60 Minutes - 08/02/2026: Lourdes, The Improbable Tale of Ted Lasso, Birds of War

Episode Date: August 3, 2026

Correspondent Bill Whitaker reports from the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes, a Marian shrine in Southern France and the site of 72 medical miracles recognized by the Catholic Church. 60 MINUTES goes inside the Lourdes Office of Medical Observations, where world-renowned doctors and researchers conduct decade-long investigations into the dozens of claims of miraculous cures made every year. They determine which cases can be medically explained and which cannot. Nichole Marks is the producer.How did an NBC Sports soccer promo become a full-fledged series and cultural phenomenon that earned more Emmy nominations than any other new comedy in television history? Norah O’Donnell goes behind the scenes of the Apple TV+ series “Ted Lasso,” on set and on location in London, to interview Jason Sudeikis, Brendan Hunt and other writers and cast members who brought the Greyhounds of AFC Richmond to life. Keith Sharman is the producer.In the mountains of western Colombia, correspondent Anderson Cooper travels off-the-beaten track, searching for rare species of birds you can’t find anywhere else in the world.  He reports on how decades of armed conflict in Colombia preserved the birds’ habitat, and how birds might help heal old wounds in this beautiful but still bitterly divided country. Andy Court is the producer.

Do you believe in miracles? Well, 60 minutes traveled to the sanctuary of Our Lady of Lords in southern France, where 72 medical miracles have been recognized by the Catholic Church over the past 164 years. And tonight, you'll hear a miracle story, and from the renowned doctors and researchers who investigated it. Knock a doodle do. Oh, good morning, Coach Lassau. Boy, that's a heap and spoonful of truth soup right there.

What do you think the legacy of Ted Lassau is decades from now? Folks keep watching it. Hey, Higgins! It's a decent chance it'll pay for my kids' college, unless I blow it all. You don't think it's already done that? You don't think I've already blown it? Once in a while, we get to travel so far off the beaten track,

there's hardly a track at all. For decades, this pristine forest in Western Columbia was a no-go area because of armed conflict. But that allowed hundreds of species of birds to thrive. Oh, that's the same. Oh, look that's the same. Look at it. Some of which you can't find anywhere else on earth.

Oh, look at that. Oh, my God. Look at that huge thing. I'm Leslie Stahl. I'm John Wertheim. I'm Anderson Cooper. I'm Nora O'Donnell. I'm Bill Whitaker.

Those stories tonight on 60 Minutes. After decades of devastating global conflicts and increasing political partisanship, you'd be forgiven for giving up on the idea of miracles. But tonight, we'll take you to a place that's known for them. The sanctuary of Our Lady of Lords in southern France is the site of 72 medical miracles recognized by the Catholic Church. The Marian shrine is famous to the faithful, but less well known is the Lord's Office of Medical Observations.

We first told you in 2022, that's where world-renowned doctors and researchers conduct decade-long investigations into the countless claims of cures reported over the years. They determine which cases can be medically explained and which cannot. It's those church officials might call a miracle. For the doctors, it's a lesson in the limits of medicine. For the devout, it's divine intervention. The small French town of lords tucked in the foothills of the Pyrenees mountains draws four million pilgrims a year,

more than travel to Mecca for the Hage or to Jerusalem, and almost everyone you meet will tell you they have heard stories of miracles here. But we heard none more inspiring than that of Sister Bernadette Murillo. I really tried everything I could. But this is something that cannot be healed. What was your prognosis? Full total paralysis. The prognosis was really dark.

Strolling with then 83-year-old Sister Morillo through the chapel grounds in Brel, France, we found it hard to believe that for half her life, she suffered from cauda equina, a disorder of the nerves and lower spine. You wore this all the time. Her left foot, she said.

was twisted and limp. To walk at all, she needed this back and leg brace, an implant to dull nerve pain and massive doses of morphine. She told us she had exhausted all treatment options, so in 2008 her doctor convinced her to make a pilgrimage to lords. Did you believe in miracles at the time? I always believed in miracles, but not for me. So why did you decide to go?

While I didn't go there for a miracle, I just went there to pray with others. Lourd is a place where the smallest people, all the sickest, or the poorest, they come first. The sickest, the poorest, the diseased and debilitated, bearing wounds visible and hidden, come from all over the world, seeking to be healed by the shrine's natural spring waters and the power of prayer. And so I've asked for complete healing. or a super long remission. This was Kim Halpin's first pilgrimage.

