- 5 months ago
Documentary, River Monsters S01E02 Killer Catfish Extended Cut
Category
🐳
AnimalsTranscript
00:00:01My name is Jeremy Wade. I'm an explorer, a biologist and a fisherman.
00:00:11I've spent my life trekking to remote parts of the world, searching for giant freshwater fish,
00:00:17the unusual and the bizarre, following leads and chasing tails.
00:00:25And then I heard this story.
00:00:37People are disappearing in North India,
00:00:41swallowed by some sort of horrific river monster, a freshwater abomination.
00:00:51I'm going out there to investigate, to uncover the truth behind these horrifying stories.
00:00:58I'm going to hunt down the monster of the Kali River, to find out if it really exists.
00:01:11They do exist.
00:01:13I first heard these reports of people disappearing a couple of years ago.
00:01:28If they're true, this really is the stuff of nightmares.
00:01:35The first victim was a young Nepali boy.
00:01:41Just 17 years old, Dilbahada is swimming, while he and his girlfriend wait for the ferry.
00:02:00They are planning to cross into India, to start a new life together.
00:02:13But their dream will never be fulfilled.
00:02:19Suddenly, and without warning, Dil disappears beneath the water,
00:02:34as if he is being pulled down by something below.
00:02:37It all happened in a flash.
00:02:42He never surfaces.
00:02:49And after days of searching, no remains of the young man are ever found.
00:02:55It's as if he never existed.
00:02:59We found no body, no creature, nothing, for at least five kilometers.
00:03:08Nothing was found.
00:03:18Within a few months, the monster struck again.
00:03:24This time, it is a young boy, washing in the river.
00:03:28He is standing in shallow water, no deeper than his knees.
00:03:31Suddenly, he screams, something's grabbed me, before being dragged underwater.
00:03:36His father is only a few feet away.
00:03:41By the time he has come to his son's aid, the boy has completely vanished.
00:03:46Again, people search the water, hoping to find some trace, some clue,
00:03:55as to how this tragedy occurred.
00:03:58Nothing is ever found.
00:04:01Both attacks happened on a short stretch of a remote river called the Kali,
00:04:07where this river forms the border between Nepal and India.
00:04:12The river flows down from the sacred Himalayas,
00:04:18and it is named after Kali the Destroyer, the Hindu goddess of death.
00:04:31This region has a long history of man-eaters and spirits, of demons and gods.
00:04:36This is where heaven meets earth.
00:04:39This is the top of the world, a place where reality and fantasy are almost one and the same thing.
00:04:48This is the perfect place for a monster, maybe just too perfect.
00:05:01This mystery can only be solved by logic and analysis.
00:05:04I cannot let my imagination get the better of me.
00:05:10I must keep an open mind.
00:05:12And the only way I can do that is to get to ground zero.
00:05:17My quest has begun.
00:05:18I fly into Delhi, India's capital.
00:05:23Then an overnight train takes me to the northern frontier of the country.
00:05:27As a biologist, it's in my nature to be skeptical, but as a traveling fisherman,
00:05:32I've actually seen enough to realize that not all fishermen's tails are pure imagination.
00:05:37The latest news is that these people are still disappearing.
00:05:45The creature is still out there.
00:05:47And from the last railhead, it's a 20-hour bone-jarring journey, higher into the Himalayas.
00:06:02I've now been traveling for over two days.
00:06:14The modern world might as well be a million miles away.
00:06:17This road just gets washed away every year in the monsoons.
00:06:28I mean, you can't reach the area at all for sort of weeks on end very often.
00:06:32According to my map here, in fact, the road, you know, doesn't even go to where I'm getting to.
00:06:37But just trust them, I'm going to get there.
00:06:45If anything goes wrong, I'm a long way from help, but it's getting too late to turn back now.
00:06:51What I've got to do is gather as much local intelligence as I can along the way.
00:06:55Now, the thing is, this area is a virtual information black hole.
00:07:00Very little goes in and even less comes out.
00:07:07This place is not disappointing.
00:07:11Even from up here, you can just see the power of that water.
00:07:13It's not flat and calm.
00:07:15It's, you know, it's deep and dark and turbulent.
00:07:17And, to be honest, the thought, now that I'm here, of actually confronting that water
00:07:24and this monster that is supposed to live down there, I mean, it really, really is daunting.
00:07:33Water hides so much.
00:07:35That is what makes this mystery so tantalizing.
00:07:39Just what is going on beneath the surface.
00:07:45I've made contact with an old friend, Vinny Berdola.
00:07:48I've been on fishing trips with Vinny in the past
00:07:50and I'm relying on him to help me speak with the local people.
00:07:54He's set up an expedition that will take me right over the monster's lair.
00:08:08What I've got to do is have a really good look at the water where the monster is said to live
00:08:12and gather as much local intelligence as I can along the way.
00:08:16Now, 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.
00:08:22So we're starting our expedition high up the valley at an altitude of some 2,000 feet.
00:08:34The river bank is just mountainside and there's just no way I can do that on foot.
00:08:43Okay, we're going.
00:08:44From here, there's no going back.
00:08:54The local name for the area I'm about to enter is the Gundesh.
00:08:59It means the lost country and it is the perfect hideout for a monster.
00:09:04People have disappeared, swallowed by an underwater monster in the Kali river in North India.
00:09:25I'm going to find out exactly what is going on.
00:09:29I have entered the Gundesh, the lost country.
00:09:34The heart of the monster's lair.
00:09:44My mission is to travel down river collecting all the information I can
00:09:48and sift fact from fiction.
00:09:59Every evening we'll have to set up a new camp, as this river is too dangerous to navigate at night.
00:10:15That's very sparsely populated here.
00:10:17You occasionally see people walking along the tops of mountains
00:10:20and so even halfway up some sort of sheer mountainsides collecting fodder for goats and things like that.
00:10:27But word travels very quickly and we've already got quite a little crowd gathering around the campsite.
00:10:35We've reached the location of the first attack, the disappearance of Dil Bahada.
00:10:40Tomorrow, I'm hoping to find out more.
00:10:53Vinny's organized a meeting with a man who was there at the time.
00:10:57His name is Bhuvan Puneta.
00:10:59And this is the place where the story features.
00:11:14Mr. Puneta was waiting for the ferry to come across the river.
00:11:17There were three other people, his friend and this young Nepali couple.
00:11:21And he said the boy in shallow water, knee-deep water, he just disappeared too quickly even to scream, to shout.
00:11:30I mean, you know, what alerted them was the fact that, you know, the girl, the girl screamed.
00:11:35It just disappeared under the water and it's calm water.
00:11:39It's not the far speed of the pool.
00:11:41And, you know, he didn't see fish or anything at all.
00:11:43There was just a disturbance and the boy went.
00:11:46And it happened right here where I'm looking now.
00:11:48I mean, that's very hard to believe.
00:11:51But, you know, he saw it with his own eyes.
00:11:55Perhaps what Mr. Puneta saw has a less mysterious cause.
00:12:01My first suspect is the river itself.
00:12:11Maybe Dil died as a result of being sucked down by the huge forces generated by whirlpools.
00:12:18My new fishing rod.
