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Expedition X - Season 11 - Episode 02: Atomic Ape Cat
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00:00Whoa, whoa, whoa.
00:00What do you mean, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa?
00:01Look, there's a warm spot.
00:03That means that something was here.
00:05I think this thing is close.
00:08Whoa.
00:08What?
00:09What?
00:10Holy.
00:12On this episode of Expedition X,
00:16my team investigates reports of a horrifying hybrid creature
00:20stalking the woods of Washington.
00:23Oh, my God.
00:24That looks big.
00:25Witnesses describe a monstrous black cat
00:28that, shockingly, has the face of an ape.
00:32This thing is an apex predator built for stealth.
00:36Ooh.
00:37I just saw eyeshine over there.
00:40Some whisper this could be a top-secret government experiment gone wrong.
00:44Could an animal have escaped that resulted in this thing
00:48that people call the ape cat?
00:49Absolutely, I could have.
00:50Look, down here.
00:51Heather and Phil will prowl for proof
00:54as they attempt to track the atomic ape cat.
00:57Well, we want answers,
00:59but I don't want to be dragging you out of the woods in a body bag.
01:02Oh, no!
01:04Oh, no!
01:06Oh, no!
01:06Oh, no!
01:08Oh, no!
01:24It sounds riveting, Phil.
01:25Maybe next week we should investigate my kid's goldfish.
01:28It's funny.
01:29No, seriously.
01:30It's been acting fishy.
01:31No!
01:32So, listen, this is no ordinary cat.
01:34And by backyard, I mean the millions of acres of Washington wilderness,
01:38more specifically the Columbia River Gorge.
01:41Volcanic mountains, raging rivers, dense forests.
01:44And, you know, if I'm a secret monster,
01:46that's definitely where I'm making my home.
01:47And apparently this cat is just as extraordinary as its habitat.
01:52It is large.
01:53Unlike any known species,
01:54there have been hundreds of terrifying encounters.
01:57And strangest of all, people who see it,
01:59some of them say it looks half feline, half simian,
02:03so they call it the ape cat.
02:04The ape cat.
02:06I have to say this is one of those great cryptid stories
02:08that I have never investigated myself.
02:11A monster cat with the face of an ape.
02:14Some people say it was cooked up in a top-secret government lab
02:18or that it's been wandering in this gorge for centuries.
02:21Any way you cut it, this story is wild.
02:29More than 80 miles long,
02:31the Columbia River Gorge is a natural border
02:33between Washington and Oregon in the Pacific Northwest.
02:39The gorge was formed
02:41when saber-toothed tigers still ruled the region.
02:45Although those fearsomely fanged ancestors are long extinct,
02:50there's evidence that monstrous cats may have never left.
02:53A 3,000-year-old petroglyph on a gorge canyon wall
02:57depicts a giant cat-like figure.
03:00In the 19th century,
03:02the earliest colonists in the region
03:04write about a huge beast prowling the forests.
03:07A century later, in the 1960s,
03:10reports of a ferocious jet-black feline
03:13become disturbingly frequent.
03:15However, the only known big cats in the area
03:18are cougars,
03:19which do not have a gene
03:20that can produce an all-black coat.
03:23As the mysterious sightings continue,
03:26locals whisper that sinister animal experiments
03:29at a nearby, top-secret government facility
03:32called the Hanford Site may be to blame.
03:36For decades, it produces plutonium
03:38for the U.S. nuclear weapons program,
03:40but residents suspect
03:42it's also conducting grotesque experiments,
03:45leading to escaped mutant test subjects.
03:49In the 1990s,
03:51reports of the pitch-black cat
03:53take a truly terrifying turn.
03:55Witnesses describe the beast
03:57as standing five feet tall
03:59with a nightmarish, ape-like face.
04:04Today, encounters with the so-called ape cat
04:06are still surging,
04:08alongside horrifying reports
04:10of mutilated livestock.
04:12Many believe this strange creature
04:14possesses an uncanny intelligence.
