All language subtitles for The UnXplained S06E02 The Time Travelers 1080p HULU WEB-DL AAC2 0 H 264-playWEB_track4_[eng]

SHATNER:
Secret military programs,

warping space and time.

A mysterious device,
with the power

to peer into history.

And places on our planet
where the past,

present and future exist
all at once.

For thousands of years,
humanity has been captivated

by the idea that man might
one day travel through time.

Some of the world's greatest
scientists firmly believe

that this extraordinary feat
is theoretically possible.

But what if time travel
is not just a theory

but has already happened?

Is it really too far-fetched
to think

that certain people
have managed to journey

through the fabric of time,
whether by design

or perhaps by accident?

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

♪ ♪

Human beings experience
time moment by moment.

We spend our lives
following the steady,

one-way march of the clock

as we make our journey
from birth to death.

But what if it's possible

to take a different path
through time?

The great mystery of time
is that time and space

exist independently of us,

but we view it
in social and cultural terms.

For example,
we divide our day up

into work time and leisure time.

And we have
transportation systems

which have embedded timetables
and time zones in our head.

And so the notion of time travel
has always been popular

because the idea of
escaping time,

of being able
to step outside of time,

is hugely attractive.

SHATNER:
The tantalizing prospect of traveling through time

has long captured
the public's imagination,

making it a frequent subject in
pop culture and entertainment.

Our modern fascination
with time travel

can be traced back to
the work of author H.G. Wells,

and his groundbreaking novel
The Time Machine.

In 1895, the book
The Time Machine

by H.G. Wells was published.

And the impact that this had
on Victorian society

was incredibly deep,

because it gave
the scientific world

the idea that we could indeed
travel through time.

RONALD MALLET:
What makes H.G. Wells' story, The Time Machine, unique

is that he had a mechanism,
a machine,

that you actually constructed,
it could control time.

That was different
from all of the other stories.

SHATNER:
Ten years after the publication of The Time Machine,

in 1905, physicist Albert
Einstein shocked the world,

when he published
a revolutionary theory,

which suggested that time travel
is scientifically possible.

What Einstein said is
that we all think of ourselves

as moving along
a straight line of time

from the past, present
to the future.

However,
Einstein's special theory

can allow this straight line
of time to become twisted

into a loop
and cause time to be bent.

And so that allows us with
the possibility of time travel.

SHATNER:
Could the laws of physics really allow us to travel

to any point in the past
or future?

And if so, is it possible
that a real-life time machine

may have already been invented?

At the height of World War II,

the Atlantic Ocean was
a dangerous battleground,

where German submarines
frequently

targeted American ships.

To help protect Allied vessels,

the United States Navy
reportedly initiated

a top secret program
that became known

as the Philadelphia Experiment.

The Philadelphia Experiment
is a series of

secret military projects

which took place in 1943

in a Philadelphia shipyard.

At that time,
the Navy was really interested

in camouflaging its ships.

The original idea
that the Navy had

was to actually make
the ship radar invisible.

The Philadelphia Experiment
involved a U.S. Navy destroyer

that underwent the most
strangest of experiments,

with the concept being

that if the ship were surrounded
by incredibly intense

electromagnetic fields,

could it distort
our vision of it enough

that it became invisible?

SHATNER:
As the story goes, on October 28, 1943,

government scientists wrapped
a fully crewed ship

named the USS Eldridge

in a cage of
electrified copper wire

and began the experiment.

But then,
everything went terribly wrong.

SWARTZ: Supposedly,
after the switch was thrown...

(whirring)

...all hell broke loose.

The ship was encased in fog.

- (screaming)
- Everyone was running around the decks,

screaming in panic mode.

No one knew what was happening.

At that point, the USS Eldridge
vanished in green mist,

only to reappear in
the Norfolk, Virginia shipyard,

disappear again,
then about three hours later,

reappear in Philadelphia.

This was witnessed by a merchant
mariner called Carl M. Allen,

who claims that he saw it
vanish in a green mist

before returning
to the same spot.