00:12:23To find out, I use a depth sounder to determine the topography of the river and the pools.
00:12:30I'm looking for sudden deep holes, evidence of whirlpool activity.
00:12:34A place where undercurrents might drag a swimmer underwater.
00:12:38By 20 feet.
00:12:39I'm touching the rock.
00:12:4020 foot.
00:12:41There is deep water close to the bank.
00:12:42Look at that crack there.
00:12:43Do you know what I can do?
00:12:44I can shove this pole in that crack.
00:12:45So, literally, I'll just move it six inches sideways and we've got 23 foot.
00:12:47In fact, near the rocky outcrop, the water is as deep as 28 feet.
00:12:51These areas of deep water are created as the water is forced around a bend.
00:12:56The same force creates a series of shifting whirlpools.
00:13:17It is a very powerful river and there are places, literally, where, yes, you can be a knee-deep
00:13:27water, you take one step and you're in 30 foot or whatever.
00:13:30And I think, you know, you take a mouthful of water, you go under, that's it, you don't
00:13:34come up.
00:13:35Yet, these places are away from the area where Dil Bahada disappeared.
00:13:43What's interesting, though, is that a lot of these stories are not from the rougher bits
00:13:48of the river, they are from the quiet places, normally in the pools where there's a ferry
00:13:51and you've just got gently shelving water and they disappear.
00:13:54Now, that doesn't quite fit with the idea of it's always the water.
00:14:00Bahada's disappearance happened in shallow water, away from areas of turbulence.
00:14:07There were other people in the water as well, so if it was a sudden surge, why didn't it
00:14:14affect them?
00:14:16I am very doubtful that this was a straightforward case of drowning.
00:14:21The next case certainly wasn't.
00:14:24It's only a mile or so downstream where the next case occurred.
00:14:29Dhamagat is another ferry crossing point.
00:14:36The ten-year-old boy was definitely grabbed by something.
00:14:42Those were his final words, heard by people on the riverbank.
00:14:46But by the time anyone had come to help, he'd vanished.
00:14:50No one saw a thing.
00:14:52What an unimaginable tragedy.
00:14:55Whatever grabbed him must have been extremely powerful to have dragged the boy underwater so
00:15:00quickly.
00:15:02The next case is even scarier.
00:15:05This time the victim was not a small defenseless boy, but an adult buffalo.
00:15:10A couple of years ago, a man who lived in this village here called Man Singh, who has since
00:15:16died, told me about the time he saw his fully grown buffalo dragged into the water just here.
00:15:23Vinny's actually managed to find his son, and we're going to just see if I can find out anything more about that incident.
00:15:40It was shallow water out here with a few rocks sticking out.
00:15:57And as the buffalo, as the first buffalo was drinking water, something grabbed it.
00:16:08And these people saw it sort of struggling with its head and neck.
00:16:11And then suddenly it toppled over into the water.
00:16:14He and his father, they saw the buffalo struggling or something struggling with the buffalo all along this bend in the pool.
00:16:22And from where the deep water starts, the buffalo disappeared completely.
00:16:26It didn't come up.
00:16:31There was also a lot of blood involved.
00:16:33So it sounds like something actually grabbed it by the snout almost and sort of pulled it in by the snout?
00:16:39You said that there was something thrashing around that wasn't buffalo.
00:16:46I mean, did anybody get a clear view or any kind of view of, you know, what else was in there thrashing in the water?
00:16:52You said it was a creature, it was black in color and it was larger than the buffalo.
00:17:05That's what people noticed about it.
00:17:07So, I mean, in 30 foot of water, whatever we've got, you know, there's just, there's just, there's just no way you're going to see it.
00:17:13You know, the answer is, is down there somewhere.
00:17:16But what sort of animal can drag an 800 pound buffalo to a watery death?
00:17:23Here in India, there's an obvious suspect.
00:17:26Some people say it's a crocodile, but no one knows for sure because no one's had a very clear look at it.
00:17:32Is this the monster I'm looking for, a giant crocodile?
00:17:46My name is Jeremy Wade, explorer and biologist.
00:17:53I'm tracking a man-eating freshwater monster in the foothills of the Himalayas.
00:17:59My first real suspect is a giant crocodile.
00:18:08Crocodiles are often seen in and around the rivers of northern India.
00:18:12India's leading expert on these apex predators is Ron Whittaker, an American expatriate.
00:18:25Crocodiles are well-known man-eaters, with jaws capable of exerting a force of half a ton to crush the skull burn of victims.
00:18:34Ron has studied crocodiles all around the world and has got up close and personal with all three species that inhabit India and Nepal.
00:18:47They grow to a huge size, over 20 feet, and as far as salties are concerned, human beings are just part of their menu.
00:19:06But their range of habitat is limited.
00:19:11Although they can live in freshwater, no salty has ever been recorded as far inland as the Kali River.
00:19:18And certainly not anywhere near the sites of the three disappearances.
00:19:21The gari or crocodile, however, lives exclusively in rivers.
00:19:30And its range once extended to include the Kali River.
00:19:35But although they're equipped with over a hundred interlocking, razor-sharp teeth, they have narrow jaws, ill-suited to attacking either buffalo or humans.
00:19:45Their diet consists almost exclusively of fish.
00:19:50Gari are extremely slender-snouted crocodilians.
00:19:56In fact, they have the thinnest snout of any crocodile in the world.
00:20:00And the only time we've ever heard of a gari biting a human being was when a female gari was defending her nest and someone came too close to it.
00:20:09So the only possible culprit is the mugger.
00:20:14Reaching lengths of 18 feet, they are serious predators and have even been observed feeding on tiger.
00:20:20They can easily make short work of any mammal, even one the size of a buffalo.
00:20:35But are there any mugger crocodiles around here?
00:20:44Mugger crocodiles are not typically known as man-ears, but there's no reason why they shouldn't attack humans.
00:21:02And it does happen sometimes.
00:21:06The color of the mugger is a close match to the eyewitness report given by Kaisar Singh when his buffalo was pulled underwater.
00:21:18He even suggested it was a mugger, but it was just a guess.
00:21:22Normally, muggers are olive green in color, but they do have some black markings on their back.
00:21:33Partially obscured by water and only visible for an instant, it is credible that Singh saw the creature as black.
00:21:39Could it be that this creature, living up to its name, has hauled a buffalo to its death and also attacked and killed at least three people in this cold mountain river, the Kali?
00:21:55In 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 mugger crocodiles.
00:22:05Roel Gutt, where Dilbahada disappeared, is 2,000 feet above sea level.
00:22:12And here, the water is both faster and colder.
00:22:17Mugger crocodiles typically prefer deep pools and slower flowing rivers and nice embankments to haul out on and bask.
00:22:26No one has seen any sign of a mugger in the area of the disappearances, but I still keep my eyes peeled.
00:22:37Muggers are less agile out of water and are easily visible on land.
00:22:42They'll remain out of the water for up to 12 hours each day.
00:22:49By now, I would have expected to see some evidence of crocs, but still nothing.
00:22:53As we travel further down river, the rapids seem to be coming at us more frequently.
00:23:00We've gone to a set of rapids and we've scattered it out and there's actually not enough water to go down here.
