60 Minutes - 06/30/24: Children of War, Interpol, Tasmanian Tiger

Episode Date: July 1, 2024

Correspondent Scott Pelley explores the lives of America’s children affected by the disabilities of military veterans. The segment sheds light on the challenges these young people face and how they support their wounded warrior parents. Senator Elizabeth Dole’s foundation for military caregivers is highlighted, alongside personal stories from families impacted by post-9/11 conflicts. Bill Whitaker investigates Interpol’s role in global law enforcement, examining its successes against crime and its challenges in preventing authoritarian regimes from abusing its resources. The focus includes how red notices have been misused by countries like Russia, China, and Turkey to target dissidents and refugees. Jon Wertheim reports from Tasmania on the elusive thylacine, or Tasmanian tiger, exploring the ongoing search for this supposedly extinct predator through folklore, scientific efforts, and local sightings. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

At Radiolab, we love nothing more than nerding out about science, neuroscience, chemistry. But, but, we do also like to get into other kinds of stories. Stories about policing, or politics, country music, hockey, sex, of bugs. Regardless of whether we're looking at science or not science, we bring a rigorous curiosity to get you the answers. And hopefully, make you see the world anew. Radiolab, adventures on the edge of what we think we know. Wherever you get your podcasts.

Over the years, we've reported on the more than half a million U.S. servicemen and women who served in Iraq and Afghanistan and are suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. I couldn't even make sense of it, but... Tonight, you'll hear PTSD can be contagious. The worst of it was in seventh grade. I kind of decided that my family would be better off without me here. On the banks of the Rhone River by a tranquil city park sits the highly secure global headquarters of Interpol.

196 countries are members of Interpol and share important intelligence about worldwide criminal activity. But there are questions about why some of those countries are still part of its alliance. I'm just trying to understand how a country that is being investigated for mass murder can be a member in good standing with Interpol. This is a Tasmanian tiger, or was a Tasmanian tiger. Most scientists believe the apex predator to be extinct. But like Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster,

plenty of people believe otherwise, that this tiger is still roaming this beautiful island. And then all of a sudden, was there a mighty hail like this. I'm Leslie Stahl. I'm Bill Whitaker. I'm Anderson Cooper. I'm Sharon Alfonsi. I'm John Stahl. I'm Bill Whitaker. I'm Anderson Cooper. I'm Sharon Alfonsi.

I'm John Wertheim. I'm Cecilia Vega. I'm Scott Pelley. Those stories tonight on 60 Minutes. At Radiolab, we love nothing more than nerding out about science, neuroscience, chemistry. But, but, we do also like to get into other kinds of stories. Stories about policing, or politics, country music, hockey, sex, of bugs. Regardless of whether we're looking at science or not science, we bring a rigorous curiosity to get you the answers.

And hopefully, make you see the world anew. Radiolab, adventures on the edge of what we think we know. Wherever you get your podcasts. Two million Americans served in Afghanistan and Iraq, and at least 600,000 have been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. For the most part, the U.S. is doing better, recognizing and treating these wounded warriors. But less well-known are millions more who are in need but remain hidden. They are the children living with injured veterans. In a profound sense, PTSD can be contagious.

Many children have become caregivers, confronting depression and fear, and tonight you will hear that the stress can be so great it can lead to attempts of suicide. As we first reported earlier this year, two courageous families spoke to us so that others can know that help is on the way for America's children of war. In 2011, Chuck Rotenberry was a Marine on patrol in Afghanistan when an improvised landmine detonated a few feet away. Which sent me down a hill 20, 30 feet, knocked me out, caused catastrophic injuries to the Marine behind me and the Marine behind him.

It was Rotenberry's second combat tour after Iraq. What happened to the Marine behind you who had stepped on the IED? He lost both his legs above the knee. You and the medic put the tourniquets on him? Yes, sir. You saved his life. I helped out, yeah. When Rodenberry came home from his seven-month deployment, his wife Liz was pregnant with their fourth child.

