- 8 hours ago
The Proof Is Out There - Season 6 Episode 4 -
The Battle of Los Angeles, Chinese Dragon Discovery, and Celebrity UFO
The Battle of Los Angeles, Chinese Dragon Discovery, and Celebrity UFO
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00:03tonight on the proof is out there it's a classic ufo mystery of world war ii what did the army
00:10shoot at in the battle of los angeles this photo alone can't possibly capture the sheer panic
00:17that was felt by everybody involved could the myths and legends be true are these the bones
00:25of an ancient dragon the body of this animal looks almost reptilian in nature did a famous pop singer
00:33have his own close encounter with a ufo this thing kind of floats and hovers in the sky and then
00:39very
00:40quickly just kind of shoots away and is this nun's body actually proof of a miracle incorruptibility is
00:49when a person's corpse simply doesn't decompose
00:58around the globe are videos
01:03photos and sounds that defy explanation
01:12we don't know where they come from who made them or how they operate
01:15what are they some sort of bizarre mutation what's exciting is nobody really knows
01:20extraordinary claims need extraordinary proof
01:25i'm tony harris and as a journalist for more than 30 years i've followed the facts where they take me
01:31now i'm bringing that spirit of investigation to the world's strangest sounds and images
01:36it's coming towards us we'll analyze each one with top experts
01:40it's a credible case it's a credible video and pass a verdict on what it is
01:46this video was clearly faked the proof starts now
01:59good evening and welcome to the proof is out there in 1942 just after the japanese attack on pearl harbor
02:06california was the site of a deadly incident now known as the battle of los angeles
02:12some thought the japanese had struck again some thought it was a ufo invasion
02:17and luckily for us someone snapped a photo
02:22february 25th 1942 los angeles california
02:27it's only a couple of months since the pearl harbor attack brought the united states into world war ii
02:33and fears of a japanese invasion are running high
02:37around 2 a.m military radar detects an unidentified object approaching the city
02:43a blackout is ordered while air raid sirens blare and the anti-aircraft artillery starts firing
02:50as the chaos unfolds one los angeles times reporter captures this
02:58searchlights converge on what looks like a white craft
03:01it appears to have a pointed top tapered sides and a domed bottom
03:05the anti-aircraft fire peppers the surrounding sky
03:09whatever this thing is they can't shoot it down
03:12the photo makes headline news and the incident becomes known as the battle of los angeles
03:18all over town eyewitnesses insist something was in the sky that night
03:24some people of course particularly in more modern times have thought
03:28well wait a minute isn't this a classic ufo sighting
03:32but the time people thought my goodness we're under attack the japanese are here again
03:37in fact just before the battle of los angeles a japanese submarine had surfaced off the coast near santa barbara
03:46and had actually bombarded an oil field there aiming for some of the storage facilities so you can imagine the
03:54feeling was no one's safe
03:56and then it hit and people started saying there's something in the sky
04:01and they're firing up it's just like smoke the sound the lights i mean they're in the middle of a
04:08war zone here and so this goes on for some hours
04:13but it's a tragic story because five people lose their lives in this
04:19two heart attacks and three fatalities in road traffic accidents it's believed that
04:26you know the lights being out and so forth caused all all sorts of chaos on the streets
04:34more than 1400 rounds of anti-aircraft artillery had been pumped into the sky
04:39but once all the smoke cleared there was no wreckage from japanese planes or any indication of japanese aircraft
04:46now we know japan didn't fight the war with aircraft alone
04:50in fact they would later launch a new weapon against the american mainland
04:55balloon bombs
04:56japan did launch balloons designed to drop bombs over to the continental united states
05:02most notably reaching oregon which makes people wonder was what happened this night
05:07actually an early balloon or an early attempt by the japanese to launch something toward the american mainland
05:15in january 2018 hawaiians received this emergency alert warning
05:20ballistic missile threat inbound seek immediate shelter this is not a drill
05:25panic spread but it all turned out to be a false alarm
05:29similarly some believe a false alarm triggered the battle of los angeles
05:34but then how do you explain that photo let's ask the experts
05:44considering the u.s was at war was this a japanese air raid
05:48i don't think that's what we're actually looking at here because when we zoom in on this image
05:53it doesn't look like a plane it just looks like a whitish blob and if it was a plane you'd
