- 2 days ago
Documentary, River Monsters S01E02
Category
🐳
AnimalsTranscript
00:00My name is Jeremy Wade. I'm an explorer, a biologist, and a fisherman.
00:06I travel the world's rivers in my search for freshwater monsters.
00:13And then I heard this story.
00:20People are disappearing in North India, swallowed by some kind of horrific river monster.
00:26A freshwater abomination.
00:31I'm going out there to investigate, to uncover the truth behind these horrifying stories.
00:38I'm going to hunt down the monster of the Kali River.
00:46To prove if it really exists.
00:50They do exist.
01:00I first heard these reports in 2005, when I was travelling in India.
01:10If they're true, they're the stuff of nightmares.
01:11The first victim is a young Nepali boy.
01:20Just 17 years old, Dilbahada is swimming, while he and his girlfriend wait for the ferry.
01:30They are planning to cross into India, to start a new life together.
01:43But their dream will never be fulfilled.
01:56And suddenly, and without warning, Dil disappears beneath the water, as if he is being pulled down by something below.
02:17It all happened in a flash.
02:18He never surfaces.
02:19He never surfaces.
02:20And after days of searching, no remains of the young man are ever found.
02:23It's as if he simply disappeared.
02:24He found no body, no creature, nothing, for at least five kilometres.
02:30Within a few months, the monster struck again.
02:31This time, it is a young man, who is a young man, who is a young man, who is a young man.
02:33And after days of searching, no remains of the young man are ever found.
02:38It's as if he simply disappeared.
02:43He found no body, no creature, nothing, for at least five kilometres.
02:55Within a few months, the monster struck again.
02:58This time, it is a young boy, washing in the river.
03:02He is standing in shallow water, no deeper than his knees.
03:06Suddenly, he screams, something's grabbed me, before being dragged underwater.
03:14His father is only a few feet away.
03:17By the time he has come to his son's aid, the boy has completely vanished.
03:21Again, people search the water, hoping to find some trace, some clue, as to how this tragedy occurred.
03:31Nothing is ever found.
03:33My quest has started.
03:38Both attacks happened on a short stretch of a remote river called the Kali, where this river forms the border between Nepal and India.
03:52This mystery can only be solved using logic and analysis.
03:56I cannot let my imagination get the better of me.
04:00I must keep an open mind.
04:02And the only way I can do that is to get to ground zero.
04:06I fly into Delhi, India's capital.
04:13Then, an overnight train takes me to the northern frontier of the country.
04:18As a biologist, it's in my nature to be sceptical, but as a travelling fisherman, I've actually seen enough to realise that not all fishermen's tails are pure imagination.
04:31The latest news is that people are still disappearing.
04:36The creature is still out there.
04:38And from the last railhead, it's a 20-hour, bone-jarring journey, higher into the Himalayas.
04:56I've now been travelling for over two days.
04:59The modern world might as well be a million miles away.
05:03This road just gets washed away every year in the monsoons.
05:08I mean, you can't reach the area at all for sort of weeks on end very often.
05:12According to my map here, in fact, the road, you know, doesn't even go to where I'm getting to.
05:17But I just trust that I'm going to get there.
05:24If anything goes wrong, I'm a long way from help, but it's getting too late to turn back now.
05:33The river is named after Kali, the Hindu goddess of death and destruction.
05:45And the river itself flows out of the sacred Himalayas.
05:51This region has a long history of man-eaters and spirits, of demons and gods.
05:56This is where heaven meets earth.
05:59A place where reality and fantasy are almost one and the same.
06:04This is the perfect place for a monster.
06:08Maybe too perfect.
06:14I've made contact with an old friend, Vinny Berdola.
06:17I've been on fishing trips with Vinny in the past, and I'm relying on him to help me speak with the local people.
06:25He's set up an expedition that will take me right over the monster's lair.
06:29What I've got to do is have a really good look at the water, whether a monster is said to live,
06:34and gather as much local intelligence as I can along the way.
06:37Now, the thing is, from the stories I've heard, it's supposed to operate in a length of river that's possibly 15 or 20 miles long.