Chuck was suffering with a brain injury from a concussion and PTSD. Chuck was struggling to just be in the house because he was dealing with so many emotions, mentally and physically. He was hiding in back rooms and I'd find him crying and he didn't understand why he was crying. I didn't know whether I was coming or going. Chuck kept a video diary as he dealt with self-isolation, anxiety, depression, and denial. One second I'm up super high,

the next I'm not. Chuck, who was that man who came home? In my head, it was me. But I was very far from it, I think. At age seven, his son Christopher pitched in. Over the years, he tried to shield his dad from triggers that set him off and shield his sisters from the emotional trauma. I was just worried about a lot of different things,

things that kids, I guess, at that age should not be worried about. And it kind of evolved into kind of like a helplessness. He was becoming almost like my husband. There were times where he wouldn't be able to go to school because he was so stressed internally from everything happening, and I don't think he knew how to process it and understand it. I knew Christopher was starting to struggle

with the weight of it all. The weight grew as Chris turned 12. The worst of it was in seventh grade. I think I kind of decided that, you know, my family would be better off without me here. I remember looking back on those days. It was just chaos all the time. And I remember taking my, one of the dog's leashes upstairs and tied one into the bunk bed that we had,

my little brother's bunk bed, and I tried, you know, hanging myself, and it was working, and my mom walked in on me, kind of, and I think I was kind of about to pass out. I was kind of, you know, losing consciousness. Walking in and seeing what was happening to him and what he was really struggling with,

I knew everything else had to stop. Everything just had to stop, and my focus had to be Christopher. Liz became the warrior, fighting for her family. Christopher went to intensive therapy. Then he and his sisters enrolled in a clinic for military children confronting PTSD. It's hard as a military family to own that when you're built with such pride and strength and you're seen as resilient as the word is in our community. But it's okay to not be resilient, and it's okay to ask for help.

Therapy saved your family. It did. Little was known about families like the Rotenberries until the wife of a wounded warrior spent 10 months at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. Elizabeth Dole, former senator and transportation secretary, heard these families while caring for the late Senator Bob Dole. And I met all of these young spouses, mothers, dads, who were caring for their wounded warriors. I don't think America is aware of what's happening. Most Americans have no idea what's happening in these military families. Less than 1% are serving in the military today.

Less than 1% are protecting our freedom and our security. And it's so important for us to raise awareness of their challenges and their needs and provide them with the support. Dole created a foundation that commissioned studies of military caregivers. The studies discovered that more than one million are caring for those injured during the war since 9-11. Nearly half said they were overwhelmed. You know, they felt guilty, really, that they were leaning on their children so much, needing their support,

and that this was causing problems for the children. There are 2.3 million military children living in the homes of wounded warriors. One of them is Elizabeth Cornelius. And I just need to make sure everybody's okay, because if my mom isn't okay, everything's going to just fall. Elizabeth has helped her mom, Ariel, as long as she can remember. Even before she was born, her dad brought terrifying memories home from a combat tour in Iraq. Ariel told us his first episode came with a pizza delivery.

The delivery man came up to the door and knocked on the door. And, you know, my husband didn't expect it, and he had an immediate flashback and threw me to the floor and was yelling, get down, get down, get down, get down. Even with that, he deployed to Iraq again in 2007 and to Afghanistan in 2011. Ariel is a schoolteacher. Her husband is completely disabled by PTSD. He can't work and wasn't up to speaking with us. Seventeen-year-old Elizabeth has become something of a co-parent to a brother and a sister at home in Montana, shielding them, she told us, from episodes and arguments. I just try to shield them as much as I can, as my mom did for me, and she did it for a very long time.

A lot of it falls on myself, and then she goes out and helps pick up the pieces that I can't. Her husband's worst crisis came on the anniversary of an attack that killed several of his fellow Marines. Oh, gosh. He was extremely suicidal because of all the memories that came back. He was barely hanging on. And it's just that regret. It's the flow of memories that come in. Extremely suicidal, but Ariel found beds for inpatient mental health care can be scarce.

You know, Helena is an hour and a half, two hours away. Casper, Wyoming is eight plus hours away. And they didn't have a bed. We then looked at Idaho. They didn't have a bed. We looked at Oregon. They didn't have a bed. We still ended up having to wait three weeks before he could get the support he needed in Puget Sound, Washington.

And that's 10 hours away. Three weeks during this time you felt like he could commit suicide? At any point in time. And we couldn't get help. Chasing care in a crisis and navigating government health insurance raised stress for everyone. It's rough on her because she's been on the phone for hours and hours reading pamphlets trying to find us help. In 2018, Elizabeth Dole watched President Trump sign a law that expanded VA benefits for caregivers of the severely disabled. It offers a stipend, access to health insurance and counseling. The Dole Foundation's studies found that at least 100 other organizations are providing support, which now include the Dole Foundation itself. Steve Schwab is the CEO.

