Seasoned Bigfoot hunters investigate whether a huge, ape-like beast is responsible for a string of disappearances in the remote Alaskan wilderness. New evidence suggests woolly mammoths may have found safe haven in Alaska.
Seasoned Bigfoot hunters investigate whether a huge, ape-like beast is responsible for a string of disappearances in the remote Alaskan wilderness. New evidence suggests woolly mammoths may have found safe haven in Alaska.
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Find episode transcripts here:https://the-alaska-triangle.simplecast.com/episodes/the-hairyman-of-port-chatham-and-frozen-in-ice
SPEAKER 1: Alaska, a vast, remote wilderness twice the size of Texas.
STEPHEN
MAJOR:
There are dangerous, unpredictable forces at work here.
SPEAKER 1: In one of the most mysterious corners of the globe.
SPEAKER 2: A lot of things can kill you out here without even trying.
SPEAKER 1: This is a place hundreds of times more deadly than the Bermuda Triangle.
STEPHEN
MAJOR:
Oh, my God.
SPEAKER 1: Stories of alien abductions.
HUGH
NEWMAN:
I believe it was a UFO.
SPEAKER 1: The paranormal, vanishing airplanes, and strange beasts--
HUGH
NEWMAN:
The Alaskan Bigfoot, he can rip you in half.
LARRY BEANS
BAXTER:
These accounts are really widespread.
STEPHEN
MAJOR:
[BLEEP] peaked out of the tree right there.
SPEAKER 1: --have haunted those who dare set foot here. In the last 30 years, 16,000 people have disappeared without a
trace.
ROBERT ALLEY
:
More people have disappeared than the Bermuda Triangle, two to three times the amount.
SPEAKER 1: Witnesses tell us their shocking stories.
SPEAKER 3: I was petrified.
SPEAKER 1: And we've gathered some of the world's leading experts in their field--
ADAM DAVIES: I'm always after scientific evidence that can be independently corroborated.
SPEAKER 1: --to try and unlock the mystery of the Alaska Triangle.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
The Alaska Triangle, remote mountains, impenetrable forests, unexplored lakes and rivers. It's long been home to
stories of strange and terrifying beasts. These creatures may have made the Alaska Triangle their home and
could be behind any number of the bizarre disappearances. One of the most famous is the hairy man, half
human, half beast. And if the stories are true, a man killer.
LARRY BEANS
BAXTER:
If the hairy man is out here, he's a lot stronger than a normal human and can kill somebody with his bare hands.
STEPHEN
MAJOR:
The hairy man is a wild, hairy beast, and he can rip you in half.
SPEAKER 1: A huge ape-like creature out for revenge and defending his territory. It's a gripping story. But could this beast
really account for the hundreds of people going missing in the Alaska Triangle every year? A fascinating tale from
the last century suggests the answer could be, yes. And now, there's some intriguing new evidence that the hairy
man may still be out there.
STEPHEN
MAJOR:
[BLEEP] Dude, it just peeked out of the tree right there.
SPEAKER 1: The first stop on the journey to find the hairy man is the Port of Homer on the Kenai Peninsula over 200 miles
Southwest of Anchorage. The town is known as the end of the road. From here, there's just one way to travel, and
that's by boat. Now Homer is the meeting place for a new expedition. If the hairy man exists, these three
adventurers are determined to find him. Expedition leader is seasoned Bigfoot Hunter, Stephen, Major. For
Stephen, this search is personal. He's been to the Kenai before.
STEPHEN
MAJOR:
I actually caught a glimpse of what I believe was the hairy man dashing between some trees. What I saw was a
bipedal hairy beast. I was dumbfounded because I was in shock, because I was not expecting to see that. And I'll
tell you what, it was very exciting.
SPEAKER 1: Stephen is meeting up with Adam Davies, a leading cryptozoologist from Manchester, England. Adam's an expert
tracker and has been on many expeditions on the hunt for mysterious unknown creatures.
ADAM DAVIES: What I'm always after is getting credible scientific evidence that can be independently corroborated, something
that's tangible that will pass tests.
SPEAKER 1: Stephen and Adam have recruited army vet and police officer, Larry Beans Baxter, to help keep them safe.
LARRY BEANS
BAXTER:
My role in the expedition is team security. Safety of the other team members is my priority. And there's a lot of
things in Alaska that can harm you if not outright kill you.
