All language subtitles for The UnXplained S06E06 Bizarre Afflictions 1080p HULU WEB-DL AAC2 0 H 264-playWEB_track4_[eng]

WILLIAM SHATNER:
Shocking injuries...

...that mirror the Crucifixion
of Jesus Christ.

A deadly disease

which begins
with uncontrollable laughter.

And harmful devices
implanted into the human body

by extraterrestrials.

Throughout history, tales
of inexplicable maladies

to both the body and the mind

have stirred morbid curiosity
and palpable fear.

From mysterious wounds
that appear

for no apparent reason

to a peculiar madness
that compels people

to dance themselves to death,

are these bizarre afflictions

merely fabrications of the mind?

Or could they arise

from unseen forces

that are beyond
our comprehension?

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

♪ ♪

Every spring, billions
of Christians all over the world

gather to observe a solemn day
of reverence called Good Friday.

According
to Christian tradition,

Good Friday commemorates

the Crucifixion and death
of Jesus Christ.

This sacred practice
has been performed

for nearly 2,000 years

and involves attending mass,

the veneration of the cross,

and elaborate processions.

While Good Friday
is a somber occasion,

the Crucifixion
is a pivotal event

that is at the heart
of Christianity.

MONSIGNOR STEPHEN ROSSETTI:
When you look at the spirituality

of the Christian faith,

the Crucifixion of Jesus
is not only a tragedy of death,

it’s a sign
of the sufferings of Jesus.

When we think of
the Crucifixion today,

we think of Jesus’ wounds
when he was crucified,

which includes
the holes in the hands,

in the feet, in the side,

we think of the crown of thorns.

So, there are lots of different,
uh, types of wounds.

It reminds us of what
Jesus suffered for us.

SHATNER:
The Crucifixion is clearly a profound cornerstone

of the Christian faith.

But curiously, for centuries,

people have suffered from a rare
and disturbing condition

that is connected
to the death of Jesus Christ.

This bizarre affliction is known

as stigmata.

Stigmata occurs
when an individual

is marked in a physical way

that represents the wounds

that Christ suffered
on the cross.

Most commonly, stigmata happens

in what is referred to
as the five wounds of Christ,

which is two in the hands,

two in the feet,
and one on the side.

MITCH HOROWITZ:
Since the Middle Ages,

there have been
untold thousands of cases.

In the strictest terms,
stigmata,

although they do
involve physical suffering,

are considered a blessing,
a privilege.

It’s almost as if
the stricken individual

is bearing a holy
or divine burden.

SHATNER:
How can wounds that mirror those of Jesus Christ

inexplicably appear
on ordinary people?

It seems to defy all logic.

But perhaps clues
about this phenomenon

can be found by examining

the first documented
instance of stigmata.

McGOWAN:
The first recorded case of stigmata

occurred with St. Francis
of Assisi in 1224.

St. Francis went
to the mountains of La Verna

to meditate and to pray.

And then suddenly Francis
had a vision of a seraphim.

A seraphim is
a particular kind of angel,

a fiery angel with six wings.

And the seraphim held in
his possession the crucifix.

His wings were wrapped
around Jesus on the cross.

And from this crucifix,
this image of Jesus,

came forth these rays,

and these rays
penetrated Francis

in the form of stigmata.

Francis’ stigmata
was incredibly intense.

Nothing like this
had ever happened before.

And not only did he have wounds

that were openly bleeding
on his hands,

Francis was quite ill
after he received the stigmata,

and he died two years later.

Every day of those two years,
he did, in fact,

suffer with stigmata.

SHATNER:
Accounts of stigmata are both fascinating

and deeply unsettling.

For many Christians,

they are proof of divine forces
at work in our world.

But many experts are skeptical

and insist that stigmata

must have
a scientific explanation.

ROSIE FALODUN:
In terms of stigmata-like symptoms,

there are some medical
conditions that have been

attributed
to spontaneous bleeding,

but it’s still
very much misunderstood.

One of them
would be hemathrodosis.

It’s known as bloody sweat

because when the body
is under extreme stress,

the sweat glands tend to become
more fragile

and can bleed spontaneously.

