Destination Truth (2007) s05e01 Episode Script
Vietnam's Bigfoot
1 - Tonight it's the return of.
.
"Destination Truth".
In the most extreme season of D.
T.
ever, my team and I traverse the globe once again.
In search of monsters and mysteries.
- Whoa, whoa, whoa.
- Back up, back up.
We'll hunt for real life vampires in the forests of Romania.
Ryder and I have a close encounter with a UFO in Kazakhstan.
I mean, that's way too fast to be a plane.
Holy (Bleep).
What the (Bleep) Am I looking at? And we'll conduct the most perilous ghost hunt you've ever seen.
What the hell was that? - Hang on for more mystery.
.
- Hello? Oh, my God, it's close.
It is (Bleep) Close.
- More paranormal.
.
- Oh, my God! - And more adventure.
.
- Oh, my God, I lost my footing! - Because Destination Truth.
.
- Josh! Is back.
Tonight, we'll embark on an expedition to Southeast Asia.
On a quest to find Vietnam's Bigfoot.
And make a monumental discovery that may shock the world.
There's a huge footprint right there.
I think this is a very significant discovery.
Hold on! I'm Josh Gates.
In my travels, I've seen some unexplainable things.
.
And I've done some things I can't quite explain.
Now I've pulled together a team armed with the latest technology.
In the search for answers to the world's strangest mysteries.
I'm not sure what's out there waiting for me, but I know what I'm looking for.
.
The truth.
In the world of Crypto Zoology, there are legends, and then there's the legendary.
And in Southeast Asia, a massive primate is making headline news.
Referred to for generations as The Batutut.
This mysterious beast has been terrorizing villagers in Vietnam, and the government is now searching for answers.
The country is a hot bed for unknown creatures.
Less than a decade ago, scientists amazed the public with the discovery of the Vu Quang Ox, a 200 pound mammal that had never before been seen.
So if there's one place on the planet where an unknown ape might thrive, this is it.
All right, guys, so The Batutut is really Vietnam's version of Bigfoot.
There's been a real uptick in eyewitness sightings lately, so it seems like this is really the time to go after this story.
Vietnam's Bigfoot is a monster, hiding in the jungles and caves of Southeast Asia.
It has evaded scientists, but has come in close contact with remote villagers.
The beast is reported to be bi-pedal, about six feet tall, and is covered in dark brown hair.
It is aggressive with a muscular body and large feet, though it's tracks are rarely found.
It is also known for its ferocious bellowing call.
A chilling sign that this formidable creature is on the hunt and in search of prey.
With an unprecedented trek ahead of us, and news reports piling up from Vietnam's Ke Bang National Park.
.
My team and I packed up our equipment, and prepared for a daring and dangerous expedition into one of the least explored jungles in the world.
From Los Angeles, we headed West across The Pacific, flying 7600 miles to the city of Hanoi.
The city is a mash of Chinese and French colonial influences.
And there are reminders of the Vietnam war everywhere.
Wreckage now serves as sculpture, and there's even a B-52 Bomber sticking out of a local pond.
But today, Hanoi is a vibrant and bustling capital.
We needed to get to our first interview, and against my better judgment, I agreed to take the sweltering trip through the city streets on foot.
Hey, can you fan me off? Woo! Oh, God.
It is really warm here.
Is there any way that we could turn one of these on? Is that possible at all? Despite the heat, the market turned out to have something for everyone.
Richie bravely tried the street meat.
.
You guys want to have a little escargot? Richie, you're gonna escargot to the bathroom in about five minutes.
Ryder succumbed to a bit of impulse shopping.
.
Ah, I need this.
You.
.
That's what you need, really? - I need this.
- That's a critical item for you? - Yeah.
- Why do you need that? I mean, look at it.
Name me one place where you would wear that.
Off the top of my head? Dress this up, boom, I'm at dinner.
Maybe the movies, funeral.
Maybe a banquet.
Ball.
Dresses up anything.
It's a tie, it's formal.
I'm speechless.
And I scored a great deal.
This stand's got it all; Peanuts, incense, stacks of U.
S.
currency.
Can I use this money to pay for it? No.
There you go.
That's a good deal.
Thank you.
The crew and I also ducked into a restaurant said to have the most authentic cuisine in all of Hanoi.
Boy, that's.
.
That's a little fresher than I expected.
The restaurant's specialty was a potent shot of snake juice unlike anything I remembered from college.
This is bile from the liver and this is blood from the heart.
Ryder, would you.
.
What would you like? I'll go blood.
Here we go.
Bottom's up.
Smooth.
Did you feel virulent? Strong? Yeah, that's a word for it.
After our heart pumping meal, we made our way to Hanoi University.
There have been so many reports of Bigfoot that the government established the Cryptozoic Rare Animal Research Center just to find it.
I met with a world famous Professor who leads up their search.
Tell me about the reports that you've heard.
Have many people reported seeing the animal? .
The Professor not only believes in the creature.
.
He had famously found a mysterious print on an expedition.
Only a few blurry photos have ever been released, and it has never been revealed to the world until now.
And so what do you think this footprint is? .
The Professor told us the prints were found near a remote cave.
And even allowed us to be the first group to properly document the impression for later analysis.
Back on the street, Hanoi's harrowing mid-day traffic was in full swing, so I gave the team a quick survival lesson.
Crossing the street in Vietnam is an art form.
The key is to just choose your course, and commit.
- I don't know if I trust that method.
- You have to trust it.
If you try to figure out what the motorcycles are gonna do.
.
You are going to get hit by a motorcycle.
Are you trying to kill us, Gates? No.
I'm trying to save your life.
I'll show you how it's done.
Here you go.
Do you need to stretch before this? Oh! Careful! You just walk.
You walk, they will go around you.
Okay? - Simple as that.
- That's impressive.
We decided to flag down rickshaws to get our investigation moving.
Katy, check out what I found.
Following my roots.
While the rest of the team traveled across Hanoi in pedal powered rickshaws.
.
Have you guys seen Josh and Ryder? Ryder and I opted to upgrade our ride.
- Uh-oh! - See you later, suckers! Later, nerds.
- Oh, my God.
- That's not fair.
Rickshaws.
What are they, crazy? They're never gonna get there.
Woo! Let's do this.
Easy, easy, a little to the left.
All right, you're being a real side-seat driver right now.
All right, we're headed across town to meet an expert on The Batutut.
Should be there in about ten minutes.
Rickshaw's will be there in about four hours.
We arrived at the zoological museum where I met with renowned primatologist, Vu Ngoc Thanh.
Some people say that they think that there's nothing left to be discovered.
And there have been many discoveries made here? Ke Bang National Park is the epicenter for recent sightings.
So we hustled to the airport and caught a plane bound 250 miles South to the city of Dong Hoi.
From there we hopped on Vietnam's preferred means of transportation, and headed into the back country.
Everybody stay together.
It's about 60 kilometers to the entrance to Ke Bang.
Copy that, Josh.
Kyle, put your shirt on.
This is how they do it in 'Nam, Josh.
Ke Bang is the perfect place to conceal a creature.
2,000 square kilometers of jungle on the Western edge of Vietnam, and another 2,000 square kilometers in Laos.
So big that the largest cave in the world was able to remain hidden here until last year.
You know, I would never tell them this, but I'm totally lost.
Okay, guys, we're almost there.
Roads are open to interpretation here and driving in this part of Vietnam.
.
Is like driving in a video game.
Some swollen rivers are shallow enough to drive through.
Deeper rivers require a little improvising.
Here's the thing about Vietnam.
There's no problem they can't figure out.
And with few Bridges around, sometimes you just have to go for it.
Here we go! - Josh! - Josh! Are you okay? A little deep.
A little deep over here.
We're not gonna be crossing here.
With the rivers now too deep to navigate with the motorcycles, we would be on foot from here.
Guys, just over this Ridge, and we should be in the valley we're looking for.
The interior of the park is virtually unexplored.
.
And we hiked into this no-man's land, and away from the safety of civilization.