00:23:10Certainly not with the raft loaded up, it's just going to catch on all these rocks.
00:23:14The bags have been unloaded and everything's going on, some mules.
00:23:19And what we're doing is we're just floating the empty raft down the rapids and we all get in the other side.
00:23:26We have it on good authority that crocodiles aren't around here. In fact, the people don't see them.
00:23:35You'd see them out of the water if they were here. You know, but it's just the terrain is wrong. The altitude is, you know, it's too high.
00:23:44The water's too cold. You know, there aren't crocs. I can cross crocodiles off my list. I am now looking for something else entirely.
00:23:56I am sure that some creature is responsible for these deaths. But if it's not a crocodile and it's not whirlpools or currents, what sort of creature is it?
00:24:07We camp at the location of another attack, Nagarugat. There is a similarity in all the attack sites.
00:24:17Fast streams feeding deep pools, natural places for ferry crossings. And for those who don't know these stories, perfect swimming pools.
00:24:28He is 18 years old, Atul Kumar. And he is swimming with a friend.
00:24:45They decide to swim to the other side, a distance of some 70 yards. His friend reaches the safety of the far bank.
00:24:58But without warning, without a sound, Kumar disappears.
00:25:19His distraught family launches a search for him. But just like the other cases, nothing is found.
00:25:29But this time, the monster slipped up. This time, a man, a local man, saw the monster in the act.
00:25:41He draws the head of the beast in the sand.
00:25:44The monster took the boy out there in the middle of the river. And Mr. Bora believes it was a monster called the Soos.
00:26:01Going to water where it is known that so much lives. It will definitely take you.
00:26:02There's a sort of mass of evidence, you know, sort of building up, isn't there?
00:26:14This Soos takes my whole investigation in an unexpected direction.
00:26:15On my travels in India, I've heard this word before, but it has always been used to describe a river dolphin.
00:26:27Is it really possible that the Kali killer is a river dolphin?
00:26:28So, how many species of river dolphin are there worldwide? Is it 12, 8 or 4?
00:26:40Before the break, I asked you how many species of river dolphin there are worldwide. The answer is 4.
00:26:53I'm an explorer and fisherman. I'm in northern India on the trail of a freshwater monster, a man-eater.
00:27:07I've been told it is a soos, a creature that looks like an elongated pig.
00:27:22I've come across this one, and I'm a man-eater.
00:27:27I've been told it is a soos, a creature that looks like an elongated pig.
00:27:34I've come across this word before, but it has always been used to describe a river dolphin.
00:27:41There are just four species of river dolphin, and one of them lives in the Ganges.
00:27:47I've been around river dolphins before, and I know that they're not the benign creatures that a lot of people imagine.
00:27:53They are toothy, they are supreme predators, and they can grow very big.
00:27:58They're almost blind and about as big as a man.
00:28:01The river dolphin's distribution has never historically ever included the Kali River.
00:28:07But more conclusively, these air-breathing mammals have to break surface at least every two minutes.
00:28:13Of all the witnesses, no one has ever mentioned seeing anything prior to or after the attack.
00:28:19With a dolphin, I'm convinced they would have.
00:28:21So I've eliminated drowning, crocodiles, and river dolphins.
00:28:35Maybe the soos is just some kind of giant fish.
00:28:46Maybe all I need to do to solve this mystery is do what I do best, go fishing.
00:28:51But just as I'm starting to get comfortable with what I'm looking for, I get thrown a wild card.
00:29:00Something is investigating the bait, and there's part of me looking at that water that is saying,
00:29:07I hope it's only a small one, but actually what I really want is a big one.
00:29:13That is direct to a fish. It feels like the bottom, but it's actually a fish.
00:29:32I'm just going to... It hasn't woken up yet. It doesn't know it's hooked yet.
00:29:37Look at that rod, but it still doesn't actually know it's hooked.
00:29:42Take this easy. Be ready for it to run, though. It might well run.
00:29:48It's actually in very close. That's the trace.
00:29:52The fish is going to be visible very soon.
00:29:55See the bubbles? Oh!
00:29:57I've got one there with the boat. Yeah.
00:30:00I think they are.
00:30:05Turtle, turtle, turtle.
00:30:08I've just got the mother of all turtles.
00:30:11The mother of all turtles.
00:30:13Although they're hardly ever seen, these waters are home to the biggest freshwater turtles in the world.
00:30:18This one would weigh in at about 200 pounds. That's heavier than I am.
00:30:22Could the soos be a turtle?
00:30:24Big stone here! Big stone!
00:30:28Big stone here!
00:30:30They sure have the attitude.
00:30:32That neck is nearly half its body length.
00:30:38We need to cut the... Cut the line.
00:30:41Blimey, O'Reilly!
00:30:42The reason these creatures are so rare is they're a favourite food.
00:30:47Turtles here are eaten.
00:30:49If the soos was a turtle, the people would have just told me.
00:30:52But could it be the killer?
00:30:54Soft-shelled turtle.
00:30:56Very vicious jaws this end, but not quite what I was after.
00:30:59Turtles are not active predators. They're scavengers. They just sit and wait, fattening themselves up.
00:31:10And the chances of a turtle grabbing a swimmer...
00:31:13It doesn't really add up.
00:31:17Let alone snatch a fully grown buffalo.
00:31:25At least this one gets to fight another day.
00:31:29Bye-bye and don't come back.
00:31:32My mission is to find the identity of the Kali killer.
00:31:37I'm working through the possible suspects, but I'm not getting many leads.
00:31:42Despite being such a sparsely populated area, people have turned up after we've stopped and made camp.
00:31:50It's interesting. There's a curiosity about what I'm doing here, but also there's a certain amount of suspicion as well.
00:32:07And some of the people who were going to come and talk to me have actually not turned up.
00:32:13And I can sort of see things from their point of view. The whole thing about coming all this way, you know, it is a bit unlikely really.
00:32:22Surely I must have other motives, whatever they are, but whatever they are, they can't be good.
00:32:27So, you know, a few people have actually decided to stay away.
00:32:30The only thing they found was a slipper and her scarf.
00:32:38When I first came here, I thought the people would be clamoring for me to help them rid the place of this man-eater.
00:32:53And that they might help me track it down.
00:33:00This region is a very mystical place, a very spiritual place.
00:33:03And Kali plays an important role here. Not just the river, but the goddess.
00:33:14Hindus believe that as the body is recycled, so is the spirit.
00:33:19So every end is also a beginning.
00:33:23And it's interesting then that despite her role as the destroyer, the devotees of Kali also see her as the mother of the universe.
00:33:36It's not the kind of life where you can just sit around at home, you've actually got to get out and herd your animals and chop fodder.
00:33:53So, you know, avoidance isn't really an option. You've just got to get out there.
00:33:59And now there is this thing of a man-eater in the water too.
00:34:04What's interesting though is that the attitude is very much, you know, what will be, will be.
00:34:11You know, you haven't got any choice ever. You just get on with life and accept whatever happens.
00:34:16I still want to find out what's going on just for the people who live here.
00:34:23But this quest is fast becoming a personal obsession.
00:34:28I'm confident that these disappearances were not drownings, nor attacks by crocodiles, dolphins or turtles.