SPEAKER 1: The hairy man expedition have chartered a boat to take them right down to the tip of the Kenai Peninsula. This is
the renowned home of the hairy man.
STEPHEN
MAJOR:
What we're looking for in a nutshell is definitive proof of the existence of the hairy man. And when I say that,
specifically what we're looking for is to have an encounter with him.
SPEAKER 1: On his last expedition, Stephen took this photo. It's his foot next to a giant footprint. Whatever made this was
massive. In the Alaska Triangle, there's plenty of room for giant creatures to hide. With thousands of square miles
of unexplored wilderness and so few people, anything could be out there. But what is the hairy man?
Like Bigfoot, around here, stories of him are well-known and go back generations. Dr. Robert Alley is a
cryptozoologist and former professor of the University of Alaska. He's made a study of firsthand accounts.
ROBERT ALLEY
:
The hairy man is a large, bipedal, completely hair-covered, man-like creature very similar to Sasquatch or
Bigfoot, possibly related very large, up to maybe even eight or nine feet tall. Very fast, very territorial, and it
could be quite aggressive if provoked. These accounts are really widespread.
SPEAKER 1: But there's one place with by far the greatest hairy man story. Perched on the very tip of the Kenai, the
abandoned settlement of Port Chatham.
STEPHEN
MAJOR:
I believe that Port Chatham Alaska is an area that the hairy man is acclaimed for on its own. I really do believe
that is his territory.
ROBERT ALLEY
:
It's remote, they wouldn't feel pressured, and it gives them a refuge. And it would be one that they want to
protect.
SPEAKER 1: There's good reason to think the hairy man lives around Port Chatham. Back in the early 1900s, there were some
terrible events here, and no one's lived in the area ever since. Hugh Newman is an English author who's been
researching the story.
HUGH
NEWMAN:
In the early 20th century, Alaska was a wild frontier. But when the settlers came in, they found this wonderful
area, Port Chatham, in a stunning natural beauty but also salmon was rich in the area. What's strange about it to
me is that it wasn't inhabited by Native Americans. There was no Indigenous population in this specific area.
So when the settlers came in, it's kind of easy for them just to set up base there. They opened a cannery for
fishing. So despite its isolation, it began to grow and it became a thriving commercial area.
SPEAKER 1: But in early entry in the cannery supervisor's logbook is a telling sign of what was to come.
HUGH
NEWMAN:
In 1905, in the local logbook of Port Chatham, something menacing was recorded as being in the woods around
the area of the fishing village.
SPEAKER 1: The logbook states that the entire cannery was shut down. The workforce left the site and didn't return until the
next season because of something menacing in the forest. Then a few years later, the situation got even worse.
STEPHEN
MAJOR:
Around the 1920s through the 1930s, there were people that would go up hunting in the woods and not return.
There were people that would go up in the woods, and they would find dismembered and mangled bodies that
would float down in the lagoon. In conjunction with that, there were sightings of a very large, hairy man-like
beast.
SPEAKER 1: So was it Bigfoot? Was it Sasquatch was it some kind of hairy beast that was terrorizing the locals? Dismembered
bodies arms and legs ripped off and tossed into the river. And these were no bear attacks.
LARRY BEANS
BAXTER:
A bear would not be able to dismember and mutilate a body leaving no claw marks, leaving no fang marks. And
that would have sent a very distinct message that hairy man was responsible for this. They wanted to be left
alone.
SPEAKER 1: The settlers got the message. They were being attacked by a Bigfoot-like creature who wanted them gone.
Investigative journalist, Jerry Glover, knows the story well.
JERRY GLOVER: By around about 1949, the town was completely deserted. All the inhabitants left Port Chatham, which is very
remarkable given that it was a commercially active area but the inhabitants felt that they could no longer live
there and have never lived there since that time. The place has always been deserted.
If the hairy man stories are true, what it's been able to do is successfully push back civilization, which is very rare
indeed.
SPEAKER 1: There's a mystique to the place, paranoia, and evil vibe. Now Stephen and his team are on their way. They're out
to solve the mystery of the hairy man once and for all.
STEPHEN
MAJOR:
There's a lot of different theories as to what the hairy man could be. Some people believe that it's a large bipedal
undiscovered ape, some people believe that it's some kind of spiritual supernatural being. And that's why we're
going to Port Chatham, is to get some answers.