Our destination was a remote valley a day's hike away from where numerous recent reports of the creature had been recorded.
Okay, we're losing the light, everybody.
This is a pretty good spot for base camp.
We've got a little bit of shelter from this rock overhang.
.
Let's set everything up and get to work before it gets dark.
Come on.
Night fell quickly, and the team and I raced to prep our gear for the investigation.
We strung out cabling and set up powerful night vision and infrared cameras, and motion activated trap cams along nearby game trails, in an effort to record evidence of our unknown primate.
Let's start by taking stock of where we are right now.
This is the undiscovered country out here, this is a place where science really doesn't have a lot of inroads.
There's an incredible amount of biodiversity here.
Which means that there are real opportunities for us tonight to run into something unknown.
But there is a drawback which is that this is a very dangerous place.
Absolutely, Josh.
There are real predators in this area.
Uh, there are tigers in this jungle.
There are also snakes we have to watch out for, such as the Krait, the Pit Viper and the Cobra.
They not only hang out on the ground, they also hang out in the trees.
If you get bit by one of these things, it's a long way for help, so there's a real danger of something grim happening.
If this creature does exist, we're on its turf.
We need to get out there and see if we can figure out what these locals are seeing.
We're gonna divide up into two sweep teams tonight.
Ryder, you and I will head out with Dave and Adam.
Richie and Katy, why don't you head out with Kyle.
I think it's gonna be a wild night tonight.
You guys ready? Yeah.
- Let's do it.
- Okay, let's do it, come on.
What do you think, Ryder, do you think there could be an undiscovered primate out here? You know, people's biggest complaint is.
.
Why don't they ever see the Yeti, why doesn't everyone see it? And here, animals have gone undiscovered for years and years and years.
And not just animals, I mean, if the biggest cave in the world can hide from people then.
.
A six foot primate certainly can.
- Back up, back up, back up.
- Oh, it's coming at us.
Back up, back up, back up.
- Oh, it's coming at us.
- Stay, back up, back up, back up.
Venomous.
Very venomous.
Give it room, give it room.
Adam, back away.
Okay, okay.
Careful, careful, careful, don't get too close.
Okay, it's going up in the tree.
It's going up in the tree.
Holy (Bleep).
Look at that.
That's what's right above us.
That's what's in the canopy right now.
That's what you gotta keep your eyes peeled out for.
Small snake, powerful punch.
You get bit by the wrong thing here, and you're leaving Vietnam in a body bag.
Hey, Richie, come check this out.
What's up? I mean, that looks like something could have been sharpening its claws in the rock.
I mean, there's four fingers, and there's a thumb.
It would have to be a really strong animal to do that.
Whoa, what was that? Something landed, a rock.
It landed here.
It landed somewhere around in this general vicinity where I'm shining my light.
Let's check it out, come on.
I didn't see anything out here in the open.
We should go into the trees and see if we see anything.
Okay, let's go.
Richie, maybe break out your night vision goggles, see if you can see anything.
Richie, what do you see? I see a forest that's so deep, all I can see is a wall of green and black.
I'm just.
.
I'm baffled by where that rock came from.
The canopy is closing in again.
Pulled back into the denser part of the forest.
This is some serious deep jungle.
We're just underneath this huge netting of vines.
Oh, yeah.
Look at that, you can't even see the sky.
There could be so many things moving around in these trees right now, and we would have no idea.
Looks like a little bit of a clearing up here, guys, it opens up.
It's really still.
Oh! What is that? I just saw a reflection.
- What? What do you see? - I swear I just saw a reflection of an eye right over here.
Right past those two trees on the left.
How far off the ground was it, Ryder? Almost the same height as that branch.
Can you still see the reflection? No.
I only saw one eye.
Let's get in there very, very slowly.
It's hard to move stealthy through all these dry leaves.
It's gonna hear us coming a mile away.
Hey, hey, I got some breakage over here.
What do you got? Look at down here.
- Look at this.
- Oh, yeah.
Something crushed through here.
Some there, over here.
Yeah.
It's way too dry for prints, but.
.
Definitely looks like something came through here, broke these branches on the way through.
You can see it's all matted down here.
Something stepped on these.
Must have been something big.
That's strange.
Looks like it heads off this way, though, we can try to follow it.
Did you hear that? Where? I heard something walking right over here.
Something took a step.
And then when I said, "did you hear that?" And turned and looked, it stopped moving.
Could it have been the wind or anything? No.
It distinctly sounded like somebody put a foot down in leaves.
Did you hear that? Off to the right.
I heard that, too.
I don't see anything.
Sounded like foot falls.
Very faint, but definitely something walking.
Ryder, be careful in there.
You having any luck with the thermal? I'm trying to image it, I can't get it through these trees.
The jungle floor is just way too thick.
Do you see anything? Any foot prints maybe? Any tracks? This forest is so thick, I can't see anything other than vines and trees and bushes.
Guys, did you hear that? What? It sounded like giant footsteps coming in our direction.
It can't be far off.
Oh, my God, what is that? It's moving closer.
Come on, it's going this way.
It went this way, come on.
Come on.
Go! Go! It's not moving any more.
- I don't hear it.
- Come on it's going this way.
Whoa, whoa, whoa.
Guys? Something's stalking us in the woods over here.
It was just right next to us.
And it led us over here.
What did it sound like? It sounded like footsteps.
That's exactly what I heard.
We heard footsteps as well, just back in here.
So why don't we do this.
We'll head up here, use the thermal imager, see if we can get a better look at it.
You guys try to come around the back side.
See if you can flush it out towards us.
- All right.
- Sound good? - Yeah.
- All right, let's do it.
Come on.
Over here, over here.
Over here.
Ryder, Adam, fan out a little bit, to try to push that thing towards us.
It might come right through here.
Okay, copy that.
I'm gonna flank right.
It's coming out.
Dammit.
There might be a trail in there we can't even see from here, it might have moved off deeper.
Shh, shh, shh, shh, shh.
Adam, did you hear that? Yeah, clear as day.
What the hell was that? I have no idea.
Josh for Richie, we're hearing it over here.
Yeah, I'm over here with the night vision goggles, I don't see anything.
Maybe I flushed it your direction.
I think it's definitely trapped between us, we just heard a very distinct call over here.
I don't know what the hell it was but.
.
If it gets cornered, it might react, so just be very careful.
Copy that, Josh.
Come on.
Come on.
Josh, I'm not seeing anything.
Where is it? It should be coming right through here.
Freeze.
I got it.
- I got it, I can see it.
- What do you see? There's something standing over there.
Guys, it looks like it's on two legs.
- How far away? How far away is it? - 20 meters.
It looks like it's upright.
Holy (Bleep).
You've gotta be kidding me.
It's moving.
It's moving.
- Where? Where, where, where? - It's moving, it's moving.
It's tracking left.
It's tracking left.
Go! Go, go, go! Right behind you.
Richie, Katy.
We saw it very clearly on the thermal.
It's tracking left.
We're heading over to it now.
How big is it? Whatever it was, it was tall and upright.
Guys, looks like the river.
It would have to have come through here.
Oh, I see something! I just saw it.
I just saw something cross over to the other side of that bank.
Right over there.
Right there, - you see where that tree comes down? - Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I just saw something move up there, I think whatever the hell that was just cruised right across this river and went right up into the tree line.
Here, help me get these packs off.
Get the packs off, let's try to get over there, come on.
I don't see it, Ryder.
Nothing over here.
Oh, it's really slippery.
Ryder, get across there if you can.
Okay.
Hold on, I lost my footing.
Careful! Josh! Hold on, I lost my footing.
Careful! Josh! Where is he? Josh! I'm okay.
- I'm okay.
- Holy (Bleep).
Oh, my God.
- You okay? - Yeah.
The problem is it's deep and swift water.
I reached out to grab you.
My feet went out from under me.
I tried to grab a vine, and I was just gone.
I got sucked down.
That was terrifying.
I think we lost it.
We've only got an hour or so of darkness left.