How does the foundation help these children? One of the first things that we do is we offer emergency financial support to anybody who needs it. Second is peer support. We're building a first-of-its-kind peer support model that will link these children with other children like them for the first time in their lives. We offer on-the-ground respite care, backup care in the home to provide a trained health care worker to come in and back up that mom or dad so that that family can take a break together.

One Dole Foundation partner called Our Military Kids paid fees to help keep the Cornelius children in sports. Their mom, Ariel, says that even the little things help her husband. He is an amazing man, and I can't wait for him to get past, and I know he'll never get past the PTSD, but for him to heal enough to enjoy life and to be able to enjoy the family dynamics and those, just being around. You have hope for that. I sure do, yeah. Today, Liz Rotenberry leads a Dole Foundation initiative to train caregivers to be public advocates, for example, on Capitol Hill. Husband Chuck is recovering

and works as a dog trainer for the Secret Service, and son Christopher recovered and has applied to follow his father into the military. After all the things that Chris did to help the family during your troubles, what would you like your son to know? First of all, everybody that's in my life now, I wouldn't be here without them. I tell him I love him all the time. And he replies.

But I never really say why. Watching him grow, being aware of other people, there's plenty of proud dad moments for me. But I'm proud of you every day. All the time. You owe me nothing. But to be happy.

More than just about anything, these families told us they want the nation to simply see and know the children living with disabled vets who are, in a sense, still fighting America's post-9-11 wars. Reporting on the toll of war. Certain symptoms of PTSD kicked in. I didn't know what was going wrong with me. At 60minutesovertime.com. From commutes that become learning sessions to dishwashing filled with laughs, podcasts can help you make the most out of your everyday. And when it comes to everyday spending,

you can count on the PC Insider's World Elite MasterCard to help you earn the most PC Optimum points everywhere you shop. The PC Insider's World Elite MasterCard, the card for living unlimited. Conditions apply to all benefits. Visit pcfinancial.ca for details. Getting your kids to school safely is important to you. It's important to us, too. Toyota, for what matters most.

If you're a fan of crime novels and movies, you've probably heard of Interpol. The international police organization was started 100 years ago when 20 countries, including the U.S., came together to fight international crime. Today, it has 196 members, connecting the New York Police Department, Scotland Yard, police in Moscow, Mumbai, Manila. But as we first reported in January, for all its good work, Interpol has been accused of doing the dirty work of some of its more repressive members. Russia, for one, has used Interpol to track down people who have run afoul of President Vladimir Putin. Last year, we visited Interpol in Lyon, France, and found an institution trying to navigate the treacherous path between policing and politics.

On the banks of the Rhône River by a tranquil city park sits the highly secure global headquarters of Interpol. For the past decade, it's been led by Jürgen Stock, a former vice president of the German Federal Police. The purpose of Interpol is still the same, connecting police for a safer world. As Interpol's secretary general, Stock manages operations in Lyon and regional offices on five continents. 900 employees work at the Lyon headquarters. Many are police officers on loan from member countries chosen for their expertise. They don't carry guns or make arrests, but rather collect and share information with law enforcement agencies around the globe. Interpol also has bureaus in each member country, including one in Washington, D.C., managed by the Departments

of Justice and Homeland Security. So what is the main mission of Interpol? I would describe it as an information broker. We collect, we invite member countries to share information, we do analysis, we enrich the information. So Interpol's information is leading to arrests of high-level criminals, murderers, drug traffickers, those who are abusing children all around the world. Every single day that happens. Last year, Interpol coordinated a crackdown on human trafficking and prostitution, Operation Global Chain, that led to 212 arrests in 22 countries and the release of more than 1,400 victims forced into criminality. It's been going after one of the world's most powerful crime organizations, Italy-based Endrangheta.

Thanks to Interpol, the second most wanted man in Italy, Rocco Morabito, was arrested in Brazil after 23 years on the run. We were able to identify him through images that were shared that allowed us to be sure it was the guy. Tattoos? Tattoos. Cyril Gou, a forensic expert from the French National Police, oversees 19 massive databases, which are queried 20 million times a day.