05:58be able to see that it was a plane from these searchlights
06:02but what about an early balloon bomb again a balloon will be something that will be very well illuminated by
06:08searchlights you will see the clear circular outline and we just simply don't see that and of course if it
06:14was a balloon it probably would have been shot down because balloons don't move very fast and they're very vulnerable
06:18to anti-aircraft fire
06:20the japanese the japanese later
06:21even the u.s military dismissed the so-called
06:26as a false alarm could that be all this is
06:30we have to remember the radar was very much in its early days back then and it was very
06:35slow scanning and very prone to error so
06:37what might have shown up on the radar back then may just have been something like reflections of
06:43waves on the water or even birds of course faulty radar doesn't explain the photo though something
06:49else might i think what we're actually looking at here is just simply a region of smoke from the
06:56anti-aircraft fire that's been illuminated by multiple searchlights at the same time and that
07:01single bright area that all the searchlights concentrating on creates a shape that looks a
07:07little bit like a flying saucer and so a legend was born but that still leaves numerous eyewitness
07:15accounts of strange objects in the sky objects that could not be struck down by anti-aircraft artillery
07:23world war ii fighter pilots in europe would notice something similar two years later
07:28they reported being confronted by mysterious glowing orbs that they called
07:33foo fighters my best guess here is that either nothing was there and it's a false alarm or that
07:41maybe it was a high-tech craft of some kind that never could be hit by our shells and to
07:46this day we
07:47can't discount the possibility that it might also have been an advanced craft that was eluding the guns
07:58our verdict this is a split decision we think the object in the photo is probably smoke from the
08:04anti-aircraft fire but based on the eyewitness accounts we believe something unexplained was also
08:11in the skies that night whether it's smaug hoarding treasure in the hobbit or the targaryens riding
08:19them to victory in the game of thrones dragons are among the most iconic creatures in legend and
08:26literature but that's all just fiction right october 10 2017 jangzi yako city china villagers of this
08:37rural community gather around smartphones in hand after several residents claim to have made a bizarre
08:43discovery we see what appears to be a 65 foot long skeleton it has a serpentine body a head with
08:52antlers and a set of prominent claws the villagers are in awe with some even straddling its head while
08:58posing for photos this video went viral and ultimately it got over 10 million views but apparently many of
09:06the local villagers swore up and down that these were actually the remains of a real life dragon
09:12many say this skeleton matches the anatomy of dragons from chinese mythology
09:18they were often depicted with horns or antlers in primeval china emperors were said to have
09:25descended from the bloodline of dragons and these were known as the long it's a very powerful symbol
09:33in chinese culture one can wonder where does this mythology stem from are we actually looking at the
09:39remains of a real life dragon some argue that instead of looking to china's cultural history
09:46we should look to its fossil record in 2024 an international team discovered the fossilized
09:54remains of a new type of dinosaur dino cephalosaurus orientalis nicknamed the chinese dragon this particular
10:02species lived about 240 million years ago but what was really remarkable was that it had a very long neck
10:09like we're seeing here in the video so are these the remains of some type of prehistoric creature
10:19legends claim that alexander the great came across a dragon during his campaign in india a hissing cave
10:26dwelling beast over 100 feet long and with eyes as large as a macedonian shield the terrifying creature
10:34reportedly struck fear into his army and was worshipped as a god by the locals is it possible that these
10:41creatures once did exist let's ask the experts this is really like no skeleton that i have ever seen
10:54before dragons are often depicted as having wings for animals that have wings like birds and bats they're
11:02essentially like modified hands and we're not seeing any indication of that here in fact we're seeing
11:09forearms and we're not seeing anything on its back however the dragons of chinese myth were thought to
11:17be wingless they'd fly by undulating through the sky impossible well check out these airborne leaps made
11:25by paradise tree snakes recently documented by researchers at virginia tech but our experts still say
11:32no way these bones seem really thick and there's a lot of them even if this were a real dragon
11:41it
11:42doesn't make sense for it to have such a dense number of rib bones its skeleton seems way too heavy
11:49it
