Original subtitles

WILLIAM SHATNER: Eyewitness encounters

with the elusive creatures

who've evaded extinction.

Winged monstrosities that terrorize

the countryside from the sky.

And giant, ape-like beasts

who've been spotted all over the world.

All around us, we share our planet

with vast array of creatures, great and small.

But some people believe they've encountered

monsters in our midst.

Everything from frightening beasts who lurk in dense forests

to massive winged demons perched high above us.

What are people seeing?

Could these so-called monsters actually exist?

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

♪ ♪

Eyewitness descriptions of cryptid creatures

are as varied as they are vivid.

A boyfriend and I decided to pull in off the country road,

and I noticed off of my right shoulder, it was a creature.

And, uh, we sat there in awe of what we were looking at.

It came right over in front of the car,

and we looked up,

and I could make out the shape of a winged man.

Something was sucking the blood out of my chickens.

The first time I saw it,

the color of it was different.

The physique of the animal was different.

It has absolutely no hair on it

and all of these different bizarre features on it.

What is it?

My wife and I were staying at this cabin.

There was a stream behind the cabin

and a very steep ridge.

Middle of nowhere.

I was exploring the woods behind the cabin,

and then I noticed some movement.

Black, hairy figure.

At first, I thought was a black bear,

but this figure was much bigger.

Looked like it was standing upright.

At this point in time, I still don't know what it was.

Most people generally have heard of Bigfoot,

the Yeti, the Loch Ness Monster.

But what they aren't aware of is that there is a whole world

of really unusual creatures out there, lesser known things,

many of them quite otherworldly and strange.

When it comes to animals that are known as cryptids,

there's a huge number of them.

We can actually find reports and cases

all around the world of strange creatures.

For example, one of them being Mothman,

which is this huge humanoid-type figure

with bat-like wings and fiery red eyes.

It's perceived as kind of like a Grim Reaper

that surfaces when bad luck or disasters are about to happen.

If you go to Africa, there are reports there

of creatures that look just like something out of Jurassic Park.

We're talking about something very much akin

to a gigantic lizard or a monitor lizard.

The phenomenon of what's become known as the Dogman

in recent years is a genuinely weird, odd one.

People talk about seeing these huge, bipedal wolves

that seem to look like the closest thing

you could imagine to a werewolf.

You have hellhounds or devil dogs

that are thought to be omens of death.

You have thunderbirds,

you have creatures like the Van Meter Visitor.

You have creatures like the skunk ape.

You have all these creatures that defy what we know

as flesh and blood creatures here on this planet.

Some of these creatures seem to possess abilities

that are borderline supernatural,

and they have qualities that can harm you.

Creatures like the Goatman and the Mongolian death worm.

The wendigo is said to possess people

and cause them to go mad and often crave human flesh.

They terrorize people, cause harm to other animals.

They prey on other animals. They're essentially predators.

There have been countless stories of cryptid creatures,

and they exist throughout all different cultures,

all periods of time in history,

even right up to the present day.

But there's a shocking lack of actual evidence

that they exist.

Skeptics would say that the sightings

of all of these cryptid creatures

are to be related to some kind of hallucination

or psychological projection or whatnot.

When you look at folkloric tales of monsters,

sometimes they turn out to be hoaxes or legends,

to the point where we're just not able to confirm

what they actually were.

Many people simply make up stories.

You can't rule out the possibility

that people, for example,

are creating some of these colorful legends,

something to garner attention

or to propagate their own motives.

KIRSTEN FISHER: As a scientist, I don't discount

that there are some animal or some creature

that's been sighted.

If there are organisms that we haven't found yet,

it probably speaks to the fact that the Earth is a vast place

with many types of habitats, and it's possible

that we haven't explored them all completely yet.

SHATNER: We tend to think that everything in the world

we live in is pretty much known.

Every tree, every insect,

every species has been photographed,

studied, catalogued.

But it isn't true.

According to mainstream scientists,

there are still literally thousands of species

that have yet to be discovered.

So, is it far-fetched to believe that wild,

possibly hybrid creatures could exist out there?

Strange, so-called cryptids

that have been seen by average people,

but haven't yet been officially recognized as being real?

While mainstream scientists might say yes,

cryptozoologists argue

that we've already found such an animal

and even have the photographic evidence to prove it.

One of the most compelling cryptids that we investigate

is something known as the Tasmanian tiger,

or the thylacine,

which were considered legendary or mythological until

living specimens were discovered and documented by scientists.

This is definitely a known animal.