06:47So we're starting our expedition high up the valley, at an altitude of some 2,000 feet.
06:57The riverbank is just mountainside, and there's just no way I can do that on foot.
07:00From here, there's no going back.
07:13The local name for the area I'm about to enter is the Gundesh.
07:19It means the lost country.
07:30People have disappeared, swallowed by an underwater monster in the Kali River in North India.
07:38My mission is to travel downriver, collecting all the information I can, to find out exactly what is going on.
07:45My first stop is Rolgat, where Dilbahada disappeared.
07:49Finney's organised a meeting with a man who was there at the time.
08:00His name is Bhuvan Pruneta.
08:05And this is the place where the story features.
08:08Mr Pruneta was waiting for the ferry to come across the river.
08:21There were three other people, his friend and this young Nepali couple.
08:25And he said the boy, in shallow water, needy water, he just disappeared too quickly even to scream, to shout.
08:33I mean, you know, what alerted them was the fact that, you know, the girl, the girl screamed.
08:38They just disappeared under the water, and it's calm water.
08:42It's not the fast bit of the pool.
08:44And, you know, he didn't see fish or anything at all.
08:47There was just a disturbance, and the boy went, and it happened right here where I'm looking now.
08:52I mean, it's very hard to believe, but, you know, he saw it with his own eyes.
08:56Perhaps what Mr Pruneta saw has a less mysterious cause.
09:04Could it actually be just a consequence of the turbulent Kali River?
09:11Maybe Dill died as a result of being sucked down by the huge forces generated by whirlpools.
09:17My new fishing rod.
09:25To find out, I use a depth sounder to determine the topography of the river and the pools.
09:32I'm looking for sudden deep holes, evidence of whirlpool activity,
09:36a place where undercurrents might drag a swimmer underwater.
09:40I'm going to put a little sensitivity here and crank it up.
09:45By 20 feet, look, I'm touching the rock.
09:4720 foot, dry thing.
09:49There is deep water close to the bank.
09:52Look at that crack there.
09:54Do you know what I can do?
09:55I can shove this pole in that crack.
09:58So, literally, I'll just move it six inches sideways and we've got 23 foot.
10:02In fact, near the rocky outcrop, the water is as deep as 28 feet.
10:06These areas of deep water are created as the water is forced around a bend.
10:13The same force creates a series of shifting whirlpools.
10:24It is a very powerful river and there are places, literally, where, yes, you can be in knee-deep water,
10:29you take one step and you're in 30 foot or whatever,
10:31and I think, you know, if you take a mouthful of water, you go under, that's it, you don't come up.
10:37Yet these places are away from the area where Dilbahada disappeared.
10:43What's interesting, though, is that a lot of these stories are not from the, you know, the rougher bits of the river.
10:49They are from the quiet places, normally in the pools where there's a ferry,
10:53and you've just got gently shelving water, and they disappear.
10:57Now, that doesn't quite, you know, fit with the idea of, you know, it's always the water.
11:03Mr. Puneta remains doubtful that Dil's disappearance was simply drowning.
11:11The next incident certainly wasn't.
11:14It's only a mile or so downstream where the next case occurred.
11:17Dharmaghat is another ferry crossing point.
11:25The ten-year-old boy was definitely grabbed by something.
11:32Those were his final words, heard by people on the riverbank.
11:35But by the time anyone had come to help, he'd vanished.
11:40No one saw a thing.
11:42What an unimaginable tragedy.
11:45Whatever grabbed him must have been extremely powerful to have dragged the boy underwater so quickly.
11:50The next case is even scarier.
11:54This time the victim was not a small defenseless boy, but an adult buffalo.
11:59The buffalo went into the shallow water over there.
12:10As it was drinking water, something dragged it in.
12:14We saw something struggling with the buffalo.
12:17Then it disappeared into the deeper water.
12:21Kaisar Singh witnessed his father's fully grown buffalo being dragged to its death from the side of the river, only 40 inches deep.
12:35It was larger than the buffalo.
12:39Buffalo in this region can weigh between 5 and 800 pounds and reach over 6 foot in length.
