Original subtitles

NARRATOR: This program is about unsolved mysteries.

Whenever possible, the actual family members

and police officials have participated

in recreating the events.

What you are about to see is not a news broadcast.

ROBERT STACK: In 1987, Wytheville,

Virginia was deluged by an unprecedented wave

of UFO sightings.

Our newsman, Danny Gordon, the man at the center of the storm,

the sightings began a series of threatening phone calls

and break-ins, which made him regret that he ever

went public with the story.

When a newspaper reporter in Ohio

began researching several unconnected murders,

he had no idea that his investigation would take him

into a dark and dangerous subculture

and put him on the trail of a possible serial killer.

70 Years ago, a man named Bill Beaty had a vision.

He would build a magnificent castle in the rolling

hills of New Jersey.

Today many people believe they have seen his ghost

roaming the grounds, unable and unwilling

to leave his masterpiece.

Join me for another edition of "Unsolved Mysteries."

During the past five years, "Unsolved Mysteries"

has broadcast a number of stories

dealing with unidentified flying objects.

Viewed in retrospect, they chronicle

the history of UFO sightings in America and Europe.

Today most of us take tales of UFO sightings for granted.

Yet the phenomenon was virtually unheard of until just

after World War II.

1947.

The genesis of UFO sightings unfolded

in the New Mexico desert near Roswell Army Airbase.

Military investigators were called in to examine the debris

of an unknown aircraft.

The incident was thoroughly documented and even publicized.

Incredibly, a few eyewitnesses claimed that alien life

forms were also recovered.

Ultimately, the authorities denied the entire affair

and insisted the UFO was nothing more

than a downed weather balloon.

18 Years later in 1965, residents

of a small Pennsylvania village observed

a fiery object streaked through the sky then fall to Earth.

Many witnesses saw an Air Force radar squadron

hauling the object away.

The military dismissed the sighting as a meteorite

and insisted that nothing was ever recovered.

Over the next 25 years, reports of close encounters

proliferated, many of them on or near military bases.

One of the most remarkable occurred on December 26, 1980

at Bentwaters, an American air base in England.

There's definitely something up there.

It's coming down from an object to the ground near our feet.

ROBERT STACK: According to eyewitnesses,

the sightings continued in various forms

until December 28.

The next day a continental way in Texas,

a woman named Betty Cash suffered

severe radiation burns.

She claims she had been exposed to the energy field

of a bizarre flying object.

Most recently, between 1989 and 1991,

thousands of people in Belgium reported a literal invasion

of strange, unearthly crafts.

Amazingly, the Belgian air force is able to capture on radar

a swift and erratic movements of an unidentified craft which

defined the laws of known physics.

For those of us who have never encountered a UFO,

reports of such events often sound far fetched.

In fact, some eyewitnesses who go

public risk becoming the object of ridicule and scorn.

Others are simply ignored.

In either case, an acknowledged UFO sighting

can profoundly change a person's life in ways

that he or she never imagined possible.

Wytheville, Virginia, population 8,000,

is nestled in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

Country music station WYVE calls itself the voice of Wytheville.

On most days, life here is peaceful,

unpretentious, and uneventful, but that was about to change.

Good morning, Sheriff.

Danny Gordon.

ROBERT STACK: On October 7, 1987,

radio reporter, Danny Gordon, checked in as usual

with a county sheriff and heard an unbelievable tale.

Over near Austinville?

Uh-huh.

All right.

Got anything else?

You're kidding me.

ROBERT STACK: Three Wythe County sheriffs

deputies, all former military men,

claimed they had seen a UFO.

When was that?

SWITCHBOARD ASSISTANT: OK, Danny.

You're on three, two, one.

Unidentified flying objects have

been sighted over Wythe County on Monday and Tuesday evenings.

The Wythe County Sheriff's Department

was notified by a number of--

DANNY: There was a filler piece who

came on at the end of the news, which I usually relegate

to something that may be an unusual, like we had one police

officer kill five chickens once with two shots,

and that was a story that ran as kind of a ha-ha piece.

And this was another ha-ha piece and being

a very skeptical newsman, it was definitely

not a lead part of my news.

ROBERT STACK: Danny Gordon's fluff story

sparked unprecedented listener reaction.

Reports of UFO sightings poured into WYVE.

With the switchboard jammed, Gordon finally set up

a special call-in program for the evening

of October 19, 1987.

Hello.

This is Danny Gordon. You're on the air.

Go ahead, please.

ROBERT STACK: What follows is based on verbatim transcripts

of the actual telephone calls.