The last verified specimen died off in 1936.

However, since that time,

there has been thousands of sightings

of Tasmanian tigers, or thylacines,

on both the island of Tasmania and mainland Australia

since its presumed extinction.

And there have been some fairly compelling photographs

that have never been fully explained.

The thylacine was a very weird-looking animal.

It looks like a large dog, like a German Shepherd,

but it's actually a marsupial, like a kangaroo.

In other words, it carries its young in its pouch,

and it has these stripes down its head and neck,

which give it sort of like a tiger-type appearance.

And it could almost open its jaw

to about 180 degrees, kind of like snakes.

COUCH: If someone just saw it running through the woods,

they would think it was some sort of monster.

The peculiar qualities of the thylacine,

or the Tasmanian tiger, are a great example

of how evolution can provide

some amazing mutations and hybridization.

Just having the thylacine as a hybrid

increases the possibility that there are other

of these hybrids out there lurking in the shadows.

SHATNER: But what of the other cryptids?

The legions of strange hybrid creatures

that fly, swim and suck their victims dry of blood?

Is there similar photographic evidence

out there that can help prove their case?

Well, a recent discovery in China

left locals believing that

there be dragons in our midst.

SHATNER: In a rural community 120 miles from Beijing,

residents make an extraordinary discovery

in a local field.

They find a 60-foot-long set of bones

belonging to a highly unusual animal.

DOMINIC STEAVU: The remains unearthed in Zhangjiakou had antlers.

It had prominent claws. It had a long, serpentine body.

So, this created a huge buzz and a lot of fascination.

SHATNER: A video of the strange bones went viral on the internet,

and researchers were baffled as they attempted

to identify the bizarre creature.

But many local villagers

insisted that the bones were the remains of a dragon.

Dragons are a huge part of-of a lot of Asian culture,

particularly Chinese culture.

They are a tremendously important symbol

for many, many people.

STEAVU: Dragons are perhaps one of the most defining elements

of Chinese cultural lore,

and they have been for thousands of years.

Dragons symbolize knowledge,

wisdom, uh, otherworldly power, even.

A lot of the early imperial families

drew their authority

from associating themselves with dragon blood

or portraying themselves as descendants of dragons.

So dragons are a very, um, present creature

in the Chinese cultural imagination.

SHATNER: Mainstream scientists

remain skeptical as to whether or not

the skeleton that was discovered in 2017

belonged to a real dragon.

But the media frenzy sparked by its discovery

suggested that many people, not only in China

but throughout the world,

believe in the existence of dragons.

TINA BOYER: We have dragons everywhere

in time and in different cultures.

And it is fascinating

because some of these cultures never met.

They never had contact within history.

So the pervasiveness of dragon myths in cultures

across many folkloric contexts is probably no accident.

Dragons are one of the more fantastic creatures

to study in mythology and folklore and legends,

because they're so widespread.

They're a big part of our western culture.

Satan is described as a dragon in some passages in the Bible.

They're one of the most powerful animal gods

in aboriginal mythology.

We have dragons in Ethiopian iconography.

And one of the fascinating things

is the representations

of what a dragon is supposed to look like

remains remarkably consistent over time.

GERHARD: What's really remarkable is that

if we consider all of these different influences

that may have contributed to the dragon legends,

they're all typically portrayed as being reptilian in nature,

having scales and claws,

often wings that are very bat-like

or membranous in nature,

a long reptilian tail with a strange structure,

or a spike, or a stinger on the end,

very sharp teeth, the ability to breathe fire.

And so we have to consider the possibility

that at least some of these dragon legends

could be based on some type of extraordinary

and perhaps unknown animal.

SHATNER: Is it possible

that the many dragons described in legends

throughout the world weren't just fictional

but were actually real?

Perhaps the answer lies in examining

some of the historical accounts

in which people have claimed to have had encounters

with actual dragons.

In bygone centuries, encounters with dragons

were not considered to be fables or tall tales.

They were written down and documented as historical fact.

They were told as real stories of encounters

with mysterious flesh-and-blood animals.

In the eighth century, there's an example recorded

by, uh, Saint John of Damascus,

where the Roman army is immensely surprised

when a large creature--

described as a dragon-- rises up behind them.

They fight and ultimately slay the creature,

and they skin it, and they send the skin

back to Rome.

BOYER: People took this extremely seriously

up to the early modern period.

A city in Germany called Worms is famous

for its dragon fighter.

In the 16th, 17th and 18th century,

they hung up dragon bones

all across the city

to prove that dragons are real.

