Ghost Elephants (2025)

[bunniefuu]

[birds calling and singing]

[birds calling and singing]

[making bird call]

[making bird call]

[singing in foreign language]

[singing in foreign language]

[Werner] Washington, D.C.,

the Smithsonian Museum.

The largest elephant

ever is here on display.

This is Dr. Steve Boyes.

He has been in search of

mysterious ghost elephants that

may be descendants of this one.

[singing in foreign language]

- This is the first

time I've seen this elephant,

this grand elephant

here at the Smithsonian.

I've dreamt of it 1,000 times.

I carry a photograph of

this elephant with me.

For ten years,

I've been in

pursuit of its descendants in

the part of Angola I've

been working and exploring.

Now, they call it Henry.

Now, Henry is a human name.

And this is interesting

because the Nkangala,

the people, the

Luchaze of that part of Angola,

they believe and talk about in

their mythology of elephants

leaving their bodies

to become human.

And, well, this elephant

has left his body.

There's nothing in there.

There's just scaffolding.

His skull and tusks were too

heavy to mount into the exhibit.

But we get to go and

see the, the real skull,

the original skull and tusks,

the, to meet Henry,

this grand elephant, the

largest elephant ever recorded,

the biggest living land animal.

And, I can't believe I'm

standing in front of him,

the greatest elephant ever.

[singing in foreign language]

[singing in foreign language]

[Werner] And here are the

actual tusks of Henry.

The Smithsonian allowed

us to take them out and film

them in its storage.

There are miles of

shelves with collected specimens

that are never

seen by the public.

And here is the skull of Henry.

The label from 1955

identifying the hunter,

Josef Fenykoevi,

is still attached.

The continent of Africa.

Henry was k*lled in Angola,

not far from the

highlands where Steve Boyes

has been searching

for the ghost elephants.

It is a plateau of over

4,000 feet elevation.

Its eastern part is

almost uninhabited.

It is called the

Water Tower of Africa.

The locals have

another name for it,

the Source of Life.

Annually, this water tower

supplies ten times the average

freshwater use of the

state of California.

Some of Africa's major rivers

have their sources there.

In the north,

the Congo that

ends up in the Atlantic,

in the east,

the Zambezi that

flows to the Indian Ocean.

All the tributaries that

flow south form the gigantic

wetlands of the Okavango Delta.

Where the water runs down

from the water tower,

valleys are carved

into the plateau.

Here, in almost

impassable wetlands,

the water collects in

source lakes and rivers.

[singing in foreign language]

And now, what is almost

unimaginable for us,

the uninhabited highlands,

the forest stretching

out in the distance,

where all this

water comes from,

is about the size of England.

Steve Boyes and his team

have discovered there almost

200 species new to science.

Everything they have found

is unique to this place.

[Steve] Look at us.

[Werner] We accompanied

Steve Boyes to Namibia,

about 1,000 miles south

of the Angolan highlands.

Here, he has been in

contact for years with

some Bushmen trackers,

the best remaining in the world.

These tribal people are the

most marginalized community in

Namibia, even though

its government is working

to improve this.

The terms "San" and "Bushman"

originated as derogatory labels

in the colonial era but

are now widely used.

These people, Steve hopes,

will make his dream

come true to find the

elusive ghost elephants.

This quest is it almost

going after the white whale?

The unknown, the mysterious?

- This is, it's, it is a

bit like Moby d*ck,

where I don't even know

if these elephants exist the

way I imagine them.

[Werner] Could it be that

they are your imagination,

that you are after

ghosts that don't exist?

- I am after ghosts

that don't exist right now.

Um, I've spent my life...

...living in a dream

that I never had.

It is like the experience

of the Cuanavale source lake

for the first time.

You stand there, you feel

like you've been there before,

but you have never been there.

You feel like

you've dreamed it,

but you've never dreamed it.

You feel like you're in a dream.

And these dreams

often come true.

I believe we'll

find an elephant,

maybe not as tall

as a building,

as big as Henry in

the Smithsonian,

but we'll find a bull elephant.

[Werner] Does it matter

if they are a dream or

existing in reality, for you?

[Steve] It doesn't matter for

me if they are just a dream

because that's almost better.

Then they will always exist,

'cause they

always could be there.

And I can go back

for the rest of my life

looking for them.

And maybe one day,

you find them.

But that's... that's it.

Maybe that's the future of

all animals, all wildlife,

is to be in a dream,

to be a memory.

[gentle music playing]

[gentle music playing]

[gentle music playing]

[gentle music playing]

[gentle music playing]

[gentle music playing]

[gentle music playing]

[gentle music playing]

[gentle music playing]

[Werner] This is Xui, one of

our San Bushman master trackers.

His Ju/hoansi language

consists of many clicking and

smacking sounds far from

our phonetic system,

but his language is complex

and rich in expression.

Ju/hoansi translated

means "real people."

I kept wondering,

who are we, then?

I still have a lot of hair

on my chest, on my body.

Am I half an animal?

[speaking in Ju/'hoansi]

[speaking in Ju/'hoansi]

[translator] As we used

to say when we saw you coming,

we call you

There are the "hairs" coming,

we call you the "hairs"

But you are also people.

[speaking in Ju/'hoansi]

[translator] And

you are also the "whites."

[speaking in Ju/'hoansi]

[translator] We also

call you the "whites."

[speaking in Ju/'hoansi]

[Werner] Mimicking is an

important part of San culture.

Xui was proud to demonstrate

for us how a kudu antelope

finally went down from

his poisoned arrow.

