It's not a sight you see every day, a herd of elephants, leaving their home turf, making their way through Southwestern China, most recently stopping in a city of millions.
But that is what's happening right now. William Brangham looks at their mysterious trek, and why they might have hit the road in the first place. It's been an epic and highly unusual journey so far, more than 300 miles over the last year, across deserts, through forests, crossing busy city streets, navigating ditches. This herd of 15 Asian elephants is captivating China. Every step of their trek documented on state-run media, and seemingly everywhere on Chinese social media. The world can't seem to get enough of this trip, a trip to -- well, nobody quite knows where. They stop for naps, though the adults seem more tuckered out than their offspring. They eat corn in the fields, even try to break into power plants. But why are they on this journey?