00:34:36And there are witnesses. Too many witnesses for these to be just stories.
00:34:48I've got no doubt that the Seuss exists.
00:34:51And the only thing I haven't crossed off my list is a fish.
00:34:55But a man-eating fish in fresh water.
00:34:58It's got to be something of extreme and abnormal proportions. A real monster.
00:35:13My head is getting pretty full. This mystery is more tangled than I ever expected.
00:35:19In times of confusion, to think things through, I fish.
00:35:28Right, I've just had a screaming take on a dead bait.
00:35:34And it was a Marcia.
00:35:37The golden Himalayan Marcia is what these rivers are famous for.
00:35:43But not what I was after. Normally I'd be so happy to get a fish like this.
00:35:47Green bag, please. Green bag.
00:35:49Yes.
00:35:50Okay, let it tire itself right out. Right out. Right out. Okay.
00:36:04Marcia can grow huge. The size of a man and bigger.
00:36:09But they're just really a scaled up carp. They're not capable of being a man.
00:36:13I'm almost as tired as the fish, I think.
00:36:17With a big fish, it's not just a case of pulling it in.
00:36:21You have to gradually tire it out.
00:36:26Well out of the way of the other line.
00:36:27What this Marcia proves is that there's plenty to eat in these rivers.
00:36:40Plenty of food for a monster.
00:36:42That is a lovely, lovely Marcia.
00:36:46Absolutely fantastic.
00:36:48Look at all the fish. That's fantastic.
00:36:50Twenty and a half according to this.
00:37:03At just over 20 pounds, this golden Himalayan Marcia is the fish of dreams.
00:37:09Clearly, my luck is changing.
00:37:11Every detective needs a breakthrough.
00:37:21Usually a witness.
00:37:23Someone who can pull all the conflicting pieces together.
00:37:27And I might have just found mine.
00:37:32Vinay just introduced me to Jaga Singh, who's in his seventies now.
00:37:35He's lived on the river a long time. He's actually worked on the river.
00:37:39He's floated on log rafts down here.
00:37:41And has probably seen and heard more than anybody else in these parts.
00:37:45So I'm just going to sort of quiz him a little bit on, you know, the detail of some of those stories.
00:37:50Mr Singh immediately starts talking about the soos.
00:37:56And I can feel my investigation closing in.
00:37:58He says the soos is a creature which, if it sucks, it can suck you in from a distance.
00:38:11Things that have been lurking in the corners of my mind come lurching forward.
00:38:17When a fish does get big, when it opens its mouth, it does create this kind of vacuum.
00:38:22People don't tend to understand. They think that a fish actually just bites something.
00:38:24But actually a big fish, when it opens its mouth, it creates this vacuum.
00:38:28And the bigger the fish, the longer the distance that it can suck over.
00:38:31So you wouldn't actually, you know, you wouldn't necessarily see anything.
00:38:34It wouldn't be too far from the truth to say it's actually sucking it in.
00:38:39He says it's huge. It's bigger than that. It's longer than this distance.
00:38:45It's about nine or ten foot, something like that.
00:38:49Even his seemingly wild claims about the size are suddenly making sense.
00:38:53What is the colour of the world?
00:38:54The colour of the world.
00:38:55Then a single word crashes through. A name.
00:38:58He says it looks like a gooch.
00:38:59I like it.
00:39:00But it's vast. And it's black.
00:39:02Gooch. I know that name.
00:39:05A rarely seen species of predatory catfish that lives in these waters.
00:39:11Gooch.
00:39:12He says that any time a body goes completely missing in water, it is usually attributed to the gaunch and people stop looking for the bodies.
00:39:23So from that it actually sounds as if the gaunch and the sous are actually the same thing.
00:39:28Actually, that's really interesting. I think that does actually start to clarify things, you know, pull all these odd, weird strands together.
00:39:33I think I have my culprit.
00:39:41Are all these killings the work of a giant, rarely seen, predatory catfish?
00:39:46The gooch.
00:39:47Now I know its identity, it still sounds incredible.
00:39:53All I've got to do is prove it.
00:39:58I have to catch a gooch big enough to be a man-eater.
00:40:02My name is Jeremy Wade.
00:40:17I'm on the trail of a freshwater monster.
00:40:20A man-eater.
00:40:21Now I'm convinced it's a giant fish, and at least with fish I'm on fairly familiar territory.
00:40:30Although, the size of the animal we're talking about here does sound to be rather unbelievable.
00:40:41But, as all detectives know, sometimes when you've eliminated all the other possibilities, the impossible becomes plausible.
00:40:50So now I just have to catch a catfish.
00:40:56But, a gooch so large, so outsized, that it is capable of catching and killing a man.
00:41:03Only then can I prove the identity of the Kali killer.
00:41:10I'm right here in the heart of the monster's territory.
00:41:13And we're camping next to a pool which has all the hallmarks of an attack site.
00:41:22This place is starting to cast a spell.
00:41:24That's another pretty, cold, chilly day out there again, and I can't even see the river.
00:41:35Just 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.
00:41:54I'm taking every opportunity to fish, to see if I can stir up this monster, to get face to face with a gooch.
00:42:09I'm convinced now that it is a fish, but no ordinary fish, something extraordinary.
00:42:14Something extraordinary.
00:42:16can't breathe, can't breathe, can't breathe, can't breathe, can't breathe, can't breathe.
00:42:17There are no fish, but it is a fish that is one of the most beautiful feet that has come from.
00:42:18The water, the sea.
00:42:19The water, the sea.
00:42:20There are no fish in the sea.
00:42:21No fish not�ars thrown out, but it is an ocean of a fish.
00:42:22But a sea.
00:42:23A sea.
00:42:24Every waking moment is spent fishing.
00:42:25But I keep coming up blank.
00:42:26Nothing moves.
00:42:27Nothing moves.
00:42:28Every waking moment is spent fishing, but I keep coming up blank.
00:42:41Nothing moves.
00:42:42I'm starting to doubt myself.
00:42:45Am I doing something wrong?
00:42:58It's been several weeks, and this expedition has been tough.
00:43:14Maybe not such a good idea to leave my things out to dry during the night.
00:43:21Look at this mist.
00:43:24Everything's not going to be too comfortable.
00:43:28So, as much as I like rivers, I'd rather appreciate this one, I think, from my armchair.
00:43:35The cold is starting to get into my bones, and, you know, it's hard going.
00:43:53The people here are telling me that this thing is actually so big.
00:43:58It's so monstrous that it is actually impossible to get it out.
00:44:04It would be impossible.
00:44:05You know, the question of whether they want it removed from the river or don't want it removed from the river is actually academic.
00:44:10I mean, is it possible?
00:44:11Why bother?
00:44:12So, you know, to even think about it, you know, am I being foolish or arrogant, or, you know, should I really just find something else to do?
00:44:22I don't know.
00:44:24But one thing's clear.
00:44:25I mean, the stuff I've got with me at the moment, although, you know, that is very, very heavy equipment by any normal freshwater standards.
00:44:34I mean, absolutely ridiculous, uh, you know, is just not up to the task.
00:44:38I now believe I have the identity of the Kali killer.