It typically manifests as
droplets of blood on the skin,

most commonly in the forehead,
the arms and the legs,

without any apparent
physical cause.

So there are instances
where conditions

have been attributed
to spontaneous bleeding.

But it can’t be said
that they are

the exact cause of stigmata.

HOROWITZ:
When a proposed stigmata occurs,

the Vatican typically will do
everything possible

to account for the healing

within standard
medical protocol.

The Vatican disputes, ignores,

or disproves
vastly greater numbers

of miraculous claims
than it actually validates.

And so, if the Vatican

is able to verify a stigmata,

they are considered miraculous.

SHATNER:
Is it possible that a genuine case of stigmata

is an actual miracle,
as the Vatican claims?

Many believe
that the best evidence

lies in the story of the most
famous case in modern history:

the Stigmata of Padre Pio.

Padre Pio was a Capuchin friar

who in 1918 celebrated mass

and immediately afterwards
started bleeding

from the hands and feet,

but there were certain
peculiarities about it.

It never scabbed over.

And it gave off
a very sweet perfume

which is known as
the odor of sanctity.

McGOWAN:
When Padre Pio was suffering from his stigmata,

he said that the pain
was so extreme

that he thought he might die.

He was embarrassed by the blood

and embarrassed to be showing
these marks on a regular basis.

And he was always trying
to cover them

with the sleeves of his robe

so that people
wouldn’t see the blood.

ROSSETTI:
The Vatican’s response to great mystics in the Church

has often been to persecute
them, at least initially.

They did that with Padre Pio.

They were skeptical.

At one point, they thought
they were self-inflicted.

And so they, uh, silenced him.

They basically shut him away
in a monastery.

But thousands of people
would go to attend his mass

and line up
for confession for days.

ANDREW COLLINS:
It was not until long after

Padre Pio’s death in 1968

that the Vatican had relented

and saw him
as a genuine stigmatist.

He was finally canonized

and beautified
by Pope John Paul II.

This was at the beginning
of the 21st century.

Now thousands of pilgrims

come from all over Italy
and beyond

to venerate at his tomb
every month.

And so his memory

is something that is celebrated

by Catholics
in every part of the world.

McGOWAN:
When we look at cases of stigmata,

it’s a very profound experience

for those people
who are suffering,

and we have photographs

of modern stigmatics
quite agonized

with the pain that they had.

It’s very fascinating.

Anything that could represent,

uh, a true communion

with the essence of Jesus Christ

is going to be something
that people are interested in

and want to understand.

SHATNER:
For the moment,

stigmata remains a controversial
and captivating affliction

that offers no easy answers.

But in 16th century France,

another condition emerged

that was no less baffling.

It was a disturbing phenomenon

which led hundreds of people

to dance themselves to death.

(woman groans)

SHATNER:
This historic city built along the Rhine River

is known for its stunning
network of canals,

remarkable medieval
architecture,

and the famous
astronomical clock

of Strasbourg Cathedral.

But over 500 years ago,
in July of 1518,

this town was the site
of one of the strangest

maladies in human history.

It’s known
as the dancing plague,

and it started when a townswoman
named Frau Troffea

spontaneously burst into dance.

Frau Troffea was said
to have stepped

outside of her house
in the city of Strasbourg

and then began to dance.

And she danced for hours
and hours and hours.

And apparently, at first,

eyewitnesses thought
that she may have been

trying to irritate her husband,

or that this was
some kind of joke.

But then the dance
stretched into the evening

and then into the night.

She collapsed.

She got up the next day

and began again.

And at that point,
people realized

that a very strange phenomenon

was unfolding here.

PICKNETT:
Frau Troffea went on hopping around and dancing

in the heat of the summer,
but she wasn’t enjoying it.

She was unfocused,
glassy-eyed, dissociated,

and just jerking around
and dancing.

And she actually couldn’t stop.

SHATNER:
Frau Troffea reportedly

danced for a week straight.

The constant exertion
took a toll on her health,

and she was sent to a remote
monastery to recuperate.

But strangely,
after Frau left Strasbourg,

the dancing didn’t stop.