SHATNER: Do the many historical reports of dragons prove

that these legendary beasts were, in fact, real?

Perhaps.

But if so, then it naturally begs the question,

could giant winged serpents still exist today?

According to some researchers, the answer is yes.

And as evidence, they point to numerous sightings

in the early 20th century of a flying creature

that was known as the Van Meter Visitor.

In the early 1900s, a town in Iowa,

the small town of Van Meter, Iowa,

was plagued by a giant eight-foot, bat-like creature...

(camera shutter clicking)

...with huge, leather, bat-like wings,

and it had a horn on its head that could project light,

and for five nights, it terrorized the small town.

And on the fifth night, during thunderstorms,

it appeared with a smaller version of itself--

perhaps the female gender or the offspring--

before descending back into the coal mine

and disappearing, never to be seen in Van Meter again.

SHATNER: What was the mysterious dragon-like creature

that terrorized the residents of Van Meter, Iowa?

Some researchers believe a clue can be found

in the fossil record.

Beginning in the Triassic Period,

220 million years ago,

there was an animal out there

that actually looked like a dragon.

So-called "pterosaurs," which were these winged reptiles

that endured for 150 million years

and ruled the skies of our planet

and then went extinct at the end of the Cretaceous.

But isn't it interesting that we have modern accounts

and sightings of something that looks like a living dragon?

A reptilian creature with a long tail,

presumably scales, leathery wings, sharp teeth.

As improbable as it seems,

if, in fact, pterosaurs had managed to endure

throughout history up until modern times,

their existence would most certainly explain

the dragon legends of the world.

SHATNER: It's thrilling to think that legends of dragons could be

based on real-life experiences

-with these awesome creatures. -(roaring)

And if this massive, winged species

was able to survive for thousands of years,

could it explain the existence of a frightening flying monster

known as the Tombstone Pterodactyl?

SHATNER: The spirit of the Wild West is alive and well

in this small town,

where saloon doors still swing open

and horses pull stagecoaches along Main street.

Founded in the late 1800s, Tombstone embraces its history,

when outlaws, gunslingers and violent shootouts

were all too common.

(wind whistles)

♪ ♪

SHATNER: The gunfight at the O.K. Corral

is the most well-known tale from this Wild West boomtown.

But Tombstone's past is also riddled

with bizarre, supernatural stories,

including tales of strange creatures

roaming the frontier

that spread like wildfire in the 19th century.

There are a lot of legends that have come out of Tombstone,

but there's one very curious one.

In 1890,

The Tombstone Epitaph reported a story

about two ranchers who saw a giant flying creature

in the sky above them.

LEWIS: They not only were afraid of it,

but apparently they tracked it down

and killed this creature

and tried to take a photograph of it sprawled out.

SHATNER: According to local lore, a photo of the strange creature

was indeed taken and even published

in The Tombstone Epitaph,

but locating the supposed picture

has proven to be... difficult.

In terms of the photograph, there are legions of people

who remember seeing this picture even into the 1930s and '40s,

yet no one has ever been able to locate it.

And in fact, the edition of The Epitaph

that the story ran in

didn't have any photographs at all.

SHATNER: Although the alleged newspaper photo has never been found,

over the years, a number of bizarre pictures

featuring cowboys and a massive winged creature

have surfaced and can be seen on the internet.

One photograph depicts a group of men

with a giant winged beast.

The creature is winged, but it's not really a bird.

It looks more like a pterodactyl,

something prehistoric, with large, leathery wings

and a large head with two feet hanging down below.

It adds to the mystery of the creature

and makes us wonder

what exactly is flying around in the southern deserts.

SHATNER: While the images of the winged creature are compelling,

historians have questioned their authenticity

and claim that they may have been fabricated

as a result of the fascination people have

with this strange tale from the Old West.

Although most variations of the photo seem to be hoaxes,

I think it's weird when you combine

all of the things of the newspaper encounter,

people swearing that they personally

saw the photograph,

and now it's gone.

It only adds more history and wonder to the story,

and I think, in some regard,

it makes it even bigger than it would have been.

SHATNER: Is the story of the Tombstone pterodactyl

just a tall tale, or is it possible

that there really was a species of giant flying creatures

that roamed the deserts of the Old West?

Perhaps the answer can be found by examining

accounts from Native American folklore

of a creature known as the thunderbird.

THOMPSON: The thunderbird is one of the most widespread

powerful creatures and symbols in Native American mythology.