She was diagnosed with incurable blood cancer in 2021 and came all the way from Kansas to cleanse herself in the waters of lords. Are you expecting to be healed? Not necessarily. Ask for as much as I want and maybe I will be blessed with part of it, which will be okay.

Halpin was aided by her, son Sean, we couldn't help but notice there are as many volunteers as sick here. The Our Lady of Lord's hospitality, North American volunteers, helped Jamie Jensen travel from Minnesota for his 18th visit. Even though the camera sees that I have a condition and a chair, when I'm here, I don't have a condition. Jensen's condition is cerebral palsy. All those trips to Lourdes haven't given him the physical miracle he wanted, but maybe, he says, he got the miracle he needed. I was very bitter, very angry with myself. Did coming to Lourdes change your heart? Very much. Do you consider that a miracle? I do because there's a peace within myself.

Holy Mary, Mother of God. Stories of inner peace and acceptance don't meet the bar for the Office of Medical Observations, and with just 72 medical miracles recognized over the past 164 years, you'd have better odds playing the lotto, yet thousands of faithful line up at the baths, and at this grotto where the first miracle is said to have occurred. The sanctuary, with its three basilicas and 25 chapels, is laid out like a grand theater complex, its many stages offering dozens of highest performances throughout the day. The finale? A candle-lit procession every night. There would be none of this were it not for St. Bernardette.

According to Catholic lore, in 1858, a mysterious woman appeared in this grotto to Bernadette Suburu, a 14-year-old peasant girl. Jean-Marc Mika, the Bishop of Lords, says the woman spoke with Subaru several times over five months. And once the 25th of March, day of the Annunciation, she said, I am the immaccharacterial. conception. When word got out, the immaculate conception, the Virgin Mary, had appeared in lords, people flocked to this grotto, and within days started making claims of miracle cures, the ability to walk, restored sight. Worried about fueling mass hysteria, the church set up the Office of Medical Observations in 1883 to investigate the claims. Which brings us back to the other Bernadette in our story. In 2008, Sister Morillo found herself in a wheelchair in a

procession at Lord's seeking the intervention of St. Bernardet. And I really had that feeling that the Lord was walking with us, and I heard him giving me these words, I see your suffering and that of your sick brothers and sisters. Just give me everything. You heard the voice of Jesus? Yes, I heard this in a voice. I can't really tell you whose voice it was. It was like a spiritual experience. She said she returned home rejuvenated spiritually, but physically she felt worse. After three days in excruciating pain, she told us she suddenly found the strength to walk to the chapel and pray. Then I felt some kind of heat coming into my body. I felt relaxed, but I didn't really know what that was meaning. And in my room, I heard this in a voice again telling me, take all your braces off.

I didn't think twice, and I started taking my foot brace off. And my foot, that used to be crooked, was straight. And I could actually put it on the ground without feeling any pain. All of a sudden, your foot was straight. Yes, like that, like the way it is just now. And so I kept going. She says she took off the braces and stopped the morphine all at once. Did this make sense to you? No, I knew it was impossible. She came to my door with her doctor, and she said, last year I came to Luzon Pilgrimages,

and three days after I got back home, I was cured. Dr. Alessandro DiFrancici's hears stories like that all the time. When we met him, he was the president and residing physician at the Lord's Office of Medical Observations. His job was to determine whether there is more to those stories. stories by applying seven strict criteria established by the church. And we're looking for a diagnosis, and if that diagnosis is a diagnosis of a severe disease with a severe prognosis.

And then we want to make sure that that person is a person that was cured in a way that one would say suddenly, in an instantaneous way, in a complete way, and in a way lasting in time. And my seventh criteria that has to match is there must be no. possible explanation to that cure. Sister Benedict Moriou. Here on the end. He showed us the archives which hold thousands of recorded claims of cures. This feels like it's almost 10 pounds.

Dr. D. Franchiches, a practicing Catholic, told us what separates the more than 7,000 claims of cures from the 72 the church calls miracles is an ungodly amount of medical documentation. and patients like Sister Murillo willing to put their lives under a microscope. We center to different neurologists. We sent her to different rheumatologists because of the specific case of her disease. We asked to repeat twice all sorts of imagery, electrophysiology. We did all day we were doing medicine to be absolutely sure of her diagnosis. But he wanted to confirm something else.