11:50doesn't seem physiologically possible for this animal to be able to fly okay so maybe not a dragon as we
11:58know
11:59them but could it be an undocumented cold-blooded creature of some sort the body of this animal looks
12:07almost reptilian in nature you see a very elongated body like a snake and seems to have some sort of
12:13antlers there's one snake out there which does have two seeming antlers on them the snake is known as the
12:21venomous horned viper sarastens named after a horned serpent of greek legend but those antlers they're
12:28more cartilage based and they're fleshy tissue that would decay and dissolve with the rest of the body
12:35if it's not a new species of reptile is it possible this mysterious beast is actually very old
12:42a dinosaur like that recently discovered chinese dragon skeletons of dinosaurs are not actually bone
12:49anymore because the minerals from the surrounding rock have replaced the bone if this is a real animal
12:57this is one that would have had to have died very recently if this was truly a recent kill i
13:04would expect
13:04to see some sort of insect or decomposer in the area my hypothesis is this is some sort of hoax
13:13they
13:13either used fake bones or they took bones from other existing animals and put them all together
13:19to create the shape an illusion of a dragon
13:27our verdict we agree with our experts that this is most definitely a hoax there are just too many
13:34things that don't add up and recent online posts from china indicate that this may indeed be a movie
13:41prop so dragon shall remain the stuff of myths and legends for now every parent knows the anxiety of
13:50tending to a sick child but it's even worse when the doctors can't even figure out what's going on
13:56well in this next story hundreds of children experience the same strange affliction all at once
14:03setting the stage for one massive medical mystery july 13th 1980 kirkby in ashfield england
14:12photographer neil lancashire is covering a children's band competition at the hollandwell showground
14:17where more than 300 kids are gathered with their instruments but in the midst of this idyllic scene
14:24disaster strikes and neil's camera captures this all over the showground children begin to collapse
14:33complete chaos takes over as people lie unconscious in the grass and parents carry their children in their
14:39arms as you can see in neil's photos young children appear to be doubled over in pain
14:46as if sick to their stomachs or possibly gasping for air you don't understand what's really happening
14:53you're in the moment and thinking well what is this is not right some of the children had come down
14:59without the parents and there was only a big sister to look after them they called in ambulances then
15:04take the children to the hospital and the ambulances couldn't cope with the amount of children
15:11that fainted all these kids just falling over really horrible it was really frightening thankfully no
15:19one died but what caused this in the first place the health department theory mass hysteria mass hysteria
15:27has affected a lot of young people there was a case in 1962 called the tanganyika laughing incident
15:35which occurred in tanzania in east africa and in this case up to a thousand girls over a period of
15:43weeks couldn't stop laughing they were also getting rashes and sores and sore throats and fainting and
15:51nausea so people were very concerned about what it could have been in 2014 34 years after the
16:00hollandwell incident british politician dennis skinner claimed the incident was not properly
16:05investigated because the victims were working-class kids he said if the children had fallen ill at a royal
16:11garden party authorities would have handled it more meticulously let's see if our experts can
16:18discover anything those authorities might have missed could we really be looking at a case of mass
16:28hysteria mass hysteria or mass psychogenic illness is a very real phenomenon in which symptoms with no
16:35known cause spread throughout a community some believe that mass hysteria actually reflects the
16:40social fears and anxiety of a given time period there have been many mass hysteria events throughout history
16:46a famous one occurred in 1518 in strasbourg france when a woman began dancing and didn't stop for a couple
16:53of weeks more and more people began to join her until eventually there were 400 people dancing some
16:59of them died from over exerting themselves and no one could figure out what had caused the event
17:05most recently there was a mysterious condition called havana syndrome which occurred in cuba
17:10u.s diplomats there were suffering from dizziness and migraines and they thought they might have been
17:16attacked by some kind of weapon officials came to the conclusion that this was some kind of mass
17:21hysteria where people became sick because they thought they were exposed to some kind of threat
17:26according to two u.s intelligence agencies it's possible that a novel weapon wielded by some kind