SPEAKER 1: If they solved the mystery of the hairy man, it's possible that the team could solve the mystery of the Alaska
Triangle itself.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
The Alaska Triangle could be home to all kinds of mythical monsters and unknown creatures, from giant sea
serpents to killer birds as big as a small plane. Now, Bigfoot Hunter, Stephen Major has turned his sights on the
legendary hairy man. He's leading an expedition deep into what's thought of as the creature's home territory, the
very tip of the remote Kenai Peninsula.
STEPHEN
MAJOR:
You're not going to get here any other way, either by boat. We are isolated to the point that if you had an
accident or something like that, you're pretty much on your own.
SPEAKER 1: After a grueling trip, the team near their destination and the weather closes in. But soon, the site of Portlock, the
Old Town of the Port Chatham area emerges from the mist.
STEPHEN
MAJOR:
OK. Park the boat right off the old Portlock town site.
SPEAKER 4: That should be all right. It depends on the tide, but we should be able to do that. How far should we be off the
beach?
STEPHEN
MAJOR:
Dude, man, if we could be less than 100 yards, that would be fantastic.
SPEAKER 4: Could he swim out there?
STEPHEN
MAJOR:
Oh, yeah. The hairyman's a swimmer. They have webbed feet and webbed hands.
SPEAKER 4: Oh, my gosh.
STEPHEN
MAJOR:
They're very well adapted. Here's the spot. Right here. The old Portlock townsite. We're here.
ADAM DAVIES: Excellent. Let's get started.
SPEAKER 1: Steven, Adam, and Beans prepared to go ashore. It's been nearly 70 years since all the residents were
scrambling for the boats, fleeing for their lives, desperate to get away.
HUGH
NEWMAN:
So these people must have been terrified of what was going on in the woods there. People were dying. Body
parts were being found. And it does give a reason why this place is still abandoned today. Hairymen clearly are
territorial. If you're going in to the area where he resides, you could get in trouble.
STEPHEN
MAJOR:
We've just arrived on the beach below the Portlock townsite. And we're heading in there to go investigate part of
the area where the old town used to be. So we're going to have to stay on our toes. That's why we have these to
protect ourselves if necessary. But we definitely have to be cautious in our movement, be observant, and go
slow.
SPEAKER 1: Pieces of old machinery are an eerie reminder that this was once a thriving working community.
LARRY BEANS
BAXTER:
This was a bustling town by Alaska standards. You had fishing industry. You had fish processing here. They would
catch the fish out in the bay here and bring them into the cannery. It was a perfect setup. And because of the
hairyman, it was just abandoned.
SPEAKER 1: The workers here felt so threatened that they made demands unheard of elsewhere.
HUGH
NEWMAN:
The workers refused to work. They would go on strike unless guards were protecting them from the menace that
was in the woods.
SPEAKER 1: Up behind the industrial ruins, Steven finds what was once a grisly scene.
STEPHEN
MAJOR:
This is a lagoon behind the town of Portlock, where they would find mutilated bodies floating.
LARRY BEANS
BAXTER:
If the hairyman is out here, and he is responsible for those murders, then he's a lot stronger than a normal
human and can kill somebody with his bare hands.
STEPHEN
MAJOR:
Right now, what we're looking for is we're looking for a good track or a good imprint on this heavily used game
trail. Now, we say heavily used game trail, but we don't know who's been using it other than some large
creatures.
SPEAKER 1: The team have infrared trail cameras that are triggered by movement.
STEPHEN
MAJOR:
You good?
LARRY BEANS
BAXTER:
Uh-huh.
STEPHEN
MAJOR:
All right.
SPEAKER 1: By setting them up along the trail, they hope to capture the first clear photograph of the hairyman.
ADAM DAVIES: Again, you've got that angle of elevation down and it gives us a nice clear view.
SPEAKER 1: Any photo would be a world first, but Steven is still set on a face to face encounter. Eventually, they come across
an abandoned hunter's cabin.
ADAM DAVIES: Through here. Watch the floor. It's very unstable.
STEPHEN
MAJOR:
Yeah. This thing's going to come down pretty soon.
ADAM DAVIES: Yeah, it is.
SPEAKER 1: The team decide to lie and wait. Looking and listening.