I was asked to me. meet with two psychiatrists in Paris. They wanted to know if I was lying. If I had already had any hallucinations, if I had levitated, I remember answering, no, doctor, I never left the ground floor. Satisfied, Dr. DeFranches sent Sister Morillo's case to a group of 33 doctors and professors called the International Medical Committee of Lords. job is to determine whether a cure is what they consider medically unexplained.

We're not trying to reel something in or real something out. We're just trying to be objective. You could call them the devil's advocates. Dr. Michael Moran, a surgical oncologist, Dr. Yasek Mastwin, a professor of urology at Johns Hopkins, and Dr. Kieran Moriarty, a renowned addiction specialist, scrutinized Sister Morio's case. Is there anything? that could have caused her response. No treatment would be that effective that quickly. Does religion enter into your medical conversation? We cannot separate ourselves as people

who have been deeply immersed in the culture and the traditions of lords and the church, but make no mistake, we're just as technical as a forensic pathologist when it comes to looking at the technical details of the case. After eight years of investigation, the committee determined that Sister Moriot's case was medically unexplained. So when you do a survey, the investigation of Sister Bernadette's or any of the other cures, this is done on a purely medical basis, something that could be peer-reviewed by other physicians outside of...

Not could, that is. They are pure-reviewed. I have estimated... I can affirm with absolute certainty. that the case of Sister Benedet had been reviewed, read, expertise by at least 300 physicians. 300 physicians. And if tomorrow morning any of our viewers is a doctor,

and one day he stops in southern France and comes to see me, and he wants to look into the file of Sister Benedet, I'll be delighted to show him, because we have everything is open and collegial and no secrets. The secret is the mystery. of it all. And on that, the church gets the last word. Amen. In 2018, a decade after her cure, Sister Morio's case was declared the 70th miracle of lords.

Declaring a miracle is saying, God did something. This is the miracle. And the doctors cannot go on that land, on that field. When I told people I was coming here, I got a lot of people who told me me, oh come on, there's got to be some explanation that we just don't know. What do you say to the skeptics? Come and see, be open, don't be narrow-minded. Be open to believe that the real world is wider than the visible one.

It's been said about Lords for those who believe no explanation is necessary. For those who do not, no explanation is possible. Ted Lassau is one of the most beloved comedy shows of the decade. It's a fish-out-of-water story about an American football coach from Kansas who moves to England to take charge of a professional soccer team, despite knowing nothing of the sport. When it debuted a few months into the pandemic, fans flocked and critical acclaim followed. Over three seasons, it received 61 Emmy nominations.

Not bad for a show that started out as a commercial. The improbable tale of Ted Lassau changed the game in Hollywood and the lives of its stars. So when production for the third season was about to begin, back in 2022, we went to London, to meet as many members of the ensemble cast as we could, including Jason Sudecass, Ted Lasso's mastermind and alter ego, to find out how the show scored. Knock a doodle do. Good morning, Coach Lasso.

Did you set out and say, I want a character that's all about positivity and kindness and can transform people, bring out the best in people? To play the character was intentional. To play someone that was kind-hearted, that didn't swear, be like Teflon towards people's negativity or sarcasm. 100% intentional.

Kindness and positivity can be transformative. Yeah, and so can the opposite. But, I mean, if you had to choose one, at that point of writing it and wanting to play it, I'd much rather try to view the world as Ted Lassow. That way is the Lassow way. Jason Sadeca's told us the comedy in Ted Lassow rolls onto the screen like a Trojan horse.

How do y'all cowboys? Sometimes farcical. Morning, Ted. Hey, Higgins. Often profane. Just going to watch your ass. It's a bit off. Carrying with it, homespun wisdom and warmth.

Well, that's a heap and spoonful of truth soup right there. The show defied not just the dark times of the pandemic, but sometimes logic itself. Do you believe in ghosts, Ted? I do. But more importantly, I think they need to believe in themselves. As coach of the fictional soccer team known as AFC Richmond, Siddakis likes to say Ted Langell. Lassau is the best version of himself.