17:31of foreign adversary could be causing some cases of havana syndrome others however disagree
17:38the reasons why i don't think this is a case of mass hysteria is that we see infants that are
17:44falling
17:44sick infants who are less than a year old are not going to be taken over by psychological manifestations
17:52of symptoms in addition there were individuals who felt sick when they got home the symptoms continued
17:58even after people had left the scene when they were not around other people who were sick
18:05if mass hysteria can't explain what's happening maybe chemistry can according to reports there was a
18:12powerful chemical smell coming from the recently cleaned bathrooms people smelled a combination of
18:19ammonia and chlorine because they were smelling that combination that gave people the idea that that
18:24was the the major cause of this accident the beauty of chemistry is that you could take two everyday
18:31normal household items mix them together and come out with something totally different and that very well
18:38could it be what happened here when they were trying to clean the bathrooms and they mix the bleach with
18:43the ammonia they produce chlorine gas which can be pretty terrifying it was even used in world war one as
18:50a weapon
18:52now that sounds like a compelling theory but that doesn't make this a closed case after all
18:59you can see in these photos the kids were outside in the open air those two gases would have dissipated
19:06long before they had gotten out onto the field where those kids were playing their marching bands
19:10there's just really no evidence to really determine what actually went on everybody has their own leading
19:15hypotheses but there's really no strong evidence to point to any one particular thing
19:25our verdict unexplained mass illness we're going with dr anderson on this one the hollandwell incident
19:33remains one of the greatest medical mysteries of the 20th century skeptics often argue that ufo witnesses
19:41are lying about their experiences for fame and fortune while believers argue that there's too much ridicule
19:48involved for that to be the case but what does it mean when somebody who's already famous shares his ufo
19:54sighting it means we need to investigate it's spring 2024 in new york city grammy nominated musician jay
20:04balvin is hanging out on the soccer field with some friends before long they notice something strange in
20:10the sky and manage to record this the camera zooms in on an object hanging in the blue sky it
20:18appears
20:18a triangle shaved with rounded corners and a light or opening on its underside
20:27the object pivots slowly from side to side as if scanning the area then as jay turns the camera
20:35away from his awestruck friend the ufo zips away jay posts the video on instagram and you can guess what
20:43happens next jay balvin is enormously popular he has more than 50 million followers on his social
20:50accounts so when he posted this video it spread like wildfire jay's sighting brings to mind a type
20:58of ufo that's famous in its own right ufologists will point to kind of consistent shapes that ufos have
21:04and triangular is one of them with sightings from around the world from 1983 to 1984 even into 1985
21:12residents of the hudson river valley area reported giant triangular or boomerang shaped craft this is
21:21important because this is not just grandma seeing some lights in the backyard these are trained observers
21:26highly trained individuals like law enforcement even military personnel all reporting being eyewitnesses
21:33to some of these the most incredible ufo experiences and events in recent history
21:40it's worth noting that while triangle ufos typically have sharp edges this one is a little
21:46different take a look at this see how it has these rounded corners and look here in the middle now
21:54if
21:54you ask me that looks like an opening going straight through the craft that's different but what will
22:01our experts make of this celebrated sighting we always consider the most obvious explanation first
22:12could this be some sort of novelty balloon balloons can be any shape that you want them to be but
22:18the
22:18balloon is going to be impacted by wind and wind changes it would not be hovering in one spot it
22:24would
22:24be up and down and you don't see anything like that in this video we know that paparazzi have started
22:30using drones to get shots of celebrities could they be targeting jay balvin i would think that this
22:37drone would be a lot closer to the individual so that they could get good facial recognition and see
22:42who's part of his entourage also i have tried zooming into this video and i don't see any indication that
22:48this in particular object is a drone there's none of the lights there's no sound the typical things that
22:55you would see with a drone are not in this video so if it's not any flying craft we
23:00know of is it a famed triangle ufo not exactly i don't think that it's a ufo it's not the
23:08description
23:08that we typically get for triangular shaped ufos at all it looks like it's relatively about the same