12:49What animal is capable of dragging an 800 pound domestic buffalo to its death?
12:55There is one obvious suspect.
12:57Is the monster I'm looking for a giant crocodile?
13:01What was the largest catfish ever caught on record?
13:13Was it A, a flathead catfish, B, a Mekong giant catfish, or C, a dog-eating catfish?
13:20The answer is B, a Mekong giant catfish netted in Thailand that weighed a staggering 646 pounds.
13:35My name is Jeremy Wade, explorer and biologist.
13:40I'm tracking a man-eating freshwater monster in the foothills of the Himalayas.
13:45My first real suspect is a giant crocodile.
13:48Crocodiles are often seen in and around the rivers of northern India.
13:59With jaws capable of exerting a force of a thousand pounds to crush the skull bones of victims, their well-known man-eaters.
14:10India's leading expert on these apex predators is Ron Whittaker, an American expatriate.
14:15He's got up close with all three species that inhabit India and Nepal.
14:21That's a war.
14:23The Salty.
14:25The Garial.
14:27And the Mugga.
14:28The likeliest culprit is the Mugga, as it is the most widespread.
14:34Reaching lengths of 18 foot, they are serious predators and have even been observed feeding on tiger.
14:42They could easily make short work of a mammal, even one the size of a buffalo.
14:50Muggas have been known to attack and kill livestock, such as cows and buffaloes, on a fairly regular basis in some parts of India.
15:00Mugga crocodiles are not typically known as man-eaters, but there's no reason why they shouldn't attack humans.
15:10And it does happen sometimes.
15:12Could it be that this creature, living up to its name, has hold a buffalo to its death and attacked and killed at least three people in the cold mountain river, the Kali?
15:23In the lower part of the Kali river, before it enters the Ganges, where it spreads out and where it's flowing slowly, the water is warm and sustains Mugga crocodiles.
15:36Roel Ghat, where Dilbahada disappeared, is 2,000 feet above sea level.
15:43And here, the water is both faster and colder.
15:48Mugga crocodiles typically prefer deep pools and slower flowing rivers and nice embankments to haul out on and bask.
15:57No one has seen any sign of a Mugga in the area of the disappearances, so I travel downriver to scow the banks at lower altitude.
16:09Muggas are less agile out of water and are easily visible on land.
16:14Coming ashore to bask in the sun and lay their eggs, they'll remain out of the water for up to 12 hours each day.
16:22We have it on good authority that crocodiles aren't around here.
16:36In fact, the people don't see them. You'd see them out of the water if they were here.
16:39You know, but it's just the terrain is wrong, the altitude is, you know, it's too high, the water's too cold, you know, there aren't crocs.
16:48There is no evidence of any species of crocodile here, and certainly not higher up the river.
16:55So what sort of creature is responsible for these deaths?
17:00We camp at the location of another attack, Nagarugat.
17:12There is a similarity in all the attack sites.
17:15Fast streams feeding deep pools, natural places for ferry crossings.
17:20And for those who don't know these stories, perfect swimming pools.
17:25He is 18 years old, Atul Kumar, and he is swimming with a friend.
17:43They decide to swim to the other side, a distance of some 70 yards.
17:48His friend reaches the safety of the far bank.
17:58But without warning, without a sound, Kumar disappears.
18:07His distraught family launches a search for him.
18:20But just like the other cases, nothing is found.
18:24But this time, the monster slipped up.
18:32This time, a man, a local man, saw the monster in the act.
18:40He draws the head of the beast in the sand.
18:42He says it looks like an elongated pig.
18:43He actually saw this.
18:44Yes, he did.
18:45He's actually seen it.
18:46And he gives it a name.
18:47The Soos.
18:48But what is a Soos?
18:49If I find the identity of this monster, then I have my killer.
18:51I'm an explorer.
18:52I'm an explorer.
18:53And fisherman.
18:54I'm an explorer.
18:55And fisherman.
18:56I'm an explorer.
18:57And fisherman.
18:58I'm in northern India, on the trail of a freshwater monster.
19:01A man-eater.
19:02And he gives it a name.