And then, in Virginia,
some people witnessed the ship

appear there and vanish there
as well.

So, what is going on here?

SHATNER: Even more astonishing
than the ship's vanishing act

is that when it returned
to Philadelphia,

the crew appeared to have
sustained devastating injuries.

- (screaming)
- SWARTZ: When the ship was boarded,

it was found that the sailors
were in horrible condition.

Many were dead

and others were found to be

embedded in the bulkhead
of the ship, still alive.

COLLINS:
Some of the crew seemed to be almost frozen in time

or stuck
within parts of the ship

and unable to actually get out,

which seems to suggest
the alleged teleportation,

involved with
the Philadelphia Experiment,

that it had actually
warped space-time itself.

SHATNER:
According to reports that surfaced

years after
the catastrophic experiment,

the USS Eldridge
was not only transported

across hundreds of miles

but it also seems
to have somehow traveled

decades into the future.

Allegedly, the ship was
actually catapulted

through time and space,

a completely unexpected result,

appearing at various locations,

like Chicago in 1969,

and Lake Mead in 1983,

only to disappear
and to continue

across the time stream
uncontrolled.

The Eldridge just randomly
skipped across time

achieving a rough form
of time travel.

Some of the accounts
of the Philadelphia Experiment

actually came from some of
the families of the sailors

who had volunteered to be
part of the initial experiments.

What had happened was
that afterwards

these sailors had been declared
dead-- missing in action.

So it was a disaster
all the way around.

SHATNER:
Did the U.S. Navy conduct an experiment

that unexpectedly
resulted in time travel?

Some say the proof lies
in a number of letters

written by
the key eyewitness of the event,

merchant mariner,
Carl M. Allen.

SWARTZ:
Carl Allen had written a series of letters

to a author by the name of
Morris Jessup.

Allen wrote to Jessup
talking about

the Philadelphia Experiment,
and Jessup included

the series of letters
in a book

called The Case for the UFO.

Afterwards,
Jessup was contacted by

the Navy,
the Office of Naval Research,

because somebody had sent them
a copy of Jessup's book.

And the Navy decided
to cover it up completely

and said that it was all a hoax,
that nothing had ever happened.

Jessup felt that
this was a confirmation,

that the Philadelphia Experiment
had actually happened.

COLLINS:
Now, of course, we certainly have

no absolute knowledge about
what the United States was up to

relating to time travel.

But the possibility should not
be seen as science fiction.

SHATNER:
If the USS Eldridge

really did travel through time
in 1943,

then the U.S. military
clearly wants to keep it

a closely guarded secret.

And some claim that the
government further experimented

with time travel
during the 1960s,

as part of a top secret project

that sent people back in time.

SHATNER:
27 million people from around the globe

flock to the city
for the World's Fair.

The exposition showcases

a number of
remarkable innovations,

and the fairgrounds
are illuminated

with 100,000 light bulbs.

The sea of glowing lights
transforms night into day

and astonishes the public,
most of whom have never

witnessed anything like it
before.

This dazzling spectacle
was made possible

by a new form of electricity
called alternating current,

which was one of
the many important inventions

developed by famed
Serbian scientist, Nikola Tesla.

This period around the end
of the 19th century,

beginning of the 20th century,

was the zenith, really,
of Tesla's career.

He became famous.

Tesla was the man
who could see the future.

He was "Mr. Electricity."

Everything that Tesla did
was directed towards

this kind of overriding goal
of spectacular new inventions

for electrical transmission.

SHATNER:
Nikola Tesla is widely considered to be

a scientific genius who changed
the course of history.

But there are those
who believe that Tesla should

also be credited with an even
more extraordinary invention...

...a time machine.

In 1943,
Nikola Tesla died

and left all his notes
at the New Yorker Hotel.

When he died,
the FBI raided Tesla's rooms,

took the notes,

and in the notes was
a whole series of

speculative diagrams.

Allegedly, the United States had
access to time travel technology

from a number of papers

taken away
from Tesla's apartment,

which gave details
on how to create

a teleportation device,

and with teleportation
you could also have time travel.