WOMAN (ON PHONE): It was very, very huge.

It was long, and it didn't have any sound.

It had a big light on the front and one in the center and one

in the back.

MAN (ON PHONE): Well, it kind of looks something

about like an egg shape to me.

WOMAN (ON PHONE): What we could see was red,

green, and white, sort of flashing lights.

We saw a plane go by with red flashing lights.

We knew it wasn't a jet of any sort.

OK. Well, I appreciate that.

Thanks a lot.

For being a brass-tacks journalist,

I always believe there is a plausible, logical explanation.

And I felt at that time that it was military of some nature

and that we would find the reason

in a short period of time.

ROBERT STACK: Danny Gordon thought

the UFOs are most likely experimental aircraft

being tested out of Virginia's Langley Air Force Base.

But he was repeatedly told by the military

that there was no testing going on.

As more and more residents had sightings,

the military did come up with one explanation.

MARY: Everybody had been telling us that what people were seeing

were planes refueling.

And so I said, well, I didn't know that's how they did that.

And then I thought, well, why are they

do that down over my house?

Isn't this something they should be doing

away from populated areas?

I call the Pentagon and talked to the Air Force general

there who told me if they are refueling under 13,000 feet,

then somebody's butt is in a sling.

And to this day, we don't know if they

were refueling at 5,000 feet.

But at the same time, I have asked if it is military,

then I'll back off the story and leave it alone if you

tell me because I'm a patriot.

And each time I'm told it's not us, we're not doing it,

and we haven't been doing it.

ROBERT STACK: On October 21, just two weeks

after the original report, Danny Gordon and a friend, Roger

Hall, drove to the area south of Wytheville

where most of the sightings had occurred.

They brought along a 35-millimeter still camera

as well as a video camera.

We were headed home after two hours of fruitless

searching about a quarter till 9:00

on Route 21 South coming into Wytheville,

and just happened to look to my left

and saw a very unusual object coming across the horizon.

What's that?

What?

Over there.

Some lights or something.

I'm going to pull over.

I pulled off to the side of the road in a hurry, jumped out.

He got out on the right side.

And as he got out, I noticed the craft was coming at me.

It was very large.

It had a dome shape to the top of it and no wings

and had what appeared to be a strobe

putting out multi-colored lights on the right side of the craft.

What the hell is that?

I don't know.

It was probably less than 1,000 feet away

and 1,000 feet high at the maximum.

We guessed it would be in at least two

football fields in diameter.

You can see three huge, looked like picture

windows in the back of it that were lit from the inside out.

DANNY: As I watched the sky from the left, came a red ball.

As a big mother ship went into a small skiff of clouds,

the red ball docked with the craft.

It was like you were watching a computer game

and watching these things develop on the video screen.

Did you get a picture of that?

No.

Didn't you?

I left the camera on the trunk.

Where's your camera?

In the car.

I was driving.

Oh.

DANNY: We looked at each other and realized no pictures.

The camera was not in my hand, the camera was not in his hand,

and we both knew we blew it.

The only thing I can say is we were just awe struck by it

or just dumb, whichever one.

I'm not sure which, but we sure didn't get any pictures of it.

ROBERT STACK: The next night, Gordon and Hall

would go out again.

This time they would take photographs.

With a film still undeveloped, a press

conference was called for the following day,

October 23, 1987.

DANNY: The night before the press conference,

I received a phone call from somebody who refused

to identify himself, and they said

that I needed to be aware of the CIA

and the federal government were very much interested

in the Wythe County UFOs.

I started to wonder what I'd stepped into.

And my wife was urging me to back off, to leave it alone.

And I also was receiving some anonymous phone calls

saying it's something you need to leave it

alone because it's not your place to be

messing in defense matters.

Becky?

ROBERT STACK: After the press conference,

Gordon discovered that his house had been broken into.

Becky.

ROBERT STACK: Oddly, nothing was stolen,

and Gordon is convinced it's someone was

looking for the photographs.

When developed, the pictures revealed only vague streaks

of light in the sky.

But Danny Gordon would soon have another opportunity

to photograph the UFOs.

What about the tree?

ROBERT STACK: Six weeks later on December 2,

Danny, his wife, and daughter were

leaving the local mall when they encountered

some unexpected visitors.

[shouting]

BECKY: Honey, what is that?

DANNY: We looked very quickly and saw what I thought

was one large object, which later appeared

to be four flying disk shapes.

As soon as the objects were photographed,

they disappeared from view.