00:44:48It's an outsized gooch catfish.
00:44:51But I don't have heavy enough gear with me to have any chance at all of landing it.
00:44:58But I do in my shed back home in the U.K.
00:45:09I'm going to need my monster tackle.
00:45:13The only thing that's certain is I'm going to have to use some kind of a line.
00:45:17Um, I can't afford to give this beast any kind of chance.
00:45:21You know, there's already too much operating in its favor.
00:45:24So any concept of sport has to go right out of the window.
00:45:28I'm going to need some seriously heavy gear.
00:45:30This is what I normally use to extract large fish from, uh, snaggy lakes and rivers.
00:45:36In this case, I don't think it's going to be up to the job.
00:45:39This line has a breaking strain of 90 pounds, which is actually, um, totally ridiculous by any normal freshwater standards.
00:45:47But for something that may be three or four or five times the size of that, uh, you know,
00:45:53this just ain't going to shift it.
00:45:55I reckon I'm going to need, uh, the kind of gear you'd normally use for big game sea fishing.
00:46:02For 1,000 pound marlin or, uh, or bluefin tuna.
00:46:09These are my normal heavy hooks.
00:46:11I'm going to have to beef these up as well.
00:46:14And as for rods, again, we're talking something you'd normally use out in the open ocean.
00:46:20I'm fairly confident that this gear will be up to the job, but I'm not totally sure that I'm going to be.
00:46:28I also need to find out more about what I'm up against.
00:46:33If you type gunch into an internet search, you get nothing, no natural history, nothing.
00:46:40It's a species of catfish, and that's about all that anybody knows.
00:46:45But there are a few thousand species of catfish, all unique in their own particular way.
00:46:52The scientific information about this particular species, how long they live,
00:46:57their feeding habits, how big they grow, is virtually non-existent.
00:47:02There's only one place that can help, the Natural History Museum in London.
00:47:08It's a place with an impressive collection of monsters.
00:47:10But this is no tourist visit. I'm going behind the scenes.
00:47:17I have arranged a meeting with curator Oliver Crimin, a world authority on freshwater fish,
00:47:25and the man who holds the key to the monster locker.
00:47:27Arapaima, one of the largest freshwater fish in the world. They've been reported up to 13 feet.
00:47:45The only native habitat for arapaima is, however, South America.
00:47:49Also, we've got a sturgeon head in here. They grow to 16 feet, of course, a real giant,
00:47:56and are found in freshwater, but not solely. They're one of those migratory species.
00:48:02In rivers, the largest sturgeon species are found in Europe and Canada.
00:48:07This species, the whales, has been widely spread around the world.
00:48:15And I've used an angling quarry, including Britain.
00:48:21And they can grow to 10 feet.
00:48:24Yet the whales catfish is essentially a European species.
00:48:27And I'm pretty certain there have been no attempts to introduce them into India.
00:48:31But none of these monsters is what I'm after.
00:48:37None of them are found in the Kali.
00:48:40What I'm looking for is a goonch catfish, and we find one in a back room.
00:48:44Now, here we go. Goonch catfish.
00:48:46This is my prime suspect.
00:48:48Now, to my mind, this does tick all the right boxes.
00:48:52Yeah, so these are the teeth of a predator.
00:48:55Fangs backward-facing to prevent prey escaping.
00:48:59This is just a small one, of course.
00:49:02We don't know how big they can grow.
00:49:05Depends on the conditions, I suppose.
00:49:08I'd imagine you wouldn't have to scale this up too much.
00:49:10I mean, by a factor of two or three.
00:49:13And it would start to be a serious threat to a human being.
00:49:18And straight away, there's something different about this cat.
00:49:22Goonch have teeth, and they look like the teeth on a shark.
00:49:32I've got an idea. I've been given a tip that there is someone in town who might help me out.
00:49:39Californian Rick Rosenthal has filmed the largest and most dangerous oceanic predators, confirmed man-eaters.
00:49:46If I can get him to join me on my next expedition, I think it will give me a real advantage.
00:49:51That could do you some serious damage.
00:49:55Oh, absolutely.
00:49:56What I hear, these animals are travelling and breaking up speeds.
00:49:59You know, they can get up to 50, 60 miles an hour.
00:50:01And if you're on the end of the bait ball, the other side, and they're coming through, look out.
00:50:07I mean, that would go through your suit, wouldn't it?
00:50:09I'll go through both of them.
00:50:09But for Rick, this is not going to be what he's used to.
00:50:12It will be the first authenticated.
00:50:15This is no deep blue ocean.
00:50:16This is a murky, moving river, up close and personal.
00:50:22And Rick does not disappoint me.
00:50:24He wants in, and he has some exciting suggestions.
00:50:27You know, I'd like multiple cameras if we can, smaller cameras,
00:50:31that we can sit on the bank of the river and watch this unfold before our eyes.
00:50:38So first, we have to check that everything is workable, watertight, and ready for India.
00:50:44Jeremy, we're getting an image?
00:50:45Yeah, we're getting an image.
00:50:46A pole can to recce and survey pools.
00:50:49Tell you what, the detail is really beautiful.
00:50:51A mini submarine to do deeper surveys.
00:50:53And of course, his handheld camera.
00:50:57I'm thinking, if I can't catch this fish with my rod,
00:51:01then maybe we can catch one on film.
00:51:04There's so little known about Goonch.
00:51:06No one has ever filmed them in their natural habitat.
00:51:10But I doubt that any Goonch has ever been confronted
00:51:12by the full technological might of the 21st century.
00:51:1748 hours later, we're in India and back on the trail of the monster.
00:51:22I'm going back now, prepared and ready to tackle the man-eater of the Kali.
00:51:34I'm returning to one of the remotest rivers in India to hunt for a man-eating monster that lurks beneath its surface.
00:51:58It's a monster that I'm convinced is a giant fish.
00:52:06And I've enlisted some help.
00:52:11I know of a special place where Rick and I can prepare ourselves before heading into the monster's lair.
00:52:17It's a place where there is no fishing, so you can sometimes see Goonch quite clearly.
00:52:23It's Corbett National Park.
00:52:31It's a place I always wanted to visit, as Jim Corbett, to whose memory the park is dedicated,
00:52:36was a childhood hero of mine.
00:52:38Corbett lived in this area and hunted down the man-eaters that terrorized these hills
00:52:46towards the end of Britain's colonial rule of India.
00:52:56Some of these cats had taken a huge number of victims into the hundreds.
00:53:08It's uncanny. I'm here for the same reason.
00:53:14But whereas Corbett's man-eating cats were tigers and leopards, mine is a giant catfish.
00:53:20The reason we're on elephants is we've got a tiger here, and there have been man-eaters here,
00:53:34so we don't want to be getting off the elephant, and that's why we've got the armed guard as well.
00:53:38Down by that cliff there, there's a deep old pool, and if we go down there, we might
00:53:51see some of our catfish friends.
00:53:57But before we face the Kali killer, Rick and I will attempt to warm up on some smaller Goonch
00:54:02to find out just what we could be up against.
00:54:05They can just cope with this fast water. They're very streamlined. They've got this big flat head,
00:54:19and they just lie there, and they just spread those pectoral fins,
00:54:22and they're just glued to the bottom, and the current just washes over the top of them.