I think we ought to wait till morning and source a better place to cross this river.
It's all rapids through here.
Let's get back to base camp, get some sleep, and make a game plan for tomorrow.
Woo.
We hiked back to camp, set our surveillance cameras to continue recording.
.
And climbed into our tents for a few hours' sleep.
The next morning, we hiked further into the wilderness to continue the hunt.
Whatever we saw appeared to have crossed the river and passed into the valley beyond.
We'd read that remote farmers in this area had recently come face to face with the animal.
All right, guys.
A few more kilometers to go.
Come on.
After an hour of trekking in the morning heat, we reached another river crossing.
.
And with no Bridges, barges, or bikes at our disposal, we had to improvise.
Oh, boy.
I think he hates me.
Okay.
Oh, my God.
Show him who's boss, Tristant! I got this! No, come on! Go! Go! I used to own an '89 water Buffalo back in L.
A.
Go! Come on! I got it.
Easy now.
God, I hate these things! You got to steer it.
That's what those horns are for.
Ow! (Bleep) You.
Do that again, I swear to (Bleep), I'll make you into a steak.
I'm not (Bleeping) Around.
Go.
It's like the Buffalo whisperer.
Nice job.
Okay! There it is.
All right, gang, nice work.
Thanks, water Buffalo's.
Safely on the other side, we hiked on and located the farmers' village, where we spoke with a man who said he had firsthand experience with the creature.
You were camping, is that correct? What did it sound like? How big were the prints? And so what do you think it was? He pointed us in the direction of the cave, and we immediately hiked in to investigate and split into teams.
Richie, Katy, and Kyle canvassed the valley floor.
Tristant and Adam explored the edge of the forest.
And Ryder, Dave, and I searched in the surrounding hills.
The ground's pretty dry.
Not a lot of opportunity for footprints here.
Ryder, we got an overhang up here.
Check this out.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, definitely drops down inside.
Check this out.
We should be able to set an easy anchor back here and drop straight down into this thing.
This is where they heard the creature.
Let's check it out.
Here we go.
Okay, Ryder, looks like about 15 meters to the first ledge.
I'm going to head down.
Pretty much a straight drop from here.
I'll let you know what I see.
Okay, I'm lowering you down.
Pretty tight through here, Ryder.
No signs of anything yet.
.
Not seeing any droppings, no bones.
Let me know when you hit bottom.
It's a little muddy as you get down.
Okay, safety line is clear.
Come on down.
Okay, here I come! Nice and slow.
You got this.
Head to the left once you hit that first ledge.
One more step and you've got it.
Good.
You're down.
Hi.
Josh for team.
Come in.
Go ahead, Josh.
This is Richie and Katy.
Hey, gang, Ryder and I found a cave.
We just dropped down inside of it.
It's hard to tell how far back it goes.
We're gonna check it out though.
Copy that.
We're doing a land sweep up here in the jungle.
We'll let you know if we see anything.
All right, stay with it, guys.
Look for any evidence it might have left behind.
Looks like we got a passage here and one that goes back there.
Let's move down this tunnel, fan out and see what we see.
Sounds good.
Let's go.
Got some animal life down here.
Some shells, some old coral.
This whole cave's like one big fossil.
All right, this looks like a dead end.
We have some water down here, though.
- Oh! - What? Shh, shh, shh! - Right there.
.
- Did you hear something? Yes, right there.
Right back there.
I heard a low groan.
All right, this looks like a dead end.
We have some water down here, though.
- Whoa! - What? Shh, shh, shh! - Right there.
.
- Did you hear something? Yes, right there.
Right back there.
I heard a low groan.
- Looks like it's headed upward.
- Ok.
Lets see if we can figure out what it is.
Just keep moving in that direction.
All right, come on.
Pretty slippery, Ryder, but you can definitely get through here.
The tunnel comes right up through here to this crack.
If something was back here, it would have to have shimmied right up through this vertical space.
Let's see if we can get up after it.
All right, Ryder, we got an exit up here for sure.
I think if something was in there, we must have flushed it out.
Let's meet up with the rest of the team.
Get back on the trail.
No Batutut here.
We pressed on toward the far end of the valley, where deeper caves exist.
And where the most recent encounters were reported by villagers.
The trek was becoming increasingly difficult.
And it wasn't long before another obstacle arose.
Stop, stop, stop.
Big drop-off, guys.
Big waterfall.
Hey, Ryder, remember how you said I needed a shower? I might have mentioned that.
Grab the climbing gear.
Oh, boy.
Gets pretty slippery along this wall, Ryder! Okay! I'm down! Okay, Josh, here I come! Someone give me a piece of paper.
I want to write my will real quick.
Starting the descent.
Aah! - Good.
You did good.
- Okay.
Off the lay! As we continued downstream, the river got wider and picked up speed.
Thankfully, we planned ahead and took advantage of this superhighway that could take us to our final destination.
Guys, we got to ride this out for about 9 or 10 more kilometers! There's going to be some rough patches, so everybody be careful! Hold on! Two hours later, we neared the edge of the valley and pulled the kayaks ashore.
Alright, this is it.
We walk from here, gang.
Come on.
This remote canyon was where many believed Vietnam's Bigfoot was hiding in overgrown caves.
Having reached the heart of our investigation, we powered up a series of motion-activated cameras and a sensitive perimeter alarm.
In the center, we established our base camp and prepared for the night ahead.
All right, the first thing you've probably all noticed about this area is that the forest is a much denser, thicker jungle than where we came from.
I mean, we are really off the grid now.
But look, this thing's supposed to be 6 feet tall.
It's a large animal.
If it's roaming around here, if it's nocturnal, the way people say it is, we have a good chance of seeing it.
We're on the lookout for any sort of material evidence we can find.
.
Footprints, droppings, material remains.
We've got a lot of technology that can help us, but really, at the end of the day, it's going to come down to can we use our own senses to try to detect this thing.
Teams for tonight, Ryder? What do you want to do? I think to start, why don't you, Richie, Kyle, and Adam head up into the hills? We heard that there might be some caves up there.
Myself, Katy, and Dave.
.
Will head deeper into the valley, and I'll follow some of the game trails.
Sounds great, you guys ready for this? - Let's do it.
- All right, come on, guys.
Okay.
This valley is basically completely untouched.
I mean, we are beyond the reach of human exploration here.
Couple of basic game trails and that's it.
.
I mean the forest just closes in all around us.
There's a reason why the vietnamese don't want to come out at night in the jungle.
They all think we're crazy.
You know.
.
When we first came in here, I thought.
.
How could the biggest cave in the world be undiscovered for so long? Now that we're here, there could be a Wal-Mart next to me.
I wouldn't see it.
God, this place gives me the creeps.
Why? Just because this is a scary jungle at night? With low trees and plants hanging everywhere? Oh, my gosh.
This path gets smaller and smaller.
I can barely stand completely upright.
I feel like this jungle is gonna swallow us up.
Got some overturned laves through here.
Looks like something might have been up this way.
Shh! Shh! Shh! I heard.
.
I just heard a scream.
You heard that, right? - What was that? - You hear that? Yeah, it sounded like a scream.
Sounds like it was coming from behind us.
Ryder for Josh.
Yeah, go for Josh.
Hey, Josh, Katy and I just heard what sounded like an animal scream or a cry.
Did you guys hear anything over there? We just heard the exact same thing and we heard it clear as day over here as well.
It's fairly close to us so we're gonna try to get over to it right now.
All right.
Do what you can to track it down.
The noise was coming from this way, guys.
Let's get after it.
Come on.
With all the leaf fall, it makes it hard to see anything.
Let's take the trail around, see wherever this thing goes.
Stop! Back up, back up.
You see that? Guys, there's a huge footprint right there.
Stop! Back up, back up.
Guys, there's a huge footprint right there.
And there's a print there, and there's a print there.
We have a line of pristine tracks here.
Josh for Tristant, come in.
Go ahead, Josh.
What's up? Tristant, we found something kind of incredible out here.