04:16A seasoned hunter insists
04:18the monstrosity deliberately lured him
04:20into a trap
04:21from which he barely escaped.
04:24Is the ape cat an undiscovered ancient animal,
04:27or could it be some kind of mutant feline?
04:30With no easy answers,
04:32officials fear the gorge
04:34is no longer home to a legend,
04:36but instead hosts a very real
04:38and vicious predator,
04:40stalking humans from the shadows.
04:48So, listen,
04:50I think there could be something
04:51really interesting here.
04:52Some sort of undiscovered monster cat
04:55on the prowl.
04:55And, for the record,
04:57we had success in England,
04:58finding evidence
04:59of a previously undocumented
05:01big cat out there.
05:02But, I gotta say,
05:03the whole ape-face thing
05:05sounds bananas.
05:07Well played, Phil.
05:08Skeptical and funny.
05:09Heather, what say you?
05:10Well, I'm thinking
05:11if it is that monster
05:12in those petroglyphs,
05:13then it has to be dang smart
05:16to win at hide-and-seek
05:17for centuries.
05:18You know what that means?
05:19Bigger brain, bigger threat.
05:20Well, whether it's related or not,
05:22cougar attacks in the area
05:23have been on the rise
05:25with someone being killed
05:25just a few years ago.
05:26But the bottom line here is
05:28the locals are asking for our help.
05:30I think we need to get there
05:32and figure out what's going on.
05:33Absolutely.
05:34Let's get into it.
05:35And while the two of you
05:36start looking for the creature,
05:37I'm gonna dig into these reports
05:38surrounding this top-secret
05:40Hanford government base
05:41where some say
05:42this thing originated.
05:43Let's see if there really is
05:44a cat to let out
05:45of the proverbial bag.
05:47Happy hunting.
05:47We're on it.
05:48Next week, the goldfish.
05:51It's a six-hour flight
05:52from New York
05:53to Portland, Oregon.
05:54Phil and Heather
05:55then cross into Washington
05:57and spend another hour
05:58and a half driving deep
05:59into the Columbia River Gorge,
06:02averaging one majestic waterfall
06:04every two and a half minutes.
06:06All right, Heather.
06:07Welcome to my home state.
06:09It's so exciting.
06:10I've never been here.
06:11You've never been here?
06:12No, I've never been
06:13to the Pacific Northwest.
06:14I did not know that.
06:15It's crazy beautiful.
06:16It is crazy beautiful.
06:18I mean, take a look around.
06:20This is why I moved here.
06:22It is green all year round.
06:26All right.
06:27I think this is James' spot
06:28right up here.
06:29Okay.
06:36Hey, James.
06:38Hey, good to see you.
06:39Good to see you.
06:40We're meeting with James Shupski,
06:42a local whose terrifying encounter
06:44with a monstrous creature
06:46in the woods
06:46inspired him to seek out stories
06:48similar to his own.
06:50You think you have seen an ape cat.
06:53That's right.
06:54It was about four years ago.
06:56I was in the East Gorge
06:58hiking above a lake.
07:00And I saw something large
07:01and dark swimming in the water.
07:06It was at least 10 feet long
07:08and all black.
07:10You know, there's not a lot
07:11of creatures around here
07:12that are that big.
07:13I couldn't figure out what it was.
07:15You know, we do have
07:16a lot of black bear.
07:17Of course, you know,
07:18black bear don't have a tail.
07:19And this thing that I saw,
07:21it had a tail, a long tail.
07:24The next option would have been a cougar,
07:26but there are no such thing
07:27as black cougars.
07:29And they're not that big.
07:31I probably watched the thing
07:32for 20 minutes in total.
07:35And I took my attention off it.
07:36And when I got to another vantage
07:38where I could see the lake again,
07:39it was gone.
07:42What were you thinking at that time?
07:44I was shocked to think
07:46that there's a creature
07:47out here in these woods
07:48that we don't know what it is
07:49and it's that large.
