01x02 - Monsters Unmasked

[bunniefuu]

Coming up on "expedition

files," a grisly serial k*ller slashes

his way through the

foggy streets of London.

And after 150 years, we may finally

know his identity.

In one of the most

remote parts of the world,

a savage beast st*lks its human prey.

New DNA evidence might finally reveal,

is this monster or myth?

And on a Chicago TV

station in the late 1980s,

criminal hackers terrorize the airwaves.

We dig deep to unmask

the anonymous monsters

who have struck fear in our hearts.

In the corridors of time

Are mysteries that defy explanation.

Now, I'm traveling through history itself,

on a search for the truth.

New evidence,

shocking answers.

I'm Josh gates,

and these

Are my "expedition files."

My kids are young enough

to still be scared of monsters

hiding under the bed,

and like generations of

good parents before

me, I reassure them.

I tell them monsters aren't real,

that there's nothing to be afraid of.

But of course, that isn't quite true.

Although they don't tend

to hide under our beds,

sometimes monsters are real.

Tonight, we examine the files

of three extraordinary cases of

monsters whose terrifying

acts remain shrouded in mystery

to this very day.

From a nightmarish serial

k*ller whose name is synonymous

with fear, to a frightening

beast said to stalk

the him a lay as, and an agent

of chaos menacing the city of

Chicago, one question

threads the needle

between these three remarkable stories.

Who, or what, is behind

the monstrous mask?

We begin in London's east end.

The year is 1888.

Life is hard for most

in these seedy slums,

and for women especially.

Many, like Mary Kelly

here, are forced into a life

of prostitution police

try to maintain order.

Men like sergeant Harry

Garrett, spend a good part of

their patrol moving

prostit*tes off the street.

On your way.

Now, he doesn't know it, but

sergeant Garrett might have

just saved Mary Kelly's life.

That's because tonight,

her profession is not only

the world's oldest, but

also the most dangerous.

Lurking in the shadows is a

customer of a different kind,

one who takes payment in blood.

Although Mary is safe for

now, sadly, another lady of

the night will not be so lucky.

Polly Nichols is, in this moment,

making the acquaintance of a madman.

For 150 years, his horrifying legacy has

only grown, because the

k*ller was never caught.

But thanks to a surprising

intervention from across

generations, we may now,

at last, be able to put a face

to the elusive Jack the ripper.

Polly Nichols is a

43-year-old mother of five who,

like many women in

whitechapel, relies on her body

and her wits to make ends meet.

But no amount of street smarts

can help Polly, because tonight,

on August 31st, 1888,

she becomes Jack the

ripper's very first victim.

It isn't until 3:40 that morning that Polly's

knife-slashed corpse is

discovered by a cart driver.

Extra, extra!

The news quickly makes

the morning papers,

and police attribute the

m*rder to "a peculiarly revolting

and barbarous character."

Eight days later, on September

8th, 47-year-old Annie Chapman

is seen spending her

hard-earned street walking money

at an east end pub.

Witnesses last see her

leaving at 5:30 in the morning.

Only a half hour later,

Annie is found dead.

Her injuries are ghastly,

as several internal organs

have been removed.

This leads the coroner to

state that these crimes are being

committed by someone with

knife skills of a surgical nature.

Is this a mad doctor on the loose?

A surgeon? Or a butcher?

Rumors swirl that London

has a psychotic m*rder*r on its hands,

and it's confirmed on

September 27th, when

the slasher sends a letter

to the central news agency.

The k*ller taunts the police

with a haunting threat.

My knife's so nice and sharp.

I want to get to work

right away if I get a chance.

And signs off with the

name Jack the ripper.

Overnight, the world becomes

obsessed with the ripper.

London is whipped into a frenzy of fear.

Women refuse to leave their homes.

People are terrified.

The police devote a

huge amount of manpower

to catch Jack the ripper.

Making whitechapel's

police station the hub of

the investigation, local cops,

or British bobbies, haul in

suspect after suspect to narrow

down the search for the k*ller.