19:03And he gives it a name.
19:04The Soos.
19:05But what is a Soos?
19:06If I find the identity of this monster, then I have my killer.
19:20I'm an explorer and fisherman.
19:23I'm in northern India, on the trail of a freshwater monster.
19:26A man-eater.
19:33I've been told it is a Soos.
19:36A creature that looks like an elongated pig.
19:41But what is a Soos?
19:45I was about to find out.
19:51Phineas just introduced me to Jaga Singh, who's in his 70s now.
19:55He's lived on the river a long time.
19:56He's actually worked on the river.
19:57He's floated on log rafts down here.
20:00And he's probably seen and heard more than anybody else in these parts.
20:04So I'm just going to sort of quiz him a little bit on, you know, the detail of some of those stories.
20:11Mr Singh immediately starts to talk about the Soos.
20:16I get the feeling I'm closing in.
20:19He says that Soos is a creature which, if it sucks, it can suck you in from a distance.
20:25Things that have been lurking in the corners of my mind come lurching forward.
20:31When a fish does get big, when it opens its mouth, it does create this kind of vacuum.
20:36People don't tend to understand.
20:37They think that a fish actually just bites something.
20:39But actually a big fish, when it opens its mouth, it creates this vacuum.
20:43And the bigger the fish, the longer the distance that it can suck over.
20:46So you wouldn't actually, you know, you wouldn't necessarily see anything.
20:48It wouldn't be too far from the truth to say it's actually sucking it in.
20:52He says it's huge.
20:55It's bigger than that.
20:58It's longer than this distance.
21:00It's about, what, nine or ten foot, something like that?
21:03It's bigger than that.
21:04Even his seemingly wild claims about the size are suddenly making sense.
21:09Then a single word crashes through, a name.
21:13He says it looks like a gunch.
21:15And it's vast, and it's black.
21:17Gunch.
21:18I know that name.
21:20A local name for a rarely seen species of predatory catfish.
21:24Also known as the giant devil catfish.
21:27Gunch.
21:29Yeah, that's really interesting.
21:31I think that does actually start to clarify things.
21:33You know, pull all these odd, weird strands together.
21:36I think I have my culprit.
21:42Are all these killings the work of a giant, rarely seen, predatory catfish?
21:47The goonch.
21:48Now I know its identity, it still sounds incredible.
21:54All I've got to do is prove it.
21:57I have to catch a goonch big enough to be a man-eater.
22:06I'm right here in the heart of the monster's territory.
22:09And we're camping next to a pool which has all the hallmarks of an attack site.
22:13This place is starting to cast a spell.
22:22It's another pretty cold, chilly day out there again, and I can't even see the river.
22:29I've just had another rather fitful night interrupted by visions of dark turning water and underwater caverns and something that is capable of dragging in people and animals.
22:48Every waking moment is spent fishing.
23:03But I keep coming up blank.
23:05Nothing stirs.
23:06As much as I like rivers, I'd rather appreciate this when I think from my armchair the cold is starting to get into my bones.
23:24And, you know, it's hard going.
23:30I think I need some help.
23:32And I've got a plan.
23:34I've managed to get a message out.
23:37Someone should be on their way.
23:39Marine biologist and cameraman Rick Rosenthal has vast experience of finding and filming the largest and most dangerous marine predators.
23:55I'm thinking, if I can't catch a goonch on my line, maybe we can catch one on film.
24:01This is Rick.
24:03Hello, Rick.
24:04You here?
24:05And although this has never been done before, Rick is the perfect man to help me.
24:11I know a place where Rick and I can get to know our adversary before heading into the monster's lair.
24:19It's a place where you can sometimes see goonch.
24:22It's near Corbett National Park.
24:30We just can't go charging into a river like this without a good plan.
24:34Especially if there's something in there that can potentially eat us.
24:40And from a high vantage point, Rick gets his first glimpse of some kind of river creature.
24:50Yeah, I can see the pectoral fins.
24:52Looks like a shark, looks like a nurse shark.
24:53But hundreds of miles from the sea, this is no shark.
24:58That is a goonch.