23:14distance from the camera as the water tower is which is not that far so it appears to be relatively
23:21small
23:23triangular ufos are known for being massive often described as the size of multiple football fields
23:30so if this one is small it doesn't fit and that's not the only suspicious clue in this video clip
23:37there's a water tower there's a tree and then there's an object when i zoom my camera in i'm seeing
23:44the fact that the position of the actual object shifts and moves with the camera movement see how in
23:52this stabilized version of the video the object doesn't actually hold steady relative to its surroundings
23:59instead it moves with a video frame that's a telltale sign it was digitally inserted into the scene
24:06none of the the things matched up in terms of positions of where the object was the moving away
24:12from that to take a picture of somebody all that has the indications of it being a hoax
24:22our verdict hoax if you're still not convinced take a look at this photo from jay balvin's coachella
24:30performance just four days after he posted the video to social media look familiar that's the same ufo
24:36clever promo jay but i think we can agree your talent is for music not video fakery
24:45have you ever seen the blob it's a 1958 horror movie where a community is terrorized by an alien
24:52creature made of goo this fictional blob consumes people growing bigger and hungrier with each victim
24:58well after seeing this next video you might think something similar happened in nebraska june 20th 2024
25:07scotts bluff county nebraska chad casey is out and about in the countryside when suddenly something on
25:14the ground starts moving towards him it's like nothing he's seen before so he takes out his phone and
25:21captures this
25:25a brownish blobby mass studded with white spheres crawls along the ground chad films it moving across
25:34the countryside as it spreads out in what seems to be layers eating everything in its path
25:39after it's posted the video spawns a curious theory online people drew comparisons between the video
25:46and the movie the blob which was apparently inspired by a real life incident on september 26 1950
25:53two philadelphia police officers saw an object falling from the sky they called for backup and then
25:59pursued the object to where it had fallen during a search of the area they discovered an ooze that seemed
26:05to move according to some reports it even shimmied up a telephone pole when one of the officers
26:11touched the ooze it left behind a clear sticky residue after about an hour and a half the whole mass
26:17simply evaporated because they had called for backup there were actually four witnesses to whatever had
26:24gone down in that field think that's the only time a weird jelly fell from the sky and puzzled the
26:30world
26:31think again in 1969 following a meteor shower scientists in australia were actually able to gather
26:37200 pounds of a jelly-like substance off the ground which they then analyzed and discovered that it
26:43included amino acids which are the building blocks of life so is this some sort of natural substance from space
26:51or could it be possible it was created in a lab after all we've seen synthetic blobs like this magnetic
26:58putty
26:59which appears to have a life of its own scientists have also created a really creepy looking gooey
27:05substance it's actually infused with metal and so when you put it near magnets it moves in a way that
27:12is
27:12really unsettling
27:15in 2024 in southern california beachgoers spotted clusters of strange oval-shaped blobs along the shore
27:24these were identified as valella valella a small ocean predator related to jellyfish but what about
27:31our terrestrial blob it's nowhere near any ocean can our experts identify it
27:41could this blob be a man-made creation it's got dirt in it it's got ice in it you can
27:47see that it's picking
27:48up material that's on the outside this appears to be like a mud type of feature it's more moving like
27:54a solid it's so more like a mud float so it's more natural than it is a man-made type
27:59of feature
28:00if it didn't come from a lab where did it come from i believe this has appearance of hail we're
28:07looking
28:07at some water so this tells me we're looking at the beginnings of a flash flood flash floods might
28:14conjure up images of rushing water but they can also create what's known as a debris flow this is
28:20when flooding runs downhill picking up loose soil rocks and foliage along the way the result of sludge
28:28like torrent more than likely we just saw a storm move across with flash flooding that is likely occurring
28:35in the background we also probably just experienced a hail storm that dropped quite a bit of hail across
28:43the region good theory but how about some data well we confirmed that a hail forming storm front
28:51had passed through the region although this blob may seem quite scary the most monstrous thing we saw