ROBERT ALLEY
:
The hairymen are said to communicate by whistling. This is quite extraordinary because it's also noted all across
North America for Sasquatch and Bigfoot. They are also said to grunt and to whoop to communicate over long
distances.
SPEAKER 1: Eventually, through the drizzle, Steven thinks he hears something.
STEPHEN
MAJOR:
We've been here for a little over an hour, and we've got something that's behind us out here. We've heard a few
grunts and some whistles. And just a little bit ago here, I had some movements right in the trees just right behind
us. So I think we've definitely generated some interest in something that's out there that's come down to take a
look at us. So we're just being a little bit cautious. We don't know what it is. We'd like to find out. But right now,
we could be in a really dangerous situation.
SPEAKER 1: Over recent decades, thousands of people have gone missing in the Alaska Triangle, lost without a trace. But
there's plenty of evidence that the disappearances started long ago. In the days of the early pioneers, even
armed hunters went missing or were found murdered. And it's the area around Port Chatham on the Southern
coast that saw the greatest number of mysterious killings. Dr. Robert Alley has been researching some of the
more gruesome events that took place here.
ROBERT ALLEY
:
There were a few incidents I found that stood out. One was in the 1940s. A man who had been killed. In a most
mysterious way, he'd been struck. And it looks like struck from behind by a very heavy object.
[GROWLING]
[SCREAMING]
[EERIE MUSIC]
ADAM DAVIES: There was evidence that there were things being shifted that normal humans couldn't move. People were
terrified.
ROBERT ALLEY
:
Very, very upsetting murders if you will, and cases of missing people in the Portlock area, which caused the
population of Portlock to essentially leave the town.
ADAM DAVIES: You're showing me the way here because you just pointed out to me.
SPEAKER 1: After a tense wait in the abandoned cabin, the three hunters decide to go in search of whatever it was they heard
moving around outside. And soon, they come across some massive tracks.
ADAM DAVIES: Guys, we've got some fresh tracks down here. It looks like a large animal, but they're freshly compacted to
something came through here very recently. Yeah, the grass is compacted. There's been no spring upwards
venue. Should we follow it? What do you say?
STEPHEN
MAJOR:
Absolutely.
ADAM DAVIES: Do it.
SPEAKER 1: Could these be of the track's of a giant hairyman, making his way deeper into the forest, away from the hunters?
Dr. Alley has been studying Steven's footprint photo from his previous expedition to the Kenai and has little
doubt about this one.
ROBERT ALLEY
:
I really like this track. Typical Sasquatch. I like it because there's no chance this could be a bear. Bears always
have their middle toe the furthest forward. And the thumb as it were, is relatively small. The pinky's large, but
they're always behind that middle toe. And sasquatches don't do that. What they have is a great big toe, which
can even sometimes deviate. This is a beautiful track. I love this track. Also, it seems to be nicely wide at the
heel. I like that, that wide heel. In humans, you only get that when you're a few months old. It doesn't last very
long. Also, no arch. You can see that it comes right back straight, which is a Sasquatch characteristic all over the
place.
SPEAKER 1: So in Dr. Alley's opinion, this is the footprint of something like a Sasquatch or Bigfoot. If not a Sasquatch, then it
must be a creature that's closely related. Perhaps the hairyman. But what the hairyman investigators really want
is an encounter with the beast himself. And suddenly, they're aware that something is out there.
LARRY BEANS
BAXTER:
Don't shoot it unless it threatens us.
STEPHEN
MAJOR:
Let's check it out. Go ahead. You go first.
[BLEEP] Dude, it just peeked out of the tree right there.
LARRY BEANS
BAXTER:
I see it. It's right at your 12.
STEPHEN
MAJOR:
Damn.
SPEAKER 1: Adam tries to draw whatever it is to them using his Hairy Man call.
[HOWLING]
[INTENSE MUSIC PLAYING]
[GRUNTING]
STEPHEN
MAJOR:
Bean spotted some movement in the trees. And he called out and said, hey, I've got something. And I ran up the
hill and I looked. And what I caught a glimpse of was something big, tall, and hairy, but it took off. Boom. As soon
as it saw me. And then I started following up on it. And before I knew it, it was 100 yards from me. And I just
caught a glimpse of it now from where I saw it last before it disappeared in the trees.
SPEAKER 1: In native folklore, the Hairy Man moves at incredible speed. In fact, it's even said that he can appear and
disappear at will.