When the pictures came out, they had a lot of grain,

but they showed definite four shapes of objects in the sky.

But the most impressive point in the four photographs,

the objects appear to change shape or light formations

within one click of the camera.

They go from a teardrop shape to a round ball shape,

then they go to a flying-saucer like disk shape,

and then they go to the egg shape as they go out of sight.

ROBERT STACK: The people of Wytheville

knew that something extraordinary

was happening in their town.

By the end of December, the sightings

numbered well over 1,500.

One of the first occurred here, near Interstate 81,

a mile from downtown Wytheville.

Eyewitnesses said the craft resembled

a brilliantly-lit, whirling carousel.

Immediately, other sightings cropped up.

I'm not mistaken about what we saw, absolutely not.

Because we'd never seen this before.

We didn't have any reason to make any stories up.

I kept a journal what I saw.

ROBERT STACK: Patricia Aker had 10 sightings, all of them here,

eight miles north of Wytheville.

PATRICIA: The best way I can describe them is that they look

like a cross between a helicopter and an airplane

with no noise or very little noise.

And to be so large, I don't know how they stayed up.

I'd say that the educated psychologists

and psychiatrists have debunked what we've seen and everything.

They've never been here.

They've never seen it.

I was skeptic until I started seeing this stuff.

ROBERT STACK: Rita Marie Vaught saw a UFO behind this ridge,

half a mile from her house.

RITA: I've seen the circular object

in the sky, all different colors that

kept going around and around.

It would be sort of looking like a carousel,

but it didn't scare me.

None of this has scared me.

Until I see the little green men walking around,

I won't be scared.

You just had this feeling of something really,

really big just move and just drifting over your head

and no sound or anything.

ROBERT STACK: Mary Jane Williamson's sightings

occurred directly above her house

in the center of Wytheville.

MARY: It had all the white lights

in the front, just a big, semicircle of white lights,

and it was just huge.

I mean, it was just absolutely huge.

But you couldn't actually see an outline or anything like that.

I know it wasn't the planet Venus,

and I know it was not atmospheric phenomena.

These were some kind of craft moving over our house.

Eventually I got around to calling the Pentagon

and talk with the spokesman for defense at the Pentagon,

and he speaks for all the defense branches.

And he told me, quote twice, "We do not deny UFOs exist.

The government confirms they exist,

but we deny they pose a threat to the populace

of Wythe County."

And my question was, how do you know this?

And he said, I can't tell you, but there is no threat to you.

So that's reason we're not sending convoys of aircraft

down there to protect Wythe County.

ROBERT STACK: On March 19, 1988, Danny Gordon

was packing for a broadcaster's conference in Virginia Beach

where he was to speak about his UFO coverage.

DANNY: I received a phone call home

from a retired military intelligence officer.

And first he told me to make sure

that I tape conversations so he could put the date

and everyone to be aware.

And I said why do you want to tape this?

And he said, I want your friends to know if something happens

to you that I forewarned you.

Who's this?

INTELLIGENCE OFFICER: What I'm telling you,

Danny, is I've been pursuing this thing

for many, many years.

Like I said, I saw my son dying from leukemia.

He told me that because of his investigation

into the UFO field that they had hit his son

and caused his son to die with some kind

of virus connected to leukemia.

Danny, who is it?

It's nothing, honey.

DANNY: He said that he had information

that the federal government was not very happy with my UFO

investigations.

And they felt like I was too loud of a voice

to quiet just by killing me, which made me very happy.

And he said they want to quiet you in a different fashion.

INTELLIGENCE OFFICER: What I'm telling

you is they will try to hit you if they think it's

practical for their purposes to keep you from further

investigating this thing, and it will most likely be done

through skin-contact chemicals.

It could be something on the door knob or your car

or on the steering wheel.

They can also come up with something,

do something to your children.

You know, it's one thing for someone to threaten myself.

When you threaten my family, you are

treading on very thin water.

So when I found out that he could be believed,

just could be, it scared me, at the same time made me mad.

Because I had to try to protect my family, protect myself,

and at the same time because I believe in free speech,

I was refusing to allow this man to stop me from going

to Virginia Beach to talk.

Well, I'm going to Virginia Beach.

INTELLIGENCE OFFICER: [inaudible]

you think I'm some crack pot?

No, I appreciate it.

I appreciate that.

Thank you for calling.

What was that about?

Oh, nothing, honey.

Oddly enough, it was the same weekend there was a hepatitis

epidemic in Virginia Beach.

Had I come down with hepatitis, I would have believed

and everyone would have believed they had gotten to me.