[dramatic music playing]

[vocalizing in Ju/'hoansi]

[Werner] These San Bushmen

here in the Kalahari Desert

of Northern Namibia

are the oldest,

the most primordial culture

since the dawn of man.

They enter a state of trance.

Thus, the spirit of

elephants can enter them.

[vocalizing Ju/'hoansi]

[Werner] The dance

lasts all night long.

[vocalizing Ju/'hoansi]

[vocalizing Ju/'hoansi]

[vocalizing Ju/'hoansi]

[vocalizing Ju/'hoansi]

[Werner] This is Kobus,

who will come to

Angola as a tracker.

We saw him fainting at the

elephant dance last night.

I asked him if the spirit of

an elephant had entered him.

[speaking in Ju/'hoansi]

[Werner] "Yes," he says,

"I went into a trance.

I felt that something

entered my body.

It could have been the

spirit of an elephant,

but I cannot

describe it exactly.

I'm still learning

to become a healer."

Xui Dawid is the third master

tracker to join the expedition

to Angola to find

the ghost elephants.

He's the only one

who speaks English.

[Steve] In Angola, I see

the rubbing in the tree.

[Xui] Yeah.

[Steve] Can you see that

is that elephant because

of the height?

[Xui] So, if you scratch

the body up on the tree.

[Steve] Yeah.

- Like this.

[Steve] Which is

the itchiest part?

The itchy, is it the

shoulder or the back?

- The shoulder. The shoulder.

- The shoulder blades are.

- Yeah.

- Okay.

- Yeah, and the

head here and the face.

You make it, he

makes it like this.

[Steve] On a tree?

- In the tree. Yeah.

- I'd quickly like to

introduce Kerllen Costa.

He's from Angola,

and he's been working

with the Luchaze in the

Angolan highlands

for over a decade.

This is Gary Trower.

He's been working with

these communities,

these San communities in

this area also for a decade.

And it's a long journey to the

Angolan highlands from here.

It's a week driving.

It's over 1,000 miles.

And, of course,

the master trackers

are nervous about that.

Gary will be joining

them on their journey up,

and Kerllen will be up

there to receive them.

So it's important that we spend

time with the master trackers

and their families.

[Werner] We were curious

about the poison Xui uses

for his hunting.

He took us into the bush

together with Ricardo,

our translator, and Gary.

Xui is in search of a bush

that is depleted of its foliage.

This is a sign for him that a

small beetle about the size of

our ladybug has laid its eggs.

The hatched grubs voraciously

eat all the leaves,

then let themselves

drop to the ground,

where they dig themselves

deep into the sand.

Here, they form cocoons.

It is these cocoons

Xui is after.

[speaking in Ju/'hoansi]

[Werner] The grubs inside

are so phenomenally poisonous

that a few of them would

even k*ll an elephant.

Under no circumstance

must Xui have a cut or

a scratch on his hand, or,

slowly, within a day,

he would be stone dead.

[speaking in Ju/'hoansi]

[Gary] So we have a little

pestle and mortar here,

which is used for

grinding them up.

Once you've mixed your poison

in here and it's ready,

you make a little

spatula-type tool out of wood,

and then you start smearing it.

You can see this brown color.

All the way from here to there

is where the poison is applied.

You never actually apply

the poison on the tip,

because if you

accidentally scratch yourself

or cut yourself,

so that's why you can

see it's clearly only

on this section.

[Werner] Xui once almost died

from this poison when he tried

to break up a fight

between his older brother and

another young man.

He threw himself into the

middle and was stabbed with a

poisoned arrow.

There's a widespread

idealization that these Bushmen,

as pure children of nature,

live in harmony.

But like everywhere else,

there is jealousy, violence,

and even m*rder.

[Gary] So what did he do?

As soon as he got

that poison in him,

what was his first reaction,

and what did he

do to save his life?

[Werner] They made deep cuts in

his shoulder and many more cuts

all the way down his arm

to bleed out the poison.

His whole arm withered away,

and it took years

to grow back to the strength

of his other arm.

- It's extremely poisonous.

If you have any cuts

in your hand,

I can vouch for that,

that when I was in the lab,

in the process of trying to put

the protective cap

back on the needle after

I've done the extract,

it went straight

through the glove and actually

pricked me twice.

And I had been told

by the hunters that it

starts burning immediately,

and I immediately

felt it burning like crazy.

It was burning badly.

[Werner] You didn't cut off

your hand or your finger.

You still have it.

[Gary] Yeah, so,

luckily, in the lab,

there was a tap right there.

I took the latex glove off.

I had my finger under the tap,

and I was making sure

that no blood could come out.

And I just kept doing this

repeatedly and letting it bleed

into the basin, flushing it,

flushing it, flushing it,

so, 'cause once it gets

into your bloodstream,

it will go up your arm.

And, generally, the only way

to save yourself is to cut

yourself all the way up

so that it can bleed out

as much as possible

before it reaches your heart.

[Werner] What kind

of poison is it?

It's a nerve poison

or what is it?

[Gary] It actually works

in several different ways.

So the grubs actually

are a hemolytic poison,

which means they break

down red blood cells.

So what happens is, the animal,

you can actually see in its

urine, the urine actually

turns black because that's

all the broken red blood

cells that are now being

flushed out of the body.

And another part,

what it does is, it actually,

it contains saponins, which,

once the poison

travels to your lungs,

it starts foaming

and making bubbles.