ROBERT ALLEY
:
Are they supernatural? Yes and no. They have abilities that we find as Westerners difficult to explain. But when
the natives look at it, it fits into their interpretation of the natural world pretty simply.
SPEAKER 1: In the native culture, there's no separation between the spiritual and the physical. For them, the mysteries of the
Alaska Triangle are just a part of life. Perhaps the Hairy Man is moving in and out of the spirit world. Back on the
boat, the team sit down to review the trail camera footage. It isn't good news. There could easily be something
there in the background, but it's impossible to tell.
ADAM DAVIES: You always hope to get something, but you have to be realistic. There's a reason this creature has been elusive
for so long. The Hairy Man is very good at evading humans. And it's a matter of luck, research, and opportunity
whether we find any evidence of him.
STEPHEN
MAJOR:
Yeah, I always hope to get something. It's always a little disappointing when not, but--
ADAM DAVIES: You've got to press on.
STEPHEN
MAJOR:
-- it's a long shot.
ADAM DAVIES: You've got to press on that.
SPEAKER 1: So far, not much luck. But so often, it's when you least expect it than what you're looking for. It suddenly shows
itself.
STEPHEN
MAJOR:
We did get thermal imaging of a bipedal large beast.
SPEAKER 1: Adam was on deck and he thought he heard something. He pointed his camera to the shore, and he gave his
best Hairy Man call.
ADAM DAVIES: So I made a call out and almost directly after I made that call, I saw a large creature-- what appeared to be
bipedal-- rushing rapidly down the hillside through the woods towards us. Now, a bear would not do that. If
anything, a bear would go in the opposite direction, but this was coming right towards us. And it an adrenaline
rush. It was like, is this going to be it?
SPEAKER 1: Adam got out his infrared camera, and this is the footage. It's thermal imaging. And this white shape is
something giving off a lot of heat. It's moving as well. And so it has to be an animal of some sort. But it's difficult
to tell what. We've sent this eerie video footage to Dr. Alley, to see what he can make of it.
ROBERT ALLEY
:
It shows a figure. Evidently moving. And it's not a horizontal white figure like you'd expect for a moose. It's
vertical. And it's chunky. It's chunkier than I would expect a bear to be. I haven't seen a bear stay up a tree and
move around like that this long. This suggests something like Hairy Man. It's big. It's vertical. In fact, the upper
part seems to be even bigger and wider than the bottom. And what animal is built like that? That is a perfect
hairyman profile. Big wide shoulders and narrower hips. It's intriguing. It's not definitive, but it's very, very
intriguing. It's truly fascinating. It's truly fascinating.
ADAM DAVIES: There's all these legends but now we've got something tangible, something that I've experienced. And that is
exciting.
SPEAKER 1: Could this be the first ever video evidence of the Port Chatham Hairy Man? For Steven, the expedition's a
success.
STEPHEN
MAJOR:
The whole time on this trip, while out in the bush, we felt like we were being stalked and observed, which kept us
on edge. You know, I'm convinced 100% that the hairyman is here.
I think he was observing us that night.
SPEAKER 4: You've got to be kidding me.
STEPHEN
MAJOR:
Seriously. We found a trackway and I think that the area where he came down was the closest point on the land
to the boat.
SPEAKER 4: Whoa.
[SCREAMING]
SPEAKER 1: If the Hairy Man's out there, what other mysterious creatures are lurking in the Alaskan wilderness? Some like the
Hairy Man could be unknown to science, but there is evidence that there may be other monstrous beasts long
thought extinct alive and deadly in the wilds of the triangle.
STEPHEN
MAJOR:
Alaska's massive. You can spend an entire lifetime exploring and still not see everything.
SPEAKER 1: It's the ideal spot for species to go unnoticed for hundreds of years to be literally under the radar. Sometimes,
even frozen in the ice. One story from 2015 has some people convinced that ancient dangers could still be here.
Scientists at the Alaska earthquake center picked up readings from a remote seismic monitoring station that they
couldn't explain. The readings were from the coal teeth river mountain station. And the data clearly showed
shaking on the ground, as if something massive had been moving in the area. Andrew Goff is a journalist and
researcher who's been looking into this story.