00:54:28And the current is like a conveyor belt. It'll just bring them food,
00:54:30and if anything comes down on the current, they just open their mouth, and in it goes.
00:54:33These fish there are about five foot long or something like that.
00:54:37They're probably twice the size of that in the deeper water, but that's a hefty old fish.
00:54:44Oh, there's a big one there. Look at that. There's a good side.
00:54:46Yeah, I can see the pectoral fins.
00:54:48That looks like a shark. Looks like a nurse shark.
00:54:50That one's six foot or so, isn't it? That's the biggest one.
00:54:53This is very rare, and the fish is not that common these days, and
00:54:56it's only because they're protected that they're in here, and that we're able to see them.
00:55:00You know, we go any other river, and they're much more wary there. They're really,
00:55:05if they're there at all, they're going to be in the deep pools, but here we are in the showers.
00:55:10Now it's time to get a fish's eye view. Can we actually be the first people to film a gooch in its natural habitat?
00:55:23This pool, just outside the park, is too deep to use the pole can,
00:55:27so we are going straight in with the submarine.
00:55:30All right, Jeremy, let's launch this, huh?
00:55:44Got an image yet? I've got an image. I'm just under the surface.
00:55:47Nice on.
00:55:54Why don't you take it down about right there?
00:55:57And straight away, we're seeing fish. Lots of fish.
00:56:09It seems there's a good food supply for a hungry gooch.
00:56:12I'm surprised by how many fish we're seeing. From the surface, the whole pool looks really empty.
00:56:30I think we have a catfish tucked into an underwater crevice.
00:56:42There he is. There he is. There he is.
00:56:55It's a gooch. It's quite spooky because there's this tail poking out and the body just disappears into the dark and it can't see how long the body goes on for.
00:57:04So, now, can you see?
00:57:08There's a tail, there's a tail.
00:57:09Catfish tend not to be very visible.
00:57:20Catfish tend not to be very visible.
00:57:22They're notorious for living in cloudy water full of sediment and they've developed super senses which counteract the poor visibility.
00:57:30They don't have to see. They can feel and taste their way in the dark.
00:57:34So, it's amazing seeing one of these fish so clearly.
00:57:39But could one of these really be a man-eater?
00:57:42It does sound far-fetched, but given the right circumstances, there is absolutely nothing to prevent a freshwater fish becoming a man-eater.
00:57:53With such an opportunity, I'm going to see if I can get close enough to examine it.
00:57:57I'm going to see if I can get close enough to examine it.
00:58:09I'm going to see if I can get close enough to examine it.
00:58:25I had him! I had him!
00:58:27It was that close to the surface.
00:58:31I wasn't gripping quite hard enough.
00:58:32My first encounter with a gunch, and I lost.
00:58:41But it's a start.
00:58:47However, with the limited range of the submarine, it means that if we're to get the footage we want,
00:58:51we're going to have to both get in with the proper camera.
00:58:56We've got good diving conditions now. Diving critical.
00:59:02The poor visibility makes this experience really eerie.
00:59:19You keep expecting a monster to slip silently out of the gloom.
00:59:40And then one does.
00:59:42And it's not alone.
00:59:43How many did you see?
01:00:02I think that's all three.
01:00:03There's more than that.
01:00:04Yeah.
01:00:04There's a whole pile of them in here.
01:00:06They're not like a thing.
01:00:08I'm not kidding you.
01:00:08There's at least six in here.
01:00:10They're all stacked in there like cordwood.
01:00:13There's some powerful animals in there too.
01:00:16I would not want to run onto those nine feet long.
01:00:20They're just such a horror.
01:00:23And they're strong.
01:00:24They're really strong.
01:00:25Why not just walk the camera with the tail?
01:00:28And I'll tell you, this is not a fat catfish.
01:00:31This thing is strong.
01:00:33I can see it couldn't pull somebody.
01:00:37This is the first time the gunch catfish has ever been filmed in its natural habitat.
01:00:41And we get not just one, but six, all tight against the rock wall.
01:00:47And I just happened to find it by luck, really.
01:01:03Looked, and there was one, and there was two, three, and there was three on the wall.
01:01:07There were six of them right in the area about two meters.
01:01:11They're kind of spooky fish, especially in that dark overhangs.
01:01:17Their tails are just sticking out at least five or six feet long in there.
01:01:21They bumped the camera a couple of times under water, and I could feel their strength.
01:01:24They aren't particularly scared of us.
01:01:35And now we have proof there are large gunch in these waters.
01:01:39That they stick together and are found in the deep pools, tight against the rocks.
01:01:44But none of these is the man-eater.
01:01:46And this is the first time gunch have ever been filmed in their natural habitat.
01:02:04With our recce complete and success under our belts,
01:02:07it's now time to head straight into the heart of the monster's lair.
01:02:10To see if we can solve this mystery once and for all.
01:02:17To see if we can find and film a monster gunch.
01:02:30This is the big one, and the pressure is building.
01:02:34Because we need to hurry.
01:02:35The monsoon, the seasonal rains are fast approaching.
01:02:38And this will turn the river into a raging torrent.
01:02:46But before we set off, Vinny has a real surprise for me.
01:02:51This was a gunch catfish.
01:02:54Wow.
01:02:56There's two guys there, they can hardly lift the whole thing out.
01:02:59I mean, what's that? It's about seven foot long?
01:03:01This was seven feet four.
01:03:03Seven foot four?
01:03:04We couldn't lift it, so we couldn't weigh it at all.
01:03:06Yeah, yeah.
01:03:06But it must have been in the vicinity of around 100 to 120 kilos or so.
01:03:10Yeah, yeah.
01:03:11In terms of getting an accurate idea of its size, one of its fins is sticking out of the water here,
01:03:16and that's about the size of somebody's forearm.
01:03:20So its mouth is going to be something like that?
01:03:23But the head was actually about this broad or so.
01:03:25Yeah.
01:03:26And when you open it up, it'll open into the size of a 60-liter drum.
01:03:31So you could actually probably disappear head and shoulders inside it?
01:03:35Quite easily.
01:03:35So it wouldn't need to be, you know, that much bigger than that to be, you know, seriously dangerous.
01:03:43This monster was found dead in a different river, so it couldn't have been the Kali killer.
01:03:48But what it does show is that the gunch that we saw were just small fry,
01:03:52even though some of them were four and five feet long.
01:03:58These were like that big, just broad, and both the edges are sharp.
01:04:02If it did get hold of you in its mouth, actually, there's not an easy way to get away from that, is it?
01:04:08No.
01:04:10So this picture is a really strong piece of evidence that suggests that gunch could have the potential
01:04:16to reach man-eating size.
01:04:23And now, all I have to do is show that an even bigger fish exists here in the Kali.
01:04:38My name is Jeremy Wade.
01:04:43I'm hunting for a man-eating river monster, a giant catfish called a gunch.
01:04:55But the question is, in these cold, nutrient-poor waters,
01:04:59how could a gunch grow big enough to become a man-eater?
01:05:03It turns out there's a grisly answer.
01:05:24Human corpses.