Among those investigating

the case is our young

whitechapel sergeant Harry

Garrett, part of the desperate

boots-on-the-ground

effort to find the madman.

Sergeant Garrett and his

fellow police officers flood

the streets in London's east end,

and their methods aren't exactly friendly.

I swear I don't know nothing.

But they fail to pinpoint any true suspect.

And the terror continues to

loom over London, with citizens

wondering what act of

savagery might come next.

And the ripper does not disappoint.

Just three days later, he strikes again.

On September 30th, the ripper attacks

Elizabeth stride, a 45-year-old

destitute mother of nine,

slashing her throat

and leaving her for dead.

Minutes later, he strikes again,

attacking 43-year-old

Catherine eddowes,

a poor whitechapel factory worker.

After mutilating her,

he slices out her kidney,

leaving behind his most

gruesome execution yet.

As the ripper flees the scene,

the police officer spots him

and calls the attention

of sergeant Harry Garrett,

who gives chase,

but the k*ller escapes.

However, not all hope is lost,

as the police notice an odd thing.

The k*ller has a stiff arm and stiff knees,

which don't bend as he walks or runs.

They might have lost him,

but they now have a description

of Jack the ripper.

Witnesses describe the

k*ller as being between 5-foot-5

and 5-foot-8 inches tall,

stout and broad-shouldered,

aged between 30 and 40.

He has a full face, dark hair, a mustache

and possibly a beard.

He's wearing a dark

jacket and a bowler hat.

The police feel like they're

closing in on the ripper.

The details about his stiff

arm and legs has policemen like

Garrett on the lookout

for this unusual disability.

Meanwhile, the ripper

sends his most unusual

correspondence yet.

On October 16th, 1888,

George lusk of the whitechapel

vigilance committee receives

a crudely wrapped box.

A letter from the k*ller,

known as the from hell letter,

explains the macabre contents.

From hell, dear sir, I send you

half a kidney I took from one woman.

With the teasing salutation

Catch me if you can, Mr. Lusk.

The ripper has been

rampaging for two months,

what the papers have coined

the "Autumn of terror,"

but despite the city

being in the grip of fear,

it's business as usual for

the street walking

women of whitechapel.

Except tonight, the k*ller

does something different.

He makes a house call.

You remember Mary Kelly,

whose life was spared by

sergeant Garrett?

Unfortunately, on this night,

she won't be so fortunate.

When her body is discovered,

authorities find another

horrific act of mutilation.

But this time, there is one

touch of ripper brutality that

canonizes the k*ller

as the most diabolical

of all time.

He has taken a trophy,

Mary's very own heart.

The public outcry over

the horrifying nature of.

Mary's m*rder is deafening.

Detectives investigate multiple

suspects who may possess

the surgical skills needed to

commit such ghastly murders.

They scrutinize Francis

tumblety, an American doctor

arrested on an unrelated charge

of indecency, but he flees back

to america when police

begin to look at him.

Also on the police's

radar is Aaron kosminski,

a barber who is apparently

well-known among

whitechapel residents to be insane.

Then there's montague John

druitt, the son of a surgeon

who is found dead soon

after Mary Kelly's m*rder.

Some theorize that his suicide

could be madness brought on by

being the ripper.

The police believe that any of

these men could have the skills

to pull off the ripper's

gruesome mutilations,

but there's not enough

evidence to pin the crimes

on any of them.

Still, the police wait for a chance to catch

Jack the ripper in action.

Surely he would strike again.

But he never does.

The ripper's m*rder spree

ends with the ghastly slaughter of

Mary Kelly, leaving the police clueless.

Who was this demented

butcher, and where did he go?

Years, then decades pass,

and almost a century and a half

later, there is still no definitive answer.

But now, a shocking

revelation may finally unveil

the true identity of Jack the ripper.

And remarkably, it comes from

the direct descendant of one of

the investigators in the

case from 150 years ago.

150 years ago, sergeant

Harry Garrett failed in his efforts

to stop the serial k*ller, Jack the ripper.

Now someone has reopened the case,

and it's a family affair.

