishing into the night,

and his dog bolts into the darkness, never to return.

A few days later, on the 18th of November,

volunteer fire fighters respond to a call in a remote part.

And as they're driving down the winding road,

they suddenly see a bird-like creature

cast a shadow over the moon.

They see wings of about ten feet in expanse

and they wonder, is this something of this world?

The Mothman sightings are first recorded

by Mary Hyre, a journalist with the Athens Messenger,

the local paper serving Point Pleasant.

Her first article, ominously titled

"Winged, Red-eyed 'Thing' Chases Point Pleasant Couples

Across Countryside," hits the press on November 16, 1966.

Soon, she aligns herself

with renowned paranormal investigator John Keel

who conducts a series of interviews

with people who have seen the Mothman.

According to Keel, he starts to receive phone calls,

and he wonders, is this a threat from the Mothman

to stop his investigations,

or is it a warning of impending doom?

For weeks, a kind of Mothman mania grips the region

with people calling in to journalists,

calling news rooms and claiming

that they have seen the Mothman,

they have seen this creature in the vicinity.

And there is more reports, one after another,

of sightings of the Mothman.

On December 15, 1967, tragedy strikes.

The Silver Bridge, a major artery

connecting Point Pleasant to Ohio,

collapses during rush hour.

Forty-six lives are lost in the icy waters

of the Ohio River.

In the aftermath, some residents recall seeing

the Mothman perched atop the bridge

days before the disaster.

They begin to wonder if the creature

is a harbinger of calamity rather than a source of terror.

We still see these kind of reports in the weeks

before the Silver Bridge collapse

from locals in Point Pleasant.

We see these reports of these strange things occurring,

and these are multiple reports

from multiple different people.

Is the Mothman a dark omen,

a guardian,

or simply an illusion born from collective anxiety?

Disturbingly, Point Pleasant is not the last place

the Mothman will be seen.

So, it's interesting how Mothman actually starts to evolve

into this almost a symbol of doom

that people report seeing before horrible events

that occur kind of worldwide.

So, an example of this could be right before 9/11,

where there's these reports coming out

that there's this winged-creature being seen.

So, you see this Mothman that came

from this one specific instance

becoming this kind of global symbol

that people are seeing before these horrible events,

this kind of portent of doom that is evolving itself.

The moth is often seen as a creature of doom.

You can go from Aztec mythology,

where it's seen as a dark force,

to Celtic mythology, where the moth

is the soul departing from the dead.

Time and time again in world folklores,

you see the moth as a harbinger of doom.

Alternatively, some consider the possibility

of the Mothman connected to an ancient curse.

In Colonial America, terrible injustices were carried out

against people of the Shawnee Nation along the Ohio River.

It's said that before his death,

tribal leader Chief Cornstalk utters a curse

on the region and its invaders.

When you're thinking of, like Chief Cornstalk,

and his desire for peace

and how colonization and all of the wars that happened,

the slaughters of Indigenous people,

that that could be connected to even the Mothman.

To believe or to think that the things that are happening

are because of the past and what's happened there before.

But the strangest tales linked to Mothman

are its connections to the UFO phenomena.

In the post-war era, the 1950s, 60s, 70s,

we see the merging of traditional American folklore

with these cryptids,

these kind of half-man, half-beasts.

That merges with the new UFO phenomenon, UFO craze.

And so we get cryptids and extraterrestrials kind of merging

and so what's previously been regarded as mythical beasts

now become beings from other planets.

And you then weave into that, of course,

the men in black who turn up to investigate.

Witnesses who come forward

with their experiences sometimes claim

to be visited by men in black,

mysterious figures dressed in black suits

who warn them to remain silent.

These encounters add a layer of intrigue and fear,

suggesting a possible government coverup

or involvement of secret organizations

aiming to suppress information

about extraterrestrial phenomenon.

We have all in the mix the Mothman, aliens,

UFOs, men in black,

added to which we have the collapse of Silver Bridge.

And you have to wonder, what on earth is going on?

Is this all just a coincidence,

or is stranger things at play?

Decades after the Silver Bridge collapse,

the Mothman remains an enigma,

inspiring a range of theories in an attempt

to explain its mysterious appearances.