One quality both character and actor share is curiosity. I saw this quote by Walt Whitman, who was painted on the wall there, it said, be curious, not judgmental. I like that. Walt Whitman never wrote or said be curious, not judgmental, yet it's become more than just a catchphrase. My mom's parish south side of Chicago, Christ the King,

had like a Bible study class. And what was the Bible study about? Probably, like, be curious, not judgmental. The gospel according to Ted Lassso, something like that. Maybe I think it might have been something like that. Football is football, no matter where you play it. The show's success is even more extraordinary when you consider its origins. More than 10 years ago, long before Ted Lassow became gospel,

he began as an arrogant, incurious commercial. Hey, how you doing? This is Ted Lasson, and I'd like to talk to the queen, please. NBC sports needed a buzzy ad campaign to promote soccer's English Premier League in the U.S., so they called Siddakis, who was finishing up a 10-year run on Saturday Night Live. Skip like little girls. Go not a kid in the world. He said the jobs sounded like fun, especially when he was allowed to invite two old friends along for the ride. So before you guys created Ted Lassau, you were actually best friends.

I don't know, best winning. A lot of people in our life. I think we got along with us. We're fine. Yeah, yeah. So how would you describe your relationship? Best, I think best friends. I'd probably.

Ted Lassow co-creators Joe Kelly and Brendan Hunt have known each other and Jason Siddakas for more than 20 years. I'm going to be okay. After the commercials, the trio developed Ted Lassau into a more complete character, who shed his arrogant swagger for humble curiosity. In the show, Ted Lassau also deals with divorce. You're not quitting, Ted. And mental health challenges.

You getting paid to just jot down your little notes and diagnose my tears and then what? All while bringing a feminine approach to a typically masculine job. Y'all got to get together a woman up, hmm? I think you mean, monot, ain't... No, you all been manning up for a while now. Look where that's got you. If anybody claims that they thought this show or knew this show was going to work, their fitment a little bit. No one was sure.

The three friends got a boost when veteran television producer Bill Lawrence joined the project. What was in Jason's pitch that convinced you? He knew from the start that this was a guy that was

putting out a optimistic face and that would be one note if he wasn't also aware that that was covering up somebody that needed to. to learn about self-care and being proactive in facing whatever demons they might have.

It got moving once Bill was involved. Yeah. But Bill said this is not a soccer show. Right. Yeah. Yeah. He basically pounded the table and shouted at a very early writer's session that says, not a soccer show.

This is a workplace ensemble comedy. But that's kind of been a guiding principle, you know. It takes place in the soccer world, but it's not, it's never about the soccer at all. Yeah, the thing that I was saying, like the pitch me when Bill and I went out, was like this shows as much about soccer as like Rocky is about boxing. What happened when you shopped around Ted Lassow here in Hollywood?

What was the reaction? What's the opposite of a bidding war? Yeah, yeah, yeah. We'll take it. Streaming service Apple TV Plus decided to take on Ted Lassau, which is produced by Warner Brothers. Do you think you had more freedom because it was Apple? We went into filming, feeling like the underdogs that Richmond were. Like we weren't coming on the heels of a bidding war.

We weren't coming to heels of like, here we go with this monster show. And I felt like it helped the process, the tone, the feeling, the vibe, everything. The vibe behind the scenes seems to mirror the team seen on the show. We invited Brendan Hunt, who plays Coach Beard. Brentford taking on Crystal Palace. And Tahib Jammot and Kola Bakini, who portrays soccer players on Ted Lasso to a proper Saturday afternoon match. So I was kind of surprised in talking to the writers that one of the things that you guys deal with in the show are trying to dismantle is toxic masculinity. 100%.

I think setting a show in like a boys' locker room and a football locker room is the perfect place to try and tackle that. I think that comes from just like a culture of like, you know, it's very competitive. like boys being around other boys and like everyone's pretending to be like this version of like what they think are like a man is or a young man is. You get different versions of people in it, you know? The person that you are behind close doors

is not the person that you are in real life. Yeah. Before he took on Ted Lasso, in real life, Jason Siddakas hailed from Kansas, just like the coach he now plays. There he was a college theater star, but just as comfortable playing point guard on the basketball team.

He says Richmond is partly based on his old team that also happened to be called the Greyhounds. Bill had one of these hanging in his office. He pointed out on the set. DeMott, named after Martin DeMont, an improv teacher from Second City.

Ted Lassow's writers named members of the team after friends, family members, and former mentors. Saskia Moss is one of the owners of Boom Chicago where Brennan and Joe and I all worked in Amsterdam. It's hard sometimes for one word to capture so many things, but for a lot of people,

this is the iconic Ted Lassau. Believe. I know. Believe in yourself. Believe in the people around you. Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. Believe in the process. One of the show's breakout stars, Brett Goldstein, believed he could play Roy Kent. Check on your fucking teammate.