And that prevents the animal

from breathing because the

whole air tube and

the nose and nostrils,

I mean, mouth,

fill up with bubbles.

[Werner] Because his

arrows are poisoned,

Xui's bow is small.

He's one of the

greatest trackers alive.

He can read tracks in the sand

as we would read a newspaper.

But he reads with

all his senses.

[speaking in Ju/'hoansi]

[Werner] He hears

a bird alarmed,

and this tells him a

leopard might be nearby.

[speaking in Ju/'hoansi]

[Werner] He sniffs the air

for the scent of elephants.

[speaking in Ju/'hoansi]

[Werner] He senses

the ground vibrating from

the hooves of

fleeing roan antelopes.

[speaking in Ju/'hoansi]

[making antelope call]

[Werner] Xui is very good

at imitating a small antelope

in distress in order

to attract the mother.

The danger is, he could

attract a leopard as well.

[Xui] Yes you have

to move very carefully

before you make that sound.

[Werner] Kerllen Costa

is Angolan.

He dreamt of a career as a

professional soccer player,

but then he became

an anthropologist.

[Kerllen] I was born

and raised in Angola.

Most of my childhood was

spent during the height of the

Angolan Civil w*r.

Because my father was an

helicopter pilot for the army,

I spent a lot of hours

beside him in the c*ck

of his helicopter,

not only fighting in the w*r,

but trying to run away and

make sure his family was safe.

And on these journeys,

I witnessed and listened

to a lot of stories,

a lot of atrocities that no

human should ever see

nor hear, for that matter.

And it really represented the

Angolan Civil w*r at its highest

where helicopters are

machine-gunning elephants

from afar, where boats

with soldiers are rifling

hippos on the river,

where soldiers running

in the middle of the forest are

sh**ting down every single

animal that they can see.

This really represents the

divide that resulted between

biodiversity and humans,

because it's not only humans

that were affected,

for example,

from what is one of the

countries most affected

by land mines.

It's also animals,

because these animals were

being k*lled by land mines.

They were meant for tanks

and trucks and other things,

but they were being really

destroyed by these land mines.

And that's why you see

these Angolan refugees,

humans and animals,

scattering throughout

the continent.

And this seems to be

a worldwide trend,

it's not just Angola,

where you see humans

fighting against creation.

And this was witnessed

also in America, for example,

in the late 1800s,

where the trains would go

through the heart of America

very slowly, and with

people inside it just sh**ting

at buffaloes and

everything that they could see.

Not to eat, but just for

the sake of sh**ting.

As if man is on a mission to

destroy what he is part of,

what he is part of, his

essence, which is life,

which is biodiversity.

This is also represented

by the Fenykovi elephant,

which was shot by Fenykovi,

which is, up until now,

the biggest recorded

elephant in the world.

This is an Angolan citizen,

an Angolan elephant.

He was shot because

of his majestic-ness,

because of his greatness.

And it seems like this

greatness is what causes not

just this elephant but all

other living beings to be

destroyed by humans.

[Werner] This material is

from the 1966 Italian film

"Africa Addio."

At this time,

big-game

hunting was still fashionable.

[roaring]

[singing in foreign language]

[g*nsh*t]

[g*nsh*t]

[g*nsh*t]

[singing in foreign language]

[trumpet and roar]

[g*nsh*t]

[singing in foreign language]

[singing in foreign language]

[singing in foreign language]

[singing in foreign language]

[somber music playing]

[singing in foreign language]

[singing in foreign language]

[Werner] Today, our respect for

nature has changed.

Even a huge fallen tree

has its local guardians.

[speaking in Ju/'hoansi]

[Steve] We have

the permission of the guardians

to visit this

incredible baobab,

1,000 years old.

The ground trodden by the

elephants that move around here

looking for parts of

the baobab to feed on,

like this over here.

You can see their

tracks from days ago.

You can see here,

that's the bull.

It's about 50 centimeters.

And if you take the

longest diameter and

multiply it by seven,

you'll get his shoulder height.

So he is nine foot tall,

very big bull on the

edge of the breeding herd

as they feed here.

Not part of them,

here to visit with them.

But now the Fenykovi

elephant in the Smithsonian,

the largest living land

animal ever recorded,

its footprint was, that big.

You can see now,

compared to this.

This is his front foot

carrying the bulk of his head

and his tusks.

Now, the first footprint

that Fenykovi found,

Josef Fenykoevi, was another,

50 centimeters.

So that foot was this big.

Now, he thought

this was something new,

a mammoth, a mastodon.

An elephant like

Africa's, never seen,

the world has never seen.

This he found on his

first expedition in 1955.

They found two bulls

together under a tree.

They put 17 high-caliber

rounds into the biggest one,

the Fenykoevi, as he turned

out to be called, Henry.

They pursued him for 15

kilometers in a Jeep with the

trackers until he collapsed.

And then, upon skinning him,

they found that

he had a flintlock round

in his thigh, in

his front thigh.

Now, these were

typically given in the

18th and 19th centuries

to tribal leaders,

to kings for their support of

the ivory and the sl*ve trade

in that part of

Africa, Portuguese.

So this elephant at this size,

must have been

over 100 years old.

An elephant that no one had

ever imagined could exist,

an elephant, that we don't

understand today as it stands

there in the museum,

an elephant that may

be a new subspecies.

When we talk to

the Luchaze today,

they've told us of

these elephants,

the ones that they've seen,

encountering forest

elephants with red eyes.

So we really don't know.