They are a compendium of crime, piracy, fugitives, illicit firearms, stolen travel documents. My role is to make this information available to the end users. Your members? The member countries of Interpol. But for me, the customers, the end users, these are the police officers who want to arrest those major criminals and providing them with actionable information everywhere around the world. Interpol has a number of ways to alert its members, including a yellow notice for missing persons, a black notice for unidentified bodies, Perhaps most important, the red notice,

a closely guarded list of 74,000 of the world's most wanted fugitives, with the suspect's name, picture, fingerprints, details of the alleged crime, and the country seeking the arrest. The red notice is not an international arrest warrant. That is also very often misunderstood. How would you describe it? It seems like it's a digital wanted poster. Yes. It's an alert that we are disseminating that somebody is wanted by a member country. Each notice is vetted by a task force Secretary General Stock created

to make sure it doesn't violate rules forbidding the use of Interpol for political, religious or racial persecution. But the vetting is not foolproof. Some of Interpol's more repressive members take advantage of red notices, using fabricated charges to locate, detain and extradite people they want to get their hands on, like political dissidents or innocent people who've merely displeased powerful officials. Like any information sharing system, the information that you get out is only as good as the information that you put in. Rhys Davies on the left and Ben Keith are barristers,

British lawyers, who help people accused of crimes to navigate Interpol's complex bureaucracy. Our clients come to us and say, we've been accused in a particular state of a criminal offense which has been fabricated for political reasons, and Interpol's just taken this at face value, issued a red notice. Both concede Interpol does a lot of good, despite a yearly budget of $170 million, which is about the size of the Omaha Police Department. Their constitution says that they are meant to believe their member states. And so when a member state, Russia, China, Turkey, whose rule of law is often non-existent, say to them a particular person is wanted for a criminal offense, they are bound by the constitution to believe them.

Does Interpol view all the information that comes out of all of them as equal? This is one of our main frustrations, is that Interpol don't penalise countries properly. They want everyone in their club. They want everyone in their club. When a country is clearly egregiously breaching the rules and manipulating the system on a gross scale. They don't suspend

them. They've not suspended Russia. So Russia is still an active member of Interpol. Russia accounts for nearly half of the red notices Interpol makes public. According to a Russian police official, its Interpol bureau in Moscow helped arrest and extradite more than 100 criminals in 2021, and in 2022 helped nab the founder of the world's largest darknet criminal marketplace called Hydra. But some of the information Russia gives Interpol is suspect. Members of Congress, human rights groups, and the European Union have labeled Russia a serial abuser of red notices. So Russia is widely viewed as being fairly brazen in its attempt to manipulate the system. The famous example that we often talk about is Bill Browder.

Bill Browder is a London-based, American-born financier. He made his fortune in Russia, but has spent the last 11 years on the run from President Vladimir Putin, after he and his lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, exposed corruption by Russian government officials. Magnitsky was arrested and died after being beaten in a Moscow prison. Browder was convicted in absentia on suspect fraud charges. The Kremlin turned to Interpol to bring him in. So how many times by your count has Russia tried to arrest you by way of Interpol? Eight times.

I must hold the Guinness Book of World Records for the number of times they've tried to abuse Interpol. His closest call came in 2018 when he was visiting Spain. I opened the door of the hotel, and outside the door, just about to knock, is the manager of the hotel and two uniformed officers from the Spanish police. I pull out my passport. I hand it to one of the two police officers,

and he said, you're under arrest. And I said, what for? And he said, you're under arrest. And I said, what for? And he said, Interpol, Russia. The hotel manager told him to collect his things from the bedroom. Once out of sight, Browder grabbed his phone and sent out this tweet. At the time, I had about 100,000 followers, and I tweeted out, urgent, being arrested in Madrid, Spain right now. That was quick thinking. This is not the first time I had this worry.

They've been chasing me with Interpol for a long time. And so I'm sitting in the back of the police car, and because they hadn't taken away my phone, I took a picture of the back of their heads. He sent this picture in a second urgent tweet, in the back of the Spanish police car going to the station on the Russian arrest warrant. What were you hoping to accomplish? I'm hoping to wake the whole world up to the fact that I'm being arrested.