We found what looks like a really well preserved line of footprints.
Do you think it could be human, or what do you think it is? These do not look human unless somebody's walking barefoot here with size 16 feet.
You got to see this thing dude.
Should I bring down the evidence kit? Absolutely.
Get it down here as fast as you can.
Okay, copy that.
I'm on my way.
This is so rare to find something like this.
Hey, guys.
Hey, hey, hey, right here, right here.
Look, look, look.
We think this is the first one.
- That's the heel print.
- Whoa.
And there's the mother lode.
Huge.
.
Looks like a right footprint.
You see it? Absolutely.
This thing would have to be huge, like 7 feet tall.
Alright, let's get photos of the whole scene.
We'll get the casting powder, try to make a print.
Okay.
How quick is this going to set, Josh? It'll take a while to harden in this humidity, but you can only work with it for a few minutes, and then it begins to get chalky.
So we'll pour it quick and let it set for the rest of the night.
Here we go.
One footprint.
Let's scour this whole area.
There may be lots more of these prints, guys.
- Okay.
- Okay.
Step very carefully.
It should come right through here.
It's like a possible partial impression right here.
Looks like it would have come right through here, hopped over this trail.
There's a cave back here.
Check this out.
Look at this.
It might have gone right inside this thing.
It's huge.
Let's get both teams together and get inside this thing.
Josh for Ryder, come in.
Go ahead, Josh.
Ryder, we just found the entrance to a huge cave over here.
I want to get both teams inside this thing to investigate.
It looks big.
Yeah, copy that.
We see you on the GPS.
We'll make move now.
We'll meet you over there.
Why do we always have to go in dark, scary caves? That's where the monsters are.
Come on, let's press forward.
Look at the size of this place.
Look at how huge this is.
It looks like it goes way back.
Let's make our way in and see what we can find.
Whatever that was might have come in here.
It's flooded out.
Be very careful.
There could be sinkholes in here.
There could just be sheer drops.
One step at a time.
Ryder to Josh.
Go for Josh.
Hey, Josh, we just entered the mouth of the cave.
This is way bigger than we ever imagined.
It just keeps going back, too.
We probably have a 20-minute lead on you, and.
.
There's no end in sight.
It just goes and goes.
We're going to press forward this way.
If you see any side columns, check them out.
All right.
Sounds good, we're on our way in.
Okay, guys, let's go.
Wow.
I've never seen anything like this.
God, these formations are amazing.
Doesn't look like any other signs of life back here, yet.
But if this thing's eluded people for this long.
.
It's got a good hiding spot.
This cave really just does go forever.
The locals are convinced that this thing lives in caves, but.
.
It seems like a tough habitat for a big primate, though.
Very wet, kind of cool.
And especially when it rains, it can just all of a sudden.
.
The water level can rise on them.
Absolutely.
The thermal's gonna be almost no use in here.
With this humidity, everything just reads the same temperature.
Something could be right in front of us.
We wouldn't see it.
Oh.
Right there.
Right there.
Where? I just saw something scramble up in those rocks.
It was like a dark-shape.
Moved from right to left.
Went right up in those rocks.
Josh, I don't see it.
I'm not seeing anything.
Nothing.
Looks like one more chamber that goes back in there.
Let's check it out.
Come on.
It gets really narrow through here.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
Look at this.
Oh, my gosh.
I think you found a print.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5 toes.
This is absolutely a print.
We're just too far to go back for the casting powder.
We should definitely take photos and video this.
.
So that we can compare it to the ones Josh captured outside of the cave.
Absolutely.
If this thing was passing through here, there might be hair samples.
.
There might be fecal samples.
You know we could definitely taint some of the evidence, so.
.
Let's try to be really careful.
We know that something was through here.
Whether or not it was Batutut, that's yet to be decided.
Careful, guys.
It gets really narrow in here.
Whoa.
Holy (Bleep).
It drops down to two more chambers.
The ground here is too firm for prints.
Whatever I saw could have taken either passage.
Richie, want to look one way, I look the other? Sure.
You head up there.
I'll check down here.
All right.
Okay, I'm gonna check out the lower tunnel.
If this thing's really 6 feet tall, it wouldn't have an easy time coming through here.
Dead end.
Okay, let's turn around.
Richie.
Where is he? He was here a second ago.
He took that right tunnel.
Richie? Richie! Richie! Richie.
- Where is he? - He was here a second ago.
He took that right tunnel.
Richie? Richie.
Richie? Josh, I'm all the way up the tunnel! I lost you there for a minute.
- You okay? - Yeah.
Dude, it's a maze down here.
Okay.
We got to be very careful not to get turned around back here.
Come on, let's press forward.
Opens back up again.
Whoa.
Looks like the end of the line, guys.
It's fully flooded.
If there's a mystery primate living down here, it's not going to be swimming around.
It's going to need land.
Ryder for Josh.
Yeah, go for Josh.
Hey, Josh, we, uh, backtracked on the tracks that we found.
Found the only other way in or out, and unfortunately we can't make it out there, so we've reached a dead end on our point.
How you doing on yours? Same thing.
We've hit a dead end with an underground river here.
You know, I don't think a primate would swim through this thing it just doesn't seem like it goes anywhere.
We're going to double back toward the entrance ourselves.
Yeah, we're doing the same thing right now.
We'll meet you at the front.
Alright, see you soon.
Travel safe.
Okay, come on.
We hiked back to the surface and pulled our now hardened footprint cast from the jungle floor.
With the sun rapidly rising over Ke Bang National Park.
We returned to base camp and began the agonizing hike back to civilization.
.
Where we'd fly to Los Angeles to analyze our findings.
We reviewed the thermal evidence from our expedition to Vietnam.
.
And we did capture something large that was possibly standing upright.
This was a major lead but not conclusive.
And so we jetted North, to the state-of-the-art Idaho virtualization lab at the Idaho Museum of Natural History.
Here our footprint was carefully mounted and subjected to a battery of laser scans.
The result was an amazingly detailed computer rendering of our cast.
Which was then analyzed by specialized software and studied by skilled technicians who scrutinized it against some of the most prominent mystery Bigfoot prints ever discovered.
With data in hand, we went next door to meet university of Idaho Professor Dr.
Jeff Meldrum.
One of the world's foremost footprint specialists, for his take on our findings.
We began, though, by reviewing the photos of the print that Ryder found in the cave.
But due to the condition of the track.
Dr.
Meldrum couldn't identify it with certainty.
We then turned to our exclusive photos of the casting done by Dr.
Viet.
These are very exciting because it's the only piece of evidence of an upright bipedal creature in southeastern Asia.
No one has ever had the privilege of examining the footprint cast that documented that find.
.
So to actually see these very clear photos of the footprint is.
.
Is quite a unique opportunity.
Well, let's turn, then, to the casting that we recovered in the field.
Well, this is really exciting.
One of the things that really jumped out as we were able to examine in three-dimensional space.
.
Is the proportions, the breadth-to-length ratios.
It's much wider through the heel and through the forefoot than we would expect for.
.
For a human.
The fact that you found this footprint.
.
As part of a series of successive footprints.
.
Then establishes one more line of evidence that this indeed is a footprint, left by something walking bipedally.
The discovery of your footprints independently corroborates.
.
Uh, Dr.
Viet's discoveries.
Taking all this evidence together, this cast is a very exciting piece of evidence, by far the.
.
The best evidence that there is of an unrecognized species in the remote wilderness in Southeast Asia.
I think this is a very significant discovery.
Short of finding the species itself.
That's amazing news.
That is.
It's very exciting.
Good work.
The wilderness of Vietnam is an unmapped treasure trove of wonders, from never before seen mammals.
To caves large enough to conceal a skyscraper.
We have barely scratched the surface of these mysterious jungles.
Over the last five years, my team has circled the globe looking for evidence of Bigfoot like creatures.
In all that time, we have found only a handful of truly promising footprints.
Five digits, shape of a foot and heel.
This is the best of the best, the most significant evidence to date of an unknown primate in Vietnam, and a touchstone that inspires us to continue the search for the truth.