ANDREW GOFF: The scientists were totally mystified. They were wondering what the heck could have caused this. And they
realize this can't be an earthquake. We know what that looks like. It has to be something else. But then they
discover that the seismic monitoring device was smashed by whatever creature this was on the surface. And that
not only perplexed them, it horrified them. There's one creature that could have literally caused the ground to
shake. And that's one that's going to seem a little far-fetched at first. And that's the prehistoric mammoth.
SPEAKER 1: According to science, mammoths died out thousands of years ago. But one man who knows more than most
about mammoths in Alaska is Bruce Schindler.
BRUCE
SCHINDLER:
I live in Skagway, Alaska, and I chase mammoths.
SPEAKER 1: Bruce lives in the Southeast of the triangle, but he travels all over Alaska in search of one of the most valuable
commodities going-- Mammoth tusks.
BRUCE
SCHINDLER:
This thing is not lightweight. Let's get it in the studio. I buy mammoth tusks from gold miners. I take those
mammoth tusks and I do what I can to bring them back to life.
SPEAKER 1: Bruce uses his expert craftsmanship to carve the mammoth tusks into ethical ivory to combat the ban on
elephant ivory. He's found that there are tusks in the ground all over Alaska because it was the perfect place for
mammoths.
BRUCE
SCHINDLER:
The Alaskan landscape was a fantastic habitat because it wasn't glaciated. It's kind of hard to live on a glacier.
And most of the northern hemisphere was really heavily glaciated except for up North. And the reason why is it
didn't get much snow, but it did get a fair amount of moisture, which therefore led to a lot of grasslands and food
for the mammoth. Science says that the Pleistocene ended 10,000 years ago. And that's when the last mammoth
would have died out. But there are exceptions. And on Rangel Island, North of Siberia, mammoths lived until
3,700 years ago. And there may be some other exceptions out there.
SPEAKER 1: If it's been proven that mammoths survived thousands of years past their previously believed extinction date,
perhaps they lasted even longer in the wilderness of Alaska. Dr. Lance Hightower, an expert in cryptozoology,
has uncovered evidence that mammoths might have survived even into modern times.
DR. LANCE
HIGHTOWER:
So I'm reading an article here, dated in the early 1900s. And this is about a US scientist who had just returned
from the interior of Alaska. He came across a trail of frozen prints that couldn't have been made by anything
except a giant beast. He says they were too large for modern day elephants. They seemed fresh with the weight
and depth of the print something that he's never seen before.
SPEAKER 1: This scientist, Dr. John Frizzell, believed that he had found a fresh track of what could have been a mammoth.
DR. LANCE
HIGHTOWER:
What we have is the same story out of three different newspapers.
SPEAKER 1: These were well respected West Coast newspapers. And Dr. Frizzell was accompanied by three other men, all of
whom verified his account.
DR. LANCE
HIGHTOWER:
Being a scientist, I mean, they're very particular about what they see. They're good observers, typically. Could it
have been a woolly mammoth? Possibly.
SPEAKER 1: Qituvituaq Litchard, also known as Q, is a shaman and Native Alaskan folklorist. He believes modern science may
not have it right when it comes to mammoths.
QITUVITUAQ
LITCHARD:
Native Americans in Alaska definitely had interactions with mammoths. We have a lot of stories of us hunting
them. We still talk about it. Had they been extinct for over 10,000 years, or is it a lot more recently than that?
SPEAKER 1: In Native Alaskan communities, storytelling is a crucial part of passing down knowledge.
QITUVITUAQ
LITCHARD:
Why do we have such detailed stories about hunting them if it was 10,000, 5,000 years ago? That would be-- like
they're too detailed and descriptive. I believe that we've been hunting them as recently as 200 years ago.
DR. LANCE
HIGHTOWER:
I'm going through some of these articles, dating back from 1889 to early 1900s. Some early explorers coming in
to the territories of Alaska, and communicating with some of the Alaskan Natives. These explorers are baffled
when some of the Alaskan Natives are drawing in the sand creatures that we would consider would be the woolly
mammoth.
SPEAKER 1: But it appears the newcomers didn't just have to rely on stories. They were given what they considered physical
proof.
DR. LANCE
HIGHTOWER:
One Alaskan Native said that they have ivory to prove it. And he said, basically, we had our hunting group kill this
monster. There was more than one. And the researcher says, let me take a look. And he looks on the ivory, and
there's fresh stains of blood.
