Weird Footage That Still Can't Be Explained

If you're an aficionado of the strange and unusual, you've heard many a weird tale. But, as the old saying goes, talk is cheap. While we might enjoy a spooky story told around a campfire, it's hardly proof. Would some unexplained footage do the trick?

Perhaps. Looking at the wide variety of creepy videos out there, it's clear that some are faked, and rather badly, too. With the advent of more accessible technology like editing suites and 3D modeling software, it's even easier nowadays to whip up a ghost or two while sitting at your desktop. Plus, there's the classic misstep of misidentifying common things — say, the planet Venus or an everyday forest animal — as something more exciting, like an extraterrestrial craft or bigfoot.

But if you're willing to accept uncertainty, then quite a few videos present evidence of weird happenings that might have you rethinking things. From mysterious disappearances to cryptids to strange lights in the sky, this particular set of weird footage still defies explanation.

Back in 2004, U.S. Navy pilots stationed on the Pacific Coast saw something weird — really weird. Cmdr. David Fravor and Lt. Cmdr. Alex Dietrich were stationed on the U.S.S. Nimitz along the coast of Southern California when radar spotted odd airborne anomalies. The two (along with their weapons systems officers) peeled off from their squadron to take a look. These four witnesses saw what Fravor later described as a large white Tic Tac that hovered above the waves and appeared to mimic their movements ... without any visible exhaust, propulsion systems, or identifying markings. Fravor later testified that it also appeared to accelerate at shocking speeds. More fighters were sent from the Nimitz, including Lt. Cmdr. Chad Underwood, who captured footage of this object on his jet's forward-looking infrared (FLIR) camera.

Additional footage of unidentified aerial phenomena (UAPs) was captured by Navy jets in 2014, 2015, and 2019. However, the U.S. Department of Defense didn't officially release the first three videos until 2020. The department confirmed the authenticity of the other videos in 2021. The Pentagon released even more footage in 2023, recorded by military drones.

Many of the experienced Navy pilots say they still don't understand what they saw; the objects seen in the U.S. Navy footage remain officially "unidentified." Some suggest it's a series of instrument malfunctions and software glitches, human error, or even misidentified commercial airlines or party balloons.

For many, 2016 was already a notoriously tough year. Then, there were the scary clown sightings. Starting sometime around August 2016 in the United States, unidentified people dressed as horror movie-style clowns began popping up seemingly everywhere. They were spotted doing everything from almost innocuous actions (standing on a street holding balloons), to skirting the edge of law-breaking (lurking around on the sides of roads and on home security footage, as NEWS CENTER Maine showed), to overt criminal activity (chasing passers-by down the street and, in the case of one Swedish incident, stabbing a minor).

So, with all this footage of clowns being creepy on Ring cameras, we'd know who they were, right? Not exactly. Apart from actual crimes where be-clowned assailants were apprehended, not many of the 2016 clowns were identified. Some suggested that the spate of sightings had something to do with the pending 2017 premiere of "It," an adaptation of Stephen King's scary clown-centric 1986 horror novel. Perhaps people just latched onto it as a trend, for fun or maybe to blow off steam in a stressful year. Still, the cause behind this brief but memorable clown panic remains obscure.

Back in the 1980s, Max Headroom was already an enigma. Making his debut in 1985, he was a supposedly computer-generated TV host who was actually played by a heavily made-up human actor, Matt Frewer. But an unauthorized appearance of his may be one of the biggest unsolved mysteries of the 1980s. It happened on November 22, 1987, during an average Sunday evening of broadcast TV in Chicago. During a sports segment on WGN-TV, the signal cut to a black screen. Then, Max Headroom showed up — well, someone in a Max Headroom mask who loomed in front of a rotating background while static blasted. Engineers switched the broadcast feed after 30 seconds or so, cutting to a confused newscaster who greeted the interruption with a grin.

About two hours later, another channel was broken into by the signal, this time showing the masked Max Headroom impersonator and including garbled audio that seemed to mock WGN-TV's sports director when it wasn't pure nonsense or him whining after being struck by a fly swatter (indicating at least one other collaborator). Despite investigations by both the FCC and the FBI, not to mention 2010 allegations by an unidentified Redditor, no perpetrator or motivation was definitively identified.

Folie á deux — or "double madness" — is a very real issue. Essentially, it is a period of mental instability in which two or more people share paranoid delusions. It was demonstrated in shocking fashion on the BBC, originally on reality show "Traffic Cops" and then 2010's "Madness in the Fast Lane." 