But I came back with no problems,

and the children were in good shape.

ROBERT STACK: Less than one month

after the disturbing phone call, Gordon had two

surprise visitors at his home.

My name is Ernest. This is my associate, Michael.

We're with "The Richmond Gazette."

I'd like to ask you a few questions, if you don't mind,

about these recent UFO sightings I understand

you're involved with. - Well, that would be fine.

OK, great.

ROBERT STACK: They remained for approximately 45 minutes, one

interviewing Danny Gordon, the other roaming

through the house, snapping photographs.

How did you personally get involved?

DANNY: They had told me when they

left they would send me a copy of the article

so I could peruse it.

And when I didn't even receive one, I called the newspaper,

and they said, well, these two guys are not on our payroll.

They don't work for us.

So who they were, I don't know, but they were in my house,

saw my pictures, saw my negatives, talked to my family,

took pictures, and then left, but they

were not with the newspaper.

I think we've got everything we need, Mr. Gordon.

Thank you very much for your time.

Thank you.

ROBERT STACK: A few weeks later, Danny Gordon

sat down to organize and catalog his UFO photographs.

DANNY: When I got to the canister which had the UFO

negatives, I quickly opened it up and found some UFO

negatives, but the one negative with the shots from

the shopping mall was missing.

I felt like maybe there was something in those photographs

that I was not seeing.

So I took the photographs to some other people to look at.

We used magnifying glasses.

We measured angles trying to find out why these photographs

were so important.

And we've yet to discover why anyone would want to steal

that one specific set of four in a series

of photographs of the UFOs.

ROBERT STACK: Danny Gordon had nearly

reached the end of his rope.

His house had been broken into.

He had received countless late-night phone calls,

some of them threatening.

Bogus reporters had visited his home.

Finally, his UFO negatives disappeared.

Two months later, the stress caught up with Danny Gordon.

BECKY: Somebody help us, please. - What's going on?

BECKY: He just keels over.

He getting done with some work.

I think he's having a heart attack.

Hang on, sir. What happened?

Not so well.

ROBERT STACK: Doctors would later determined

that the attack had been brought on, not by heart problems,

but by severe exhaustion.

Danny Gordon was cautioned that continued

involvement with the UFO controversy

could jeopardize his health.

DANNY: I, myself, had not had a sighting since December 1990,

but purposely, I don't go out and look because it

upset my life enough.

I would just as soon never see a UFO again in my lifetime.

If I had my choice, I'd not report the UFO story again.

It's just been too hard on my life

and created too many problems.

Don't look up, because once you look up

and you tell somebody what you saw,

your life is changed forever.

ROBERT STACK: In late 1987, Danny Gordon

received an average of 500 telephone calls

about UFOs each month.

Today the calls have dwindled to approximately 50 per month.

The UFO heyday in Wytheville has apparently drawn to a close.

Danny Gordon's health and life are back to normal.

But if history is any indicator, some time

soon in another small town someone else will look up

and his or her life will never be the same.

Next in Ohio, a reporter's curiosity

leads to a statewide hunt for a possible serial killer.

On April 19, 1990, a partially nude body of a woman

was found behind a truck stop at Licking County, Ohio.

She had been beaten to death.

All of her jewelry and some articles of clothing

were missing.

What about the bruising on the eye?

ROBERT STACK: Despite an extensive investigation

by county sheriffs, the victim was never identified.

No one was aware that her murder was not an isolated case.

Four years earlier the body of this woman,

23-year-old Shirley Dean Taylor, was

found behind a traffic barrier on Interstate 71

in nearby Medina County.

Taylor, a known prostitute, had also been beaten to death.

Let's get her down to the county morgue.

ROBERT STACK: As in the case of the Jane Doe,

all jewelry and several pieces of clothing

had been removed from the body.

No one would connect the nearly identical murders until 1990.

In November of that year, Michael Berens, a reporter

for "The Columbus Dispatch," began

preliminary research for a possible story

on serial killers.

MICHAEL: I had remembered a statement that an FBI agent had

once said that prostitutes make the ideal serial killer

victim because they're transient and often their disappearances

aren't reported immediately.

So I started looking at prostitute deaths

all cross Ohio primarily using newspaper stories as the way

to track those deaths.

ROBERT STACK: Berens began to cross-reference

unsolved murder cases in Ohio.

A sinister pattern soon emerged.

Eight women in eight different countries

had been beaten or strangled to death.

Each was found alongside a major interstate.

Each was a known or suspected prostitute.