25:02It's time to get a fish's eye view.
25:05The pools are deep and inaccessible, so we take no chances.
25:08And use a camera mounted in a mini-submarine to look around.
25:12All right, Jeremy, let's launch this.
25:14Let's launch this, huh?
25:15Got an image yet?
25:17Got an image just under the surface.
25:18Nice on.
25:20Why don't you take it down about right there?
25:22Do you have an image yet?
25:29I've got an image, I'm just under the surface.
25:32Why don't you take it down about right there?
25:39And straight away we're seeing fish, lots of fish.
25:53It seems there's a good food supply for a hungry gooch.
25:59What's happening now?
26:01I think we have a catfish tucked into an underwater crevice.
26:06There he is, there he is, there he is.
26:08It's a gooch.
26:10It's quite spooky because there's this tail poking out
26:12and the body just disappears into the dark
26:14and you can't see how long the body goes on for.
26:16So, now, can you see?
26:20There's the tail, there's the tail.
26:25It's amazing seeing one of these fish so clearly.
26:28But could one of these really be a man-eater?
26:36It's time to take a closer look.
26:40Are you ready?
26:52This cloudy water makes the whole experience really creepy.
26:56I keep expecting a monster to loom out of the murk.
27:08And then one does.
27:10And it's not alone.
27:26How many did you see?
27:28I think I saw three.
27:29There's more than that.
27:30Yeah.
27:31There's a whole pile of them in here.
27:32They're not like you think.
27:34I'm not kidding you, there's at least six in here.
27:36They're all stacked in there like cordwoods.
27:38There's some powerful animals in there too.
27:41I would not want to run onto those nine feet long.
27:45They're just such a horror.
27:47And they're strong.
27:49They're really strong.
27:51One of them just walked the camera with a tail.
27:54And I'll tell you, there's not a fat catfish.
27:57It's strong.
27:58I can see it could pull somebody in.
28:00Yeah.
28:02This is the first time the gunge catfish has ever been filmed in its natural habitat.
28:09And we get not just one, but six, all tight against the rock wall.
28:14And I just happened to find it by luck really.
28:29I looked and there was one and there was two, three, and there was three on the wall.
28:33There was six of them right in the area about two meters.
28:37They're kind of spooky fish.
28:40Especially in that dark overhangs, their tails are just sticking out.
28:45At least five or six feet long in there.
28:47They bumped the camera a couple of times underwater and I could feel their strength.
28:57Now we have hard proof that there are large gunge in these waters.
29:02That they stick together and are found in the deep pools, tight against the rocks.
29:07But none of these is the man-eater.
29:13The chances of that being the biggest fish there is are, you know, sort of minuscule.
29:17They must be bigger than that.
29:22Now that we have the first ever footage of gunge in the wild,
29:25it's time for Rick and me to confront the Kali.
29:28And the monster that lurks in its depths.
29:31But we must hurry.
29:34The monsoon, the seasonal downpour, is fast approaching.
29:37And it will turn this river into a raging torrent.
29:46Now, all I have to do is prove that a monster fish exists here.
29:52In the Kali river.
29:54My name is Jeremy Wade.
30:03I'm hunting a man-eating river monster called a gunge.
30:12But the question is, how does a gunge become a supersized monster?
30:17There might be a grisly answer.
30:32Here, there is an unusual and regular supply of food.
30:40Human corpses.
30:42It is the Hindu custom to burn the dead on the banks of the river
30:48before consigning their remains to the waters.
30:54Pandit Kamlesh Vyas is a leading Hindu cleric
30:57and has personal experience of this practice.
31:00They'll burn the funeral fire and when the body is even half burned,
31:05they'll just push it away or just slide it into the river.
31:08Once the soul is gone, that means your body is just a thing, actually.
31:15So water creatures, they can use the body as their food.
31:22Is this fish getting fat on human remains?
31:26The theory that this monster has grown extra large
31:30on a diet of partially converted corpses
31:33is something that the local people actually said to me.
31:36Sounds pretty gruesome, but, of course,
31:39it's just perfectly natural behaviour for a scavenger.