SHATNER:
Did the U.S. government really seize plans

for a teleportation device
designed by Nikola Tesla?

And if so, is it possible
they used this information

to build a working time machine?

Young Andrew Basiago
is taken by his father

to visit
a nearby manufacturing plant.

Little does Andrew know
that this factory conceals

something truly extraordinary.

I was six years old
in winter of 1968,

when my father took me
to building 68

at Curtiss-Wright
in Wood-Ridge, New Jersey,

and there on the floor
of building 68

was a Tesla teleporter.

It was basically a large device.

It went all the way up
to the ceiling

and had two booms that were
roughly about eight feet high

and ten feet across
on the floor.

They looked essentially
like elephant tusks.

Between them was
a form of energy

that was sort of cascading
between the booms,

or armatures, of the device.

Jumping through
that radiant energy caused

a holographic
white tunnel of light

to open in time-space.

They were testing the effect
of Tesla teleportation.

SHATNER:
After witnessing the Tesla teleporter in action,

Andrew Basiago claims that
he was recruited by members of

a shadowy military organization
known as DARPA,

to participate in
a secret time travel program

called Project Pegasus.

Project Pegasus was
a classified defense-related

research and development
program of DARPA.

They were essentially
training and testing

American schoolchildren in
eight modalities of time travel.

There were 140 American
schoolchildren of my age

who were in the program.

We were also trainees
because we were expected

to become America's first
generation of chrononauts,

or time travelers.

SHATNER:
According to Andrew Basiago,

the Tesla teleporter was used
to send chrononauts back in time

to observe, and even influence,
historical events.

A chrononaut essentially was
a time travel agent

in the sense that
I wasn't just involved

in testing and training.

I had missions
when I went there.

I was sent to Ford's Theatre
to see, for example,

who shot Lincoln,

and I was also sent to meet
General George Washington

with the mission
to urge him to immediately

retreat his troops
from New York Harbor.

There was always sort of a very
expert educational session

where they would
sort of acclimate us,

so we'd understand
what was gonna happen next.

SHATNER:
While some may find Andrew Basiago's story

hard to believe,

during the Cold War,
the United States government

conducted numerous
bizarre experiments.

These programs involved
everything from mind control

to remote viewing.

What this story
really plugs into is

the widespread suspicion about
the military-industrial complex.

The idea that the military are

conducting experiments
behind our back,

and it's a widely held view that
governments around the world,

particularly the United States,

have been researching
time travel for a long time.

SHATNER:
Andrew Basiago insists that his story is backed up

by more than rumor and innuendo.

He believes that
there's photographic evidence

which shows that
he traveled back in time

to observe
President Abraham Lincoln

deliver the Gettysburg Address.

BASIAGO:
I traveled to Gettysburg on the day Lincoln gave

his famous Gettysburg Address
there,

which was November 19 of 1863.

My objective was essentially

watching President Lincoln
give the address.

But I was getting
so much attention by people

right up against the dais--

some ladies from Gettysburg,

several Union officers
protecting Mr. Lincoln--

that I literally intentionally
walked away from the dais

and there I was photographed

standing by Lincoln
at Gettysburg.

Lincoln can be seen a tiny,
small image of him,

a few pixels,
over my right shoulder.

Now, it's called
the Josephine Cobb image,

because that's the photo analyst
at the Library of Congress,

Josephine Cobb,
who took a magnifying glass

and found Lincoln
in the photograph.

But the paradox of time travel
is such that

that photo was discovered

ten years
before I was born in 1961.

So when I left to go
to the Gettysburg Address

of Abraham Lincoln,
that photo of me in Gettysburg

in 1863 already existed.

So that's a proof of Pegasus,
and there have been many.

Time travel technology,

the best I know
because of my experiences,

is presently controlled by
the United States government.

It's not a tall story
or some kind of urban legend.

It's part of American history
that's been forgotten.

So, what do you think?

Is the boy in that photograph
a time traveler?

And if time travel technology
really exists,

then how has the government
kept it hidden for so long?