The gruff, washed up tough guy with a heart of gold. I like being Roy Kent. I don't know if I can handle just being some loser has been called Roy. Trouble was Goldstein was hired to write, not act. Last time I saw eyes that cold, they were going head to head with Roy Shider. While we were writing it about somewhere around Episode 5, I started to think, I think Roy Kent is living inside me.

How did Brett Goldstein go from writer to star? Just flat out, Shobis Gumpchin, you know. And he just felt a connection to the character, and so he taped himself. sent it to Bill saying, hey, if this is good, you know, great. If it's not, we never need to talk about this again. And they're like, Brett turned in a Roy video. Oh, did he? Fire it up.

And immediately, like, Brett's Roy. Yeah. It's immediate. You all played like a bunch of little pricks. You hear me? Yes, coach. Roy is very gruff, very angry, and it's always jarring. When you call Braddney answers the phone,

Hello? How are you? How are you, dear friends? He's the sweetest, most gentle man. He is a quadrant of emotion that he doesn't want anyone to know about who has been raised in a culture of almost toxic masculinity to be a fucking wall.

And he has all these feelings and these emotions, but he cannot express them all. And he has to keep them. pen up, which is why he talks like he talks, because he's holding it all in. It's like a cork. A cork. If he pulled it out, he'd cry and sing and, you know, fly off. You're nearly 70, and you're having a baby?

I mean, what are you? A character from the fucking Bible? Hannah Waddingham, who spent much of the last 20 years performing musical theater in London's West End, plays team owner, Rebecca Welton. Why do you think the show resonated with so many people? And does it have something to do with the pandemic? I think it does and it doesn't. People associate it with the pandemic time, of course, because it was a massive hug. And it was a way of everyone blocking it out.

The show is a massive hug. Yes. A hug to what? Two people. Two humanity. I think it's what everybody needed at the time. They needed a hug. and a reminder to be kind to each other,

a reminder to include each other, a reminder to check in with each other, even if you think someone's got their stuff together, they haven't. I also think that had the pandemic not happened, it would have done exactly the same thing because there's something about our show that reminds everyone

that you don't have to be cutting to be funny. You can be warm and funny and kind and giving and supportive and accepting and funny. And that's what makes Ted Lassau distinct. Yes. Thank you. At the 2021 Emmy Awards, Waddingham, Goldstein,

and Siddakis, all took home trophies for acting. I am eternally grateful. And the show won outstanding comedy series. Richmond was more of a cricket town than a football town. The Richmond Greyhounds may be a make-believe team, but Richmond the town is 100% real. This is the real version of the the set.

Yeah, you kind of can't fake Richmond, really. This bar is great. Yeah. We basically built an exact replica, you know. This is not what I expected today. The day we were there, so were fans of the show, including a young woman who had traveled from Germany and had just gotten a tattoo in honor of Ted Lassow.

Still in a Ziploc. And it read, Be Curious, not Judgmental. I mean, this is pretty special being out here. Yes. We also took a walk on the field where the Richmond Greyhounds shoot most of their soccer scenes. I mean, it's kind of great. Your pitch is right near the studio.

I know. I know. Something else. Happy accident. In typical Midwestern fashion, Jason Siddakas was not entirely comfortable explaining the show's success, nor taking credit for it. What do you think the legacy of Ted Lassow is

decades from now? I don't know. I don't folks keep watching it. It's a decent chance it'll pay for my kids' college, unless I blow it all. You don't think it's already done that? You don't think I've already blown it?

After a three-year break, Ted Lasso is back next week on Apple TV. He's still the coach at AFC Richmond, but it's a brand-new team. And this season, the players are all women. The inspiration behind the players' names on Ted Lasso at 60 Minutes Overtime.com. Once in a while, we get to travel so far off the beaten track, there's hardly a track at all.

That was the case last year when we went to the mountains of Western Columbia. There are some 2,000 species of birds in that South American country more than anywhere else on earth, partly because of its diverse geography, but also surprisingly because of war. Decades of fighting among the Colombian government, left-wing guerrillas, right-wing paramilitaries and narco-traffickers made some areas so dangerous few people could go there, preserving the bird's habitat.