Harry's great-great-granddaughter,

author Sarah bax horton, has picked up

where sergeant Garrett left off.

I was totally inspired

by my police ancestor.

I think that my emotional

connection has driven

my research and my

approach to the case.

Incredibly, Sarah is able to

access files and track down

leads, which at the

time, weren't available

to her great-great-grandfather.

These records were previously

held under the 100-year closure

rule, which is standard

for institutional records.

I discovered two files that

had recently been opened to

the public from colney

hatch lunatic asylum.

Located just a few miles north

of whitechapel, colney hatch

was the asylum that catered

to locking up the mentally ill

from the east end.

I discovered a man, a

35-year-old east ender who was

5-foot-7 inches tall,

stout, broad-shouldered,

a stiff left arm, having

broken his left elbow.

He also had a peculiar

gait or way of walking,

with bent knees and

asymmetric foot dragging,

and he had a violent

antipathy to his wife,

whom he attacked on several occasions,

and he was known to as*ault

people with bladed weapons.

That man was hyam hyams.

I also discovered from the

files that hyam hyams was

a cigar maker, who used a

knife for his trade, and it may be

those skills which transferred

onto the women he accosted.

In my opinion, hyam hyams

managed to evade suspicion

owing to the fact that he

was just a man on the streets,

and he presented a very

quiet, inoffensive demeanor.

But when the fits of

violence were upon him,

he became extremely violent

and dangerous towards women.

Even though he was never

a suspect during the active

case, when one looks at

hyam hyams, a dark picture

quickly emerges.

Found suffering from bouts

of delirium in whitechapel,

hyams attempts to stab

his wife and is eventually

institutionalized in December of 1888.

Around the same time,

the murders ceased.

So, it seems more than a

coincidence that the ripper

murders stop at the same

time hyams is locked up at

the colney hatch lunatic

asylum for the rest of his life.

At the end of my exploration

of the Jack the ripper case,

I then realized not only that

it might be possible to solve

the case, but that in fact, I had solved it.

And it's been the joy of my life.

It's been the joy of my life

to reinvestigate the case in

honor of my police ancestor

and in tribute to the men

and women who collaborated

in an attempt to bring

Jack the ripper to justice.

And so, incredibly, a family

of detectives joined forces over

the span of 150 years to

shine new light on one of

the world's most infamous cases.

We'll never know the psychology

that might have driven hyams to

commit these heinous crimes,

but we do know that the ripper

was an arrogant k*ller,

taunting the police,

boasting that he would never be caught,

except that maybe he has.

If Sarah bax horton is right,

Jack the ripper has finally

been pulled from the

shadows, and Sarah's

great-great-grandfather Harry

can rest easy, knowing the streets

of east London are safe at last.

Our next file takes us from

a monster in the city streets

to a terrifying beast rumored to lurk in

the remote wilderness.

It's July 1986, on the roof of the world,

here in the Tibetan plateau,

surrounded by the towering

him a lay an mountains.

The man behind me is in

the middle of an amazing

1,200-mile trek across

Tibet, retracing the route of

an ancient sherpa road.

He's traveled solo, through

valleys and across rivers with

only a sleeping bag

and a modest rucksack.

Unfortunately, he's also horribly lost.

And that is surprising because

this is reinhold messner, one of

the world's greatest adventurers.

Good news, he won't be alone for long.

Bad news, he's about to

come face-to-face with perhaps

the most famous monster

of them all, the yeti.

It is a ferocious beast that

has long been cloaked in

mystery, but now we may

finally be able to reveal

the yeti's true identity.

Messner's reputation as a

great climber really begins

eight years earlier, in 1978.

He became the first person

to summit mount Everest

without supplemental oxygen.

Messner becomes a

mountaineering rock star, and less than

a decade after his Everest

ascent, becomes the first to try

to climb all 14 mountains in

the world that are taller than

26,000 feet.

But it's on his expedition

hiking across Tibet in 1986

that messner finds himself

in the current predicament of

being lost.

And even worse, as he's

trying to find the trail again,

it's starting to get dark.