07:51It was a little disconcerting,
07:52I'll be honest with you.
07:53When did you connect
07:54your sighting to the ape cat?
07:56My wife and I own an outdoor store.
07:57And one night,
07:58a guy came in
07:59and told me a story
08:00that really kind of blew me away.
08:03He was up near
08:04the White Salmon River,
08:05one of the major rivers here.
08:07He saw this enormous cat.
08:10And he described it
08:11as having black fur
08:13and a long tail.
08:15And then he said,
08:16you know, James,
08:17the strangest thing
08:19was that it had a face
08:20that looked like a monkey.
08:22And I had no idea
08:25like how genetically
08:26a cat and a monkey
08:28be combined into a thing.
08:29But it seemed like
08:30he was very genuine and credible.
08:32And I really wanted to understand
08:33what this thing was.
08:35So I started asking around.
08:36I put up flyers,
08:37we put out radio ads,
08:38and now we have over
08:40130 reports of the cat.
08:42Wow.
08:43Yeah.
08:44So considering all the reports
08:45you've heard,
08:46where do you think
08:47we should focus our efforts?
08:48You got that map
08:49I sent you, right?
08:50Yes.
08:50And get out.
08:54Okay.
08:55So I created this map
08:56based on all the reports
08:57that I got.
08:58And these icons,
08:59each of these represents
09:00a credible sighting.
09:02That's correct.
09:03That's a ton.
09:04I know.
09:05And do you see how
09:05they're clustered
09:06along the waterways?
09:07Yeah.
09:07It seems like
09:08they're using the waterways
09:09as their sort of transit system.
09:11So that's really
09:12where I would start.
09:13Right along the White Salmon River
09:14and right along
09:15Panther Creek Falls area.
09:17Well, thank you.
09:17This is incredibly useful data for us.
09:20Any advice for us
09:21as we go looking for this thing?
09:22This thing is an apex predator
09:24built for stealth
09:25and it's going to see you
09:27before you see it.
09:28Before you head out,
09:29there's one more person
09:30you got to talk to.
09:31Who?
09:32The sheriff.
09:34You bet.
09:34All right, James.
09:35Appreciate it.
09:36Never wanting to keep the law waiting,
09:39Heather and I head into town
09:40for our summons
09:41at the Skamania County Courthouse.
09:43Hi, Sheriff.
09:44Hi.
09:45I'm Phil.
09:45Hi.
09:46Nice to meet you.
09:47Sheriff Summer Shire
09:48oversees search and rescue operations
09:50throughout the Columbia River Gorge region
09:52and has chilling reports to share
09:54from deep in the wilderness.
09:57There's something out in these woods
09:58that might be dangerous for our community.
10:00I want that identified
10:01and that's why you are here.
10:03Okay.
10:04We'll do our best.
10:05We've heard a lot of stories,
10:06but from you,
10:07we want the facts.
10:09What's going on out there?
10:10I have heard reports
10:12of this ape cat.
10:14I've been very skeptical of it.
10:16However,
10:17one of my deputies came to me
10:19and said,
10:20I've seen something similar to ape cat.
10:22One of your deputies has seen it.
10:24Yes.
10:25He was out hunting
10:27and he saw a very large black cat
10:31walking across the field.
10:33He's very well versed in the outdoors.
10:35He knows what's indigenous to the area.
10:38He said he's never seen anything like it before
10:41and could not figure out
10:43why he saw what he saw.
10:45Wow.
10:46I wasn't expecting that answer from you.
10:48You're telling me
10:48this could really be out there.
10:50Absolutely.
10:53Beyond the ape cat,
10:55there are a lot of hazards
10:56and dangers out there.
10:57In fact, last year,
10:58two gentlemen were about 30 miles away from here
11:01and died in the woods
11:03looking for cryptids.
11:07And that's my team
11:08that has to bring those bodies out.
11:10So we want answers,
11:11but I don't want to be dragging you
11:13out of the woods in a body bag.
