Werner Herzog's "Ghost Elephants"

Review by Dennis D. McDonald

I value curiosity. It is one of the things that drives human desires for learning, exploration, and research. In Ghost Elephants we follow one researcher’s obsession, a desire to locate a tribe of giant elephants related to “Henry,” who currently sits in the main lobby of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History.

“Henry” at the Smithsonian in Washington DC

The researcher hopes to locate the “lost” elephants and bring back some DNA samples to compare them with Henry’s. What follows is a road trip in Africa to locate these “ghost elephants.” Along the way we get to observe tributes to Werner Herzog’s photography and direction, culminating in an almost classic “safari” staffed by experienced and knowledgeable locals through land inhabited by these elusive elephants. They must pass through land ruled over by a local “king” who proclaims his people are descended from a woman transformed from an elephant.

Is the project a success? Do they find the elephants? What drives people to pursue such research goals in the light of everything else going on in the world?

The answers to those questions are almost secondary to our experiencing the steps people go through in pursuit of a research goal. Perhaps the message is that research often raises more questions than it answers. That’s a pretty trite conclusion, I admit, but it’s true whether we are going to the moon or looking for a genetic ancestor.

What research itself can’t answer for us is the question of whether the research is worth doing.

Watching Herzog’s film about this pursuit, I couldn’t help but wonder how important it is to land humans on the moon again given all the profound questions we still have here on Earth—like the ones this film raises about whether certain species survive or not.

Review copyright (C) 2026 by Dennis D. McDonald