WALLER:
Within about two or three weeks,

dozens more people
had been consumed

by this same urge
to dance and dance

for hours and days

in an altered state
of consciousness.

By the end of August,

perhaps 400 people
were all dancing.

In some cases,
on and off for weeks.

Their toenails fell off,
their feet were lacerated,

their shoes were full of blood.

And then some
of them dropped dead.

It was estimated
15 a day dropped dead,

maybe 400 in all over
the course of the two months.

It was a terrifying
and terrible thing.

What’s so remarkable
about these events of 1518

is that we have copies
of the memos

sent among the members

of the governing circle
of the city.

There are intense debates
within the city

as to what is causing
this outbreak of dancing.

And they make quite clear,

these people do not
want to be dancing.

They are absolutely involuntary.

SHATNER:
What could have possibly triggered

such a bizarre
and deadly affliction?

At the time,
the people of Strasbourg

began to suspect
that the dancing plague

was the work

of the devil.

COLLINS:
This was something that was seen as a form of possession.

So they started to look

at possible supernatural
explanations.

And the first thing
that they thought of

was this possibly
being instigated

by the devil himself.

And so they tried to purge

every kind of sin from the city.

It didn’t work.

SHATNER:
When banning sin failed,

the townspeople wondered
if the dancing plague

was not the work of the devil

but rather a Catholic saint

by the name of Vitus.

WALLER:
St. Vitus is an important saint

in the late medieval
European church.

There was a very strong belief

that there were
a number of saints

who could both cure you
of a particular disease

and, if you were a sinner,

then they would punish you
by inflicting that disease.

St. Vitus was believed

to cause movement disorders,

including compulsive dancing.

So it made complete sense
to people at the time

that if anybody
was dancing wildly,

it’s because they’d somehow
offended St. Vitus.

So what they then do
is that they bundle people

into wagons and take them
to a shrine

dedicated to St. Vitus

located about 30 miles north
of Strasbourg.

Interestingly,
they put red shoes on them.

They cover the red shoes
in holy oil and holy water,

and they lead them
round the shrine in a circle.

And then, we are told,
most of the people

recovered their sanity.

So it seems that they cured it

by appealing to the
supernatural beliefs

of the people
who’d been afflicted.

SHATNER:
Was the dancing plague both caused and cured

by a higher power?

While it made sense to people
in medieval Europe,

in modern times
experts have proposed

a more scientific theory.

They claim that this
ghoulish dancing frenzy

was the result of mass
psychogenic illness,

or as it’s more commonly known,
mass hysteria.

FALODUN:
Mass hysteria is when a group of people

are experiencing
the same physical symptoms

without a definitive physical
cause of those symptoms.

For example,
if you’re in a social setting

whereby someone
is experiencing a symptom,

you can then believe that that’s
also happening to you.

There was an example
of a girls’ boarding school

in modern-day what’s known
as Tanzania now,

in the 1960s where
over a thousand girls

had an outbreak
of involuntary convulsions

and uncontrollable laughter.

There can be a host of symptoms
for mass hysteria.

However, there’s no
definitive scientific answer

for what causes groups to mimic
certain symptoms and behaviors.

WALLER:
Today the most popular theory

for the 1518 dancing plague

is that this is an example
of mass hysteria,

but it’s not always the case

that unusual behavior
is mass psychogenic illness.

We’re talking about
several hundred people

dancing for days or weeks,
some of them dying.

Certainly, medieval peoples
had popular theories

that this was
direct intervention

from God, saints, or the devil.

And I think that partly
it’s because the events

just seemed inconceivable,
and so, ultimately,

we will never know
what drove this phenomenon.

Was the macabre dance of death

the product of mass hysteria?

Or were the townspeople actually
possessed by evil forces?

The truth behind this mystery
may be lost to history,

but there’s another
strange tale of torment

that has been
thoroughly investigated

by modern scientists.

It involves
a bizarre condition known

as the laughing death.

SHATNER:
This group of tropical islands

located in the
southwest Pacific Ocean

is one of the most
remote places on Earth.

During the 1970s,

it was discovered that a local
tribe, known as the Fore,

was afflicted by a strange
and deadly illness.