I didn't want to be slipped into the back of a, you know, Russian jet and sent off without anyone knowing where I was. What did you think was happening or was going to happen? If I sent to Russia, I would be killed. No question about it. While Browder stayed locked in a holding cell, his tweets went around the world. The chief of police comes back with a translator and says, we've just gotten off the phone

with Interpol general secretary in Lyon. The warrant is no longer valid. You're free to go. Wow. As a result of your tweets? As a result of the tweets. Are you fearful that this could happen again? Every time I cross the border, my heart starts beating a little bit faster.

We asked Juergen Stock why, after all this, Russia hasn't been suspended from Interpol, especially considering the U. the UN is investigating Russia for war crimes in Ukraine. I'm just trying to understand how a country that is being investigated for mass murder can be a member in good standing with Interpol. Interpol introduced some measures when the conflict started to avoid any political abuse of our systems.

But we also decided to keep, let's say, the channels of information open. Russia is hardly the only country to use Interpol to do its dirty work. Bahrain, for example, used Interpol to nab a professional soccer player, an outspoken critic of the government government at the Bangkok airport in 2018. He spent two and a half months in a Thai prison. China used a red notice to arrest this Chinese Uyghur activist in Morocco in 2021. He remains in prison awaiting extradition. And Qatar issued a red notice for this Scottish engineer in 2022 over a disputed $5,000 bank loan. He spent two months in an Iraqi prison. All of these red notices were eventually rescinded, but not before

lives were upended. I don't know how to characterize the people who get caught up in this. Are they collateral damage? No, I would never call that collateral damage. And we are investing all we can to ensure that every piece of information in our databases are compliant with our rules and regulations. But you know, and we have heard, of incidents where people are languishing in jail because of erroneous information that was sent out by Interpol. I'm not saying that the system is perfect. We see wrong decisions on a national level, and we have seen wrong decisions also in Interpol. That is correct, a small number of cases. Interpol admits in 2022, 304 of nearly 24,000 wanted person alerts were found to violate its rules

and were eventually denied or deleted. The organization declined to share which countries were the worst offenders. There are well-documented cases against Russia, China, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, for repeatedly abusing the Interpol notices. Why not name and shame these countries? Because we believe this is not in the interest of international police cooperation. You need to have a platform where information is being collected from different parts of the world where criminal groups are operating. We want to provide a channel even between states that have diplomatic difficulties or even are in conflict.

Our decision is not to police a member country in terms of their human rights agenda. That's not our role as a technical police organisation. That's not justice, though. It's not justice. We get it right most of the time. British barristers Rhys Davies and Ben Keith say if Interpol is to survive another 100 years, it must learn to police itself. We're concerned about the rule of law and human rights, and Interpol are concerned about trying to catch people who are allegedly criminals.

A load of innocent people get caught up in the middle. It feels a bit like that's the sort of price they're prepared to pay for catching the bad guys. And we think that the price that is paid is far too high. selected by an Instacart shopper and delivered to your door. A well-marbled ribeye you ordered without even leaving the kiddie pool. Whatever groceries your summer calls for, Instacart has you covered. Download the Instacart app and enjoy $0 delivery fees on your first three orders. Service fees, exclusions, and terms apply. Instacart, groceries that over-deliver. There's the Loch Ness Monster in Scotland, and in the Himalayas, there's the Yeti, the abominable snowman.

In Tasmania, a teardrop of an island under the eye of the Australian mainland, there's the thylacine. A creature, as we first reported in April, that brings out folklore and folks armed with grainy, convinced they've seen the thing. But unlike other mythical creatures, the thylacine, or Tasmanian tiger, actually indisputably existed, an apex predator the size of a small wolf that roamed the island as recently as last century. Which gives hope to so many obsessives, dreamers, and true believers looking for the Tasmanian tiger in the bush. And as you'll see, in the lab. This is a story that says as much about human nature as it does nature nature.

Further proof that even in the face of science and logic, passion survives in the wild just fine. You've been doing this how many years now? I've been doing this for over 30 years, and every day's an adventure. All right, here we go. Getting there wasn't easy, but Adrian Richo Richardson, a retired military man turned self-declared tiger seeker, retraced his steps. Tramping around the dense outback of Tasmania on January 28th, 2017, 12.45pm, he heard the sound. And then all of a sudden was this mighty howl like this. I was gobsmacked. The hairs on my arm and my neck stood on end.