In mid-May 2008, Swedish twins Sabina and Ursula Eriksson traveled from Sabina's residence in Ireland to Liverpool. Sabina made a police report concerning her children's safety, then boarded a bus with Ursula to London. At some point, they left the bus — either because they felt sick or the driver and passengers were unnerved by them — and found themselves alongside the M6 highway, where they briefly spoke to police. They got onto the median, at which point the police were called again. Ursula abruptly attempted to flee into the highway but struck the side of a large truck and suffered major leg fractures. 

Sabina attempted the same, rolled over a car's hood, and was knocked unconscious. When she awoke, Sabina attacked officers and was handcuffed. The injured Ursula was hospitalized, while Sabina — somehow escaping major injury — went to the police station. She was released after just one day, with no psychiatric checkup. Left to wander nearby Stoke-on-Trent, she was helped by local Glenn Hollinshead, whom she fatally stabbed. She was put on trial and served her sentence, but the twins never explained the source of their madness or why Sabina attacked Hollinshead.

At first, Elisa Lam must have seemed like just about any other tourist in LA. There, she stayed at the Cecil Hotel, an admittedly shady place. While previously unhoused people who lived there weren't inherently threats to Lam, something nevertheless went wrong during her stay. Lam was recorded on security cameras in a hotel elevator, moving in and out of the car while it was stopped at a floor. She occasionally appeared to hide or exited to speak and gesture at an unseen person (or no one at all).

Then, Lam disappeared. Her body was discovered 19 days later inside a rooftop water tank. Lam's tragic death was ruled accidental, with her bipolar disorder considered a contributing factor, but it's unclear how Lam accessed the roof. Given reports by eyewitnesses, Lam exhibited paranoid and potentially threatening behavior toward other guests, lending credence to the theory that she was experiencing a mental health crisis. Still, when the police released the elevator security camera footage, other theories gained traction, from the supernatural (Lam was somehow dealing with a ghost) to the terrestrial (she was being threatened by someone). But with only the footage and very little physical evidence, Lam's odd death remains unexplained.

One clip from a Texas home could be just as weird as UFO footage from a U.S. Navy fighter jet. The footage in question was recorded in a Houston suburb in March 2017, at the home of Erica Garner. While filling her dogs' water dishes, a blue light flashes across the bottom of the screen. Garner and her dogs see it, too, with her asking aloud, "What was that? That was weird. That's really weird." Garner told "The Proof Is Out There" that her eyes began to burn shortly thereafter, and her sleep was disturbed by odd dreams with interstellar imagery.

A photography expert told "The Proof Is Out There" that there were no shadows cast in the flash, and the footage appeared to indicate a jump of approximately seven seconds. Another investigator initially wondered if a dying lightbulb might be to blame, but an at-home test by the Garners didn't replicate the effect, while another scientist confirmed that lightning wasn't the cause. With those explanations more or less eliminated, the blue flash never got a satisfying conclusion.

The Paris Catacombs first came into being in the late 18th century, when it became all too clear that Parisian cemeteries were full to bursting. Officials ordered exhumations, with bones deposited in subterranean caverns created by old mining operations. Today, part of the catacombs is a major tourist attraction (thanks in part to Napoleon), but urban explorers known as cataphiles push farther into its 185 miles of passages. Less-knowledgeable thrill-seekers who trash the place and wander off are a bigger issue.

People have gotten lost for days in the catacombs, and one death has been confirmed, that of Philibert Aspairt in 1793. But perhaps you should add one more to that tally. As aired in 2000 on "Scariest Places on Earth," filmmaker Francis Freedland claimed to have recovered a tape found in the catacombs. It showed a point-of-view shot of a person moving through a deep part of the catacombs, showing real locations in the tunnels. The unseen videographer grows increasingly frantic, finally running through the catacombs then dropping the camera as they run from the scene.

This film — conveniently devoid of faces and never released unedited — could easily have been faked. It's also odd that police never got involved. Still, Freedland never admitted to any fakery, and Aspairt's tragic story indicates that death could still happen in the catacombs.

When it comes to purported footage of a bigfoot, little else compares to what's now called the Patterson-Gimlin film. Shot in 1967, it allegedly shows a female bigfoot (popularly dubbed Patty) walking into the woods near Bluff Creek in remote Northern California. Though it's not without controversy, the footage is widely regarded as something of a gold standard for bigfoot evidence. On an episode of the History Channel's "MonsterQuest," researchers including academic bigfoot champion and anthropologist Jeff Meldrum attempted to recreate the stance and stride of Patty and claimed that it was difficult if not impossible for a human to mimic.