Perhaps clues can be found
by examining

another secret time machine,

one that is said
to be locked away

deep within
the Vatican Archives.

SHATNER: Beneath the heart
of the Catholic Church

lies one of the most
secure vaults in the world,

the Archivum
Apostolicum Vaticanum,

or as it's more commonly known:

the Vatican Secret Archives.

GENTILE:
Underneath the Vatican is

a fortress that's
climate controlled

with state-of-the-art security
and technology.

In those archives are
over 50 miles of shelves.

Within those archives are books,
documents and artifacts.

But also rumored to be
down there are

the most mysterious relics
in history.

The Ark of the Covenant
is alleged to be down there.

The original Menorah could be
down in the archives.

The Spear of Destiny is
rumored to be down there.

And these are just
parts of the legend

that have kind of
accumulated over the years.

SHATNER:
Whether or not the Vatican Secret Archives

really contains lost treasures,
like the Ark of the Covenant

or the Spear of Destiny,
is a matter of debate.

But there is another item
supposedly hidden

within the archives
that some researchers believe

is just as extraordinary.

It's a time machine,
developed in the 1950s,

known as the chronovisor.

GENTILE:
The chronovisor is described as a machine.

You've got "chrono"
which means "time,"

and you've got "visor"
which means "vision."

So this is a device that
allows you to see through time.

SWARTZ:
The scientific principle behind the chronovisor,

is that this is a device
that you could actually see,

sort of like with a hologram
or a television screen,

past or even future events.

So, rather than
risking a person's life

sending them into
the past or the future,

you could turn this device on

and see
what had actually happened.

SHATNER:
Could there really be a time machine

hidden within
the Vatican Secret Archives?

The story was
exposed on May 2, 1972,

in an Italian newspaper
called La Domenica del Corriere.

Journalist Vincenzo Maddaloni
wrote about both the existence

of the chronovisor
and the grand architect

of this astonishing machine.

The original idea for
the chronovisor came from

a Benedictine monk by the name
of Pellegrino Ernetti.

This was a gentleman who was
a scholar of archaic music.

He was also a physicist.

Ernetti developed
the chronovisor

sort of on accident.

According to Father Ernetti,
he had been working

for the president of
the Pontifical Academy

of Sciences,
Father Agostino Gemelli.

They were working on a project

to go through, restore and
archive old audio recordings,

- um, mostly of Gregorian chants.
- (Gregorian chants playing)

So, one day he's going through
recordings of the chants,

and Father Gemelli swears
he can hear a voice

on the recording,
so they isolate the voice.

- (chanting)
- (man speaking Italian)

GENTILE:
And Father Gemelli could swear that it's his father's voice,

but his father had been dead
at the time of this recording.

Now, Father Gemelli thinks
it's a miracle.

The voice under the chant from
beyond, it's a gift from God.

Father Ernetti's more
scientific, he's more grounded.

He wants to see if maybe
there's a way to extract

old information out of
electromagnetic recordings.

- (whispering voices)
- Father Ernetti gets 12 physicists and scientists

together to help him
work on this project to see

if they can replicate
this phenomenon,

and they built the device.

SHATNER:
Rumors about the Vatican's secret time vision technology

were a strange curiosity in
Italian newspapers for decades.

But then in the year 2000,

the story was exposed
to the wider world

in an explosive book titled
Father Ernetti's Chronovisor.

The book included
firsthand accounts

from Father Ernetti
in which he revealed

how the device worked.

Father Ernetti said that
the chronovisor consists of

metal of different alloys.

Some rare metals,
some expensive, some exotic.

And these metals are designed to
tune into different frequencies

that pick up this residual
electromagnetic energy,

that sense conversations and
can see images anywhere in time.

SWARTZ:
The theory was that energy never completely disappears,

that the past--
the frequencies

are still floating around
out there somewhere.

And with the proper tuning,
you could actually pull in

the sights and sounds
of past events.