28:57was a severe hail storm that impacted the scott's bluff area
29:06our verdict hail and ground debris flow so this was no living goo monster but there's a chance we'll
29:14soon see a different kind of blob come to life scientists in japan have recently engineered a pink
29:20blob out of collagen gel to mimic living skin tissue for humanoid robots
29:27on a previous episode we investigated the case of sister wilhelmina lancaster whose body was remarkably
29:35some say miraculously preserved after her death well we have some developments to that story
29:41is it more evidence of divine intervention you can make the last judgment
29:47april 2023 gower missouri four years after the death of sister wilhelmina lancaster the other sisters of
29:56her order decide to transfer her remains to the monastery chapel but when they open her casket
30:03they're stunned to find this it's sister wilhelmina's body but where one might have expected decayed and
30:11formless remains after four years instead her body is largely intact sister martina lee who witnessed
30:20the exhumation reveals that it's not just sister wilhelmina's body that seemed unscathed by the passage of time
30:27everything that she was wearing at the time of her barrel her veil and forehead piece her entire habit
30:34was preserved intact it's kind of like you know this is god's little sign that this person was so faithful
30:39to him
30:39that she didn't necessarily need to undergo the curse of corruption
30:45incorruptibility is when a person's corpse simply doesn't decompose it's said to happen with people of the cloth
30:54at the time the story caught fire with media around the world people were so excited that 25 000 people
31:01flocked to rural missouri in the first month after her body was exhumed to pay their respects and see for
31:07themselves
31:09when we first told this story our verdict was that this was a potential miracle
31:14now a new development fast forward to 2024 when a new medical exam of the remains has come up with
31:22some startling revelations in the time since sister wilhelmina was exhumed she has been examined by medical
31:27experts who according to the church couldn't find any reason for why her body would be so well preserved
31:33now a fellow benedictine nun said that this is a miracle and she is actually gathering testimony from
31:39eyewitnesses to bolster the case and that is just one of the steps towards canonization
31:48in 2024 experts studying relics in spain exhumed the body of saint theresa of avila who died in 1582
31:58they declared that her remains had not decomposed at all a year later the church presented the new
32:03evidence saint's corpse was put on display and some claimed that its well-preserved condition was
32:10proof of her incorruption but can we say the same for sister wilhelmina
32:20when we first covered this story no medical exam of the body had taken place but now we've got
32:26forensic data so what did that new exam reveal the examining doctor was a doctor of pathology
32:33and was assisted by two other medical doctors and also by the local coroner and they said that her body
32:39is truly atypical for what they might expect for the passage of approximately four years to top it
32:46off the team literally dug deep for more answers conducting a soil analysis around the grave they even
32:54addressed people's ideas about the soil there are chemicals that will help preserve skin and help
33:01preserve tissue but they came to the conclusion that there was nothing in the soil that would have
33:06preserved her body in such pristine condition additionally the medical examiners interviewed
33:13eyewitnesses at the burial and did not learn of any other factors that could explain the body's
33:19remarkable condition what's really remarkable about sister wilhelmina is that when they pulled out her
33:26coffin there was a large crack down the middle they found a large amount of moss suggesting really damp and
33:33wet environment and you're going to see more bacteria scavengers all of these organisms that decompose
33:41the body so the fact that her body was preserved despite the environment is unexplainable i honestly
33:47don't have a medical explanation for what's going on here so can we call this a real case of
33:55incorruptibility perhaps this is truly a case of incorruption in the great tradition of the catholic
34:02church but throughout christian history we have 10 000 saints who have been canonized by the catholic
34:07church a very small fraction of those have been declared incorruptible
34:17our verdict unexplained phenomenon as of 2025 the catholic church has not yet weighed in with a formal
34:25declaration on sister wilhelmina's perceived incorruption but now that there's an american pope maybe that could
34:33change for centuries medieval medicine has been dismissed as unsound the time period itself is snidely
34:41referred to as the dark ages suggesting that it was unenlightened by science or reason so how could a
34:491100 year old medical book from this period hold the secret to curing modern illnesses