And I'm here to seek help,

the same help

that Fenykovi had,

Khoisan Bushmen master

trackers to help us,

Kerllen and the Luchaze,

find the Fenykoevi,

find Henry, find the

descendants of Henry.

Get tissue samples that

we can compare to what we

have in the Smithsonian,

because in the Smithsonian,

the skin alone was two

tons when it arrived there.

They used five tons of material

to build the elephant up,

but the skull was one

- and-a-half times bigger

than any skull on

record in any museum.

And the tusks were

too heavy, their bulk,

to mount onto the exhibit,

so those are in storage.

We can extract ancient DNA

from those for comparison to

what we find today.

[Werner] What is interesting

is how the media reported about

this hunt at the time.

Here to the left, Fenykovi

poses in front of his trophy.

It was Sports Illustrated

that celebrated the sportsman

who had set a new world record.

Fenykovi took

meticulous measurements.

Here, his sketch with all

the detailed dimensions.

On the top right,

he includes a sworn statement

to the correctness of his data.

The emphasis is on the

proof of the new record that

has never been

surpassed to this day.

- Ghost elephants are

these last great giants,

living in these

high-altitude forests.

We don't find elephants

over 1,200 meters.

They're up there in the sky.

I mean, the terra do

fim do mundo,

the Lisima lya Mwono,

Source of Life, it's this,

it's this place.

It's the Kalahari but raised

into the sky like a temple.

I-it's, it's, under it is a,

I don't, what do they call it,

a kimberlite supercluster.

It's diamonds and

rare earth minerals,

and gold coming up and

pushing it into the sky.

There is a free-air

gravity anomaly.

This means gravity

is too much there.

What's coming up is

coming up too fast.

It's raised this desert

into the sky where it's

formed mist belts.

So every morning it's misty

over these lakes that are not

meant to be there.

It's a place for

lost things, like us.

It's filled with real

magic, whatever that is.

I've been to the place where

an entire river disappears into

the ground, or I don't

know where it went,

a raging river into

a dark channel.

[reflective music playing]

[Werner] I've heard people

saying that finding the

elephants means

finding ourselves.

But do we really learn

anything from them?

- I'm not gonna learn

anything from a ghost elephant.

Um...

...maybe it's better

staying as a dream.

Um, but it's something we chase,

dreams, as humans.

We share dreams with each other.

And maybe if this stayed as a

dream for the rest of my life,

go up there once a year in

September to the springs they

say that they come to,

sitting there quietly,

like Vundumtiki,

maybe that's better.

[mystical music playing]

[singing in foreign language]

[singing in foreign language]

[Werner] Tell us how

ancient the San people are.

- Okay, as a scientist,

there is the principle of

greatest genetic diversity.

And that gives the

Kalahari San, the Bushmen,

uh, the greatest time depth,

so, they are the first people.

We, all of us, are the

descendants of a small founding

population of

Kalahari San Bushmen,

that survived the Ice Age,

hiding ostrich eggs

in the desert,

hunting with poison,

and where to walk out.

Some went north,

some south to the coast.

And you follow the genetics,

they walked the coastline

all the way to Australia,

because the next genetic

markers are the Aborigine

peoples of Australia.

So how quickly they

walked straightaway,

and then the rest of the world.

[Werner] In other words,

we are the direct

descendants of them.

They are our direct ancestors.

- Yes.

Um, to think of them as

being different is, uh, bizarre,

if people do.

They are the awakening of us,

the awakening of the human soul.

The dancing, the ritual,

the culture, the knowledge,

fire and stone,

bow and arrow,

medicine and poison.

Technology starts

developing here.

This is us.

[speaking in Ju/'hoansi]

[speaking in Ju/'hoansi]

[singing in Ju/'hoansi]

[singing in Ju/'hoansi]

[singing in Ju/'hoansi]

[singing in Ju/'hoansi]

[Werner] The society of

the Ju/'hoansi Bushmen is

completely egalitarian.

Xui has hunted a kudu,

but he, the provider,

does not brag about it.

He rather puts himself down

and belittles his haul.

The women make a

show of ignoring him.

The boy here, Xui's son,

will distribute the meat.

[wood scraping wood]

Life here is in

many ways ancestral,

although the San Bushmen

use cell phones with ease.

[speaking in Ju/'hoansi]

[Werner] But I recognize myself.

Having a good talk with your

son at the end of a day,

getting up in the morning

without fixed plans or duties.

Time does not seem to occur.

This elder of Nhoma village

spends much of his day fixing

his musical instrument.

I know I should not

romanticize this, but I feel,

surrounded by chickens,

it cannot get any

better than this.

[humming quietly]

[humming quietly]

- Hi.

- How's it going?

[Werner] Our three

Namibian trackers are spread out

in different villages.

For scientific support,

a visitor arrives

in Xui's village.

This is Jordana Meyer, a

specialist in DNA biodiversity.

She's come here to

give training to the

team of trackers.

- So we want to get

those outer cells,

the outer DNA that's left

behind from the elephant.

And we swab,

you might know from COVID,

the little swab.

- Mm-hmm.

- I'll show you in the field

now when we find

some elephant dung.

- Mm-hmm.

- But we'll swab the outside.

And then we put that into

this small vial like this.

And, again, same fluid,

liquid that preserves the DNA.

And then that will tell

us if this elephant is

maybe from Angola.

[laughter]

[overlapping chatter]

- Yeah.

- We might be

testing these darts.

And what this is doing is

taking a tiny piece of tissue

from the elephant.

[Xui] Mm-hmm.

- Hopefully, and then we

will take that little piece,

and we'll put it into

here to preserve.