As he's forced to trudge

along by instinct, about

30 feet ahead, something

large emerges from the bushes

towering seven feet tall

and covered in dark fur.

As the shape disappears into

the darkness, messner notices

that this mysterious

figure is standing upright.

Up ahead, he finds a shockingly

huge footprint in the mud.

As he documents it, it hits messner.

It's possible that what

he just saw is a yeti.

Shaken, messner has no choice

but to push on, hoping to find

a village at 14,000 feet above

sea level, where villages are

as scarce as the oxygen.

But it's not long before

the mysterious beast

appears again.

Messner wonders, is he being stalked?

But for some unknown reason,

the beast rushes off into the night.

In a panic, messner has fled

deeper into the wilderness.

At this point, he has to

wonder, did he really just see

a yeti, or is that lack of extra oxygen

finally getting to him?

Struggling to find a village,

he finally gets a lucky break.

Messner gives his account

to some of the villagers,

and they know instantly

it's not a hallucination.

It's what the locals call

chemo, an enormous bear,

man, monkey-like creature,

known to throw rocks

and slaughter yaks.

The villagers welcome messner

to stay the night, but give him

an ominous warning

one can never find a chemo.

The chemo finds you.

Not exactly a goodnight lullaby.

Later, when he checks

the photos he took

of the footprint, he realizes the film from

his camera is damaged,

so no visual record exists of

what he encountered.

After his harrowing experience,

messner becomes obsessed with

finding answers.

He spends the next 12

years trying to find out

what stalked him that night.

He pursues the yeti all around

the him a lay as, making 20 trips

in total, searching in mountains,

scouring monasteries and villages,

accumulating samples

and biological evidence.

During this time, he collects hair,

bones, a supposed

hand, and even yeti scat.

But still, he finds nothing

conclusive, and the question

still remains what exactly

was the terrifying beast that

reinhold messner encountered?

In 1986, mountaineering legend

reinhold messner

comes face-to-face with

a terrifying beast that

he believes is a yeti.

As amazing as messner's

encounter is, he's far from

the first person to run

into the mysterious yeti.

The legend, it seems, is as old

as the mountains themselves.

The obsession of finding

and identifying this creature

has overtaken many of

the world's most intelligent

and accomplished adventurers.

During the 1921 British

mount Everest reconnaissance

expedition, explorer Charles

Howard-Bury reports sightings

of a dark creature and enormous

footprints on mount Everest.

His sherpas say it's met oh-kangmi,

or manlike snow creature.

A journalist mistranslates

this as "abominable snowman,"

giving birth to a modern legend.

In 1953, the great explorer sir

Edmund Hillary became obsessed

with the yeti when

he found a footprint on

his groundbreaking expedition

to the summit of mount Everest.

Hillary's interest piqued when

he later came across a proposed

scalp of the creature in a remote village

in the him a lay as.

She's saying the scalp is 240 years old.

He persuaded one of the

elders to let him take the scalp

to the west to have it analyzed.

Unfortunately, in an era before

DNA testing, the response from

experts was mixed.

But the creature's status

as having an unknown origin

could not be ruled out.

When it comes to quests

for the yeti, it's hard to follow

in the footsteps of such

greats as messner and Hillary.

But hey, fortune favors the bold.

In 2016, I embarked on my

own extensive journey across

the him a lay as for

evidence of the elusive yeti.

And what we found

was truly extraordinary.

I discovered hair,

bones, scat.

Mystery poop, check.

All of them turned out to be

goats, human, or some other

non-yeti animal.

Eventually, I hit pay dirt

with an incredible find.

- See this?

- Yeah, it's interesting, isn't it?

Exploring an extremely

remote area of Bhutan

Long way down.

That has had yeti sightings.

I traveled over land and

river with world-class kayaker

and outdoors man Jerry moffatt.

- Hey, I got a den over here.

- On my way.

We found what looked

like a den for some creature.

Later, something triggered

our motion detectors,

leaving a set of three footprints.

And here, look. That's a print.

That is a print, and

that's a print right there.

