MYTH WILL MEET REALITY AS ANIMAL PLANET SERIES "LOST TAPES" FEATURES CREATURES SCIENCE REFUSES TO CONFIRM NOR DENY

Animal Planet Unearths Secret Footage About the Legends You've Heard. Now Find Out If They're Real

If you've seen it with your own eyes and it's been captured on camera, does it truly exist? The existence of zombies, vampires, poltergeists and yetis have been etched in legend for centuries but have never been proven. These crypto-creatures continue to escape mankind but alleged sightings and brief encounters have encouraged cyrptozoologists, scientists and paranormal investigation teams to investigate and research the possibility that these creatures do exist. Now, Animal Planet has unearthed hours of footage apparently shot by the people who have encountered them.

This fall, Animal Planet will premiere its third season of the popular cryptozoology series, LOST TAPES, on September 28, at 10 PM (ET/PT) with back-to-back 30-minute premieres. Each of the 10 new episodes of LOST TAPES encounters creatures you wish didn't exist. Every peculiar and unbelievable encounter caught on film will not only make you believe but leave you feeling the hair standing up on the back of your neck.

LOST TAPES takes an up close look at footage discovered at the sites of suspicious disappearances and gruesome deaths and delves deeply into the mysterious circumstances behind them. Specialists in the field of the paranormal and cryptozoology explain the history and science behind the undiscovered creatures that may be responsible for these unexplainable incidents. Despite criticism from their peers and a lack of physical support for the existence of these creatures, these specialists continue to investigate sightings and evidence in an attempt to prove their existence.

Paranormal encounters from this season include:

ZOMBIES - The Enigma Corporation, a private security firm specializing in unexplained activity, travels to New Orleans to bring a murderer to justice - one that reportedly died eight years earlier. Once there, they discover that the suspect is living in a house of the undead...and he is not alone.

YETI - Two journalists eager to uncover the story of the century sneak onto a cargo ship rumored to carry the remains of a Himalayan explorer. What they find instead turns into an even bigger and deadlier story - one they may never get to tell.

POLTERGEIST - A team of paranormal investigators attempt to help a family troubled by mysterious occurrences having to do with their son. The team, believing at first that the boy might be gifted with extrasensory powers, soon discovers that it's not the boy at all that is causing these increasingly violent disturbances, but rather something much more powerful and sinister.

"LOST TAPES has been a white knuckled joy-ride for viewers," said Rick Holzman, senior vice president, programming and scheduling for Animal Planet Media. "Like the best - and worst - of horror movies, the series proves that we all want to believe in the possibility that there are still creature out there and things that go bump in the night"

Proving their existence has not been an easy task, the creatures featured in each episode are aggressive predators, each with unique abilities allowing them to exist invisibly among us...almost. One of the most elusive traits featured this season is the ability to take on another form known as shape-shifting. Shape-shifting is common in nature but has not proved deadly to humans until now. Other creature traits discovered this season include excessive speed, invisibility and the capability to take over the mind of another organism.

LOST TAPES is produced for Animal Planet by Go Go Luckey. Gary Auerbach and Doug Segal are the executive producers for Go Go Luckey, and Keith Hoffman is the executive producer for Animal Planet. Marc Etkind is the vice president of development for Animal Planet.

Animal Planet Media (APM), a multi-media business unit of Discovery Communications, is the world's only entertainment brand that immerses viewers in the full range of life in the animal kingdom with rich, deep content via multiple platforms and offers animal lovers and pet owners access to a centralized online, television and mobile community for immersive, engaging, high-quality entertainment, information and enrichment. APM consists of the Animal Planet television network, available in more than 96 million homes in the US; online assets www.animalplanet.com, the ultimate online destination for all things animal; the 24/7 broadband channel, Animal Planet Beyond; Petfinder.com, the #1 pet-related Web property globally that facilitates pet adoption; and other media platforms including a robust Video-on-Demand (VOD) service; mobile content; and merchandising extensions.