SCHUTT:
The Fore people lived up in the mountains of this island.

There were probably
about 36,000 of them

that were spread out
across the mountain valleys

in northern, uh, New Guinea.

They lived
in 170 different hamlets

with people who spoke
six different languages.

When the Westerners started
to interact with the Fore,

missionaries and anthropologists
found an alarming number

of them were dying
of a strange disease

that nobody
had really seen before.

One of the symptoms
of this disease

is something that is known
as pathological laughter.

Inappropriate laughter,
giggling.

Major magazines and newspapers

called it laughing death.

SHATNER:
At the time, experts estimated that the laughing death

killed 200 Fore people
every year.

The Fore
called the illness kuru,

which translates
to "trembling" in their dialect.

The disease
was puzzling to scientists,

who could not determine
its cause,

and in 1981, Dr. Robert Klitzman

traveled to Papua New Guinea
to try and solve the mystery.

When I went
there for the first time,

I wasn’t sure what to expect.

But I learned many things.

Initially, it was called
the laughing death,

which is sort of a misnomer.

People did engage
in what seemed like laughter,

but it really was sort of
uncontrollable expressions

and movements that they had.

Kuru causes
a number of symptoms.

It is a neurological disease

somewhat similar to Parkinson’s
disease or Alzheimer’s.

The symptoms are loss of
muscle control over one’s body,

shaking, inability to walk,

and it has
mental symptoms as well.

So people may not be able
to control their emotions

or what they say.

The disease was terrifying
in many ways.

The symptoms usually, from
start to the person’s death,

take about a year.
It’s invariably fatal.

The Fore people believed
that the disease

was caused by sorcery.

So they believed that
a sorcerer would take something

that belonged to you
and wrap it around a stone

and bury it
and cast a spell on it.

And that may sound ridiculous
to some of us,

but they’d say,
"That’s just magic."

The world in which they lived
was this kind of a world.

SHATNER:
Was kuru the result of supernatural forces,

as locals believed?

It’s an intriguing notion,

but doctors eventually suspected
that the real culprit

was that the Fore participated
in the gruesome practice

of consuming human flesh.

HOROWITZ:
When Western anthropologists began to study

some of the communities of
Papua New Guinea in the 1930s,

they discovered practice
of a ritualistic,

religious-based
funerary cannibalism.

The Papua New Guineans
who engaged in cannibalism

saw the consumption of the brain

as a way of imbibing
that person’s lifeforce.

It was a devotional practice.

KLITZMAN:
When they practiced cannibalism, at one feast,

I calculated that there
were 56 people present.

53 of whom then died
of the disease.

So it was pretty devastating.

Now, every time someone died,
they would consume the brain.

I met people,
for instance, who would say,

"Well, I ate a foot"
or "I ate a hand,"

and they were still alive.

And so the concentration
of the kuru

was highest when they
would consume the brain.

SHATNER:
Perhaps it’s not surprising that eating human brains

is not good for your health,

but how did this practice
lead to the bizarre

laughing symptoms of kuru?

Kuru is caused by something
called a prion,

an infectious protein
that is in all of our brains.

And in roughly one out of
every million people or so,

it flips the wrong way.

And when it’s flipped,

it could lead to other proteins

flipping in our brain
and forming clumps

that could kill brain cells.

Kuru probably happened
because someone

in the Fore group had such
a protein flip the wrong way.

And that person was then
consumed by other people,

and that led to proteins
in their brains flipping.

And when they died,
they were eaten,

and the rest is history,
continued to spread.

SHATNER:
The story of kuru is as fascinating as it is disturbing.

But what’s even more unsettling
is that this type of disease

has harmed people
not just in Papua New Guinea

but all over the world.

Except we call it
mad cow disease.

SCHUTT:
In the 1980s,

British cattle became stricken
with mad cow disease

because farmers
feed them supplements,

and these supplements
are made up of dead cows

infected with prion disease.

And then people
would consume that.

Eventually,
over the course of 15, 16 years,

178 people in the UK died

from what became known
as mad cow disease.