That's not to say the footage is without its detractors. Namely, there are allegations that good old Patty is really a guy in a modified gorilla suit. Costume maker Phillip Morris claimed that he provided just such a getup to Patterson, who asked for tips on how to hide the zipper and make the wearer appear larger than life. What's more, Bob Heironimus said that he was in the suit. Yet, neither has produced definitive evidence, and advocates like Meldrum continue to claim that the bigfoot seen in the footage has a distinctly non-human walk. Heironimus has also been hit by allegations that he came up with the false story of his participation just for notoriety, while his account of a homemade horse hair-enhanced suit doesn't line up with Morris' gorilla costume story. With so much hearsay and little concrete evidence, the film must still stand on its own.

At just over 20 miles south of Los Angeles, Catalina Island is part of the region's Channel Islands. Depending on who you ask, this popular tourist destination may also be a UFO hotspot, with many strange shapes and lights spotted not just in the skies above Catalina but submerged in the nearby ocean. Further adding to the evidence is a weird anomaly in the skies recorded by the UAPx research group in July 2021. At nearly 4 a.m., one of their motion detector cameras captured the oddity, which appears as a dark blob with points of light inside it. Could it be another UFO sighting? An interdimensional wormhole? Perhaps it's worth noting that Catalina Island isn't far from where U.S. Navy aircraft carriers encountered the infamous "Tic Tac" object.

Analysts working with "The Proof Is Out There" weren't sure. It could be that this is just a misidentified camera glitch, though physicist Michio Kaku gamely explained the existence of black holes and their possible use as wormholes ... while also noting there should be visible gravitational effects seen around the anomaly if that were the case. He also noted that airplane exhaust could create temperature differences known as fallstreak holes that might explain the visual weirdness. UAPx scientists say they checked FAA records and couldn't find aircraft flights planned for that time and place, while also noting that no other camera glitches were noted on that research expedition.

Is there an Alaskan cryptid out there? Footage filmed in 2009 in Nushagak Bay, a large estuary in southwestern Alaska, might just show one. Kelly Nash, a salmon fisherman, was out in the estuary with his two sons. When the trio saw something strange in the water, they whipped out a camera and began filming.

What they recorded appears to show a creature wending its way through the water, leading some to believe it's an example of the mysterious Cadborosaurus (or Caddy) supposedly spotted along the Alaskan and British Columbian coast. But is it really a massive snake-like sea monster? Well, the footage is a rather grainy black-and-white specimen that (perhaps conveniently) makes it difficult to identify just what was wiggling around in the waters of Nushagak Bay. Michael Primeau, a forensic video analyst, told "The Proof Is Out There" that the video appears to have been enlarged and stabilized, which made it difficult for him to judge its authenticity. Marine biologist Dr. Shea Steingass nixed the idea of a reptile, which would have a supremely difficult time surviving in the cold waters, while other candidates such as an oarfish or eel don't quite match up with known species in the area. Another popular explanation — a group of seals — doesn't make sense either, as they aren't known to swim about in a neat line. Steingass admitted she wasn't sure what it was, leaving this (potentially suspect) video in an interesting limbo.

Starting in November 2024, a spate of sightings began in the skies above New Jersey. Residents of the Garden State reported seeing what they thought were odd drones flying about at night. When they contacted police, law enforcement had a difficult time tracking the drones. The FBI got involved too, but few answers were relayed to the public, leaving many to spin out stories of foreign surveillance, extraterrestrial visitors, radioactive material detection efforts, or other ominous explanations. Ultimately, a White House spokesperson under the Biden administration said that these were legal aircraft but left it at that. The next January, the newly installed Trump administration offered a little more info, with White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt telling reporters that the drones were "authorized to be flown by the FAA for research and various other reasons" (via C-SPAN).

However, Leavitt offered no further explanation on just what that research was, much less what she meant by the supremely vague "various other reasons." Likewise, all the previous assurances that national security wasn't at risk didn't inspire much confidence. Anyone not in the know is still left with many questions about the footage: Just what research was being done? By whom? Why were drones involved? Why didn't the FAA bother to give federal or local law enforcement agencies a heads-up? To date, many lingering questions remain.

In the age of the internet, it may seem like UFO videos are a dime a (doctored) dozen. That's why one video from the early 2000s in Turkey is especially intriguing. Filmed by Yalçin Yalman just outside Istanbul, it allegedly shows an early-morning UFO floating above the Sea of Marmara. Yalman even claims he recorded the shapes of two extraterrestrial pilots via a large window in the craft.

Is that what we're really seeing? Forensic video analyst Michael Primeau told "The Proof Is Out There" that while the blurry footage was compressed, there isn't any evidence showing further manipulation. Likewise, the Turkish government believes this footage to be authentic. (It certainly hasn't said that it could be a military vehicle, despite Turkey's rather large military.) Others expressed skepticism that you would be able to see anyone in a far-away craft, while the low-res footage makes definitive identification hard. 