Three of them.

Look at that, toe marks.

This has made a significant

indentation in that soil there.

That one is a beauty. Look at that.

- That one is clear as day.

- What do you think that is?

- It's a big animal.

- I don't know.

I mean, this looks like a bipedal animal.

That looks like a human print, almost.

With casting powder and

with the handy use of my belt,

we made an incredibly

detailed cast of one print.

Now we wait.

At a glance, the print seemed

oddly like a very large human.

- Feeling pretty good?

- Yeah, feeling great.

- There we go.

- Awesome.

We wanted to know,

could this be from a yeti?

Awesome work, Jerry. Great job.

To get a more complete

answer, we consulted

Dr. Jeffrey meldrum, one

of the foremost experts on

zoological footprints.

He used a 3D scan to reveal

more detail of our prints than

human eyes can see.

Foremost in my mind is the question of,

did you get a footprint of a yeti?

The combination of characteristics

that sort of speak to

me, all those features

would indicate in my

mind the likelihood of

this being a bear.

But in Bhutan, we should

only expect either an asiatic

black bear or a sloth bear.

And does this fit either of those?

No, it doesn't.

That leaves us with a brown bear.

And all reports are that

it's now extinct in Bhutan.

So either I found a footprint

of a brown bear that is not

extinct in this area, as

scientists have believed,

or it's a footprint of

something else entirely.

The mystery continues.

Is what people call the yeti

an undiscovered primate,

a giant bear, or something else entirely?

Now, a new breakthrough

with DNA evidence may finally

provide an answer.

Thanks to a team of geneticists

at the university at buffalo,

we may have finally

pinpointed the true identity of

this menacing monster.

Since the beginning of the 20th century,

explorers and scientists have

been trying to find proof that

the infamous beast

known as the yeti exists.

Now, a team of geneticists

at the university of buffalo may

have finally identified

this frightening creature.

Evolutionary biologist

Charlotte lindqvist is

an expert on studying ancient

DNA and was a key member

on the team.

So this study represented

the most samples and the most

data that had ever been

analyzed of yeti origin.

We had a total of 24 samples,

which included a tooth.

There was a dried

hand from a monastery,

so we got the skin.

There was also a femur bone,

and then there was hair sample

and also a scat sample

that actually I believe

reinhold messner himself had collected.

The university's study clearly

showed that all of the samples

they analyzed that had been

suggested to be yeti weren't

from an abominable snowman after all.

So we had a tooth that turned

out to actually be from a dog,

but the ones that had been collected in

the western him a lay an mountains,

they were him a lay an brown bear.

The ones that were collected

close to the Tibetan plateau,

they were Tibetan brown bear,

and we also had an example of

a him a lay an black bear.

Unfortunately, there hasn't

been any hard evidence to prove

the existence of the yeti.

However, the good news

is that we've proven that

the brown bear is not extinct in Bhutan.

But still, the encounters of so

many experienced adventurers

can't be completely dismissed.

I suppose there are aspects of

bears that, if you see them up

on their hind legs, they stand large.

Certainly, I can imagine it

can really generate a deep fear

that perhaps

can start these stories.

But if the DNA we get from

the sample show us it's a bear,

I mean, then It's a bear.

There's no way to get around it.

I mean, it just doesn't lie.

This DNA evidence is what we've

been waiting for, yet questions

remain, such as that gnarly

scalp that Hillary acquired

that looked distinctly primate.

So, for those of you planning

to venture into the him a lay as

someday, stay frosty.

While many ice cold cases of

this mysterious monster appear

solved, folklore runs

deep, and there's always

a possibility that the mysterious yeti

could still be out there.

I'm still up high, but I'm no

longer in the him a lay as.

I'm on one of the

tallest rooftops in the city

of Chicago it's November 22nd, 1987.

I'm here because a daring

group of hackers is about to break

into a live television

broadcast, inciting pure chaos

and sparking the biggest

media mystery of all time.

How big is this hack?

Nearly 40 years later,

the FBI still considers

the perpetrators the

most wanted video pirates

in the country.