34:582016 london england scientists around the world are intrigued when the british library announces
35:05it is releasing online the complete pages of bald's leech book a medical text that is believed to have been
35:12written in the mid-10th century when the day comes eager researchers log on to find this it's a blend
35:21of
35:21old english and latin and the remedies within it are totally wild completely unorthodox among these cures
35:28is one for swollen eyes in which it's recommended that the person whose eyes are swollen gets a live crab
35:34cuts off the crab's eyes and then holds those eyes to their neck there's even a baldness cure in which
35:41it's advised to take burned bees willow leaves and oil make a salve and spread it all over your scalp
35:50bald's leech book is actually one of the oldest surviving collections of medical knowledge in
35:55existence bald was the owner of the book leach refers to physicians in this book there's bald's eye
36:03salve to cure an eye infection there was a very specific recipe it had onion garlic english
36:11white wine and the bile salts from a cow's stomach how did this leech book come by its odd remedies
36:19some speculated it was witchcraft magic really was a part of life in the middle ages really before the
36:26witch persecutions started in europe there were people who you believed worked magic and you might go
36:33to them for cures probably before you would go to any kind of physician who is out of your reach
36:40but for some people who were coming up with cures during the middle ages there was a real danger
36:46particularly for women who were accused of witchcraft the church and the patriarchy were not okay with this
36:53they persecuted those women and sometimes even executed them for coming up with remedies
36:58and the kinds of things you'll find in bald's leech book it's not the first time we've seen books
37:06like this ahead of their time in the 70s chinese scientists found the malaria treatment in a text
37:12from the fourth century do the cures in bald's leech book work too and how did they get there
37:23how did the medieval healers behind bald's leech book come up with their remedies did they actually
37:28work bald's leech book isn't the only medicinal book from this period we have other examples of
37:34books with remedies in it and they actually came up with remedies that worked the treatments devised
37:40by practitioners in the middle ages required gathering ingredients and experimenting with them
37:45until they found something that worked willow bark was used to calm inflammation and today a compound
37:52from willow bark is used in aspirin another example are the psychotropic plant compounds that were used
37:58in witches quote-unquote flying ointment but today we use them as muscle relaxants and to cure motion sickness
38:05a lot of this stuff has been around for a very long period of time this book has a remedy
38:12for arthritis
38:13that contains nettles and we know that nettles are a traditional native american way of relieving
38:19arthritis and is also found in modern arthritic medicines today so we know a lot of those herbs
38:26and a lot of those methods really are effective researchers at the university of warwick actually tested out
38:33bald's eye salve on a staph infection to their astonishment the staph infection was completely gone
38:41and they repeated the experiment time after time and every time they found the same results the
38:48eye salve was completely eradicating the staph infection scientists were even more surprised when
38:54they tested the salve on MRSA a highly resistant bacterial strain this is a superbug that is responsible for
39:02killing about 2 000 people a year and a major problem in the world of medicine today and to their
39:09surprise the
39:10eye salve killed 90 percent of the infection how could an archaic recipe that includes white wine and
39:17bile salts from a cow's stomach accomplish this researchers found that allison a component of garlic
39:25while it had the strongest bactericidal properties did not work nearly as well alone as it did mix with
39:34the other ingredients within the book's remedies researchers have also discovered herbal ingredients
39:40that can effectively treat coughs colds and toothaches but not all the recipes are created equal there's
39:48another recipe where if you mix beetroot and honey mash it together smear it on someone's face have them lay
39:56on their back in the sun and let it drip down their face that will cure their headache i don't
40:02believe that works
40:07our verdict there are some real proven medical treatments in bald's leech book we haven't come
40:13across witchcraft or magic potions here just evidence that the dark ages weren't so dark after all
40:20still i think i'll pass on bald's cure for warts which says to apply dog urine and mouse blood to
40:28the
40:28affected area no thanks and that's our show for tonight thank you so much for watching
40:33and remember to keep those cameras rolling
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