[Werner] This device

appears promising...

- Bull's-eye.

[Werner] ...but later in

the Angolan highlands,

it will prove useless.

The team now ventures

out to find a dung sample of

the local elephant population.

[Jordana] We're

collecting two things.

One is going to be

from the inside.

And we want it from the inside

because it's not contaminated.

Like we did yesterday,

I'm going to have one

person hold this for me.

- Ah.

- Take the lid off.

Hold it.

I'm going to break it in

and then put it back on.

This is called DNA Shield.

It's a preservative

for the DNA,

so that once it's in there,

it's actually very stable.

Okay?

[speaking in Ju/'hoansi]

- Until it looks

something like this, okay?

So everybody can see?

- Mm-hmm.

- Quite dirty.

Get it quite poopy.

All right, then we open.

And then we very carefully,

there's a breakpoint on here.

And it just breaks

off by itself, okay?

[speaking in Ju/'hoansi]

[Jordana] But this is

what the app will look like.

And then we can go

through recording all of

the information here.

[speaking in Portuguese]

- Yes, please.

- See how that goes.

Oh, you did it already.

- Yeah.

- All right.

- Why are we doing this?

We looked for the ghost

elephants and failed.

Helicopters, camera traps,

hundreds of them.

Acoustic sensors

listening for them.

Still never seen one.

We've got 62 photographs now.

Took us seven years to

get the first photograph.

We're here seeking the help of

the Ju/hoansi master trackers,

Xui, Xui Dawid, Kobus,

three of the last

master trackers alive,

the last people that

can identify an elephant

individually by its footprints,

that can read this landscape

and the sands up in Angola.

The sands in the highlands,

those are Kalahari sands,

same as these.

They can read them

like a newspaper.

And it's with them, this year,

over the next six weeks,

two months that we are

going to see a ghost elephant,

a giant elephant,

and the legendary elephants

the Luchaze hunters talk about

in the remotest valleys

of the Source of Life,

the Lisima lya Mwono,

with these Ju/hoansi

master trackers.

That's what we're doing here.

[inspirational music playing]

[inspirational music playing]

[inspirational music playing]

- I'm going to Angola,

and everyone say it's good.

And everyone is happy.

My wife she is not say

goodbye when you go to Angola.

Just work nice, and I will

see you when you come back.

[speaking in Ju/'hoansi]

[inspirational music playing]

[Werner] In Nhoma,

the village of Kobus,

Angolan trackers

of the Luchaze tribe

join the expedition.

They will play an

important role from now on

as guides in their homeland,

in the highlands where

the ghost elephants hide.

[Steve] We're with the Angolans.

We will be very safe.

- Yeah.

[speaking in Ju/'hoansi]

[Steve] We are going

to Angola today, and, um,

so we will be saying goodbye.

[speaking in Ju/'hoansi]

[Werner] The village chief,

here to the left of Kobus,

gives permission and his

blessing for Kobus to leave.

[speaking in Ju/'hoansi]

[speaking in Ju/'hoansi]

[singing in foreign language]

[Werner] For Xui

and the San trackers,

this is a big unknown now.

The presence of the Angolan

hunters eases the uncertainty

for Kobus and Xui Dawid as

they enter terra incognita.

The border of Angola marks

the outer limit of their world.

[singing in foreign language]

[singing in foreign language]

The expedition now enters

an area that used to be a

b*ttlefield in the

Angolan Civil w*r that raged

for 27 years.

[singing in foreign language]

[singing in foreign language]

[singing in foreign language]

[singing in foreign language]

In the town of Kuito,

Steve Boyes meets a convoy

of the foundation Lisima,

an NGO that he established

for long-term conservation

in Angola.

Here, the convoy swells

to nine vehicles,

two support trucks with

armor plating for land mines,

and 12 motorbikes, all

in logistical support of

the search camp

they will establish.

[speaking in Luchaze]

[singing in foreign language]

[singing in foreign language]

[singing in foreign language]

[singing in foreign language]

[singing in foreign language]

[Werner] The convoy is

headed for the town of Cangamba

to have an audience with

the king of the Nkangala.

[speaking in Luchaze]

[Werner] The king's

spirit meets them.

[Steve] Um, I request permission

to approach the king to

give him two gifts.

I'd like to show

you two pictures,

one of an elephant that

is in Washington, D.C.,

capital of the United States,

and the skull of

the elephant on the right

that is held there.

We believe that the last

hiding place for the descendants

of this elephant

is in this area.

And we saw the

trails for bull elephants,

one very big one.

And that is the

reason we are here,

to understand this animal.

[speaking in Luchaze]

[Steve] We would request

your assistance in making this

onto an arrow much bigger,

a much bigger bow to be far

away from the elephants.

And I can bring this to

you now so that you can see

that it is not an arrowhead.

It is simply something

that will go this far into

the skin and fall out.

[speaking in Luchaze]

[Kerllen] Put it

right there in the front.

He'll pick it up

and have a look.

[Steve] Okay.

[speaking in Luchaze]

[speaking in Luchaze]

[speaking in Luchaze]

[speaking in Luchaze]

[speaking in Luchaze]

[speaking in Luchaze]

- It's a special knife

inherited by the Luchaze with

geometry that they've created.

This is the same as that

amulet that he has in his hand.

It's for protection,

not physical protection,

but spiritual protection.

And he's asking if you could,

in the world that you travel,

see if it's possible, to

find something like that,

but maybe double the size.

[Steve] Mm-hmm.