SHATNER:
After building the chronovisor, Father Ernetti claimed

he first tested its abilities
by watching speeches

delivered by Italian dictator
Benito Mussolini

just a decade earlier
in the 1940s.

When that test was successful,

Ernetti reportedly scanned
back to 1797...

- (gunfire)
- ...to watch Napoleon conquer Italy

during the French Revolution.

And despite intense scrutiny,

Father Ernetti never
changed his story.

Father Ernetti passed away
in 1994.

And to his dying day,
he said the chronovisor exists.

Over the years,
the Vatican has been questioned

about the chronovisor,
and their standard answer is:

it's fantasy,
it doesn't exist.

But in 1988, allegedly,
there was a decree given

by the Church,
which was very, very strange.

And it said something
to the effect of

anyone using technology to
listen to or peer through time

would be excommunicated.

SHATNER:
Why would the Vatican make this declaration

if the chronovisor
doesn't exist?

And if the Vatican possesses

such an incredible piece
of technology,

then why are they hiding it
in the Secret Archives?

If you could turn on a device
and look any place,

any time in the past,

history would unfold before us.

All mysteries would be revealed.

However, such a device would
also eliminate all secrets.

Would our society be
mature enough to accept

the loss of our secrets?

I don't think so.

If the claims about
the chronovisor are true,

then maybe it's best
to keep it locked away.

But with reports of numerous
time machines circulating,

perhaps the more
important question is,

what's the science behind them?

The answer may lie

in the story of
a renowned Italian physicist,

who made a major discovery
related to time travel

in 1937,
and then mysteriously...

vanished without a trace.

SHATNER: Scientists at
the CERN Large Hadron Collider

announce a remarkable discovery.

After firing subatomic particles

through the 17-mile length
of the collider,

they observed that certain
particles, known as neutrinos,

moved faster than had ever
been measured before.

At the microscopic level,

neutrinos,
very exotic particles,

were clocked traveling
faster than the speed of light.

Now, if you could go
faster than the speed of light,

time travel may be possible.

But is it possible in principle,

to have these things happen
for large objects like us?

And the answer is,
theoretically, yes.

SHATNER:
Could studying high-speed neutrinos

be the key to understanding
how humans can move

faster than the speed of light,

and potentially
even travel through time?

Well, some say that
the answer may lie with

the peculiar disappearance
of a scientist in the 1930s

named Ettore Majorana.

Who came up with
this theory of neutrinos

that are being studied?

It was Ettore Majorana.

In 1937, this genius,
he wrote the first paper

on neutrinos, which we're now
studying decades later.

So because of Majorana,
we have a much richer

understanding of
subatomic particles.

McMAHON:
Ettore Majorana was living and working in Italy

under the dictatorship
of Benito Mussolini

in the lead-up
to the Second World War.

His work on neutrinos was
completely groundbreaking,

and then he just vanishes.

The fate of Ettore Majorana is
a complete mystery to this day.

He was, uh,
on the island of Sicily.

And this was in 1938.

He had a ticket of
a boat trip to Naples,

which it would seem as if
he actually got on this boat,

and then he just
disappears completely.

McMAHON:
Many believed that suicide was a rational explanation,

but there was no proof.

It seems inexplicable
that a man like Majorana,

very much
at the top of his game,

recognized as one of
the world's top physicists,

why would he suddenly choose
to end his own life?

Others believe that
he went to a monastery,

that he secluded himself away,

because he'd also withdrawn
a huge amount of money

from the bank.

But more intriguingly is
the notion that,

some people believe,
that the discovery of neutrinos

by Majorana also permitted him

to entertain
the notion of time travel.

SHATNER:
Is it possible that Ettore Majorana didn't

merely disappear but actually
used his knowledge of neutrinos

to travel through time?

Majorana left behind a letter
that may offer a clue.

Before his disappearance,

Majorana wrote
a series of letters.

And there's one
particularly intriguing letter

where he says that he will keep

a fond memory of his colleagues

"until 11:00 p.m. tonight,"

and possibly later.

And the tone and,
more importantly, the tense

in which he was writing
those letters

seemed to be very vague
in terms of time.