11:16We don't want that either.
11:17No.
11:18We'll be careful
11:18and we'll let you know
11:19what we find out there.
11:20Excellent.
11:21All right.
11:21Thank you, Sheriff.
11:22Great to meet you.
11:23Great to meet you.
11:24Lovely.
11:24Great to meet you.
11:24Good luck.
11:25Thanks.
11:27Heeding the Sheriff's warning,
11:28Heather and I prepare to set out
11:30for the rugged terrain
11:31of what some say
11:32is Ape Cat Country.
11:34James' map points us
11:36to two hotspots.
11:37We'll tackle Little White Salmon River first,
11:40navigating a three-mile stretch,
11:42placing trail cams along the way.
11:44Then we'll hike up
11:45to Panther Creek Falls,
11:46which has the highest concentration
11:48of supposed sightings.
11:50Little White Salmon River
11:51has some seriously tough white water
11:53to navigate.
11:54Let's hit the water.
11:56So we enlist a local guide
11:57to help us ride the rapids.
12:02Heather, I'm at your pace.
12:09So you see a lot of coogies out here?
12:11We sure got them out here.
12:13They're here.
12:14There's a reason they call it
12:16Panther Creek Falls.
12:17What about black ones?
12:19I haven't seen a black one myself,
12:21but I've heard stories.
12:23Cats don't like people.
12:24They're really reclusive.
12:25So the further you get away
12:27from civilization,
12:28the more likely you are to find them.
12:30So we're heading in the right direction.
12:32Oh, yes, we are.
12:33Copy that.
12:38All right, looks like
12:39we got some rapids coming up.
12:40All right, let's get this.
12:43We're in battle.
12:44Give us a bar.
12:46No.
12:51Here we go, here we go.
13:00Keep it going, keep it going, keep it going, keep it going.
13:06Oh, no.
13:09No.
13:10No, no, no, no.
13:18No, no, no.
13:24Billy, are you okay?
13:25Whoa.
13:26Get them shoulder shots.
13:29Look at them.
13:32You good?
13:33you good yeah oh god hey how about next time i'll stay on the boat huh yeah that'd be great
13:41though it's not easy with rough water heather and i scan the shoreline as we go
13:46searching for the best spots to mount our trail camps well game show coming right down to the water
13:54any animal around here that wants to go for a drink is going to pass
13:57through this trail i doused the trees with a horrifically pungent cocktail of animal
14:03musk and pheromones designed to attract any wild predators oh that is horrible
14:10hopefully including the ape cat
14:14we blanket the three-mile stretch of river with six trail camps
14:21camera trap is set then it's time to shift our focus to a main hot spot of sightings
14:27panther creek falls this is the end of the line all right from here we hide the other all right
14:36all right guys i'll secure the raft i'll set up camp i'll see you when you get back
14:40hi mark thanks for the ride good luck out there guys be careful you got it
14:51look i know we have our bear spray with us but what do we do if we see a big
14:54cat
14:55well first of all don't run you want to look as large as possible maintain eye contact then back
15:01away slowly okay so only the most dangerous staring contest of my life yeah pretty much if you blink
15:07you die great no blinking or go away you hear that water it's gotta be panther creek follow that up
15:15river
15:15we hit panther creek falls awesome let's go
15:18all right look at that welcome to panther creek falls
15:32it's amazing it's incredible well i see the creek i see the falls now all we need is that ape
15:42cat who
15:42knows maybe that's what they were seeing back in the 1800s who knows so notice how we kind of have
15:47to
15:47yell here yeah i want to use that to our advantage for any of the wildcats in the area their
15:53main
15:54advantage over us is their ability to hear us coming and their vision this noise it levels the
16:01playing field a bit and when it comes to that vision of theirs when we were out here tonight
16:05i'm going to go completely lights out only night vision you want to look for this thing in the dark
16:10you look for ghosts in the dark all the time they're not going to eat me true well i'll tell
16:15you
16:15what while we do have some daylight i want to put up some camera traps then let's head to higher
16:19ground
16:19so we have a better vantage point over everything all right let's get to it okay
16:39okay i think this might be the sweet spot because the creek and the falls are still masking our noise
16:44a little bit we have a very good vantage point of the habitat around here great what are you thinking