[Kerllen] And he would

take that as a symbol

of your respect.

[singing in foreign language]

[Werner] It is seven hard

days of driving from Namibia

to the Angolan highlands.

There are no roads, no

bridges in a landscape,

we have to remember,

the size of England.

The four-wheel drives

have to be left behind.

[singing in foreign language]

[overlapping chatter]

[singing in foreign language]

[singing in foreign language]

It is about 100 miles

now on motorbikes,

with more river

crossings to come.

[singing in foreign language]

The locals have encountered

crocodiles at this river.

Steve is apprehensive,

but he has been assured

crocodiles would only

come after nightfall.

We are following the

tracks of Luchaze tribesmen

who spend the dry season

here hunting antelopes

for meat and skins.

[singing in foreign language]

A base camp is set up.

Our Namibian trackers

have settled in well with

the Luchaze tribesmen.

- Oh, man.

[Werner] The motorcycles

have to stay behind now in

order not to disturb

the elephants.

The next 30 miles

must be on foot.

There are first

unmistakable signs of the

presence of elephants.

[speaking in Luchaze]

[Steve] Yeah, yeah.

[Werner] The tracks

in the sand are fresh.

[speaking in Ju/'hoansi]

[Werner] Xui has spotted the

track of an individual elephant.

[speaking in Ju/'hoansi]

[Werner] He finds

a tree with recent markings.

The elephant has poked

the bark with his tusk and

then rubbed his

flank against it.

Elias Ngunga,

the Luchaze tracker,

has found a very

fresh dung sample.

[Steve] Let's get it

from all over here.

Passes out the rectum.

And look at that.

But we are catching up with him.

[Werner] There is a high

chance to get a complete

DNA sequence

from the mucus on it.

[Steve] Mainly wood, just wood.

[Werner] Steve also collects

a sample of the contents

of the dung,

mostly roots and bark.

This will yield

insight into the habitat of

the ghost elephants.

Steve, the scientist,

has to be quick.

He has to share his

treasure with dung beetles,

who appear almost instantly.

The beetle, in turn, has

to compete with flies.

The scarabaeus beetle was

sacred to the ancient Egyptians.

It had the task of rolling

the sun across the sky.

The camp closest to

the ghost elephants is

used by Luchaze hunters,

smoking fires and drying

meat of antelopes everywhere.

The arrowhead for collecting

a sample of the skin of

a ghost elephant is

being made ready.

[speaking in Luchaze]

[speaking in Luchaze]

[speaking in Luchaze]

[Werner] This

is Antonio Luhoke,

the Luchaze hunter who

has accompanied Steve on

many prior expeditions.

[speaking in Luchaze]

[speaking in Luchaze]

[whistling]

[Werner] Next day,

traces of a very, very large

elephant were found.

[Steve] This one here.

Here, try that one.

[speaking in Ju/'hoansi]

[Steve] That's

the highest point.

[Xui] Yes.

[Steve] Wow.

There's a big rubbing.

Is that the shoulder height?

[speaking Portuguese]

[Steve] So that's,

nine, ten foot.

That's like a big

elephant in the Okavango,

like that one we saw.

But it's the top of

the shoulder or here?

[speaking Portuguese]

- Under?

- Mm.

- So maybe one more foot.

[speaking Portuguese]

- And, is it a,

a male or a female?

[speaking Portuguese]

- It must be a male, a bull.

- They believe it's

a herd of 16 elephants.

And there's several big

males walking in front.

One in front and three or

four on the sides protect them.

And there's one or two that

have broken their tusks already.

[Steve] Mm.

[Kerllen] And he believes

this is one of the four

that are on the side,

paving the way

for the herd to come.

- They were talking about,

over here, is that height.

And the shoulder.

- Shoulder.

- There.

- Yeah.

- And he's like that.

- Oh.

[Steve] It's a good 11-foot.

I mean, it's bigger than

what we have in Botswana.

[Kerllen] What's

standard big in Botswana?

- Ten-foot standard.

You don't get bigger.

And that's an eight-ton,

seven-ton elephant.

The Fenykovi was 13 tons.

So, like, you're

talking about a, yeah.

[Kerllen] Nine to ten?

- Yeah, a nine to

ten-ton elephant, yeah.

[Werner] Xui and Xui Dawid

discover something else

overlooked by everyone.

This elephant hair will become

part of the forensic evidence.

[speaking in Ju/'hoansi]

[Werner] Xui explains

here how the elephant has

moved into the wet peatland.

- He obviously heard us coming.

So it's, since the big rain,

after the small rain,

he walked through here,

and he actually

ran through here.

See this footprint?

And ran, not

along the channel,

straight to where Tony is there.

We've got two cameras,

so I think the first one

will go there.

Okay.

Here or.

[Werner] As sophisticated

as this contraption is,

it never captured any

of the ghost elephants.

In the end, the

whole thing will come down

to hand-held cell phones.

[pensive music playing]

Among the companions of

the night is this spider.

It is poisonous,

and the young teeming on

its back are equally poisonous.

The spider was weird enough,

but the next morning,

I believed I was still

dreaming of demons.

[mystical music playing]

- No, it's been, we,

in the beginning,

six days behind him.

One day behind

the breeding herd.

Yesterday, we were right

behind the breeding herd,

literally chasing them.

They're smelling

us with the wind.

That's what the team's done,

go around.

Now we are, they're

probably with them.

And we're one hour,

two hours,

three hours behind this guy.

So we're catching up.

[Werner] But then,

unexpected luck would strike.