.
"Destination Truth".
In the most extreme season of D.
T.
ever, my team and I traverse the globe once again.
In search of monsters and mysteries.
- Whoa, whoa, whoa.
- Back up, back up.
We'll hunt for real life vampires in the forests of Romania.
Ryder and I have a close encounter with a UFO in Kazakhstan.
I mean, that's way too fast to be a plane.
Holy (Bleep).
What the (Bleep) Am I looking at? And we'll conduct the most perilous ghost hunt you've ever seen.
What the hell was that? - Hang on for more mystery.
.
- Hello? Oh, my God, it's close.
It is (Bleep) Close.
- More paranormal.
.
- Oh, my God! - And more adventure.
.
- Oh, my God, I lost my footing! - Because Destination Truth.
.
- Josh! Is back.
Tonight, we'll embark on an expedition to Southeast Asia.
On a quest to find Vietnam's Bigfoot.
And make a monumental discovery that may shock the world.
There's a huge footprint right there.
I think this is a very significant discovery.
Hold on! I'm Josh Gates.
In my travels, I've seen some unexplainable things.
.
And I've done some things I can't quite explain.
Now I've pulled together a team armed with the latest technology.
In the search for answers to the world's strangest mysteries.
I'm not sure what's out there waiting for me, but I know what I'm looking for.
.
The truth.
In the world of Crypto Zoology, there are legends, and then there's the legendary.
And in Southeast Asia, a massive primate is making headline news.
Referred to for generations as The Batutut.
This mysterious beast has been terrorizing villagers in Vietnam, and the government is now searching for answers.
The country is a hot bed for unknown creatures.
Less than a decade ago, scientists amazed the public with the discovery of the Vu Quang Ox, a 200 pound mammal that had never before been seen.
So if there's one place on the planet where an unknown ape might thrive, this is it.
All right, guys, so The Batutut is really Vietnam's version of Bigfoot.
There's been a real uptick in eyewitness sightings lately, so it seems like this is really the time to go after this story.
Vietnam's Bigfoot is a monster, hiding in the jungles and caves of Southeast Asia.
It has evaded scientists, but has come in close contact with remote villagers.
The beast is reported to be bi-pedal, about six feet tall, and is covered in dark brown hair.
It is aggressive with a muscular body and large feet, though it's tracks are rarely found.
It is also known for its ferocious bellowing call.
A chilling sign that this formidable creature is on the hunt and in search of prey.
With an unprecedented trek ahead of us, and news reports piling up from Vietnam's Ke Bang National Park.
.
My team and I packed up our equipment, and prepared for a daring and dangerous expedition into one of the least explored jungles in the world.
From Los Angeles, we headed West across The Pacific, flying 7600 miles to the city of Hanoi.
The city is a mash of Chinese and French colonial influences.
And there are reminders of the Vietnam war everywhere.
Wreckage now serves as sculpture, and there's even a B-52 Bomber sticking out of a local pond.
But today, Hanoi is a vibrant and bustling capital.
We needed to get to our first interview, and against my better judgment, I agreed to take the sweltering trip through the city streets on foot.
Hey, can you fan me off? Woo! Oh, God.
It is really warm here.
Is there any way that we could turn one of these on? Is that possible at all? Despite the heat, the market turned out to have something for everyone.
Richie bravely tried the street meat.
.
You guys want to have a little escargot? Richie, you're gonna escargot to the bathroom in about five minutes.
Ryder succumbed to a bit of impulse shopping.
.
Ah, I need this.
You.
.
That's what you need, really? - I need this.
- That's a critical item for you? - Yeah.
- Why do you need that? I mean, look at it.
Name me one place where you would wear that.
Off the top of my head? Dress this up, boom, I'm at dinner.
Maybe the movies, funeral.
Maybe a banquet.
Ball.
Dresses up anything.
It's a tie, it's formal.
I'm speechless.
And I scored a great deal.
This stand's got it all; Peanuts, incense, stacks of U.
S.
currency.
Can I use this money to pay for it? No.
There you go.
That's a good deal.
Thank you.
The crew and I also ducked into a restaurant said to have the most authentic cuisine in all of Hanoi.
Boy, that's.
.
That's a little fresher than I expected.
The restaurant's specialty was a potent shot of snake juice unlike anything I remembered from college.
This is bile from the liver and this is blood from the heart.
Ryder, would you.
.
What would you like? I'll go blood.
Here we go.
Bottom's up.
Smooth.
Did you feel virulent? Strong? Yeah, that's a word for it.
After our heart pumping meal, we made our way to Hanoi University.
There have been so many reports of Bigfoot that the government established the Cryptozoic Rare Animal Research Center just to find it.
I met with a world famous Professor who leads up their search.
Tell me about the reports that you've heard.
Have many people reported seeing the animal? .
The Professor not only believes in the creature.
.
He had famously found a mysterious print on an expedition.
Only a few blurry photos have ever been released, and it has never been revealed to the world until now.
And so what do you think this footprint is? .
The Professor told us the prints were found near a remote cave.
And even allowed us to be the first group to properly document the impression for later analysis.
Back on the street, Hanoi's harrowing mid-day traffic was in full swing, so I gave the team a quick survival lesson.
Crossing the street in Vietnam is an art form.
The key is to just choose your course, and commit.
- I don't know if I trust that method.
- You have to trust it.
If you try to figure out what the motorcycles are gonna do.
.
You are going to get hit by a motorcycle.
Are you trying to kill us, Gates? No.
I'm trying to save your life.
I'll show you how it's done.
Here you go.
Do you need to stretch before this? Oh! Careful! You just walk.
You walk, they will go around you.
Okay? - Simple as that.
- That's impressive.
We decided to flag down rickshaws to get our investigation moving.
Katy, check out what I found.
Following my roots.
While the rest of the team traveled across Hanoi in pedal powered rickshaws.
.
Have you guys seen Josh and Ryder? Ryder and I opted to upgrade our ride.
- Uh-oh! - See you later, suckers! Later, nerds.
- Oh, my God.
- That's not fair.
Rickshaws.
What are they, crazy? They're never gonna get there.
Woo! Let's do this.
Easy, easy, a little to the left.
All right, you're being a real side-seat driver right now.
All right, we're headed across town to meet an expert on The Batutut.
Should be there in about ten minutes.
Rickshaw's will be there in about four hours.
We arrived at the zoological museum where I met with renowned primatologist, Vu Ngoc Thanh.
Some people say that they think that there's nothing left to be discovered.
And there have been many discoveries made here? Ke Bang National Park is the epicenter for recent sightings.
So we hustled to the airport and caught a plane bound 250 miles South to the city of Dong Hoi.
From there we hopped on Vietnam's preferred means of transportation, and headed into the back country.
Everybody stay together.
It's about 60 kilometers to the entrance to Ke Bang.
Copy that, Josh.
Kyle, put your shirt on.
This is how they do it in 'Nam, Josh.
Ke Bang is the perfect place to conceal a creature.
2,000 square kilometers of jungle on the Western edge of Vietnam, and another 2,000 square kilometers in Laos.
So big that the largest cave in the world was able to remain hidden here until last year.
You know, I would never tell them this, but I'm totally lost.
Okay, guys, we're almost there.
Roads are open to interpretation here and driving in this part of Vietnam.
.
Is like driving in a video game.
Some swollen rivers are shallow enough to drive through.
Deeper rivers require a little improvising.
Here's the thing about Vietnam.
There's no problem they can't figure out.
And with few Bridges around, sometimes you just have to go for it.
Here we go! - Josh! - Josh! Are you okay? A little deep.
A little deep over here.
We're not gonna be crossing here.
With the rivers now too deep to navigate with the motorcycles, we would be on foot from here.
Guys, just over this Ridge, and we should be in the valley we're looking for.
The interior of the park is virtually unexplored.
.
And we hiked into this no-man's land, and away from the safety of civilization.
Our destination was a remote valley a day's hike away from where numerous recent reports of the creature had been recorded.