16:49i'm thinking you post up here take advantage of the visibility i will head further upstream see if
16:54i can find some physical evidence of what's living around here okay and from here on out if you're
16:59going to use a light use these red lights cats can't see it very well and the red light wavelength
17:04doesn't travel very far and cameras let's switch to ir all right good luck and stay safe we got it
17:15it is incredibly creepy in these woods it's pitch black and i can't hear anything so the best way that
17:23i
17:23think i'm going to feel somewhat aware of my surroundings are night vision goggles
17:34i'm looking for signs of scat markings clawed up trees anything that could be a sign of a large cat
17:46you're not seeing anything right now though
17:57oh oh look at these great marks
18:03the way that this bark is peeled back and slashed up i'm sure many of you have seen a house
18:09cat do this
18:10the furniture this is what the bigger cats do look at the size the animal would have to be to
18:15reach all
18:16the way up here and scrape the bark off if this were a bear you would just see claw marks
18:21but this is
18:22continual scraping that is a large animal i'm like shaking i'm not seeing any fur any scat so i'm gonna
18:32get a photo
18:38all right if this thing is close it is time to get out the flare
18:47this is slightly terrifying we are in this thing's territory it will see us before we see it
18:58i can make out the stream down below dark dark blue not seeing anything alive around here though
19:12it's awfully quiet
19:21i can make out the stream
19:22did you hear that did you hear that there's nothing on the goggles
19:38what's that
19:40oh my god
19:43i just saw eyeshine over there
19:50it's gone
19:55i can't see anything
19:58phil i just saw eyeshine
20:00you got eyeshine
20:01it looked big
20:03that it completely disappeared
20:05stay put up in your way
20:07all right let's move
20:16where's the eyeshine
20:17it was this way
20:19that way that way
20:20yeah
20:20keep the light low
20:22please the flare
20:28could you make out any details for this no it looked like two glowing eyes if they were glowing like
20:34that
20:34you may have seen
20:36a big cat
20:38there is something out there
20:40i'm not getting anything
20:46whoa whoa
20:46what do you mean whoa whoa whoa
20:48whoa
20:48look look
20:50there is a warm squad
20:51where
20:52on the ground right in front of us
20:54look look at that leaf it's right down right there
20:58something was sitting there
21:00are you kidding me
21:02were you down on the ground over here
21:04no
21:05not that means that something was here
21:08i think this thing is close
21:15whoa
21:15what
21:17whoa
21:18oh my god
21:28heather
21:28what
21:29you got bear spray
21:30yeah
21:31something just jumped
21:32no
21:33something just jumped down there
21:34it looked like a cat
21:35what
21:42i mean
21:44there was something here heather
21:47where is it
21:50did it go where did it go where did it go
21:52not seeing any signatures right now
21:57whoa
21:59okay
22:00looks like there's a bit of a game trail here along the creek
22:16there's a scent mark here
22:18smell that come here smells musky
22:21any animal passing underneath this might leave a hair behind look for hair scat claw marks
22:27you watch my back
22:29cool okay okay
22:36oh
22:37look
22:38that is a hair right there
22:40yes i see that that has to be from what we just saw we've walked right through here left a
22:46hair behind
22:48and heather craziest thing about this hair it's colored what color is it it's black
22:54it's black yes we may be on something here all right i'm gonna back up for it blows away
23:14it's black
23:14got it
23:15all right not to freak you out even more but that heat signature i found on the ground
23:20that was close to you that could have been this animal stalking you watching you
23:28of course it was and the way it moved on the fleer it seemed like it knew where it was
23:31going
23:32so so what it comes in here to hunt and then heads back to its den somewhere else
23:36i mean that's kind of what james is saying he thinks that ape cats use this waterway to navigate
23:42the eric question is where's that den let's keep looking but no more splitting up
23:50phil and i continue searching panther creek falls until sunrise but we don't uncover any additional
23:56leads it did feel like we were being stalked by whatever we encountered at panther creek
24:01so the next morning i connect with an eyewitness who reported experiencing something similar