And as that call finished, another one come from the other side of the forestry track. Another howl like that. What did that one sound like? Exactly like. Richo craned his neck but saw no creature. Still, he's sure of what it was, a Tasmanian tiger. The whole environment went quiet for about a minute. It was an unbelievable feeling.

I just can't explain it. Yeah, you're still emotional talking about this. Look, I'm going to remember that call for the time I die. And then I had to try and prove to others what I've heard. When he returned to his home in Hobart, Tasmania's capital, he didn't go down to the pub to share his account. No, he took to his desk and stayed up writing a detailed report, flush with 22 footnotes. What my passion is, it's the thylacine. I know it's there.

And this only reinforced your faith? Oh, without a doubt. One slight hitch, one crimp on the barbie, as it were. The creature Richo describes so vividly and breathlessly, it was declared extinct almost 40 years ago. Thought, you know, maybe it's a dingo. Maybe it's a wolf. In Tasmania, we do not have anything remotely like it.

We do not even have wild dogs in any form. The only feral thing we have around here is deer or cats. I don't think deers are making that noise you just made. No, sir, they did not. The Tasmanian tiger roamed these parts for thousands of years. More wolf than tiger, it was, is, a marsupial weighing about 55 pounds. The Tasmanian tiger, easily distinguished by his straight, unjointed tail. It was also a carnivore that preyed on farmer's sheep.

Recalling the fate of the wolf of the American West around the same time, the local government paid out bounties to hunters presenting carcasses. By the mid-1930s, the Tassie tiger population had dwindled to one, captive at Hobart's Beaumaris Zoo, where it died in 1936. With the required 50 years elapsing without a confirmed sighting, the tiger was put on the extinct list in 1986. Yet, putting the mania in Tasmania, the search became a national obsession, and the Tasmanian tiger, not the Tasmanian devil, became a sort of local mascot.

Its image adorns Tasmania's coat of arms and government buildings. Here's the island's current license plate. At local watering holes, the regulars put down their Tassie Tiger beer long enough to tell you they've seen the animal, or know someone who has. I stood there and held the torch on it for 40 seconds, I reckon. When Nick Mooney was a full-time Hobart biologist, it fell to him to investigate the various Tasmanian tiger accounts. Now in retirement, he's the island's unofficial arbiter. I know several people who've got clusters of cameras in very remote areas, serviced remotely by satellite,

and who go and check on the cameras with their own helicopter. All sorts of things. I've moved way beyond the guy with binoculars saying, I think I may have seen something. Oh, absolutely. He can't help notice. No one ever quite captures a clear image. Still, reported sightings come by the thousands.

Have you ever gotten a report or ever looked into something that gave you a little pause? Yes. Sometimes people are dead accurate with the times, the places, the distances. And they're very good naturalists, often don't exaggerate. Like, they take their skills very seriously. And it's very hard to say to those people, I don't think you saw a thylacine.

For the devoted army of seekers, the investment isn't just one of hope and time. Each year, Richo spends more than he cares to admit dollars on trail cam batteries alone. How much money have you sunk into this accession? Sir, I wouldn't like to speculate, and please don't tell my wife. Make it our secret. It's our secret. She often asks, and I go, don't get your hair done, darling. Go shopping.

Can I stop that one? Can I stop that one? Can I stop that one? Can you redo that one again? In the bush, we met another enthusiast, Chris Rayburg, who flies down from mainland Australia and approaches the search in the manner of a CSI detective. Apart from the cameras, I gather you've been scouring for prints, fur, even poo?

Yeah, everything. So scats, footprints is a big one. And I found a series of 18, 19 individual steps in a track line that are an excellent match for Tassie tiger. Not only are they an excellent match, the quality of the prints is pristine. Scats, keep an eye out, check it out. You know, what's the animal been eating? Yeah, and calls if you hear them. There are even tracking collectives. Richo was part of the Booth Richardson Tiger team. Thank you for joining us on what we believe is a historic day.

Which made worldwide news in 2017 after calling a press conference to announce a sighting. But when they provided this image as proof, Nick Mooney assessed it as a chance, but not an official confirmation. What is the middle ground? You can be right, you can be lying, or... Or you can have an illusion, and there's all sorts of ways that memory can be affected by time. I've had lots of talks with psychiatrists and detectives trying to figure out this. You really often have to make a choice, a personal call in the end.