31:42The thing about these stories, though,
31:44is that this monster appears to have made this sinister quantum leap
31:49to feeding on living animals, including people.
31:51But just how big could a gunge get?
31:58That's the ultimate question.
32:00Creatures that live in the water can just keep on growing
32:04if they've got enough food.
32:06And there will be a few freak individuals
32:09which have grown bigger than the other ones there,
32:11and if you put in lots of artificial food,
32:14those creatures will grow even bigger.
32:15We set up camp at the place where the buffalo disappeared,
32:22but conditions have already changed.
32:31What are your first impressions of the water, Rick?
32:33It's murky, really murky, pretty tough.
32:37Yeah.
32:39It's so brown.
32:41We're a little late, aren't we?
32:43The runoff has begun, and it's going to be difficult
32:45to see anything in that water.
32:48I've brought this guy here halfway around the world,
32:52from California, to a river that just looks like soup.
32:57And what he must be thinking, I just don't know.
32:59You know, I knew that the visibility here, you know,
33:03is not good at the best of times, but it is really murky now.
33:06And it's just so disappointing to hear him say
33:09there is absolutely no way he's going to get in the water.
33:12There's just no point. You can see about this far in front of your face.
33:16Rain and snow melt have coloured the water.
33:19The monsoons are starting sooner than we thought.
33:25You earned it.
33:26You earned it.
33:28After a couple of days, the water has still not cleared.
33:35And after another day of hanging on, well,
33:38there's just no point, Rick, being here.
33:43And he decides to leave.
33:47Okay, Jeremy. Well, good luck. Have a good journey.
33:50So now it's back to the road again, I guess.
33:51Being on my own again really makes me feel the remoteness of this place.
34:03And, you know, the sheer enormity of what I've got to do,
34:06because, you know, Rick and I have just thrown everything at this,
34:10and we haven't so much as had a glimpse of this killer fish.
34:13So, in a way, I just feel as if I'm back where I started.
34:18I've just come full circle.
34:20It's back to a line in the water.
34:22I have got to know this river.
34:29I've heard the horror stories, seen the evidence for myself.
34:33I've worked out what the soos is, what it looks like, and where it lives.
34:38The next step is to try and fish one out.
34:41I have at least got a much clearer idea of what I'm dealing with now,
34:50but it's still a needle in a haystone.
34:53And the monsoon is fast approaching.
34:58I can feel the air pressure building, and you've got these clouds boiling up.
35:01And, you know, if the rain's come, I could be stranded here,
35:05and that, you know, really focuses the mind.
35:10The brown water that sent Rick home is getting worse,
35:14and the water level is beginning to rise.
35:19I've just got to get cracking.
35:21I've got to get a bait in the water in front of something,
35:23and, er, it hasn't happened yet.
35:26There is still time, but the, er, God, the pressure, the pressure is...
35:29not just the atmospheric pressure, the pressure is building.
35:36But this rising water has got the gunch biting.
35:40And I'm quickly into some fish.
35:46That is a gunch.
35:48It's not a very big one.
35:53Each catch gives me data on these fish,
35:55like how big their mouth is in relation to body size.
35:59Information that will help me calculate how big a man-eating gooch really needs to be.
36:06Look at the length of the tentacles on the tail. Look at that!
36:09Look at that!
36:23Can you imagine that scaled up to about three times the length?
36:27I'm grabbing you by the leg and dragging you under.
36:29Gunch have huge, backward-facing teeth, the teeth of a predator.
36:36It might not be the Kali monster, but it's, er, it's a monster.
36:41The fish are getting bigger, but still no monster.
36:55And with conditions worsening, I have one last trick up my sleeve.
36:59One thing people have said about this creature is that it is actually attracted by commotion on the riverbank,
37:10particularly the flames, vibration, er, smells, everything associated with these riverside funerals.
37:16So I'm building a simulated, er, funeral pyre to try and call the creature in.
37:21That night, nothing stirs.
37:40But in the morning...
37:43in the morning.
37:52It's in the fast water!
37:56Something very powerful in here.
37:59Try and relax and keep a bit of calm.