FALODUN:
Mad cow disease

or neurodegenerative diseases
such as kuru

can manifest upwards of 70 years
after the ingestion

of some contaminated,
um, food or livestock.

And so it’s very unclear
as to whether or not

it can happen in the future.

The study of kuru is important
for many reasons.

One is, of course, the fact
that the symptoms in humans

from eating an infected cow
are basically

the same symptoms
that we saw with kuru.

So they provided
this unique glimpse

on what can cause a disease
that’s different

than what anyone
had thought before.

The fate of people
who fall victim

to the laughing death
gives a whole new meaning

to the phrase
"You are what you eat."

However, our next story

of inexplicable
suffering concerns

not what we choose to consume

but rather what might be
surgically inserted inside us

without our knowledge
because there are thousands

of individuals who claim

that they were
the unwilling recipient

of an alien implant.

SHATNER:
A group of experts

from multiple universities

publish a controversial
study titled

Unusual Personal Experiences.

The report finds that,
according to national polls,

roughly 3.7 million
Americans claim

to have been abducted
by extraterrestrials,

a phenomenon that is referred to
as the UFO abduction syndrome.

But what’s even more startling
is that many respondents stated

that extraterrestrials
surgically operated on them

and implanted a foreign object
into their body.

People who report
having implants

have claimed all sorts
of physical symptoms.

These implants are not something
they want in them.

Some claim
very bad headaches from them,

some claim extreme pain
at the place

where the implant
was inserted in them.

Others will claim incidents
of problems

with their vision
or their hearing.

Most abductees believe
these objects

are used to track them
and find them

when they are abducted again.

McMAHON:
Skeptics say

these are sometimes
shards of glass,

or little bits of metal
that have become embedded

for very earthbound,
natural reasons--

a result of an injury,
a self-inflicted wound.

But medical studies have shown
that those who believe

that they have these
alien implants inside them

are utterly convinced.

SHATNER:
Beyond the pain and terror caused by discovering

an alleged extraterrestrial
object lodged inside their body,

many so-called alien implantees

also suffer from an even more
disturbing symptom.

They claim these implants have
actually invaded their minds.

BILL BIRNES:
The most compelling things about some of these

alien implant reports
are the fact that the people,

the hosts,

claim they’re hearing voices.

The earliest mentions
of alien implants

were as communications devices

for the creatures
that come in the night.

They’re getting messages,
and they would say,

"I feel as though there’s
another person inside of me."

SHATNER:
Is it possible that the remarkable claims

of supposed
alien implantees are true?

And if so, then what exactly
are these mysterious objects

that are being inserted
into people’s bodies?

Podiatrist Dr. Roger Leir

publishes
a controversial book titled

The Aliens and the Scalpel.

In his extraordinary account,
Dr. Leir reveals

that he has surgically
removed foreign objects

from several people’s bodies,

and he firmly believes
these objects

were extraterrestrial in origin.

Dr. Roger Leir,
who is now deceased,

claimed to have extracted

more than a dozen alien implants
from subjects.

He was one of very few people
with surgical training

who was willing to extract
such claimed objects.

BIRNES:
He would have patients coming in,

"Doc, Doc, my foot, there’s
something wrong with it."

When he X-rayed it, he would see
these strange objects in there,

and the patients
would tell the story

of encountering
a strange presence.

What Roger discovered is that,
in these alien implants,

the body not only
did not reject the object

but made it a part of the body.

No artificial object
on this planet acts like that.

SHATNER:
In 2013, Dr. Leir contacted

acclaimed documentary
filmmaker Jeremy Corbell.

The doctor wanted to give
Corbell unprecedented access

to film his 17th implant
removal surgery.

The resulting documentary

is aptly titled
Patient Seventeen.

CORBELL:
Dr. Roger Leir called me,

and first thing in my mind is,

I thought this was absolute

woo-woo, untangible,
ridiculous, ridiculous stuff.

But he says, "Look,
I would not have spent

"this much time and effort
and money

"and my blood, sweat
and tears on this

"if there wasn’t
something to it.

Just film a surgery."

So I brought my camera,
I went in.

And what really struck me

was, here’s a guy,

he’s about to get on
that operating table

and have his body cut open

to remove a foreign body,

and he doesn’t know what it is.