But since 2016, when Colombia's government signed a peace deal with the FARC, the largest left-wing guerrilla group, it's gotten safer to travel. As we first reported earlier this year, all those species of birds in untouched forests have become an important part of a growing ecotourism industry. It brings in millions of dollars

to Columbia's economy, and bird watchers, birders as they're known, are flocking there, hoping to catch even a fleeting glimpse of species you can't find anywhere else on earth. On the western slope of the Andes Mountains, in an area with few roads in or out, lies Tatama National Park, a vast stretch of lush rainforest, punctuated by powerful rivers. Delicate flowers blossom in the rain-soaked forest, and the sound, of birds fills the humid air. This is one of the wettest places on Earth. We set off before dawn in a four-wheel-drive vehicle

through untouched forest. Hidden in the lush vegetation were all kinds of birds. Some shy, others curious, their colors as vivid as their names. The blue-gray tanager, the cinnamon flycatcher, the purple-throated wood star. Okay, check it out. Check it out this one, mate. Diego Calderon Franco knows them all. He's one of Columbia's most famous birding guides.

Go above the light. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's the male. Violet tail silk. This little one right there. The little one, actually. Oh, that's the seal. That's the seal. Look at the tail.

That tail is so beautiful. Diego's enthusiasm is infectious. And this is the star here. This thing, velvet, purple, coronet. There you are. Wow. Those colors incredible. Nearby, we spotted some drama between two hummingbirds. Is that a family?

One of them is just sitting there on a branch. The others seem to be darting about. Actually, they are both Empress Brilliant males. So there are actually probably two males fighting a little bit about territory. Hummingbirds, you know, they look cute, but they are real warriors. They will fight for resources. Really? Hummingbirds do? All day long, all day long.

The pink right underneath the... In the throat. throat is incredible. Birding may sound dull to some, but in the forest, there's always something to watch out for. Whoa. Watch out. Jesus. This is dangerous.

Diego has studied the species here so closely he does their calls the way some people hum music. Something like that, that I can... That's a wren? That would be like a wood rim in the forest. There is one here where we are that is called the Munchike wood rand that lives in the highlands. And it's like... But it's much happier. It has a different tone, so it's more like much of a, yeah, cooler life.

You've said that being a bird guide in Columbia is like being an explorer during the Victorian age. It is. How so? It is because all these explorers from the Victorian age, they were circumnavigating the globe and exploring and finding new species everywhere. And because of, you know, troubled past, you can still, you know, being Colombia, look at an isolated mountain range, And you might find a new species for bird for science.

Are there still bird species out there that haven't been in the scavenor? Absolutely. We tend to think that we have explored all, that we know every corner of the planet, and it's not the case. This area was a no-go area for a long time. Indeed. The fact that there were illegal armed groups in this area, you know, like for so long prevented just people coming and slashing and burning the habitats.

No one could disturb the birds, but no one could go see them really either. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. More than 450,000 people were killed, most of them unarmed civilians during decades of fighting between armed groups and government forces in Colombia. Fifty thousand people were kidnapped. Diego Calderon Franco was one of them. In 2004, as a graduate student, he and two colleagues were on an expedition in the mountains

of northern Colombia when they were seized by the FARC, Colombia's largest Marxist guerrilla group. They didn't believe that we were bird watchers, you know, like, that we were biologists. While Diego and his colleagues were held hostage in this remote hideaway and others, birders around the world called for his release. And like 99% of all the other kidnappings in Colombia, it became monetary. It became like, okay, let's ask for a ransom to your families. I was, 88 days, three months up there. How did you stay sane?

Birds, I would say. You were being held prisoner. But we could see and hear nature. He scribbled notes about what he saw on these scraps of cigarette paper. I remember I saw for first time one bird that is called Slatey Bross Finch. And I even made a little drawing and a little note like, wow, this is my first Slatey Browsing. Kidnap up there in the Pretty Hall Mountains. His father finally scraped together about $30,000 to free him.

And three years after his release, Diego started a business leading birding tours. This was one of his favorite places to stay, a farm at the entrance to Tatama National Park. It's owned by Michelle Tapasco and her family. She says they moved here in the 1990s to escape violence by right-wing militias in eastern Colombia, not realizing the left-wing FARC was active here. After we got here, we realized that it was the flip side of the coin. The guerrilla strike started. There were a lot of confrontations near here

between the military, the police, and the guerrillas. In 2008, she says, the FARC kidnapped and killed her partner. She had five daughters to support and thought about leaving, but decided to stay and build a business providing lodging for the occasional visitor. When you started this business, did some people tell you, oh, this is never going to work?