38:02Again, in a tiny bit of line.
38:03Right, the water is flowing this way now. I've got it into the water that's flowing this way.
38:15I have been fishing long enough that I've developed a kind of sixth sense.
38:19I know when I have a big fish on.
38:21And this is a big fish.
38:23It's gone, you know, it's gone.
38:25There's a lot of line out in some very strong water.
38:27The other side of it sucks.
38:28The big problem here is that if it gets out of this pool,
38:31I am never going to be able to pull this fish back up against this current.
38:35Very touch and go, very touch and go.
38:37And then it does exactly what I didn't want it to do.
38:40Either this fish is gone, or I've got to do something drastic.
38:44I'm going to have to go for a swim.
38:45I've just hooked a massive fish. Is this the one I'm after?
38:59I'm going to have to go for a swim.
39:01I don't know what I'm thinking, apart from being desperate not to lose this fish.
39:06Regardless of my own safety.
39:16Wait till it comes on. Wait, wait, wait, wait.
39:18Now! Now! Now!
39:31That is a serious-sized gunch.
39:33That is a man-sized animal.
39:35That is as big as a person.
39:37That is bigger than a lot of people around here.
39:40That is a big fish.
39:43They do exist, the gunch. They do exist.
39:46Six foot of muscle behind that mouth.
39:49And those teeth are just like shark teeth pointing back.
39:53If that got hold of you, there'd be no getting away.
39:59When I was diving with Rick, and we were seeing these, uh, these beasts under the water,
40:05and they just look so otherworldly.
40:07Is it a hallucination? Do these things really exist?
40:09And, yes, the gunch does exist.
40:13Just the absolute perfect predator.
40:16Huge mouth on there.
40:18Huge, huge, huge mouth.
40:20And, uh, if anything just comes down within range of that mouth, it's too late.
40:29I mean, big as this fish is, um, the fish that is taking people would be bigger than this.
40:34I mean, it wouldn't actually need to be more than a couple of feet longer, but that would really give it a bit more weight.
40:40I mean, it would probably weigh twice as much as this.
40:43And, you know, just the thought of that is quite terrifying.
40:47Okay, uh, is it off the ground?
40:52No, yes.
40:54Okay.
40:56166.
40:58161 pounds.
40:59The description given by Surendra Bora of the creature as an elongated pig easily corresponds with the smooth, scaleless back of the gunch.
41:12Keisar Singh's statement that he saw a black shape also matches.
41:20And the sucking force caused by the opening of a vast mouth that Jogar Singh talks about, that also matches.
41:27I think that what the eyewitnesses saw was not an elongated pig, not a mythical creature for Seuss, but this, the giant devil catfish.
41:42A monster-sized gunch fattened upon human remains.
41:45I think it's time he went back in the water. He's starting to recover.
41:52Back in the water just to, um, get the last little bit of energy.
41:57And then, uh, back home, I think.
42:01For me and the fish.
42:07Gunch catfish are now very rare.
42:10This monster's not the Kali killer.
42:12Even at 161 pounds, it's just not big enough.
42:17I came to prove that giant catfish exist here, and I've done that.
42:22I never set out to persecute these amazing animals.
42:25It's taking a long time.
42:27And the people here feel very much the same.
42:30With that in mind, I let my monster go.
42:33The beautiful irony is that the presence of these giants means the river is healthy and alive.
42:43The day the monsters disappear is the day the river dies.
42:48And I have no doubt there are monsters far bigger than my gunch, alive and well in the Kali river.
42:57Never.
43:07Want more of the world's wildest, strangest and most terrifying freshwater horrors?
43:13Visit our website at animalplanet.com slash river monsters.
43:16Multiple monsters to communicate with our existence ofception.
43:17social villains to discover the universe.
43:19And the desert isn't in danger of the world.
43:20Have fun.
43:21How long have you heard this warn zero monsters?
43:22Go mad for us.
43:24Welcome back!
43:26You're back!
43:28From the future and잖아.
43:30Hop on the GN1 introduction to dig!
43:32Hopefully touch your mind, we'll have aPhane with all the heroes.
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