Each morning, separate

teams would venture out.

Here, Elias and Antnio.

The camera filmed them

only leaving the camp and

then joined Steve and Kerllen.

- I think it was in his pocket.

[Werner] Suddenly, Elias

and Antnio spot the biggest

of all ghost elephants,

the vague gray shape

between the leaves.

Antnio only has time to

start his cell phone camera.

And then he scrambles to

find a better position.

And now, for seconds only,

we catch a glimpse.

Then the elephant

bull is going away.

[Steve] They took a picture?

[Kerllen] They took a picture.

[Steve] May I see the picture?

[Werner] Was this it?

Was this worth the

ten-year search and

the arduous expedition?

Was this the proof?

Was this the truth?

In a way, yes, but the

accountant's truth at best.

Yes, the ghost elephants exist.

We have the forensic proof

because one of them was

captured on an otherwise

disappointing video.

[speaking Portuguese]

[Steve] This one?

[speaking Portuguese]

[Werner] It was certainly

the biggest elephant bull.

Its shoulder height indicates

that this is the largest known

elephant in Africa and hence,

the largest land mammal

on our planet.

[singing in Luchaze]

[Werner] Two days' rest.

[singing in Luchaze]

[singing in Ju/'hoansi]

[singing in Ju/'hoansi]

[Werner] And then

Steve will get lucky.

- Just saying to

Gary and Xui that we heard

an elephant up

over this ridge here.

Just gonna go look if

we can see the tracks,

which one it was.

[mysterious music playing]

[Werner] After less

than two hours' march,

the San trackers catch a

glimpse of an elephant.

Our professional camera

stayed slightly behind,

and, thus, what we

see was shot by Steve on

his cell phone.

[mysterious music playing]

Xui cautiously shoots his arrow.

[mysterious music playing]

They retrieve the tip of

the arrow that was meant

to collect the DNA sample.

[Steve] Ah. Oh.

[speaking in Ju/'hoansi]

- I couldn't see it properly.

I think it, I think it bounced

off the elephant or missed it.

But we got, when it hit

the ground, certainly,

it took some sand in.

But the elephant is right here.

[speaking in Ju/'hoansi]

- I think you said it

came off the rump. Yeah.

- Yeah.

[speaking in Ju/'hoansi]

[Steve] How's the elephant now?

[speaking in Ju/'hoansi]

[Werner] It made

the elephant flee,

and so the whole idea

with the arrow was given

up for good.

[Steve] How it looks.

[Werner] But Steve

got his reward.

He got his clean shot.

[Steve] This is the.

[speaking in Ju/'hoansi]

[speaking in Ju/'hoansi]

- Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve!

[Werner] Xui, still excited,

gives an account of how he

alerted Steve to the elephant.

[speaking in Ju/'hoansi]

[Werner] After the

first excitement had subsided,

Steve was again confronted

with a question whether

it might have been

better never to have

encountered the ghost elephants.

Were they not possibly

better as a rainbow,

as a mirage in the sky?

And yet, he did encounter

one of them for real.

This reality was undeniable.

Steve would have to

live with his success.

- This is the one by himself.

In the water tower,

in this place.

[Werner] And another

reality set in, the rain.

The expedition would have to

return before the peatlands and

rivers would become impassable.

[Steve] The Source of Life, huh?

[singing in foreign language]

[thunder]

[Werner] Now the time had come

to return and secure the loot,

the biological samples

of the ghost elephants.

The Smithsonian had given

permission to extract a DNA

sample from Henry in order to

compare it with Steve's samples.

- Now, where will we

be taking the sample from?

- I think we'll aim for

somewhere around here or in, uh,

where the tusks are from.

And I'll collect the samples,

but I'll have to get

my team in to help.

[Werner] Melissa Hawkins

was assigned to this task.

- I'll stand back,

and thank you for doing this.

- Okay, great.

[Werner] Mary Faith Flores

will assist her through

the next steps.

At the base of

one of the molars,

she was able to

find tissue that,

even after 70 years,

was still fresh enough

to be promising.

The next procedures

have to be performed in a

completely sterile environment.

These here are Henry's

tissue samples.

Melissa and Mary will

extract the DNA here.

And now Steve delivers mucus

and dung samples from the ghost

elephants to Katherine Solari

of Stanford University.

In the background,

Dmitri Petrov,

the mastermind behind

Stanford's genomic programs.

- These samples are

literally out of the elephant,

just a few weeks ago.

Um, four of them, five of

them are from the actual

ghost elephant bull.

So I'm going to hand them over.

But you see, um,

this is one of the

ones from the bull itself.

- Perfect.

We're just gonna bead-bash

it in order to open up all

of the cells and release

all of the DNA so that we

can see everything

that's in there,

what they're eating,

as well as samples from

the DNA of the elephant.

[machine whirring]

This is the sequencing machine.

And it's very

state-of-the-art,

worth well over a

million dollars.

- This is where our

ghost elephant samples will go?

- Yes, exactly.

This is where they'll end up.

They'll go through a number of

steps from what we saw earlier

to end up on here, but

this is where they end up and

where the data is generated.

And this machine creates

six billion sequencing reads.

[Steve] Six billion.

So 6,000 million DNA sequences.

- It's a lot of data.

- Yeah?

- So I have it

set up here to show you.

So, here, each line is a read.

This is 150.

- That's a lot of letters.

- Letters long. And then.

- So you're talking about

six billion of these lines?

- Six billion.

- Outputted by this machine.

- Exactly.