Scientifically, some suggest that witnesses

are misidentifying known wildlife.

So, the Mothman is like,

half-human, half-owl, or half-moth, half-human,

but it could actually just be an entity in itself.

Psychological explanations also offer insight.

The Mothman is a really interesting kind of example

of how certain stories or certain figures

can get really picked up by the mass media

and can be given a life of their own.

One of the explanations for the Mothman phenomenon

is that it's a form of mass hysteria

or mass delusion.

And it's not hard to imagine

how this might be the explanation.

With the Mothman,

this is initially just published in local newspapers

and eventually this starts to get picked up by other papers

and it gains more of a national attention.

You have radio, and then you have this book

that comes out that really snowballs.

The story of the Mothman is really concretized

in the book "The Mothman Prophecy" by John Keel,

and this has a blockbuster effect on the market.

People now know what the Mothman is,

what it's capable of doing and where it's appeared.

So, now the myth is cemented.

People know about the Mothman.

Others believe the Mothman sightings

were legitimate and that this creature

is a harbinger of tragedy.

I think that it's probably a description of something

that we can tie back to something very ancient.

It's interesting, because you could talk a lot

about Indigenous folklore,

but I will just talk about it as our truth.

We have things like the giant serpent

who's actually a water lynx.

You know, there's been all kinds of sightings

in Lake Superior of this massive sea-like creature

and it's a giant serpent.

We know that there are spirits that live amongst us

and that there are these creatures that are connected

to our original instructions and that they're still here.

Regardless of its origins,

the Mothman legacy endures

as a captivating figure in American folklore.

It evokes a mix of fear and curiosity.

Some people remain wary,

viewing the Mothman as a harbinger of doom

who might appear before disasters.

Others embrace the legend as a compelling story

that speaks to humanity's enduring interest

in the unexplained.

The Mothman remains a potent symbol,

bridging the gap between folklore, prophecy,

and pop culture.

But not all prophecies herald doom.

Some instead tell us of the creation of great dynasties.

In 1899, Wang Yirong,

a Chinese scholar and director of the Imperial Academy,

is suffering from terrible fevers due to malaria.

Desperate, Wang seeks treatment

from a traditional Chinese apothecary

who provides him dragon bones,

the ancient fossilized remains of dinosaurs

and other prehistoric animals,

which are thought to have healing properties.

When Wang inspects these dragon bones closer,

he notices unusual inscriptions on them.

These mysterious markings set off a quest

to find their meaning.

Dragon bones have long played a role in Chinese medicine,

and these dragon bones that Wang bought at an apothecary

were intended to be ground down

and taken as a kind of potion

in order to tackle his malaria,

basically the shakes that he was getting from malaria.

But there was something unusual

about the dragon bones that he bought,

and that was the script that was carved into them.

This enigmatic script that was something

he had never seen before.

He consults with his friend, Liu E,

who also knows something about early Chinese script.

They go about gathering more examples

of these inscribed bones

and eventually they have something like an archive

that convinces them that what they are in fact looking at

are examples of

an ancient version of Chinese script

that predates the earliest known versions.

This discovery by Wang

sparks fascination and mystery.

Scholars were flummoxed. They had no answers.

But they wanted to know what exactly that script said.

Where had these bones come from?

And what was that enigmatic script

that was carved onto them?

Wang and Liu E go back to the apothecary

that had originally supplied the bone

to ask where it came from,

because they want to find more examples.

But perhaps, understandably, the apothecary

is not exactly willing to give up

the location of his source.

Perhaps he thinks it will be bad for business.

In any case, he's not willing to tell them,

and so the original location

of the source of these bones remains unknown.

After Wang Yirong's death,

Liu E continues the research

and publishes a compilation of the bone inscriptions.

This publication grips scholars

who are trying to uncover the meaning

of these bones and who created them.

One of the many scholars working to uncover

the secrets of these dragon bones

is Canadian Christian missionary

and amateur archeologist James Mellon Menzies.

Menzies has been in China working as a missionary

when he first came across these mysterious bones.

Menzies collected thousands of samples of bones

with these mysterious markings

and tracked down their origin to a site of ancient ruins

near a village in Henan province.