And I don’t know what he was
looking to find other than,

"Hey, maybe there’s
an implant made by an alien

that’s in my leg."

Because Patient 17 did have
abductive experiences.

CORBELL:
After the implant removal surgery,

Dr. Roger Leir wanted to give me

a kind of autonomy
on my investigative work

on what it is that he cut
out of this man’s leg

by sending it myself
to a national laboratory,

getting the raw data,
and then reporting that in.

When we got that analysis back,

the isotopic ratios,

which are kind of
a good measuring stick

or barometer for things that are

not terrestrially found
on Earth,

they were off the charts,

indicating that it
was non-terrestrial,

not forged here on Earth.

I can tell you that as a fact

that when you get a sample
that reads like that,

it’s worthy
of further investigation.

BIRNES:
The more we come aware of the presence

that there are UFOs
in our skies,

the more we realize
that it is quite likely

that there are millions
of people on this planet

walking around with alien
implants in their feet,

in their hands,
have no knowledge of it.

For what purpose? We don’t know.

Could millions of people

have been implanted
with alien devices

and not even know it?

Wow. It’s a fascinating theory.

But there’s a much older mystery

that’s no less intriguing.

It concerns an ancient nobleman

who attempted to heal
his numerous ailments

with the power

of magical stones.

SHATNER:
Atop Salisbury Plain

stands arguably the most iconic
ancient structure in the world.

Stonehenge.

Constructed around 3100 BC,

this enigmatic monument

has captured our collective
imagination for centuries.

But what most people
don’t realize

is that this Stonehenge
landscape is also

a massive graveyard.

Throughout the area,

thousands of ancient skeletons
have been recovered.

And apparently
many of the deceased

suffered from devastating
afflictions.

The area around Stonehenge
is absolutely littered

with people who have got
all sorts of traumas,

from the mundane through
to some very serious conditions.

It’s very clear that many
of them had

physical injuries that
had gone on-- broken arms,

all the usual range of things.

For example,

one of the skeletons
of those people,

on his left knee,
the kneecap is missing.

There was some kind of trauma.

The second thing
which is obviously

wrong with him is that
there is an abscess

on his jaw which must have
been excruciating in life.

Also, what we can see
from recent studies of DNA

is that around about the time
that Stonehenge was being built,

there was a plague
circulating in the area.

So we have to think
of the prehistoric past

that we’re talking
about around Stonehenge

as something which is
actually very dangerous.

People dying, people being hurt

through these
different illnesses

and plagues and diseases.

SHATNER:
It’s easy to assume that so many people buried near Stonehenge

suffered from numerous
ailments because

they simply lived
in ancient times

and did not receive
proper medical care.

But according to archaeologists,

the truth may be
far more intriguing.

In 2008, an important discovery
was announced

regarding Stonehenge.

There was a discovery
of a mass of skeletons

buried in the region,

and 50% of these
skeletons discovered

had come from somewhere else.

So what does this tell us?

They came here for something.

It’s possible that Stonehenge

could have been used
as a healing site,

a type of temple for healing.

SHATNER:
Did ancient people travel to Stonehenge

in order to be healed?

And if so, what made them think

that coming to
this mysterious monument

would cure them?

Some say the answer
can be found

by examining
the stones themselves

and, more specifically,

what are known
as the bluestones.

DARVILL:
Around Stonehenge, the outer structure is made

from essentially local stones.

That’s the things we often see.

But inside Stonehenge,

we have these bluestones.

They’re called bluestones
because they do

have a kind of
a bluey-greeny color to them

and they also have
white spots inside them.

We’ve got a number of strands of
evidence which support the idea

that these stones
were being used for healing.

One of them is that
we know from scientific studies

that those stones come
from Southwest Wales,

in what we know
as the Preseli Hills.

It’s about 140 miles or so as
the crow flies from Stonehenge.

The stones in the Preseli Hills

must have been considered
special in some way.

Because we can trace back
through folklore accounts

of people using water
in association with the stones

to help promote healing.

And so Stonehenge was a place
of healing, I’m sure.

We shouldn’t, though,
compare it to a modern hospital.