Aviation expert Lt. Tim McMillan told "The Proof Is Out There" that this region sees numerous military training exercises, but the silent, lens-shaped craft in the footage doesn't match up with known human craft. He wondered if it might be a visual phenomenon called fata morgana, which can make it look like watercraft are floating above the horizon (and it's worth noting the Sea of Marmara is a very busy shipping corridor). But was this UFO too far above the horizon? Perhaps. Given the lingering questions, whatever is in Yalman's footage remains unidentified.

John "Jack" Wheeler graduated not just from Yale but also Harvard University and West Point, becoming special assistant to the Secretary of the Air Force and a military consultant. Things went awry in the waning days of 2010. On December 28, he traveled alone from New York City to his family's second home in Delaware. There, a house in construction across the street — which Wheeler had complained about many times — was the target of a mysterious arson attack. Wheeler's cell phone was found on the scene.

The next day, Wheeler called off work, claiming a robber had taken his cell phone and other work materials. At a local pharmacy, CCTV footage captured Wheeler asking patrons for a ride to nearby Wilmington. A parking garage in that city recorded him less than an hour later, wandering around with one of his own shoes in his hand and appearing distressed. The next day, yet another security camera caught him in the Nemours building in Wilmington. On December 31, a neighbor noticed an open window and, upon checking on the home, found its contents scattered about. That same day, his remains were found in the Cherry Island Landfill, having apparently been placed in a dumpster in nearby Newark, Delaware. 

Though his death was ruled homicide by assault, valuables like Wheeler's Rolex watch remained on his body. His wife Kathy Klyce has offered two explanations, telling The Washington Post that he was likely experiencing some sort of dissociative or paranoid episode, but also noting to both that publication and Slate that Wheeler may have run afoul of some mysterious enemy.

There's something odd going on in the skies above Norway. Specifically, the skies above the Hessdalen Valley and the village contained therein, which are occasionally graced by odd, pulsating lights that have been spotted since at least the early 20th century. The Hessdalen lights are of such interest that, in 1998, researchers installed the Hessdalen Automatic Measurement System to keep tabs on the valley. Also known as the Blue Box, it was revamped in 2024 and currently operates two cameras and other instruments to gain more insight into the lights. Individuals have also captured the occasional footage of the orbs.

One particular set of videos, shared with "The Proof Is Out There," was recorded by Erling Strand, a now-retired computer science professor who has studied the lights since 1984. They appear to show an amorphous light cruising above the valley, occasionally changing shape and flickering in and out of view. Analysts speaking with the show noted that common explanations like reflected car headlights or misidentified airplanes don't line up with the behavior of the lights. Perhaps the geology of the area has created an electrical field that generates the lights ... but the river running through the valley might interrupt the sort of electric circuit or magnetic field necessary to make it happen. Generally speaking, scientists agree that more data is needed before making a definitive identification.

On the evening of September 12, 1987, Dale Kerstetter began his shift as a security guard at the Corning Glass Works in Bradford, Pennsylvania. The next morning a fellow guard came in to find no one at all. Kerstetter's personal effects including his still-full lunch box and keys had been abandoned inside, while more personal items were found in his truck. Kerstetter himself was nowhere to be seen and has never been found since.

No sign of Kerstetter came up until four days later, when someone finally decided to check the security cameras. There was Kerstetter, as expected ... and also a mysterious masked man. A Season 2 episode of "Unsolved Mysteries" recreated the tapes, potentially helpful as copies released by the Bradford Township Police Department are so low-resolution as to be almost useless. Kerstetter was seen walking with the unidentified person, who was also seen approaching a platinum tank. Indeed, some $250,000 worth of platinum was missing from the plant.

Was Kerstetter in on some sort of heist? His mother Evelyn Hanson told "Unsolved Mysteries" that "He hated a lie. He never believed in lying." Two of his children also spoke glowingly of their father, and his supervisor noted that Kerstetter was a "marginal employee" who nevertheless saved lives during an emergency. But Kerstetter had also just received a major pay cut and was in significant debt. Going by the footage alone, it's simply unclear if Kerstetter was a helpless hostage or a co-conspirator.

Sometimes, you're confronted with footage that immediately strikes you as fake, but is so intriguing that you can't help but dig deeper. That's surely the case here. First shown to the public in 2007, the Fresno nightcrawlers were supposedly captured on a security camera installed by a city resident named José. The footage shows what looks like a billowy pair of white pants strolling across the screen — yes, just the pants. Beyond a connecting segment, the Fresno nightcrawler appeared to be all legs, or at least as best as one might tell from the grainy footage. Soon enough, more videos began to pop up, showing the nightcrawlers going on their weird little walks in all sorts of places.