01:05:25It is the Hindu custom to burn the dead on the banks of the river,
01:05:31before consigning their remains to the waters.
01:05:37Pandit Kamlesh Vyas is a leading Hindu cleric,
01:05:40and has personal experience of this practice.
01:05:43They'll burn the funeral pyre, and when the body is even half-burned,
01:05:48they'll just push it away or just slide it into the river.
01:05:52Once the soil is gone, that means your body is just a thing, actually.
01:05:59So water creatures, they can use the body as their food.
01:06:06Is this fish getting fat on human remains?
01:06:10The theory that this monster has grown extra large on a diet of partially curated corpses
01:06:16is something that the local people actually said to me.
01:06:18It sounds pretty gruesome, but, of course, it's just perfectly natural behaviour for a scavenger.
01:06:25The thing about these stories, though, is that this monster appears to have made this
01:06:30sinister quantum leap to feeding on living animals, including people.
01:06:37But just how big could one of these fish get?
01:06:41That's the ultimate question.
01:06:43Creatures that live in the water can just keep on growing if they've got enough food.
01:06:49And there will be a few freak individuals which have grown bigger than the other ones there.
01:06:54And if you put in lots of artificial food, those creatures will grow even bigger.
01:06:59But then, any shortage in its regular food supply could drive such a freak individual
01:07:06to hunt for alternatives, dead or alive.
01:07:09We set up camp at the place where the buffalo disappeared, but conditions have already changed.
01:07:25What are your first impressions of the water, Rick?
01:07:27It's a murky.
01:07:28It's a murky.
01:07:29It's a murky.
01:07:30It's a bit tough.
01:07:31Yeah.
01:07:31Yeah.
01:07:32It's so brown.
01:07:34We're a little late, aren't we?
01:07:35You know, the runoff has begun.
01:07:37It's going to be difficult to see anything in that water.
01:07:43No, it's going to be too tough.
01:07:45And I can't make miracles in there with that kind of brown tea water.
01:07:49We'll never see the animal.
01:07:51And if it is aggressive, it would not be a good situation.
01:07:55You know, we'd just be, you know, gobbled up.
01:07:59I've brought this guy here halfway around the world from California
01:08:04to a river that just looks like soup, you know.
01:08:07And what he must be thinking, I just don't know.
01:08:10You know, I knew that the visibility here, you know, is not good at the best of times,
01:08:14but it is really murky now, and it is just so disappointing to hear him say
01:08:19there is absolutely no way he's going to get in the water.
01:08:22There's just no point.
01:08:23You can see about this far in front of your face.
01:08:28Rain and snow melt have coloured the water.
01:08:31The monsoons are starting sooner than we thought.
01:08:40We hang on for a few days to see if the conditions will change,
01:08:43to see if the water will run clearer.
01:08:47Getting into cloudy water with a predator is far too dangerous.
01:08:56After a couple of days, the water has still not cleared.
01:09:05And after another day of hanging on, it becomes obvious that there's no point
01:09:09Rick being here any longer.
01:09:13Rick being here any longer.
01:09:15Okay, Jeremy. Well, good luck.
01:09:17Have a good journey.
01:09:18So now it's back to the road again, I guess.
01:09:20It is.
01:09:23From here on, it's going to be just me and the monster.
01:09:35Being on my own again really makes me feel the remoteness of this place, and
01:09:39you know, the sheer enormity of what I've got to do, because you know, Rick and I have just
01:09:45thrown everything at this, and we haven't so much as had a glimpse of this killer fish.
01:09:50So, in a way, I just feel as if I'm back where I started.
01:09:54I've just come full circle.
01:09:56It's back to a line in the water.
01:09:58I have got to know this river.
01:10:14I've heard of the horror stories, seen the evidence for myself.
01:10:18I've worked out what the soos is, what it looks like, and where it lives.
01:10:23The next step is to try and fish one out.
01:10:33I have at least got a much clearer idea of what I'm dealing with now.
01:10:36And, you know, I have got, you know, the right kind of gear to deal with it.
01:10:40But it's still a needle in a haystone.
01:10:44And the monsoon is fast approaching.
01:10:53I can feel the air pressure building, and you've got these clouds boiling up.
01:10:57And, you know, if the rain's come, I could be stranded here.
01:11:00And that, you know, really focuses the mind.
01:11:07The brown water that sent Rick home is getting worse.
01:11:11And the water level is beginning to rise.
01:11:15I've just got to get cracking.
01:11:17I've got to get the bait in the water in front of something.
01:11:20And it hasn't happened yet.
01:11:22There is still time.
01:11:23But the, God, the pressure, the pressure is not just the atmospheric pressure.
01:11:28The pressure is building.
01:11:30I'm using dead bait, chunks of fish, to draw them in.
01:11:37But the rising waters have got the gunch biting.
01:11:40And I'm quickly into some fish.
01:11:43That is a gunch.
01:11:45It's not a very big one.
01:11:51Each catch gives me data on these fish,
01:11:53like how big their mouth is in relation to body size.
01:11:56Information that will help me calculate how big a man-eating gunch really needs to be.
01:12:02Look at the length of the tentacles on the tail.
01:12:06Look at that.
01:12:19This has been an awful lot of work to get here.
01:12:22I mean, it has been a huge amount of work.
01:12:24But here we have a gunch out of the water.
01:12:29It's a proper one.
01:12:30It's not a baby one.
01:12:31It's still not hugely big.
01:12:33But here we are.
01:12:35I'm not seeing it under the water through a couple of yards of murk.
01:12:39The ones I saw when I was with Rick underwater,
01:12:42that was a real sort of hallucinatory quality about those.
01:12:45You know, are they real?
01:12:46They really just don't look real when you see them under the water.
01:12:49That doesn't really look real now, but that is real.
01:12:53That's great.
01:12:55Can you imagine that scaled up to about three times the length
01:12:59and grabbing you by the leg and dragging you under.
01:13:02There we go.
01:13:03It's a glitch.
01:13:04It might not be the Kali monster, but it's a monster.
01:13:10I think time to go back into the depths,
01:13:12out of sight, once again, or humanised.
01:13:26The fish are getting bigger, but still no monster.
01:13:30And with conditions worsening, I have one last trick up my sleeve.
01:13:42One thing people have said about this creature is that it is actually attracted by commotion
01:13:48on the riverbank, particularly the flames, vibration, smells,
01:13:53everything associated with these riverside funerals.
01:13:56So I'm building a simulated funeral pyre to try and call the creature in.
01:14:04Put a tasty morsel in the water and I'll sit up with this fire behind me and hope that it lures it in.
01:14:12That night, nothing stirs.
01:14:42But in the morning...
01:14:54It's in the fast water.
01:14:58Something very powerful in here.
01:15:01Try and relax and keep a bit calm.
01:15:04Gain me a tiny bit of line.
01:15:05Right, the water is flowing this way now.
01:15:14I've got it into the water that's flowing this way.
01:15:16It's a ganch.
01:15:23It's a ganch.
01:15:24It's ganch, no, it's ganch.
01:15:25It's a lot of line up and some very strong water on the other side of it.
01:15:29So it's very, very touch and go, very touch and go.
01:15:36Over the years, I've developed an almost sixth sense.