So these people are describing what appears to be a woolly mammoth in our modern times. I mean these articles
are only from 100 years ago. And they're from people that are science based. You can't help but wonder, are
woolly mammoths still living?
SPEAKER 1: Whether or not mammoths are out there, the vast wilderness of Alaska still holds many surprises. Scientists are
still making remarkable discoveries. Animals frozen in the ice, living DNA, but it's possible that the frozen ground
holds an even deadlier secret. Beneath the surface of the Alaska Triangle lies a dormant threat waiting to be
awoken. And the effects could be deadly and widespread. Up on the North coast of Alaska, the ground is frozen
solid, but there are still archeological digs going on here. In 2017, a young archeologist, Zach Peterson, was
taking part in a dig in the area of Utqiagvik, formerly known as Barrow, the northernmost city in the United
States.
ZACH
PETERSON:
: We were doing this excavation in the tundra. It was very remote, very difficult to access.
SPEAKER 1: Here, the frozen ground, where the permafrost can be as deep as 2000 feet. And some of it has been frozen for
tens of thousands of years.
ZACH
PETERSON:
: One of the most amazing things about working in permafrost area is that there's just incredible preservation.
We would dig up tools made of wood. We would dig up animal skins. We would dig up even chunks of frozen
meat, like desiccated, mummified meat. So a lot of the mammal remains that we were digging through that
thawed out now were around 800 years old. About two days before the end of the dig, I noticed this bruise, or
what I thought was a bruise, showing up right below my knee. This was my knee in the smaller circle. That's
about the size of the infection when I first noticed it. And then the redness around that, that happened in less
than 24 hours.
SPEAKER 1: The redness then started to spread rapidly.
ZACH
PETERSON:
: I think the scary part to me was the speed. It's now twice the size. It's red. It's swollen. It hurts to touch it. So I
show this wildlife biologist. And she immediately says, you need to go to the hospital.
SPEAKER 1: Zach learned that he'd contracted a rapidly spreading skin infection. The virus had been lying dormant, frozen in
the permafrost for hundreds of years before thawing out and infecting him.
ZACH
PETERSON:
: So the idea that now I have bacteria in my leg from upwards of 800 or 1,000 years old. It's pretty scary.
SPEAKER 1: Luckily, Zach managed to get medical attention and the infection was treated. But now, cases like his are only set
to increase.
ZACH
PETERSON:
You hear a lot about global warming and the ice melting, and it makes you wonder, what else could be frozen in
the permafrost?
SPEAKER 1: Over in Cardiff in the United Kingdom, one man has been searching for an answer. Dr. Reece Jones is an eminent
biologist at the University.
DR. REECE
JONES:
With the melting of the permafrost, we're going to see new species that are coming to life, things like bacteria
and viruses that have been locked away in the ice for thousands, maybe tens of thousands of years.
SPEAKER 1: And it's not just tiny bacteria that can be preserved alive in ice.
DR. REECE
JONES:
There is actually scientific basis for animals coming almost back from the dead, if you will. Frozen completely and
then thawing out and being ready to breed again in the spring.
SPEAKER 1: The Alaskan wood frog freezes solid in the winter. Its heart stops beating. Its blood stops flowing. They can stay
in this state for seven months.
DR. REECE
JONES:
Then they thaw out, and they're ready to breed again in the spring.
SPEAKER 1: Science has yet to determine if bigger animals than the wood frog could freeze and then be brought back to life
in this way. And what about something as big as a mammoth.
ANDREW GOFF:Could mammoths have been frozen in the permafrost and preserved, but then thawed and freed, reanimated,
prehistoric animals? It simply has to be investigated.
SPEAKER 1: And then some think it's possible that the mammoths just never went away.
SPEAKER 5: Mammoths could very well live in pockets of Alaska that have never really been explored.
SPEAKER 1: And if they're out there, they'd certainly be formidable creatures. The ivory in the ground is valuable, but on a
living mammoth, it's deadly.
SPEAKER 5: It can be really big. A big tusk would be 200, 240 pounds. The biggest tusks, over 300 pounds per tusk. So that's,
what, 600 pounds a mammoth would have to wield on its face.
SPEAKER 1: Only time will tell what prehistoric dangers are hiding in Alaska's frozen wilderness. This vast land doesn't give up
its secrets easily.