24:05he felt certain he was being pursued by the ape cat jasper thanks for meeting with me yeah of
24:12course jasper foster is a seasoned hunter familiar with every animal in these woods but he says one
24:19fateful night he encountered a beast with a frightening unnatural intelligence i hear you've
24:24had an encounter with what people are calling the ape cat i did tell me what happened well me and
24:29my
24:29buddy were driving out to the big lava bed to go camping
24:34it's an extremely dangerous place in the last 50 years there's multiple people still missing out there
24:41and all of a sudden we saw a massive black object bound down off the embankment
24:53stopped in the road in front of us it looks at us and we see its eyes it was a
24:58cat but neither one
25:00of us ever saw a cat like that before how is it different now all the cougars have seen none
25:05of them
25:05been black and this one was jet black and it was massive far larger than any other cougar i've seen
25:12before and its face looked flat more like an ape's face than a cat we're just sitting there staring at
25:21each other until it bounded off the side of the road and into the woods
25:28our curiosity uh you know got the better of us me and my buddy decided to head on in after
25:34it you
25:34decided to go in after it yes indeed we're pursuing it into the lava bed but we lost its tracks
25:47the only thing i could think was it took high ground
25:51we were in a box canyon walls on each side of us 15 20 foot high and i had a
25:58moment of realization
26:00that it may be setting an ambush for us you think this thing led you into a box cannon to
26:07be trapped
26:07and killed uh that moment yeah is that typical cougar behavior no it seems a little bit more
26:14intelligent than your normal cougar i mean that's terrifying it was and me and my buddy made the
26:21best decision we made all night probably and got the hell out of there while heather meets her eyewitness
26:26i'm eager to interrogate the conspiracy theory that the ape cat is a product of secret experiments
26:32gone wrong at a nearby former government facility the hanford site nice to meet you i'm phil nice to
26:38meet you i'm meeting with professor robert franklin chief archivist of the hanford project who has
26:44researched the site's once top secret records a lot of people are talking about this thing that they're
26:50calling the ape cat and linking it to the hanford site i'm wondering if there's any merit to it and
26:56trying to get a sense of what really happened there well hanford site is one of the three sites of
27:03the
27:03manhattan project where we made plutonium for the world's first test of a nuclear weapon and for the
27:10fat man bomb that was dropped on nagasaki it made two-thirds of the united states's plutonium
27:17wow how come no one knows about this place it was designed to be secret and it was a pretty
27:23well
27:23kept secret hanford is creating massive amounts of radiation and one way that they determined
27:29radiation's effects on the body was to experiment with animals so it is a fact that animal experimentation
27:37was happening at the hanford site absolutely i gotta know what kind of animals dogs sheep alligators
27:44alligators alligators did they have cats yes in the 1980s when they were digging up the corpses of
27:53the animals to dispose of them properly they found felines within the carcasses
27:59no way so it's possible the ape cat could have come from experiments down at this site absolutely
28:06and so i guess the question on everyone's mind around here is could an animal escape and insert
28:12a novel set of mutations into the population here that resulted in this thing that people
28:18are calling the ape cat absolutely it could have and hanford is having an effect on surrounding
28:24communities we know that hanford discharged radiation into the columbia river and wild animals
28:30were getting exposures too really oh yeah sometimes truth is really strange and hanford did some really
28:38crazy stuff still digesting the fact that many of the wildest claims about the hanford site are actually
28:45true i meet back up with heather her witness has given us the coordinates where he had his encounter
28:51miles off the main road
28:56so get this not only is it entirely possible that a radioactive cat escaped from the hanford site
29:03but it is a fact that radiation contaminated the local environment meaning it would have caused
29:09mutations in the wildlife surrounding it so you're saying the ape cat could have been a result of this