Okay, we're losing the light, everybody.
This is a pretty good spot for base camp.
We've got a little bit of shelter from this rock overhang.
.
Let's set everything up and get to work before it gets dark.
Come on.
Night fell quickly, and the team and I raced to prep our gear for the investigation.
We strung out cabling and set up powerful night vision and infrared cameras, and motion activated trap cams along nearby game trails, in an effort to record evidence of our unknown primate.
Let's start by taking stock of where we are right now.
This is the undiscovered country out here, this is a place where science really doesn't have a lot of inroads.
There's an incredible amount of biodiversity here.
Which means that there are real opportunities for us tonight to run into something unknown.
But there is a drawback which is that this is a very dangerous place.
Absolutely, Josh.
There are real predators in this area.
Uh, there are tigers in this jungle.
There are also snakes we have to watch out for, such as the Krait, the Pit Viper and the Cobra.
They not only hang out on the ground, they also hang out in the trees.
If you get bit by one of these things, it's a long way for help, so there's a real danger of something grim happening.
If this creature does exist, we're on its turf.
We need to get out there and see if we can figure out what these locals are seeing.
We're gonna divide up into two sweep teams tonight.
Ryder, you and I will head out with Dave and Adam.
Richie and Katy, why don't you head out with Kyle.
I think it's gonna be a wild night tonight.
You guys ready? Yeah.
- Let's do it.
- Okay, let's do it, come on.
What do you think, Ryder, do you think there could be an undiscovered primate out here? You know, people's biggest complaint is.
.
Why don't they ever see the Yeti, why doesn't everyone see it? And here, animals have gone undiscovered for years and years and years.
And not just animals, I mean, if the biggest cave in the world can hide from people then.
.
A six foot primate certainly can.
- Back up, back up, back up.
- Oh, it's coming at us.
Back up, back up, back up.
- Oh, it's coming at us.
- Stay, back up, back up, back up.
Venomous.
Very venomous.
Give it room, give it room.
Adam, back away.
Okay, okay.
Careful, careful, careful, don't get too close.
Okay, it's going up in the tree.
It's going up in the tree.
Holy (Bleep).
Look at that.
That's what's right above us.
That's what's in the canopy right now.
That's what you gotta keep your eyes peeled out for.
Small snake, powerful punch.
You get bit by the wrong thing here, and you're leaving Vietnam in a body bag.
Hey, Richie, come check this out.
What's up? I mean, that looks like something could have been sharpening its claws in the rock.
I mean, there's four fingers, and there's a thumb.
It would have to be a really strong animal to do that.
Whoa, what was that? Something landed, a rock.
It landed here.
It landed somewhere around in this general vicinity where I'm shining my light.
Let's check it out, come on.
I didn't see anything out here in the open.
We should go into the trees and see if we see anything.
Okay, let's go.
Richie, maybe break out your night vision goggles, see if you can see anything.
Richie, what do you see? I see a forest that's so deep, all I can see is a wall of green and black.
I'm just.
.
I'm baffled by where that rock came from.
The canopy is closing in again.
Pulled back into the denser part of the forest.
This is some serious deep jungle.
We're just underneath this huge netting of vines.
Oh, yeah.
Look at that, you can't even see the sky.
There could be so many things moving around in these trees right now, and we would have no idea.
Looks like a little bit of a clearing up here, guys, it opens up.
It's really still.
Oh! What is that? I just saw a reflection.
- What? What do you see? - I swear I just saw a reflection of an eye right over here.
Right past those two trees on the left.
How far off the ground was it, Ryder? Almost the same height as that branch.
Can you still see the reflection? No.
I only saw one eye.
Let's get in there very, very slowly.
It's hard to move stealthy through all these dry leaves.
It's gonna hear us coming a mile away.
Hey, hey, I got some breakage over here.
What do you got? Look at down here.
- Look at this.
- Oh, yeah.
Something crushed through here.
Some there, over here.
Yeah.
It's way too dry for prints, but.
.
Definitely looks like something came through here, broke these branches on the way through.
You can see it's all matted down here.
Something stepped on these.
Must have been something big.
That's strange.
Looks like it heads off this way, though, we can try to follow it.
Did you hear that? Where? I heard something walking right over here.
Something took a step.
And then when I said, "did you hear that?" And turned and looked, it stopped moving.
Could it have been the wind or anything? No.
It distinctly sounded like somebody put a foot down in leaves.
Did you hear that? Off to the right.
I heard that, too.
I don't see anything.
Sounded like foot falls.
Very faint, but definitely something walking.
Ryder, be careful in there.
You having any luck with the thermal? I'm trying to image it, I can't get it through these trees.
The jungle floor is just way too thick.
Do you see anything? Any foot prints maybe? Any tracks? This forest is so thick, I can't see anything other than vines and trees and bushes.
Guys, did you hear that? What? It sounded like giant footsteps coming in our direction.
It can't be far off.
Oh, my God, what is that? It's moving closer.
Come on, it's going this way.
It went this way, come on.
Come on.
Go! Go! It's not moving any more.
- I don't hear it.
- Come on it's going this way.
Whoa, whoa, whoa.
Guys? Something's stalking us in the woods over here.
It was just right next to us.
And it led us over here.
What did it sound like? It sounded like footsteps.
That's exactly what I heard.
We heard footsteps as well, just back in here.
So why don't we do this.
We'll head up here, use the thermal imager, see if we can get a better look at it.
You guys try to come around the back side.
See if you can flush it out towards us.
- All right.
- Sound good? - Yeah.
- All right, let's do it.
Come on.
Over here, over here.
Over here.
Ryder, Adam, fan out a little bit, to try to push that thing towards us.
It might come right through here.
Okay, copy that.
I'm gonna flank right.
It's coming out.
Dammit.
There might be a trail in there we can't even see from here, it might have moved off deeper.
Shh, shh, shh, shh, shh.
Adam, did you hear that? Yeah, clear as day.
What the hell was that? I have no idea.
Josh for Richie, we're hearing it over here.
Yeah, I'm over here with the night vision goggles, I don't see anything.
Maybe I flushed it your direction.
I think it's definitely trapped between us, we just heard a very distinct call over here.
I don't know what the hell it was but.
.
If it gets cornered, it might react, so just be very careful.
Copy that, Josh.
Come on.
Come on.
Josh, I'm not seeing anything.
Where is it? It should be coming right through here.
Freeze.
I got it.
- I got it, I can see it.
- What do you see? There's something standing over there.
Guys, it looks like it's on two legs.
- How far away? How far away is it? - 20 meters.
It looks like it's upright.
Holy (Bleep).
You've gotta be kidding me.
It's moving.
It's moving.
- Where? Where, where, where? - It's moving, it's moving.
It's tracking left.
It's tracking left.
Go! Go, go, go! Right behind you.
Richie, Katy.
We saw it very clearly on the thermal.
It's tracking left.
We're heading over to it now.
How big is it? Whatever it was, it was tall and upright.
Guys, looks like the river.
It would have to have come through here.
Oh, I see something! I just saw it.
I just saw something cross over to the other side of that bank.
Right over there.
Right there, - you see where that tree comes down? - Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I just saw something move up there, I think whatever the hell that was just cruised right across this river and went right up into the tree line.
Here, help me get these packs off.
Get the packs off, let's try to get over there, come on.
I don't see it, Ryder.
Nothing over here.
Oh, it's really slippery.
Ryder, get across there if you can.
Okay.
Hold on, I lost my footing.
Careful! Josh! Hold on, I lost my footing.
Careful! Josh! Where is he? Josh! I'm okay.
- I'm okay.
- Holy (Bleep).
Oh, my God.
- You okay? - Yeah.
The problem is it's deep and swift water.
I reached out to grab you.
My feet went out from under me.
I tried to grab a vine, and I was just gone.
I got sucked down.
That was terrifying.
I think we lost it.
We've only got an hour or so of darkness left.
I think we ought to wait till morning and source a better place to cross this river.