- From the elephant-dung samples.

- Exactly.

- This is mitochondrial?

- This is all DNA.

- All DNA?

It's just everything

that's in there?

And what are you going

to do with this data?

[Katherine] So this is an

example of that data a little

bit more processed.

So here it's all

aligned and mapped.

[Steve] Okay.

[Katherine] And here, you

can see this is one elephant.

This is a second elephant.

[Werner] To find the anomalies,

here marked in yellow,

would be impossible for humans.

From the billions of lines, a

computer program identifies the

differences between

two specimens.

[Katherine] Elephant down here

versus this elephant up here.

[Werner] This is the University

of California, Riverside.

The final step in Steve's

research will be done here to

compare the DNA of the

ghost elephant's with Henry

and other lineages.

- Steve, hi.

[Werner] This leads

him to Ellie Armstrong.

- Great to see you.

- Good to meet you in person.

- I brought

something out for you.

- Thank you very much.

- It's 'cause I knew

you were coming.

- Well, you knew that

we went to Smithsonian.

- Absolutely.

- And we dug around

just below the teeth,

took out some tissue.

And the objective is to compare

that to the fresh samples

I brought from Angola.

- What we'll be able to

do with these is really be

able to trace the history

of these elephants.

So, with the historic specimen,

there are some things

that we know about it,

like where it was collected,

but there are some

things that we obviously

don't know about it,

especially in relation

to the elephants that you've

collected from Angola.

And so what we'll be able to

tell is what population this

elephant was from,

whether it was more

related to forest elephants

or other species of elephants,

or how different it is from the

elephants that we're

currently seeing.

- I've interacted with thousands

of elephants in my life.

- Mm-hmm.

- I've never seen

elephants like this.

They've got long legs.

They're very tall.

They've got small feet

compared to their size.

They live at altitude.

I mean, if you were to take

a savanna elephant nor a bush

elephant from the Okavango

Delta and put them up there,

they would not survive.

I mean, is it crazy to

think that they are, like a,

not a subspecies or, um.

- Yeah, they're.

- Something completely different?

- We'll be able to trace

that using the genetic DNA.

So we'll be able to understand

whether this is sort of a

lineage that has descended from

some of these historic lineages

that you've been able to sample

at the Smithsonian or whether

this is something that's

totally new and never

has been sampled.

And that's what's so great

with genetic sequencing.

You know, sometimes we get

species that we can't tell them

apart just by looking at them.

But once we look in the genome,

we know that

they're actually distinct.

When we sequence a genome,

we're sequencing about

three billion base pairs

of DNA.

And we have to put this into

supercomputers and then process

all of the data.

Um, so, usually, this

takes on the order of about

six months to a year.

Um, and that's because

we have to pull in all of

the genetic data

that's already been sequenced

for elephants so that we

contextualize the data

that you have brought back and

got for us.

The first time we do it,

it takes a long time.

But then the second and

the third time we do it,

it starts becoming very quick.

[Werner] Her findings,

long down the line,

will be published in

scientific journals.

I was puzzled by

the array of dead birds

for scientific research.

They appeared like Egyptian

mummies in eternal sleep.

But how can we keep

the dwindling diversity

of species alive?

[singing in foreign language]

[singing in foreign language]

[singing in foreign language]

Can the ghost elephants be

kept alive long into the future?

Policing their survival through

armed rangers has only slowed

down their dramatic

decline in numbers.

On his way back

from his expedition,

Steve had another fascinating

audience with a local king.

His deep-rooted traditions may

hold the key to the protection

and survival of the

ghost elephants.

Everything is formalized.

First, he grants

permission to hear the report

of the expedition.

[clapping rhythmically]

[speaking in Luchaze]

[Werner] One of the

king's own hunters,

who was part of

the expedition,

narrates the

events day by day.

[speaking in Luchaze]

[speaking in Luchaze]

[Werner] And now

the king speaks.

He reminds us of the elephants

by narrating the origin

myth of his people.

[speaking in Luchaze]

[Werner] Kerllen translates why

elephants belong to the tribe.

[Kerllen] When those

hunters went to hunt,

there was one small elephant

at the back of the herd.

This elephant, a small elephant

came to the Kwango River.

And as it got to the river,

it started taking off

his skin of elephant.

And as he took off the skin,

the hunter could see

that it was a woman.

And he helped her take off

all of the elephant skin.

And with the woman,

he came running all

the way to here,

the kingdom of the Nkangala.

He kept that woman as a wife.

They reproduced with that woman.

And that's why he's telling

you that the elephants are

part of the people.

So that's why you see

that when you ask for

permission to the king,

before we left,

because we asked permission,

he kneeled.

And he did the ritual to

connect to the ancestors,

asking permission.

And they allowed you

to see the elephant.

That's why you managed

to see the elephants.

Those elephants you will

not see if you do not ask

permission to the king and

the king to his ancestors.

- Okay.

[clapping]

[singing in foreign language]

[Werner] Is there hope in the

enduring power of African myth

that humans and elephants

belong together?

Will the landscape

enshroud the ghost elephants

for a long, long time?

Probably not.

But the power of traditions

will not easily fade away.

And what is striking is that

both Steve and the tribal

elders firmly believe that

if the elephants disappear,

this would be the harbinger

of our disappearance as well.

Life would go on but without us.

[singing in Ju/'hoansi]

[singing in Ju/'hoansi]

[singing in Ju/'hoansi]

[somber music playing]

[somber music playing]

[somber music playing]

[somber music playing]