29:14listen i still think that's a stretch but i guarantee you that the secrecy of the hanford site
29:19has made the lore surrounding the end cat much much wilder
29:27you don't get car sick do you heather i really really do i guess i'm having a lot more fun
29:32than
29:32you are yep we're testing lemons today oh my god
29:38our bumpy ride is just a preview of the punishing ground we'll be covering tonight the big lava bed is
29:44it's an 8 000 year old lava flow fractured into sharp ridges and hidden caves only four miles from
29:51panther creek falls this area is another hot spot that local expert james marked on his map of supposed
29:57ape cat sightings but it remains largely unexplored and he gave us a clear warning why this lava bed is
30:05some of
30:06the most treacherous landscape you're ever going to find it's filled with micro canyons and hidden
30:11lava tube caves the rock is unstable no one goes in there and because of that i think the creature
30:16might be actually living there be careful out there i've been in every kind of terrain there is
30:21and that place terrifies me
30:26all right waypoint should be right up here let's get set up yeah
30:33we got to keep our eyes peeled the safe cat could be out here i feel like we're about to
30:37find out
30:47whoa i see why they call it the big lava bed look at all that volcanic rock yeah it's like
30:53another
30:53planet yeah we're not kidding about this terrain it is rough out here this is a perfect example of a
31:01collapsed lava tube which is going to result in caves right and this lava bed is the size of manhattan
31:07so
31:07that means there's plenty of potential dents for the ape cat yeah and i knew we were gonna have a
31:11lot of ground to cover which is why i brought us something special
31:23so this is a military grade thermal drone with target tracking capabilities we had such great
31:30luck last night using a thermal camera i figured why not take it to the air perfect it's good eyes
31:35in the sky let's do it okay
31:46all right that must be us yeah that's us okay let's see what else is out there
31:53this is going to be challenging though because these lava rocks are absorbing heat all day from the sun
31:58so we're seeing a lot of bright areas what we really got to look out for is movement okay
32:06i'm going to send this thing really far out there but we also got to know what's close i got
32:11my
32:11thermal scope in my bag here okay on it i'll make sure nothing sneaks up on us perfect
32:24i'll tell you what i don't know if i could not run if i saw a big cat staring at
32:28me back through this
32:29i wouldn't mind if you ran go after you all right you seen anything nothing yet but we got a
32:38time
32:45it's so quiet yeah can't even hear the drone it's so far off
32:53oh got some movement got some movement another look on the left of the screen oh my god what is
32:59that
33:01oh
33:04looks like it has a long tail yeah it's moving oh my god that looks big oh it just disappeared
33:12yeah
33:13it's like it's just vanished you seeing it no i don't see it i don't either do you know where
33:19that is looks like it's about 500 yards away tell you what i'm going to turn on the beacon light
33:24leave the drone hovering let's get over there and find this thing okay
33:31i see the drone up there i see it you got it this way okay yeah there it is around
33:37these trees
33:38and look down here game trail leading right to it do you see anything on there right now no i
33:46don't
33:46see anything but the drone could be scaring it off i'm gonna back it off and set it to run
33:52a grid on
33:52the rest of the big lava bed as for us let's head in okay whoa look at that is that
34:01the tree yeah that's
34:03gotta be the log that he was running on oh let's get down there okay
34:11not seeing any tracks in the dirt here not seeing any hairs
34:21oh heather look is that a cave we got ourselves a cave now we know how this thing disappeared on
34:31us
34:31must have ran straight inside you know it might still be in there yeah let's sit up
34:41all right let's go ahead
34:53wow there's so many boulders for this thing behind yeah
34:59this cave could be the perfect den for a large cat it's critical that our rules of engagement
35:05change from last night in the open forest any cougar we encounter could easily run away from us
35:11deep in this cave a cornered cat is much more likely to violently defend itself we need to be extra
35:18cautious anything could happen down here wow look how far back it goes