It's all rapids through here.
Let's get back to base camp, get some sleep, and make a game plan for tomorrow.
Woo.
We hiked back to camp, set our surveillance cameras to continue recording.
.
And climbed into our tents for a few hours' sleep.
The next morning, we hiked further into the wilderness to continue the hunt.
Whatever we saw appeared to have crossed the river and passed into the valley beyond.
We'd read that remote farmers in this area had recently come face to face with the animal.
All right, guys.
A few more kilometers to go.
Come on.
After an hour of trekking in the morning heat, we reached another river crossing.
.
And with no Bridges, barges, or bikes at our disposal, we had to improvise.
Oh, boy.
I think he hates me.
Okay.
Oh, my God.
Show him who's boss, Tristant! I got this! No, come on! Go! Go! I used to own an '89 water Buffalo back in L.
A.
Go! Come on! I got it.
Easy now.
God, I hate these things! You got to steer it.
That's what those horns are for.
Ow! (Bleep) You.
Do that again, I swear to (Bleep), I'll make you into a steak.
I'm not (Bleeping) Around.
Go.
It's like the Buffalo whisperer.
Nice job.
Okay! There it is.
All right, gang, nice work.
Thanks, water Buffalo's.
Safely on the other side, we hiked on and located the farmers' village, where we spoke with a man who said he had firsthand experience with the creature.
You were camping, is that correct? What did it sound like? How big were the prints? And so what do you think it was? He pointed us in the direction of the cave, and we immediately hiked in to investigate and split into teams.
Richie, Katy, and Kyle canvassed the valley floor.
Tristant and Adam explored the edge of the forest.
And Ryder, Dave, and I searched in the surrounding hills.
The ground's pretty dry.
Not a lot of opportunity for footprints here.
Ryder, we got an overhang up here.
Check this out.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, definitely drops down inside.
Check this out.
We should be able to set an easy anchor back here and drop straight down into this thing.
This is where they heard the creature.
Let's check it out.
Here we go.
Okay, Ryder, looks like about 15 meters to the first ledge.
I'm going to head down.
Pretty much a straight drop from here.
I'll let you know what I see.
Okay, I'm lowering you down.
Pretty tight through here, Ryder.
No signs of anything yet.
.
Not seeing any droppings, no bones.
Let me know when you hit bottom.
It's a little muddy as you get down.
Okay, safety line is clear.
Come on down.
Okay, here I come! Nice and slow.
You got this.
Head to the left once you hit that first ledge.
One more step and you've got it.
Good.
You're down.
Hi.
Josh for team.
Come in.
Go ahead, Josh.
This is Richie and Katy.
Hey, gang, Ryder and I found a cave.
We just dropped down inside of it.
It's hard to tell how far back it goes.
We're gonna check it out though.
Copy that.
We're doing a land sweep up here in the jungle.
We'll let you know if we see anything.
All right, stay with it, guys.
Look for any evidence it might have left behind.
Looks like we got a passage here and one that goes back there.
Let's move down this tunnel, fan out and see what we see.
Sounds good.
Let's go.
Got some animal life down here.
Some shells, some old coral.
This whole cave's like one big fossil.
All right, this looks like a dead end.
We have some water down here, though.
- Oh! - What? Shh, shh, shh! - Right there.
.
- Did you hear something? Yes, right there.
Right back there.
I heard a low groan.
All right, this looks like a dead end.
We have some water down here, though.
- Whoa! - What? Shh, shh, shh! - Right there.
.
- Did you hear something? Yes, right there.
Right back there.
I heard a low groan.
- Looks like it's headed upward.
- Ok.
Lets see if we can figure out what it is.
Just keep moving in that direction.
All right, come on.
Pretty slippery, Ryder, but you can definitely get through here.
The tunnel comes right up through here to this crack.
If something was back here, it would have to have shimmied right up through this vertical space.
Let's see if we can get up after it.
All right, Ryder, we got an exit up here for sure.
I think if something was in there, we must have flushed it out.
Let's meet up with the rest of the team.
Get back on the trail.
No Batutut here.
We pressed on toward the far end of the valley, where deeper caves exist.
And where the most recent encounters were reported by villagers.
The trek was becoming increasingly difficult.
And it wasn't long before another obstacle arose.
Stop, stop, stop.
Big drop-off, guys.
Big waterfall.
Hey, Ryder, remember how you said I needed a shower? I might have mentioned that.
Grab the climbing gear.
Oh, boy.
Gets pretty slippery along this wall, Ryder! Okay! I'm down! Okay, Josh, here I come! Someone give me a piece of paper.
I want to write my will real quick.
Starting the descent.
Aah! - Good.
You did good.
- Okay.
Off the lay! As we continued downstream, the river got wider and picked up speed.
Thankfully, we planned ahead and took advantage of this superhighway that could take us to our final destination.
Guys, we got to ride this out for about 9 or 10 more kilometers! There's going to be some rough patches, so everybody be careful! Hold on! Two hours later, we neared the edge of the valley and pulled the kayaks ashore.
Alright, this is it.
We walk from here, gang.
Come on.
This remote canyon was where many believed Vietnam's Bigfoot was hiding in overgrown caves.
Having reached the heart of our investigation, we powered up a series of motion-activated cameras and a sensitive perimeter alarm.
In the center, we established our base camp and prepared for the night ahead.
All right, the first thing you've probably all noticed about this area is that the forest is a much denser, thicker jungle than where we came from.
I mean, we are really off the grid now.
But look, this thing's supposed to be 6 feet tall.
It's a large animal.
If it's roaming around here, if it's nocturnal, the way people say it is, we have a good chance of seeing it.
We're on the lookout for any sort of material evidence we can find.
.
Footprints, droppings, material remains.
We've got a lot of technology that can help us, but really, at the end of the day, it's going to come down to can we use our own senses to try to detect this thing.
Teams for tonight, Ryder? What do you want to do? I think to start, why don't you, Richie, Kyle, and Adam head up into the hills? We heard that there might be some caves up there.
Myself, Katy, and Dave.
.
Will head deeper into the valley, and I'll follow some of the game trails.
Sounds great, you guys ready for this? - Let's do it.
- All right, come on, guys.
Okay.
This valley is basically completely untouched.
I mean, we are beyond the reach of human exploration here.
Couple of basic game trails and that's it.
.
I mean the forest just closes in all around us.
There's a reason why the vietnamese don't want to come out at night in the jungle.
They all think we're crazy.
You know.
.
When we first came in here, I thought.
.
How could the biggest cave in the world be undiscovered for so long? Now that we're here, there could be a Wal-Mart next to me.
I wouldn't see it.
God, this place gives me the creeps.
Why? Just because this is a scary jungle at night? With low trees and plants hanging everywhere? Oh, my gosh.
This path gets smaller and smaller.
I can barely stand completely upright.
I feel like this jungle is gonna swallow us up.
Got some overturned laves through here.
Looks like something might have been up this way.
Shh! Shh! Shh! I heard.
.
I just heard a scream.
You heard that, right? - What was that? - You hear that? Yeah, it sounded like a scream.
Sounds like it was coming from behind us.
Ryder for Josh.
Yeah, go for Josh.
Hey, Josh, Katy and I just heard what sounded like an animal scream or a cry.
Did you guys hear anything over there? We just heard the exact same thing and we heard it clear as day over here as well.
It's fairly close to us so we're gonna try to get over to it right now.
All right.
Do what you can to track it down.
The noise was coming from this way, guys.
Let's get after it.
Come on.
With all the leaf fall, it makes it hard to see anything.
Let's take the trail around, see wherever this thing goes.
Stop! Back up, back up.
You see that? Guys, there's a huge footprint right there.
Stop! Back up, back up.
Guys, there's a huge footprint right there.
And there's a print there, and there's a print there.
We have a line of pristine tracks here.
Josh for Tristant, come in.
Go ahead, Josh.
What's up? Tristant, we found something kind of incredible out here.
We found what looks like a really well preserved line of footprints.