Do you essentially tell them they're wrong and their mind is deceiving them? You can't tell them that because you don't know. Essentially, if you weren't there, you don't know. Richo and all the other seekers won't have to wait long. They won't even have to go into the bush if a group of tech investors and biologists deliver on their goal. Andrew Pass counts himself among the Tassie tiger transfixed. He comes to the quest, though, armed not with binoculars,

but a microscope in his tiger lab. Envision that day when you're not just wearing another pen. Yeah, 100%. I think about it all the time, what it would be like to be in that landscape and just to see one walking past in the bush, an actual one rather than a crappy photograph. Tell us exactly what you're doing. We can't magically bring the Tasmanian tiger back.

We have to start with a living cell and then engineer our thylacine back into existence. So the way you do that is you find the closest living relative to your animal that has gone extinct. And for us, that is a small marsupial species called the fat-tailed dunart. A developmental biologist at the University of Melbourne, PASC has raised $15 million for a de-extinction project that recalls Jurassic Park. In partnership with American company Colossal Biosciences, which counts, wait for it, Leonardo DiCaprio, Paris Hilton, and even the CIA among its backers.

He's adamant he'll replicate the genome of a dunnard, a mouse-like marsupial, and turn it into a much larger tazzy tiger. We'll let him explain. We examine all of its DNA. We compare that to the DNA of your extinct species, the Tasmanian tiger, and we look at everywhere that those two genomes or those two piles of DNA, if you like, are different. And once you've identified those differences, it's just a matter of then going in and making all of those edits to turn your fat-tailed dunnart genome or cell into a thylacine cell. And you're saying that dunnart, that little field mouse marsupial dunnart is closer than say the Tasmanian devil?

But that little dunnart is a ferocious carnivore, even though it's very, very small, and it's a very good surrogate for us to be able to do all of this editing in. A native of Minnesota, Chris Helgin is director of the Australian Museum Research Institute in Sydney. He understands the push to de-extinct the Tassie tiger. This is one of my favorite mammals. Really? And I love all mammals. I am a mammal guy.

This is a special, special animal. He took us upstairs to his lab to show us why. So this is Tasmanian tiger of the 19th century. See the stripes, see the thick tail, see this gaping mouth with the sharp teeth. What do you make of this de-extinction effort with respect to the Tasmanian tiger? You know, I would be the first person to line up to see this animal if it could be somehow brought back from extinction. That said, Helgen is the skeptic, gently explaining that wishing Tassie tigers were running rampant doesn't overcome science. The idea that you could actually tweak the DNA of this mouth-sized animal into making this apex predator of Australia, it stretches imagination in many different ways. This is an

impossible project. We all love optimism. We all love innovation. What they're saying is we're going to modify the genome of a Dunnart to create a genetically modified Dunnart that might look a bit more like a thylacine. Maybe we'll be able to tweak it genetically and it gets a bit bigger. Maybe we'll be able to tweak it genetically and it has some stripes on it. But there's about a thousand and one steps in between. Hogan has thought about the source of the current Tassie tiger passion and wonders how much of it is driven by remorse. It's a special symbol about Australia and about what we've lost. We've had a lot of extinctions here in the last 100, 200 years. 30 mammals alone. So in the United States, only one or two mammal species have disappeared entirely.

So why are people taking this seriously and why are people investing so much in this? So many people have the dream, if we could just get this animal back. Maybe it would help us think different about extinction or the guilt that we might feel of having removed such a special animal from the planet. Whether, you know, they imagine it might be still hiding in Tasmania or in a lab to be reborn, there's this burning hope. Richo reckons that if his countrymen in the DNA sequencing labs can resurrect a Tassie tiger, good on them. But regardless, he'll continue coming here. Faith unshaken, he's certain this animal, most famous for being extinct, is not extinct at all. If someone accused you of being obsessed,

would you please guilty? Oh, sir, I'll put my hand up to that. Your Honor, I am guilty. You're a Tasmanian tiger obsessive. I am indeed. It's been my love. Why is that? Why have you continued to search so long for this? I just know it's there.

I do. In my own heart, I know it's there. And if it isn't there, well, we say, what's the harm in searching? Coming to the planet's sub-basement, bush-bashing this gorgeous terrain, there are worse ways and places to spend your days. I'm Sharon Alfonsi. We'll be back next week with another edition of 60 Minutes.

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