01:15:39When fishing, I know when I'm into a big fish.
01:15:41And this is a big fish.
01:15:47And then it does exactly what I didn't want it to do.
01:15:50I'm going to have to go for a swim.
01:15:51Having spent all my waking hours trying to catch this freshwater monster, this man-eater,
01:16:12Finally, I am in contact with something huge.
01:16:17It's a ganch.
01:16:18It's ganch, no, it's ganch.
01:16:20It's in the fast water.
01:16:22There's a lot of line up and some very strong water on the other side of it.
01:16:26The big problem is I was never going to be able to pull this fish back up against this current.
01:16:31This is very, very touch and go, very touch and go.
01:16:34Now that it's escaped into the fast water below the pool, there's only one thing I can do.
01:16:41I'm going to have to go for a swim.
01:16:47I don't know what I'm thinking, apart from being desperate not to lose this fish,
01:16:52regardless of my own safety.
01:17:08Wait till it comes up.
01:17:09Wait, wait, wait, wait.
01:17:10Now, now, now!
01:17:23That is a serious-sized ganch.
01:17:25That is a man-sized animal.
01:17:27That is as big as a person.
01:17:28It's bigger than a lot of people around here.
01:17:31I do exist, they do exist, they do exist.
01:17:38Six foot of muscle behind that mouth and those teeth are just like shark teeth pointing back.
01:17:45If that got a hold of you, there'd be no getting away.
01:17:51When I was diving with Rick and we were seeing these beasts under the water and they just look so otherworldly.
01:17:59Is it a hallucination? Do these things really exist?
01:18:02And yes, the ganch does exist.
01:18:06Just the absolute perfect predator.
01:18:09Huge mouth on there, huge, huge, huge mouth.
01:18:12Great big, broad, heavy head.
01:18:15And, you know, the current, you know, even in this monsoon weather, that heavy water coming down, this fish just sits on the bottom, spreads the fins, the huge petrol fins, and the water just glues it to the bottom.
01:18:28And, uh, tiny little eyes, but it's there just sensing what's coming down in the water.
01:18:33Um, tentacles even on the end of its fins.
01:18:37It's just got so many nerve endings on.
01:18:39It's like a swimming tongue.
01:18:41And, uh, if anything just comes down within range of that mouth, it's too late.
01:18:58Weight and length were about the same, but in terms of nastiness, this animal beats me hands down.
01:19:12I am not even a contender.
01:19:14I'm just going to put some water on it.
01:19:21I mean, big as this fish is, um, the fish that is taking people would be bigger than this.
01:19:26I mean, it wouldn't actually need to be more than a couple of feet longer,
01:19:29but that would really give it a bit more weight.
01:19:31I mean, it would probably weigh twice as much as this.
01:19:35And, you know, just the thought of that is quite terrifying.
01:19:40Okay, uh, is it off the ground?
01:19:44No, yes.
01:19:45Okay.
01:19:47One six six.
01:19:56I think it's time he went back in the water.
01:20:01He's starting to recover.
01:20:02Back in the water just to, um, get the last little bit of energy.
01:20:07And then, uh, back home, I think.
01:20:10For me and the fish.
01:20:15Gunch catfish are now very rare.
01:20:18This monster's not the Kali killer.
01:20:21Even at 161 pounds, it's just not big enough.
01:20:25I came to prove that giant catfish exist here, and I've done that.
01:20:30I never set out to persecute these amazing animals.
01:20:34And the people here feel very much the same.
01:20:37With that in mind, I let my monster go.
01:20:42The beautiful irony is that the presence of these giants
01:20:45means the river is healthy and protected.
01:20:48The day the monsters disappear is the day the river dies.
01:20:58I set out to prove that there are giant catfish in these waters,
01:21:02and that is what I have done.
01:21:05My job here is finished.
01:21:08Or so I thought.
01:21:15I've been hunting for a man-eating catfish in the Kali River,
01:21:25an abominable river monster.
01:21:36Although I have not caught the culprit,
01:21:37I have caught a fish that leaves me in no doubt
01:21:40that there are real monsters in these waters.
01:21:45The monsoon is closing in,
01:21:49and I'm now in a race against time to get out or be stranded.
01:21:53But as we're packing up, I can't resist one last cast.
01:22:00I have caught a massive gooch, but it's not the Kali killer.
01:22:04This means there's an even bigger fish out there.
01:22:08It's almost five minutes.
01:22:22Having had a big fish on, I know what they feel like.
01:22:41And this guy is massive.
01:22:47James, my cameraman, who's been with me the whole time,
01:22:50understands the danger far better than I do.
01:22:52It's very strong, mate. I'm worried about you.
01:22:55It's very, very, very strong.
01:23:01I know you want it, but think of your safety, please.
01:23:04No, don't worry, don't worry, don't worry.
01:23:07This really is a massive fish.
01:23:22Oh, wait a minute.
01:23:27I don't think it's gone.
01:23:31No, it's gone.
01:23:36It's gone.
01:23:37It's gone.
01:23:38It's gone.
01:23:39It felt more than a match for me, actually.
01:23:41It felt more than a match.
01:23:42It felt more than a match for me, actually.
01:23:43It felt more than a match.
01:23:44I just...
01:23:45I really...
01:23:46I don't know.
01:23:47All the time it was on, I just felt...
01:23:48I don't know.
01:23:49I don't know.
01:23:50It's not going to...
01:23:51I'm going to be lucky to get this in.
01:23:52It's very, very strong in strong waters.
01:23:53It's very, very strong in strong waters.
01:23:54I don't know.
01:23:55It's not going to...
01:23:56I'm going to be lucky to get this in.
01:23:57It's very, very strong in strong waters.
01:24:23It's still out there.
01:24:30A monstrous goonch catfish lurking in the Kali River.
01:24:34Preying on living people when the supply of human corpses runs low.
01:24:43I haven't heard of any more victims, but I fear it's only a matter of time.
01:24:53The description given by Surendra Bora of the creature as an elongated pig easily corresponds
01:25:04with the smooth, scaleless back of the goonch.
01:25:07Keisar Singh's statement that he saw a black shape also matches.
01:25:15And the sucking force caused by the opening of a vast mouth that Jogar Singh talks about,
01:25:21that also matches.
01:25:24I think that what the eyewitnesses saw was not an elongated pig,
01:25:29not a mythical creature, the Seuss.
01:25:39But this, the giant devil catfish, a monster-sized goonch fattened on human remains.
01:25:53For the mountain people, this animal is an instrument of the gods.
01:25:59The Seuss just is.
01:26:01And if it comes for you, it just means it's your time.
01:26:11It's hard for me to understand I don't live like that.
01:26:15But for them, there is no mystery to solve and it is my outlook that doesn't make sense.
01:26:21Will I ever go back?
01:26:23I have to, one day.
01:26:25Because now I know beyond any doubt that there is a monster.
01:26:29Possibly the most monstrous freshwater fish in the world still lurking in the Kali River.
01:26:39If you want more of the world's wildest, strangest and most terrifying freshwater horrors, visit our website at animalplanet.com slash river monsters.
01:27:00planet.com slash river monsters.
Be the first to comment