There's a gigantic bird, some kind of raptor,

sometimes with somewhat human qualities,

but it's connected with thunder and with lightning.

Very often, it's flapping its wings is what creates thunder,

and it shoots lightning out of its eyes.

MARSHALL TRIMBLE: The thunderbird is common

in Native American tribes all over the West.

You'll find them on petroglyphs on the rocks,

or you'll find them in totem poles.

It's a special bird, a special spiritual power

of protection and support and strength.

That's what the thunderbird represents.

WEATHERLY: By some accounts, thunderbirds were strictly spiritual beings.

They lived in another world,

and they were frightening,

but could also sometimes

lend their power to the people.

On other occasions, they were purportedly real creatures

that could swoop down at any time

and snatch up humans if they so choose.

SHATNER: Is it possible that there is a connection between

the thunderbird and the winged creature

that was reportedly seen near Tombstone, Arizona in 1890?

For now, the answer is unclear.

But people remain fascinated by

the idea that massive winged birds

really did soar over the American frontier.

THOMPSON: It's important to remember that this is

taking place in the Wild West.

It's taking place when people are looking out for marvels

and becoming aware of Native American explanations,

Native American mythology at the same time.

So people were aware that the thunderbird

was held to be out there, which leads us back to

the question, you know, the thunderbird,

is it a cryptid, like it's out there somewhere?

Is it simply a deity

that's sort of cobbled together

from abstract notions of what the divine is?

Or is it sort of resulting from

people finding pterodactyl skeletons and saying,

"Wow, there must have been a great big bird here

at some point."

Or maybe all three.

So, this is still a great mystery.

Could the Tombstone pterodactyl have been a thunderbird

from Native American folklore?

Or was it an actual descendant of

a flying dinosaur soaring across the skies of the Old West?

Both are intriguing possibilities.

Halfway around the world,

there's another creature that

also draws a lot of interest

and a large dose of fear.

For hundreds of years,

Australians have been frightened by

a lumbering, ape-like monster

they call the Yowie.

SHATNER: 27-year-old Dean Harrison is

out for a late night jog

in a wooded area near the town of Ormeau.

Suddenly, he sees a large creature

moving in the forest.

HARRISON: I got these chills

that I could not explain

that went from my head to my toes

and then back up again.

My hair went on end because I could hear it

walking through the swamp.

Crunch, crunch, crunch.

Pulling up the foliage out of the ground

and throwing it through the rest of the forest.

I moved my eyes to see this huge silhouette

standing there in the bush line

right behind me.

We're talking about eight feet, roughly.

There was something about this that just...

alarm bells went off in my head,

and I ran as fast as I could.

SHATNER: Although Dean's nighttime encounter with

the enormous creature was brief,

further research led him to believe that

he had encountered an elusive species

that is commonly referred to as the Yowie.

LYLE BLACKBURN: The Yowie is

a hair-covered, man-like creature

that's said to live on the Australian mainland.

There's been thousands of sightings of

this creature over the years, and stories of it

even date back to Aboriginal legends.

HARRISON: The Aboriginals had a lot of names for this creature.

It was Yahoo

or Yuree, Yaree, Youree,

depending on which dialect and which area you came from,

which-- how you pronounce it.

The first sightings were written in the papers

in Australia since the 1800s.

Most people describe them like a big human.

The head sits on the shoulders

and a little bit protruded.

Massive shoulders, like cannonballs.

Very, very muscular. Deep, muscular chest.

Very long arms, compared to a human.

Shorter legs,

deep-set eyes and heavy eye ridges.

A protruding jaw,

quite a flat, splayed nose.

You can get them anywhere up to about nine,

even ten feet tall, some people say.

And there's no shortage of them

because the sightings are growing.

SHATNER: Dean's encounter inspired him to form a group known as

Australian Yowie Research, or AYR.

HARRISON: We have basically created a group where people can

turn to and look for the answers

once they have an encounter with one of these creatures.

On our expeditions,

we've had a lot of sightings and encounters

over the course of the last 25 years,

along the great dividing range,

from the bottom end of Victoria,

all the way to the top end of Australia.

SHATNER: Could a species of giant, ape-like humans

really be hiding throughout Australia?

It may sound far-fetched to some,

but the truth is

that the numerous sightings of the Yowie

aren't the only evidence that a large cousin of man

may still be living in the wild.

Because there are reports of similar creatures

all over the world.

The general idea of an undiscovered

large, ape-like creature living in the woods

is very common around the globe.