SHATNER:
While skeptics have questioned

whether Ettore Majorana's
disappearance

involved time travel,
in the 1950s,

surprising evidence emerged

which suggests
that it could be true.

COLLINS: In 1955,
somebody actually meets a man

in Buenos Aires in Argentina,

that claims to be, um, Ettore.

So, with this,
what are we to conclude?

DONNELLY:
After Majorana's disappearance

there were frequent
Majorana sightings.

People coming forward to say,
"Oh, I think I saw somebody

who looks a little bit
like him."

And then a photo surfaced
from 1955

taken in Valencia,
in Venezuela.

In this photo, there is a man
who is most likely Majorana.

SHATNER:
Further analysis of the photograph

revealed a bizarre twist.

Majorana was 32 years old
when he disappeared.

In 1955,
he would've been 49,

but the man in the photograph
looks closer to 70.

So, where and when was Majorana
all that time?

Now, if that photo
was of Majorana,

it suggests not only that
he survived the ferry trip

between Naples and Palermo

but that he engaged
in some kind of travel.

Travel across space but also
possibly travel through time.

Did the man who unlocked
the secrets of the atom

also discover
the key to time travel?

It's unclear,
but some researchers believe

that you don't need to be
a brilliant scientist

to travel through time.

Instead, they argue that
there are certain locations

on our planet
in which strange energy

can transform an ordinary person
into a time traveler

by sheer accident.

SHATNER: This historic port
city is famously known

as the hometown of The Beatles.

But over the years,
it has gained

a much stranger reputation.

It's said that in Liverpool

time moves in mysterious ways.

And it's become ground zero
for a phenomenon

known as "time slips,"

which are a kind of
accidental time travel.

McMAHON:
In Liverpool, there's a shopping street called

Bold Street, which has become
infamous for time slips.

One of these time slips
involved a police officer

called Frank,
who was out shopping

with his wife Carol,
in July 1996.

And Carol went
to the Dillons bookstore,

and he went to a shop
to buy a CD--

a compact disc--
1990s technology.

Now, he then returned
to meet up with his wife,

but the bookstore
where his wife was,

Dillons,
had now become Cripps

and was selling women's
clothing and handbags.

Now, this confused Frank,
who then looked around and found

that everybody around him
was dressed inexplicably

in 1940s, 1950s fashion,

and he became rapidly aware

that he was no longer
in the 1990s.

He was somewhere very,
very different.

COLLINS:
And everything then just changes back to how it should be.

The bookshop is there,

which he knows to be Dillons,

but he remembered the name
of that shop and it was Cripps.

And there was, indeed,
a shop in the 1950s

at that location
by the name of Cripps.

Is it possible that
there are places in this world

where space-time works
differently to anywhere else?

SHATNER:
While Liverpool has become known for time slips,

this unique phenomenon
has been experienced

and reported
all over the world.

Recently, time slips have been
entering the news.

The fact that here you are
at one point in space,

and then suddenly
time has a mistake in it

which allows you to slip
right through a crack

in the fabric of space and time.

DONNELLY:
There is a big difference between a time slip

and the use of a time machine.

In a time machine,
you have control

over your comings and goings
along the timeline.

With a time slip,
one ends up in the future,

or possibly the past,
without any idea

of how you got there
or any control of being there.

SHATNER:
Curiously, time slips have also been reported

on the sites
of historic battlegrounds.

Another very interesting account
of a time slip

occurs in 1932.

When two journalists
went to the Hamburg shipyard

to cover a story--

a gentleman by the name of
J. Bernard Hutton

and another gentleman
by the name of Brandt--

nothing out of the ordinary
took place,

until suddenly they found
themselves in the midst

of bombs being dropped
all around them.

They could see, actually,
bombs falling out of the sky.

And obviously this was
something that terrified them,

and they got out of there
quickly.

McMAHON:
When they looked back from Hamburg to the shipyards,

they appear to be
intact and unharmed.

And when Brandt's photographs
were developed,

again, there was no damage
to the shipyards.