But new evidence may now

reveal who these hackers are

and the motive behind

their attacks, which changed

TV broadcasting forever.

At 9:14 P.M., wgn channel 9

anchor Dan Rowan is giving

his Sunday sports report about

the Chicago bears' 30 to 10 win

over the Detroit lions when

something interrupts the video

feed on the screen.

What's going on? What's happening?

Who's this guy?

Someone wearing a Max

headroom mask has hacked into

wgn's live newscast.

It's 1987, and Max headroom is one of

the most popular programs on TV.

Set in the future, Max is a

computer-enhanced media icon,

fighting corrupt television

executives who are trying to

control the masses through their tvs.

Wgn technicians race

through the studio, searching for

the rogue engineer who

flipped the switch, allowing

a Max headroom wannabe

to crash their sports report.

But they find no one.

Thousands of angry fans

call wgn, complaining about

the weird Max headroom

messing with their TV screens.

Officials tell viewers

the problem's been fixed.

But what Chicago doesn't

know is Max is just getting started.

Well, if you're wondering

what happened, so am I.

Just like wgn channel 9, rival TV station

wttw channel 11 broadcasts their signal

from one of the tallest

buildings in Chicago.

At 11:15pm, the network

is airing reruns of the 1977

"doctor who" series,

"horror of fang rock,"

when headroom strikes again.

And this time, viewers

hear Max's twisted voice.

Catch the wave.

Max speaks in a voice

that sounds like gibberish,

then goes on to do some things,

well, we can't show you on TV.

Chicago viewers are

outraged, the FBI is called in

to investigate.

They want to know, is this just

a stunt or a dangerous threat

to national security?

Remember, it's the late

'80s, and the cold w*r

continues to rage on.

The U.S. and Soviet union

are locked in a deadly game

of disinformation.

Intelligence agencies fear

the Soviets are trying to hack

into U.S. broadcasts.

So they launch a manhunt

to figure out who did it,

why did they do it, and how?

Even though this crime

has thousands of witnesses,

the FBI can't find any suspects.

So investigators circle back

to the most important piece of

evidence they have, the video itself.

And when agents focus on

what Max says, they unlock critical

clues about who's behind the hack.

When Jack the ripper stalked

the streets of victorian London,

investigators were left

chasing shadows and hunches.

At that time, solving crimes

was more about gut instinct

than hard evidence.

But just a few years later,

in 1892, an Argentine police

officer would revolutionize

detective work and help give

birth to forensic science.

Juan vucetich was able to lock

up the perpetrator of a double

m*rder thanks to a single

bloody fingerprint left behind.

This groundbreaking moment

paved the way for modern

fingerprinting techniques

we rely on today.

From crime scenes to

unlocking our phones,

the swirls and whirls on

our fingers have become

the gold standard of identification.

So while Jack the ripper

may have slipped through

the cracks, he wouldn't stand

a chance in today's world,

thanks to the tiny

unique patterns we carry

on our fingertips.

Months after the most notorious

television hack in U.S. history

takes over the Chicago

airwaves in 1987, the FBI still

doesn't know who's behind

the Max headroom mask.

But when agents analyze

the audio of the unauthorized

broadcast, they make a new discovery.

Investigative journalist,

Michael whelan, has spent years

analyzing the FBI's

investigation into the case.

You know, the FBI, when

they're doing their investigation,

they're going through

every bit of footage with

a fine-tooth comb.

And during the hack,

this figure says, "I think I'm

better than Chuck swirsky."

Chuck swirsky is a

current employee of wgn.

He was a broadcaster

for the Chicago Bulls.

You know, he was a well-known figure.

And in the late 1980s, he

was a Chicago area legend.

So it seems like this Max

headroom figure is almost

breaking the fourth wall.

He's saying, "I, a fictional broadcaster,

am better than this real life broadcaster."

Analyzing other comments

from Max, they decipher more of

his cryptic phrases.

So, in the footage, the

character makes reference

to the greatest world's newspaper nerds.