While older cryptids have the benefit of tradition at their backs, making it seem just possible that there's something out there, the Fresno nightcrawlers have no such advantage. They are a thoroughly modern phenomenon and, while no one's found a Fresno nightcrawler costume hanging around in someone's garage or extracted a confession from this mysterious José, we've got to agree that this technically unexplained footage is probably a hoax.

But how was it faked? That's the real unexplained mystery. It doesn't look like a costume. Puppets? Animation? YouTuber Captain Disillusion filmed himself walking about with a watermelon, then used a bit of computer trickery to mimic the cryptid. (Hopefully his neighbors aren't the nosy type.) Conveniently low-res footage completes the effect.

There's one odd event that wasn't just witnessed by a metropolitan area full of people but also caught on tape by a significant portion of those onlookers. This would be the Phoenix Lights, a seemingly massive array of lights that were spotted above Phoenix, Arizona, on the evening of March 13, 1997. Technically, it started with sightings of the lights that began to the north, above Henderson, Nevada. The array of lights appeared to drift south and eventually crossed over Phoenix, where thousands of people witnessed them. Some reported not just this V-shaped group, but also some strange, glowing lights that drifted about over the nearby Sierra Estrella mountains that same night.

Multiple witnesses have come forward with both footage and their own eyewitness testimony. These include then-governor Fife Symington, who infamously first treated the lights as a joke. Another famous witness: Kurt Russell, who spotted the lights when piloting a small aircraft that night. He told the BBC that he had initially dismissed the strange lights he saw while landing but still notified air traffic control. Russell later realized that he may have been one of the very first to report seeing the Phoenix lights. Later, some said that the lights were part of an unannounced military training exercise, skydivers outfitted with flares, or misidentified but otherwise very normal astronomical features like the planet Venus. For many, however, those explanations still fall flat.

Could something truly odd be in the lesser-explored spots of Australia? Perhaps, going by footage recorded in August 2017 in North Queensland. David White, a cruise operator in the Daintree River wildlife reserve, was scouting a crocodile in the hopes of scoring some cool footage. Instead, he found something strange in a tidepool. In White's video, an odd organic shape briefly sticks out of the muddy water then slowly sinks down with just a brief bubble to tell of its presence.

Some observers took things further and wondered if we could be seeing a bunyip. This folklore monster and possible cryptid has long been part of indigenous Australian legend, which maintains that a large, hairy creature would occasionally emerge from waterways to eat people. Over time, the image of the bunyip morphed into a more docile herbivore that still features in the region's culture.

Wildlife biologist Dr. Shea Steingass told "The Proof Is Out There" that she thinks the animal appears too small and smooth to be a crocodile, much less a hairy, hulking bunyip. Her best guess? A small fish known as a mudskipper. But geologist Dr. Bob Anderson noted that the mud pool is almost certainly nutrient poor, making it hardly the ideal place for a mudskipper or similar creature. He suggested that it could be an algal mat that was pushed up by gases and then mistaken for a slow-moving creature. Still, with its unusual shape, it may be hard for some to believe that all we're seeing is slowly sinking algae.

When it comes to ghosts, tales of supernatural experiences are often left up to the sensibilities of the individual. But videotape made in 1991 Britain might provide something more concrete. As he tells it, a then-teenaged Adam Mawson allowed a video camera to run in his unoccupied home, hoping to uncover the cause of eerie events that had been plaguing his family. While the camera is focused on a wicker chair, it records what appears to be a human-shaped shadow moving up and away from the furniture. A moment later, another shadow crosses the frame.

Mawson told "The Proof Is Out There" that his parents later confirmed they had seen these shadows. Are these figures ghosts or evil spirits? Or are they just, you know, shadows? Forensic video analyst Michael Primeau told "The Proof Is Out There" he wasn't sure about the video's authenticity, though he wondered if it was possible that some sort of post-production trickery was at play. Still, he concluded that the most likely explanation was that something was happening as the camera rolled. Physicist Matthew Szydagis agreed, then pointed out that a shadow appeared to move out of the room and across a wall — much like a shadow cast by someone off-camera. But it didn't quite line up with other shadow movements, and Primeau wasn't convinced. He noted that a shadow moving in the other direction didn't move onto a doorway.

If you or someone you know needs help with mental health, please contact the Crisis Text Line by texting HOME to 741741, call the National Alliance on Mental Illness helpline at 1-800-950-NAMI (6264), or visit the National Institute of Mental Health website.