Whether we're talking about the Himalayas for the Yeti,

the U.S. for Bigfoot,

or whether we're talking about Australia,

New Zealand for the Yowie,

this is something that appears to be a worldwide creature.

Evolutionary biologist Jane Goodall at one point

said it was possible that such a creature could exist.

And when you have someone with that sort of

a scientific reputation that will say there is

a possibility that this creature exists,

that's very compelling evidence.

BLACKBURN: If we look back at early man,

there's evidence of similar types of hominids.

If they developed in some shadowy place

and continued to survive and evolve,

these early humans could have become

what we know as Bigfoot, Yowie or the Yeti.

And if we were to actually find undeniable

photo or video evidence of these creatures,

it would completely change the way

we've thought about everything,

including our own evolution.

These creatures could be closely related to us.

This could be a branch of our own ancestral tree.

SHATNER: Is it possible that the Yowie, Bigfoot

and the Yeti are real?

As the countless sightings around the world suggest,

it's a distinct possibility.

And finding proof of this terrifying creature has become

the dedication, even an obsession,

for many people who are on the hunt

for the elusive ape-man.

SHATNER: Future U.S. President Teddy Roosevelt

publishes The Wilderness Hunter,

a book about his youthful adventures

in the Dakota territory.

His memoir contains a story that was told to him by

an old mountain man who, years before,

had encountered an ape-like creature deep in the woods.

MONEYMAKER: There were some trappers,

and they kept having encounters,

kind of in the dark,

with what they thought were

these huge creatures that were leaving

huge, man-like footprints.

One of the guys decided to go off and check traps,

while the other one would hide back at camp

and see what was coming in

every time that they would leave camp.

When the guy came back from checking traps,

he found his friend dead,

his body broken over a log,

and it looked like it had just been pummeled.

And they attributed it to

an eight-foot-tall, 600 pound ape.

SHATNER: The disturbing encounter told to Roosevelt

is one of the earliest accounts of American pioneers

coming face-to-face with what many Native Americans called

Sasquatch.

If the story is true,

it seems like Sasquatch wasn't very friendly

towards humans who encroached on its territory.

(roars)

There are vastly different ideas

within the Bigfoot subculture about Bigfoot's disposition.

Some believe that Bigfoot is an angry, homicidal predator.

And if you come into its domain,

it will try to kill you if it can.

Others believe that Bigfoot is merely an animal.

(growling)

And, just like a grizzly bear, might become aggressive

under the right circumstances.

SHATNER: Over the past century, more of the American wilderness

has been settled with the construction of new housing,

industry, and infrastructure.

But if we have been invading Bigfoot's habitat for so long,

then how come no one has ever recovered the body of one?

It's been estimated perhaps 2,000 of these things

exist throughout the Pacific Northwest.

Sounds like a lot, but it really isn't.

Considering two of the major ranges...

...the Cascade range and the coast range,

make up 68,000 square miles,

mostly uninhabited.

When you distribute 2,000 of anything

in 68,000 square miles,

you'll be lucky to run across one in your life.

BADER: People who believe that Bigfoot is

a biological creature will simply

talk about how stealthy it is,

that it's very good at moving

through the woods without making any noise.

And therefore, it can slip away at will.

SHATNER: Is Bigfoot simply too elusive to be captured?

Perhaps.

But that hasn't stopped an army

of so-called "Bigfoot hunters"

from trying to track it down.

BADER: Modern Bigfoot hunters

use techniques such as wood knocking...

(Bigfoot scream)

...playing purported Bigfoot screams

while in the woods.

These are things that many modern Bigfoot investigators

believe will draw any nearby Sasquatch to you.

MONEYMAKER: I think the future of Bigfoot research

in a lot of ways rests with new optics, with thermal imagers...

...and especially with drones.

Thermal imagers attached to drones.

I really do see a future where the next

big, profound piece of footage

is gonna be gotten by a drone.

Many Bigfoot hunters

are very much devoted to the idea

that the creature that they're looking for

is an undiscovered animal.

They believe that if they try hard enough,

they could capture sufficient evidence

to prove the issue once and for all.

SHATNER: Bigfoot hunters have set their sights

on catching the beast itself.

But the most compelling pieces of evidence

that we have right now are the huge footprints

that have been found for decades.

And according to anthropologist doctor Jeff Meldrum,

these impressions in the ground prove

that there really is an enormous primate

roaming the forest.

JEFF MELDRUM: My research expertise centers around

the adaptations of the human body for bipedalism.

The habit of walking on two legs.