Fast-forward to 1943,

and Hutton was living in Britain
during the Second World War.

He read a report of
an RAF raid on that shipyard,

a bombing raid
by the Royal Air Force,

and the description
in the newspaper matched exactly

what he'd seen
on that day in 1932

and chilled him to the bone.

SHATNER:
If there is some truth to these time slip reports,

then what could be causing them?

Well, according to physicists,
the answer could be

that we're living
in what's referred to

as the multiverse.

The idea of the multiverse
comes from the quantum theory.

You know, when we were children,
we were told that

you cannot be two places
at the same time.

That's just common sense, right?
Well, we lied to you.

In the quantum theory,
electrons can, in fact,

be two places at the same time.

Therefore, we have
this scenario where the past,

the present, the future
are all mixed up into one.

So in principle,
the theory allows you

to simultaneously exist
with somebody from the past.

COLLINS:
What are we to make of people coming forward

and claiming these time slips,

whether they be into the past
or into the future?

And I think what we can say
is that there are so many

of these stories that there must
be some kind of truth to them.

SHATNER:
But if numerous people have been transported to another time,

then where is the proof?

The answer may lie in
examining old photographs

that curiously
appear to show people

from the future.

SHATNER: The Virtual Museum of
Canada releases a collection

of historic images
on its website.

One particular photo,
taken in 1941,

sparks intense curiosity,

because it appears
to show a man

from the future.

In this image from 1941,
here we have a group of people

at the opening
of the South Fork Bridge

in British Columbia that year.

And this young man
just shouldn't be there.

Now, they all look like
typical 1940s people,

except for this chap here
with the dark shades.

He looks like a kind of hipster
from our time.

He's got his great,
cool sunglasses.

He's got what seems to be
a modern T-shirt on

and this little box camera.

There is no reason for him
to be standing there in 1941.

SHATNER:
The bizarre photo quickly went viral on the Internet,

and many have wondered whether
the strangely dressed man

could possibly be
a time traveler.

But according to some
researchers, the best evidence

of modern people
traveling back in time

is not a picture but rather
a mysterious artifact.

An archaeological report
came out in 2008

regarding a very,
very strange discovery

in a Ming dynasty tomb
in Shanxi, China.

Now, this tomb is
at least 400 years old,

and it was fully sealed,
hermetically sealed,

so no one had been in it
for 400 years.

But when they cracked open
this bit of rock

that had hardened over time,
this ring came out.

Just a few centimeters wide.

And on it,
it looked exactly like a watch.

It even had
the hands of the watch

and the 12 hours
around the edge,

which caused a sensation because
this couldn't have existed.

There was no watches
at this time.

So how could this be?

How could this anomalous ring
end up in a Ming dynasty tomb?

SHATNER:
While skeptics dismiss the unusual artifact

as a mere hoax,

others are thrilled by
the idea that time travelers

may be leaving tangible evidence
of their journeys to the past.

And yet, experts warn
that even though time travel is

a fun and fascinating concept,

it's also cause
for grave concern.

MALLET:
We have to realize that if we can travel back into the past,

the worst-case scenario is
that governments could use it

to attack their enemy
by going to the past.

Imagine, for example,
going back to

to the Revolutionary War

and making sure that you
eliminated George Washington.

These are problems
that could happen.

This sort of technology would be
a very powerful thing to have.

For over 100 years,
we have been debating

whether or not time travel,
especially to the past,

is beneficial or dangerous.

But, of course, the dilemma for
us is, there's a conundrum here.

Because if there are people time
traveling and altering the past,

they will know
what they've done,

but we won't know
because we're living here,

and we haven't traveled back.

We're prisoners of time.

And, of course,
that's very unnerving.

The stories of supposed
real-life time travel

are tantalizing, provocative,

and in some cases dangerous.

They all teeter on the edge
of science fiction

and science fact.

Will we one day uncover
indisputable evidence

which proves that these
incredible tales

are actually true?

It seems that
only time will tell.

But until then,
these mysteries will remain...

...unexplained.

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