Because medical science
back then

was much more to do with belief.

It was much more
to do with faith.

Stonehenge
was all about using belief,

using the power
of the bluestones

as the means by which health
care was dished out, as it were.

SHATNER:
For some, the idea that ancient people

constructed
a massive stone monument

for mystical healing purposes
may sound far-fetched.

But the profound truth is that,

for thousands of years,

human beings have journeyed
far and wide

in search of miracle cures,

and millions of people
continue to do so today.

If you want
to make sense of Stonehenge

as a healing place,
think of Lourdes in France,

where people still come
even today

looking for a cure
from the Virgin Mary.

Now, you imagine
in the Bronze Age,

you would come to Stonehenge
to touch the stones,

to say a prayer.

It was the last hope

that they can cure
whatever ailment it is

that’s killing them.

McGOWAN:
These ancient cultures, particularly in Britain,

were immersed in the traditions

of believing
in the power of nature.

And certainly something
as majestic as these stones

would be something
that could have an energy

that could potentially
help them.

SHATNER:
It’s fascinating to think that 5,000 years ago

the ancient people of Britain

may have gone to Stonehenge
as a last resort

to heal afflictions
they didn’t understand.

And curiously,
there’s a bizarre malady

occurring in Portugal

that even modern scientists
can’t comprehend.

Only, this condition
doesn’t harm the living,

but rather the dead.

SHATNER:
While there are many bizarre afflictions

which attack the living
that are utterly confounding,

surprisingly, in this
historic and picturesque city,

the same can also be said

for the deceased.

There’s a law in Portugal

that people who are buried

must essentially be exhumed
after a few years,

when they’ve decomposed,
and whatever remains

is crushed down into a box

and then placed into a wall.

The reason for that

is that there’s a shortage
of space

in cemeteries in Portugal.

Here’s the weird thing:

half the bodies brought up
have not decomposed.

Uh, many of them have,
in effect, come up mummified.

Now, that’s odd because Portugal
is a fairly warm, hot country.

You’d expect bodies
to decompose faster.

So why the bodies
are remaining mummified

and refusing to decompose
is something of a mystery.

SHATNER:
What could possibly cause so many dead bodies

to be turned into mummies?

It’s a disturbing conundrum,

and, in fact, this phenomenon
isn’t limited to Lisbon.

Throughout Portugal,
families are unfortunately

discovering that the remains
of their loved ones are being...

abnormally preserved.

The fact that bodies
are not decomposing

in Portugal is distressing
for the people

who are having to dig them up

and then answer the question,

"Well, now what do
we do with them?"

If you can’t crush them up
and put them in a box,

because they refuse
to decompose, what do you do?

Put them back
in the ground again?

So this really is
a hugely traumatic event

for families who’d lost sons,
fathers, mothers, and daughters.

SHATNER:
For now, the people of Portugal

continue to worry
about the remains

of their dearly departed.

But if history
is any indication,

human beings will keep looking
upon bizarre afflictions

with both fascination and dread,

as we have for centuries.

PICKNETT:
In the 19th century,

millions of people
flocked to freak shows

to ogle people with all
sorts of bizarre afflictions.

And I think the same mentality
is still there

in human beings to some extent.

We think, "How can
these people possibly live

with these extraordinary
things wrong with them?

How can they bear it?"

And then most of all, we think,

"Awfully glad it’s not us."

HOROWITZ:
There’s a mixture of fear and titillation

around our fascination
with bizarre ailments.

We’re worried about
what might happen to us

and at the same time
we’re relieved

that it hasn’t or hasn’t yet.

So we like to dip our toe
into circumstances

that remind us of our mortality,

of our fragility,

of what could happen
to us but hasn’t.

Perhaps what’s so unsettling

about strange tales of torment

is that it’s unclear
how, when, or why

inexplicable afflictions strike.

From harrowing accounts
of stigmata

to the disturbing
dance of death,

these maladies
serve as a chilling reminder

that we could be vulnerable

to enigmatic and harmful forces

that we don’t fully understand.

And at any moment,

we might fall victim
to troubling conditions

that remain... unexplained.

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