Recognizing the significance of this site,

the Institute of History and Philosophy

of the Academia Sinica initiates

systematic archeological excavations in 1928

but they are unaware of the historic findings

they are about to make.

Eventually, the site that the bones came from

is discovered and it turns out

that it's the ruins of the City of Yin,

which was the last capital of the Shang dynasty

dating back to the second millennium BCE.

And the most pressing mystery revolves

around the bones that drew the scholars

to this site in the first place.

As the expedition progresses, it is revealed

that these bones are actually

an ancient form of fortune-telling.

And what's really interesting here

is that during the Shang dynasty,

it wasn't just the kings and queens,

the kind of ruling classes that were engaging

in this form of fortune-telling and prophecy,

but rather that every person was using these bones

and fortune and prophecy was of interest to everyone there.

The scholars learn

not just what the bones were, but also how they work.

Ancient diviners used bones to predict the future.

They'd look at the cracks, the markings, and the shape.

The bones that were used for this writing

were typically turtle shells or ox scapulae

and the fortune tellers would carve these letters

onto the bone that were predictions

of the affairs of states, the royal family,

or what was going to happen to the weather,

or in local villages, and so on.

Predictions.

To perform divination,

the practitioner applies intense heat to specific points

on the inscribed bone or shell,

usually by inserting a heated metal rod into drilled pits.

It's the process of heating that creates cracks

that are then interpreted so that the diviner

can get a sense of whatever it is that they've asked about.

These early traditions of divination

which are so tangible and real and grounded,

bones, earth, water, fire,

they might be early,

but they're still very much in use today.

There are people throughout Canada and the United States

who read bones, osteomancy is still a thing.

Pyromancy, whether you're working with flames

in a fireplace, flames outside, the flames of a candle,

in order to determine what the success of your working is.

Whether you're doing geomancy,

literally in the ground, right, with earth.

Or looking at the movement of the trees,

and the air, and birds,

it's all these things that are proximate to us

because they're grounded and they're real and tangible.

And we have been doing them since prehistory

and we'll probably continue until the last human exists.

Many ancient people used divination

as an important part of ruling.

So, the importance of divination in the ancient world,

and specifically when it comes to the Shang dynasty,

is once again the ability to predict.

It's the ability to preempt,

to make certain what is uncertain,

especially when you don't necessarily have

the technology to assist you if something goes wrong.

So, if you don't have rain, right

you can go towards famine.

If you don't have insight

into what your military opponents are doing,

you're people can die.

Another importance of these bones

was in regards to military affairs.

For rulers in particular, it helps them make decisions

that affect their entire society.

Whether it's about going to war.

Whether it's whether they can predict the harvest.

But it's just part of which they engage

in the order of the universe.

Part of it is the attraction

of the divination ritual itself

that's a very exciting kind of thing,

but then that sense of knowledge gained

is again, that predictive power,

that the brain always wants.

And even if it's only accurate some of the time,

we'll remember those accurate times

and we'll keep at the ritual

and keep doing it in the future.

While these bones are important

to the people of Shang, China,

they are also important to us

as they give us insights into the earliest stages

of the Chinese language.

These Oracle Bones have huge importance

for those studying the history of the Chinese language,

because they contain scripts

that date back three thousand years.

They give us a window into the past

to see how the ancestors of today's Chinese wrote

and expressed themselves thousands of years ago.

The writing on these bones actually traces

a linguistic lineage that can be traced

to modern Chinese writing as well,

so it's an earlier form of pictographic writing

that has evolved to current forms of writing.

You have this ritual that brings together human language

and interpretive skills

with these very specifically chosen

pieces of the natural world

and they're being brought together in such a way

that it's like the universe itself

is speaking through the bones to human beings.

From these ancient destinies

etched into fire-cracked bone,

to the foreboding records of the Mothman,

and the whispers of Rasputin,

each of these tales communicates a common foretelling

of what may lie beyond the horizon of human knowledge.

Whether guiding royals through a time of crisis

or offering communities of presage to catastrophe,

these oracles challenge us

not merely to fear the darkness ahead

but to summon the courage to face it.