35:26it just keeps going i'm not seeing any scat fur no signs of what might be living in here
35:38oh what does that smell i don't know it does smell awful oh look oh oh my god
35:52the top secret hanford nuclear site said by some to be the source of the ape cat is confirmed to
35:59have
35:59birthed irradiated alligators but there's one more infamous fugitive from this government facility
36:06in 2009 the base went on high alert when radioactive bunny droppings were discovered
36:12no this wasn't from some mutant super bunny instead it was a wild rabbit with a taste for the toxic
36:18material buried at hanford cruise sealed its burrow but where was the radioactive wabbit
36:24well luckily the bunny droppings were so hot on the geiger counter they were trackable by helicopter
36:31officials scanned over 10 000 acres gps tagging every piece of plutonium powered poop unfortunately
36:40no day glow bunny was ever found it's all just another strange chapter in hanford's
36:46hair raising history hair rabbit you get it those hooves oh my god this smells awful there's no air
37:01circulation down here i'm trying to figure out if this is just an animal that got lost in this cave
37:07fell and died or if there are definitive marks on it that say a predator did this
37:14though there's pieces of it everywhere that animal didn't fall yeah and i'm seeing some bite marks
37:19on there heather i gotta document this you watching my back watching it
37:31there's a significant chance that this is where whatever we just saw brings its prey i mean a
37:37cooger can drag an entire deer up a tree it absolutely is strong enough to drag it through this cave
37:44oh
37:49what's that i think there was something up there look there's another way out
37:53oh my god
38:06look look in the dirt see this this is scuffed so something just ran right through here looks like it
38:17what's going this way
38:25what what my gosh look at that you see the three lobes four toe pads yeah typical of a cat
38:34but these
38:34these things are huge is this the ape cat i don't know but this is the biggest cougar print i
38:42have ever
38:42seen i'm gonna get a scan of it okay okay look at that i don't know what we're dealing with
38:50here
38:51well one thing's for sure it's a massive cat yeah and we may have just followed this thing through
38:58it's dead and we know it went that way so we gotta see what other physical evidence we can find
39:06let's move
39:10phil and heather spent the rest of the night trying to track down the huge cat-like shape
39:15they saw on the thermal drone oh my god what is that but found no more signs of it it
39:21just disappeared
39:22the team still captured a wealth of remarkable evidence showing that there is something special
39:28stalking washington's columbia river gorge oh look that is a hair we conducted dna testing on
39:37the hairs phil found near panther creek falls the results were conclusive they belong to puma
39:44concholar cougar aka a north american cougar cougars have been known to kill humans heather's life truly was
39:53in danger that heat signature i found on the ground that was close to you that could have been
39:58this animal stalking you we also did toothpick analysis on the deer bones the team found in the
40:05lava tube the marks left on the bones match those made by carnassial teeth used by dogs cats and other
40:13beasts to tear meat off the bone humans don't have these teeth but theoretically could an ape cat
40:20my gosh look at that the paw print phil documented just outside the lava tube was also intriguing
40:28it measured four and three quarter inches long which is very large for a cougar
40:33you are gonna want to see this but a bombshell was yet to come all of this evidence for and
40:41against the
40:42existence of the ape cat would arguably be put to rest by video the team caught on the trail cams
40:48around panther creek in addition to capturing an owl and an impressive black bear there is footage
40:55that seems to reveal the truth up on the ridge to check this camera trap and wait till you see
41:03this
41:05oh look at that isn't that incredible you know it's not black but to me this looks a few shades
41:12darker than
41:13your average cougar and look at the size it looks huge this is great to me the evidence doesn't get
41:20clear it's a cougar this is a case of misidentification there is no ape cat case closed
41:28yes it appears the case of the ape cat is closed that is until something
41:33all together more monstrous is caught on camera
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