15 True Stories That Sound Completely Made Up

A man survived for nearly three days inside a sunken ship. A trained baboon helped work railway signals. A dead pope was dug up and put on trial. A Boeing 747 lost all four engines in flight — and landed safely. These are 15 true stories that sound completely made up. Every story in this documentary is based on documented people, dates, places, official reports, contemporary accounts, photographs, investigations, or other surviving evidence. When the historical record is disputed, the uncertainty is included rather than turned into a cleaner story. Inside this documentary: • The man who survived sixty hours underwater inside a sunken tug • Jack the baboon and the railway signals • The day Sweden changed which side of the road an entire country drove on • The Great Hanoi Rat Massacre • The Soviet doctor who operated on himself in Antarctica • The Berners Street Hoax • The Gimli Glider • The Tanganyika laughter epidemic • The Montparnasse train crash • Poon Lim’s 133 days alone at sea • The Cadaver Synod and the trial of a dead pope • Teruo Nakamura, the World War II holdout found decades later • British Airways Flight 9 losing all four engines over Indonesia • The Lake Nyos carbon dioxide disaster • Baychimo, the abandoned Arctic ship that kept reappearing CHAPTERS 00:00 The Man Who Survived 60 Hours Underwater 09:12 The Baboon Who Worked the Railway Signals 17:10 The Day an Entire Country Switched Sides 25:14 The Rat Bounty That Created More Rats 32:23 The Doctor Who Operated on Himself 40:11 The House That Everyone in London Visited 46:43 The Airliner That Ran Out of Fuel in Flight 57:11 The Laughter Epidemic That Closed Schools 1:04:01 The Train That Crashed Through a Station Wall 1:10:30 The Man Who Survived 133 Days Alone at Sea 1:19:53 The Dead Pope Who Was Put on Trial 1:27:14 The Soldier Who Came Home 30 Years Late 1:35:55 The 747 That Lost All Four Engines 1:44:26 The Lake That Released a Deadly Cloud 1:53:19 The Abandoned Ship That Kept Coming Back Some of these events lasted seconds. Others lasted decades. All of them became famous because the one-sentence version sounds impossible. But once you look at the evidence, each impossible story becomes a sequence of real decisions, accidents, physical processes, mistakes and extraordinary circumstances. If you enjoy long-form documentaries about strange history, bizarre true events, forgotten disasters and unbelievable stories that actually happened, subscribe for more. Where are you watching from? Leave your city, state or country in the comments. #TrueStories #StrangeHistory #Documentary#History