Oh. Oh. In fact, they would tell me I was crazy. No one would give me a single peso for my project. Now, thanks to birders, she's fixed the place up and rebranded it as the Montezuma rainforest eco lodge. Much of the food for guests is grown on the premises. And Michelle makes sure there's plenty of nourishment

for Tatama's hardworking hummingbirds. Colombia is home to more than 160 species of these fast-moving flyers. These guys are the very only group of birds in the world that can fly not only forward, normal, but up down and backwards. How fast are they moving their wings? How fast you think?

How many times per second? Per second? 10? 80 times per second. You cannot wrap this idea on your brain. Ten years ago, the Colombian government reached a peace agreement with the FARC and nearly 10,000 fighters gave up their guns.

But for peace to work, they needed new ways to make a living. So Diego decided to introduce his former captors to birding, thinking some of them might make good forest guides. What was it like to go birding with people who had been in FARC, who had been combatants? We totally forgot who we were. They weren't thinking like, oh, this is the guy we kidnapped 15 years ago. Birds connect you so much. And I think that's why they have this healing power.

Marcos Guevara was once a fart gorilla. Now he's a photographer. Diego helped him get his first job. When he joined us at Tatama, he captured this video of a green and black fruit eater building a nest. Did you know anything about birding before you met Diego? No, I didn't know anything at all.

That was really my introduction to birds. Diego gave us the chance to attend workshops and training sessions, Birdwatching became a doorway for us, not just into conservation and preservation, but also as a way to generate income for ourselves. Colombia still has plenty of problems. While we were busy birding, bombs went off in Kali, and a presidential candidate was assassinated in Bogota. In April, 20 people were killed in an explosion, officials blamed on a faction of the FARC that refused to disarm. Peace here remains fragile, but more tourists are coming than ever before. At Michelle's lodge, we ran into Gary George and Joseph Brooks of Los Angeles. We bonded over a large bird that surprised us one morning.

Look at that. Oh, my God, look at that huge thing. Yeah. Do you see this? It's right there. Oh, look, there's another one. The black vulture. Like many serious birders, they have what's called a life list, a count of how many of the roughly old. 11,000 species of birds in the world they've seen or heard.

Some people collect salt and pepper shakers, but we collect bird sightings, so we go around the world to do that. How many birds have you seen? We're very close to 8,000. 8,000. So you've seen the majority of those species? Like four-fifths of the world's birds. If you didn't notice, those tattoos on Brooks' arms are some of his feathered favorites.

He says there's about 50 birds tattooed all over his body. This is a satin-bower bird from Australia. This is a red crown crane we saw in Japan dead in the snow. On this trip, they were searching for the ever-elusive Chami Antpita. In two prior trips here, they'd never gotten a glimpse of one. But this time, they finally heard its call. Let's try. And then it darted right past them, so fast our camera couldn't catch it.

It's like finding a jewel, like a prize. and being in that moment, everything else goes away. You're not worrying about anything else in your life. You're only present in that moment. Oh, great. Most birds don't have it as good as those here at Tatima National Park. Worldwide, 60% of bird species are declining in population, victims of logging, agricultural expansion, and economic development.

At Montezuma Lodge, Michelle Tapasco told, us she's working to buy more land to preserve for the birds. And now her daughters are pursuing careers in biology, forestry, birding, and conservation. When you think about it, I mean, did the birds save you? Yes. They have given me everything I have, everything I am, everything my daughters are today. Two of your daughters got married, are they married to birders? Yes.

I never thought of birds as matchmakers, but it seems like here maybe they are. I believe so. On our last day birding, we got to glimpse a species that only lives in this part of the Andes Mountains, the gold ring Tanager. That's the bird of this place.

That's what birders come to see. This type of bird is like keystone for dispersing of seeds, you know. They will chew on the berries, they will travel away from the parental plants and they will defecate and then they plant those seeds. A little later, we got an even better look. The tanager may not be the most colorful bird in these forests,

but just seeing it did feel like an accomplishment. We knew we'd probably never have the chance to see it again. Oh, wow, that's great. Now you belong to a higher cult of mortals, for you have seen the coloring tanager. Paramount Plus. Everyone be ready. Boldly go, one step closer to where it all began.

What we are about to do cannot be taken back. Star Trek Strange New World's new season now streaming on Paramount Plus.