Do you think it could be human, or what do you think it is? These do not look human unless somebody's walking barefoot here with size 16 feet.
You got to see this thing dude.
Should I bring down the evidence kit? Absolutely.
Get it down here as fast as you can.
Okay, copy that.
I'm on my way.
This is so rare to find something like this.
Hey, guys.
Hey, hey, hey, right here, right here.
Look, look, look.
We think this is the first one.
- That's the heel print.
- Whoa.
And there's the mother lode.
Huge.
.
Looks like a right footprint.
You see it? Absolutely.
This thing would have to be huge, like 7 feet tall.
Alright, let's get photos of the whole scene.
We'll get the casting powder, try to make a print.
Okay.
How quick is this going to set, Josh? It'll take a while to harden in this humidity, but you can only work with it for a few minutes, and then it begins to get chalky.
So we'll pour it quick and let it set for the rest of the night.
Here we go.
One footprint.
Let's scour this whole area.
There may be lots more of these prints, guys.
- Okay.
- Okay.
Step very carefully.
It should come right through here.
It's like a possible partial impression right here.
Looks like it would have come right through here, hopped over this trail.
There's a cave back here.
Check this out.
Look at this.
It might have gone right inside this thing.
It's huge.
Let's get both teams together and get inside this thing.
Josh for Ryder, come in.
Go ahead, Josh.
Ryder, we just found the entrance to a huge cave over here.
I want to get both teams inside this thing to investigate.
It looks big.
Yeah, copy that.
We see you on the GPS.
We'll make move now.
We'll meet you over there.
Why do we always have to go in dark, scary caves? That's where the monsters are.
Come on, let's press forward.
Look at the size of this place.
Look at how huge this is.
It looks like it goes way back.
Let's make our way in and see what we can find.
Whatever that was might have come in here.
It's flooded out.
Be very careful.
There could be sinkholes in here.
There could just be sheer drops.
One step at a time.
Ryder to Josh.
Go for Josh.
Hey, Josh, we just entered the mouth of the cave.
This is way bigger than we ever imagined.
It just keeps going back, too.
We probably have a 20-minute lead on you, and.
.
There's no end in sight.
It just goes and goes.
We're going to press forward this way.
If you see any side columns, check them out.
All right.
Sounds good, we're on our way in.
Okay, guys, let's go.
Wow.
I've never seen anything like this.
God, these formations are amazing.
Doesn't look like any other signs of life back here, yet.
But if this thing's eluded people for this long.
.
It's got a good hiding spot.
This cave really just does go forever.
The locals are convinced that this thing lives in caves, but.
.
It seems like a tough habitat for a big primate, though.
Very wet, kind of cool.
And especially when it rains, it can just all of a sudden.
.
The water level can rise on them.
Absolutely.
The thermal's gonna be almost no use in here.
With this humidity, everything just reads the same temperature.
Something could be right in front of us.
We wouldn't see it.
Oh.
Right there.
Right there.
Where? I just saw something scramble up in those rocks.
It was like a dark-shape.
Moved from right to left.
Went right up in those rocks.
Josh, I don't see it.
I'm not seeing anything.
Nothing.
Looks like one more chamber that goes back in there.
Let's check it out.
Come on.
It gets really narrow through here.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
Look at this.
Oh, my gosh.
I think you found a print.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5 toes.
This is absolutely a print.
We're just too far to go back for the casting powder.
We should definitely take photos and video this.
.
So that we can compare it to the ones Josh captured outside of the cave.
Absolutely.
If this thing was passing through here, there might be hair samples.
.
There might be fecal samples.
You know we could definitely taint some of the evidence, so.
.
Let's try to be really careful.
We know that something was through here.
Whether or not it was Batutut, that's yet to be decided.
Careful, guys.
It gets really narrow in here.
Whoa.
Holy (Bleep).
It drops down to two more chambers.
The ground here is too firm for prints.
Whatever I saw could have taken either passage.
Richie, want to look one way, I look the other? Sure.
You head up there.
I'll check down here.
All right.
Okay, I'm gonna check out the lower tunnel.
If this thing's really 6 feet tall, it wouldn't have an easy time coming through here.
Dead end.
Okay, let's turn around.
Richie.
Where is he? He was here a second ago.
He took that right tunnel.
Richie? Richie! Richie! Richie.
- Where is he? - He was here a second ago.
He took that right tunnel.
Richie? Richie.
Richie? Josh, I'm all the way up the tunnel! I lost you there for a minute.
- You okay? - Yeah.
Dude, it's a maze down here.
Okay.
We got to be very careful not to get turned around back here.
Come on, let's press forward.
Opens back up again.
Whoa.
Looks like the end of the line, guys.
It's fully flooded.
If there's a mystery primate living down here, it's not going to be swimming around.
It's going to need land.
Ryder for Josh.
Yeah, go for Josh.
Hey, Josh, we, uh, backtracked on the tracks that we found.
Found the only other way in or out, and unfortunately we can't make it out there, so we've reached a dead end on our point.
How you doing on yours? Same thing.
We've hit a dead end with an underground river here.
You know, I don't think a primate would swim through this thing it just doesn't seem like it goes anywhere.
We're going to double back toward the entrance ourselves.
Yeah, we're doing the same thing right now.
We'll meet you at the front.
Alright, see you soon.
Travel safe.
Okay, come on.
We hiked back to the surface and pulled our now hardened footprint cast from the jungle floor.
With the sun rapidly rising over Ke Bang National Park.
We returned to base camp and began the agonizing hike back to civilization.
.
Where we'd fly to Los Angeles to analyze our findings.
We reviewed the thermal evidence from our expedition to Vietnam.
.
And we did capture something large that was possibly standing upright.
This was a major lead but not conclusive.
And so we jetted North, to the state-of-the-art Idaho virtualization lab at the Idaho Museum of Natural History.
Here our footprint was carefully mounted and subjected to a battery of laser scans.
The result was an amazingly detailed computer rendering of our cast.
Which was then analyzed by specialized software and studied by skilled technicians who scrutinized it against some of the most prominent mystery Bigfoot prints ever discovered.
With data in hand, we went next door to meet university of Idaho Professor Dr.
Jeff Meldrum.
One of the world's foremost footprint specialists, for his take on our findings.
We began, though, by reviewing the photos of the print that Ryder found in the cave.
But due to the condition of the track.
Dr.
Meldrum couldn't identify it with certainty.
We then turned to our exclusive photos of the casting done by Dr.
Viet.
These are very exciting because it's the only piece of evidence of an upright bipedal creature in southeastern Asia.
No one has ever had the privilege of examining the footprint cast that documented that find.
.
So to actually see these very clear photos of the footprint is.
.
Is quite a unique opportunity.
Well, let's turn, then, to the casting that we recovered in the field.
Well, this is really exciting.
One of the things that really jumped out as we were able to examine in three-dimensional space.
.
Is the proportions, the breadth-to-length ratios.
It's much wider through the heel and through the forefoot than we would expect for.
.
For a human.
The fact that you found this footprint.
.
As part of a series of successive footprints.
.
Then establishes one more line of evidence that this indeed is a footprint, left by something walking bipedally.
The discovery of your footprints independently corroborates.
.
Uh, Dr.
Viet's discoveries.
Taking all this evidence together, this cast is a very exciting piece of evidence, by far the.
.
The best evidence that there is of an unrecognized species in the remote wilderness in Southeast Asia.
I think this is a very significant discovery.
Short of finding the species itself.
That's amazing news.
That is.
It's very exciting.
Good work.
The wilderness of Vietnam is an unmapped treasure trove of wonders, from never before seen mammals.
To caves large enough to conceal a skyscraper.
We have barely scratched the surface of these mysterious jungles.
Over the last five years, my team has circled the globe looking for evidence of Bigfoot like creatures.
In all that time, we have found only a handful of truly promising footprints.
Five digits, shape of a foot and heel.
This is the best of the best, the most significant evidence to date of an unknown primate in Vietnam, and a touchstone that inspires us to continue the search for the truth.