So that put me in a very apropos position

to address what is probably the most prolific,

and, in my opinion, by far the most compelling body of evidence

for the existence of Sasquatch:

namely, the footprints.

SHATNER: Dr. Meldrum's interest in Bigfoot footprints

started in 1996, when he and a colleague came across

a remarkable line of footprints in southeastern Washington.

As we walk out there, here's this unmistakable line

of footprints in the mud.

These 15-inch footprints.

And the hair stood up on the back of my neck as I realized

a sasquatch actually walked by here last night.

The evidence was really unmistakable to my eye,

with my background and training.

SHATNER: Dr. Meldrum immediately made several casts

of the intriguing footprints.

The first of many such casts

that he has made throughout his career.

Based off his research,

he has concluded that by analyzing a variety of factors,

such as how the foot imprints irregularities into the ground,

or the spacing of the toes in the dirt,

it is possible to determine when footprints have been faked

and when they were really made by a 15-inch foot.

So here we are over 20 years later and...

in addition to the seven footprint casts

that I made on that afternoon,

there are over 300 casts to keep them company

here in the specimen drawers in my laboratory.

It's just been an amazing road

that has yielded,

due to this extraordinary sample,

the emergence of a model of a foot

that is not simply an enlarged facsimile of a human footprint,

but rather shows all the distinctions of a foot

adapted to transport a 800 to 1,200-pound bipedal primate

through the rough, irregular, inclined terrain

of the mountainous forests they are said to inhabit.

SHATNER: Late one night, 16-year-old James West

heads out to the snowy woods

behind his property to hunt coyotes.

He settles in beside a mound of gravel to wait,

when he sees something

terrifying.

I turned the light on, and approximately ten feet away

is this thing on all fours, sniffing the ground.

My first reaction was, man, that is the biggest coyote

I have ever seen in my life.

I mean, huge massive head and long body.

And then it looked up at me.

And it lifted itself up onto its hind quarters.

It was between seven foot, ten inches tall

and eight foot.

Snout was,

I would say, a good six to eight inches long,

but also massive upper arms,

huge pectorals, like a werewolf.

It took one step towards me,

and I shot it in the chest.

It let out a yelping sound and took off.

And at that point, I just said, "I'm out of here."

It's been approximately 20 years since I had my encounter.

I still have flashbacks, even though it's been 20 years.

It made me more aware that

there are things out there that we don't understand yet.

SHATNER: James West is just one of hundreds

of people who have reported seeing the monster

that has come to be known as the Dogman.

THOMPSON: Dogman, or dogmen,

they're a little bit different than a werewolf.

Usually, the idea of the werewolf is that they transform,

um, maybe it's a full moon, between human form

and, uh, the wolf form,

at which point they become wild and dangerous

and aggressive.

But dogmen, they're dogmen their entire lives.

Uh, so this is just who they are.

GERHARD: Dogman really burst onto the scene

in the late 1980s, early 1990s,

when a creature from Wisconsin was seen feasting on roadkill

and chasing cars on a lonely country road.

Since that time, the Dogman phenomenon

has blown up around the world.

SHATNER: Is it really possible there's a half-man,

half-dog monster roaming the wilds of North America?

Many researchers say the answer is yes.

And as evidence, they point to the fact that similar monsters

have been reported all over the world for centuries.

THOMPSON: We have many reports of Dogman going back to European folklore.

The really important thing to understand about why people

believe in monsters, um, is that people see them.

And I have talked to many, many people who have affirmed

that they have seen the Dogman.

SHATNER: So far, there's been no indisputable evidence found

that proves the Dogman's existence,

which is also the case with many other

monsters of myth and legend.

But for people who claim to have witnessed

one of these creatures firsthand,

seeing is believing.

THOMPSON: People have experiences

that can be very, very powerful

and can completely change their own belief systems.

This brings to the front

a really important fact about folklore.

Saying something is a legend does not mean it's not true.

What it means is it hasn't been accepted

by scientific discourse.

So, saying something is a monster

doesn't mean it's not real.

It seems that cultures all across the world

are encountering monsters that defy explanation.

Could the Tasmanian tiger have survived

long after it was thought to be extinct?

Or perhaps an ancestor of a great winged dinosaur

still glides ominously in the sky.

In any case, you may want to look over your shoulder

if you see unusual footprints in the ground

or hear a disturbing growl from beyond the trees,

because the answer to just exactly what's out there

remains... unexplained.

CAPTIONING PROVIDED BY A+E NETWORKS

Repair and Synchronization by Easy Subtitles Synchronizer 1.0.0.0