The FBI looks into that,

and they realize that there's

another connection to

wgn, because in the 1940s,

the Chicago tribune

launched their own TV station,

and, you know, calling

themselves the world's

greatest newspaper, they called it wgn.

So the FBI, during their investigation,

they begin looking for anyone

who might have had a motive to

lash out against wgn in particular.

What they find is that throughout 1987,

wgn had been laying off employees.

Clearly, some of them might

have had an axe to grind.

But this doesn't add up.

Max hacked into two channels

that night, wgn and wttw.

Why would Max talk all that

trash about wgn channel 9 while

broadcasting on their rival

network, wttw channel 11?

They tried to hack into it. It

lasted about 10, 15 seconds.

Basically, the engineers

figure out what's going on,

switch to a different signal, cut them off.

When that failed, these hackers

figure, "we spent all that time"

"putting together this

irreverent video targeting wgn,

"let's just do it again." So two hours later,

they pivoted and went after wttw.

But whoever this was,

they had a bone to pick

with wgn.

Realizing Max's beef is with

wgn, FBI agents interviewed

dozens of current and former

employees of the network,

but the bureau can't find

any suspects from wgn.

By 1988, the case of the

most audacious hack in U.S.

Television history hits a wall

of static, and it remains that

way for decades.

But now, after combining

the FBI's evidence with

research from dozens of amateur

sleuths obsessed with the case,

Michael believes he

knows just what happened

that fateful night.

Today, when we think about

hacking, we think of someone in

a dark room trying to

like steal your money,

hack into your bank account.

Back in the 1980s,

the Internet was still in

its relative infancy.

So hacking like this would

have required physical hacking,

not in the sense of like

splicing into a mainframe

and feeding something into

a wire or something like that.

This would have required

someone to get in between

the broadcast signal and the transmitter.

That requires some technical expertise.

Even more alarming, back

in 1987, television signals are

broadcast on radio

frequencies closely guarded

by the U.S. government.

To pull this off, these hackers

had to have inside knowledge of

how the broadcast system worked.

When you're thinking of hacking,

you're looking for exploits.

You're looking for something to

poke a hole in and kind of ram through.

This would have been a TV

station broadcasting a signal

up to a giant transmitter

on top of a really tall building.

And this person basically

got in between them.

They found probably a rooftop.

They had a transmitter of

their own and basically just

overpowered the feed.

This could have been done

with secondhand equipment,

you know, stuff they

found on the black market.

So if you think about it, it's signal,

transmitter, hacker, right here, right

in the middle.

They got in the middle

of it and took it over.

That was the ballgame.

Okay, I get it.

The hacker has to be sending

up a signal that's more powerful

than the intended broadcasting signal.

Then the hackers' content

will be what's transmitted.

So, with this expertise

and gear in hand, this is

probably how the actual hack went down.

Using a portable

camcorder, the team shoots

their Max headroom

video at their diy studio.

Then, the hackers find a rooftop

location, giving them a line of

sight to the skyscraper's

massive antennas.

Using a portable microwave

transmitter with enough energy

to overpower the TV station's

signal, the pirates beam

their video to the antennas,

which broadcasts Max across

the entire city of Chicago.

So we have finally solved

the riddle that eluded

investigators for almost 40 years.

We know how Max headroom

invaded the Chicago airwaves,

but of course, a much

bigger riddle remains.

Who was behind the mask,

and why did they do it?

I think they were trying to make a point.

It was a point that modern

society was becoming beholden

to kind of corporate, ad-driven interests.

In the 1980s, laws were

changed to make intrusions like this

a felony, due to

concerns about terrorism.

And since 2009, American TV

stations switched from analog

to digital signals, making it

virtually impossible to commit

a hack of this type again.

So, not all monsters get to be unmasked.

It seems the greatest

hackers in TV history remain

a million-dollar mystery, at least for now.

But before we disappear off

air ourselves, I do have one last

idea to try to solve this case.

If you masterminds

want to reveal yourselves,

well, you know where to find my show.

Just hack me.

I'm Josh gates.

Until next time, travel adventurously.