MICHAEL: All of these women who were killed in Ohio

also worked at truck stops or were last believed to have been

working at a truck stop, and that

was the third major factor that started

tying these deaths together.

ROBERT STACK: Michael Berens began an investigation that

took him into a little known subculture of Ohio's

interstate truck stops.

MICHAEL: You drive by them and see these restaurants

and these trucks, but until you sit there,

you don't see what the underbelly, the underworld

of these little mini cities that form each night

and then break apart each morning and come together.

WOMAN: See you next time, sweetie.

MAN: Yeah. You take care.

ROBERT STACK: Berens discovered a

flourishing sex-for-sale industry at truck stops

throughout the State.

On any given night, any number of women were available.

MICHAEL: The prostitutes work off a CB radio,

and it's all done anonymously.

The prostitute would get on the radio

and give her handle and some little catch phrase

that she's developed as her trademark.

And the trucker will answer back and say, yeah, this

is the blue Peterbilt in row 3.

Come meet me.

And she goes off to the truck.

And then usually when she gets in the truck,

she'll use the trucker's CB to radio to her next customer.

ROBERT STACK: 27-Year-old Anna Marie Patterson

was a sixth known victim.

In reviewing the investigation of her murder,

Michael Berens uncovered several possible clues

to the killer's identity.

Hey there, guys.

This is Sleeping Beauty.

If you're looking for a good time, come back.

ROBERT STACK: On February 8, 1987,

Anna Marie was working at a truck stop in Austintown, Ohio,

150 miles north of Columbus.

According to witnesses, just after midnight,

Anna Marie answered a call from a driver of a black or dark

blue Peterbilt truck.

The man used the CB handle Dr. No.

Hey, how you doing?

Sleeping Beauty?

Mine sure enough.

Come on up.

How you doing tonight?

Great.

My god, it's freezing out there.

Oh, don't you worry.

I'll warm you up.

ROBERT STACK: 25 days later, Anna Marie's body

was found alongside Interstate 71 north of Cincinnati.

SHERIFF COLLINS: Anna Marie was found about 250

miles from where she was last seen, in a field,

in a drainage ditch.

We had about four to six inches of water.

Her head had been bashed in, and she was brutally beaten.

She wasn't just killed.

She was mutilated, in essence.

A sleeping bag has a body, of a white female.

MICHAEL: Anna Marie had a rule of only staying

in the truck stop and would not allow a trucker

to take her off the stop.

That's why it's believed that she

was probably killed or at least knocked

unconscious at the stop.

ROBERT STACK: At the time of her death,

Anna Marie Patterson was six months pregnant.

An autopsy revealed that she had been killed within 48

hours of her disappearance.

The condition of her body clearly

indicated that the killer had kept it refrigerated

for nearly a month.

MICHAEL: There has been some speculation

that some of these victims have been driven

many more miles than the actual distance

from last seen to found.

There may be an indication that the killer is doing something

with these victims, either verbally, physically,

or otherwise after death.

ROBERT STACK: According to Berens,

the killing spree began with the murder of an unidentified woman

in April of 1981.

Over the next nine years, the bodies of seven other victims

were dumped along interstates in different counties.

Each woman was viciously beaten or strangled to death.

Each had jewelry and clothing removed from her body.

MICHAEL: The conclusion we reached

is that there was overwhelming evidence

that a potential serial killer was trolling Ohio interstates

in search of victims, and not only

Ohio, but many different Midwest States

and even going to the east coast.

We thought the evidence was overwhelming to present that

to the public.

ROBERT STACK: On March 10, 1991, "The Columbus Dispatch"

ran Michael Berens' story.

It detailed compelling evidence which

suggested the murders of the eight women

were the work of one killer.

10 days later, the Ohio Attorney General

and the Buckeye State Sheriff's Association

formed a special task force.

They established a 24-hour, toll-free hotline

as part of an unprecedented Statewide investigation.

LEE: We were finding that what was happening in one county

was not necessarily being told to another county.

And a clue in one county that may have meant nothing

may have meant a great deal in just the adjacent county.

ROBERT STACK: What maybe the most

significant clue in this case is also the most perplexing.

MICHAEL: Killers tend to dump in places that they

feel comfortable with.

That's why you'll find a grouping

of bodies in a river or such.

This killer scatters these bodies,

and that's the big question.

Why?

There have been great speculation among the officers

themselves as do we really have an intelligent killer out there

who knows enough about law enforcement

to have dumped the bodies in these different jurisdictions?

There's even been speculation that the killer could

be a security guard or even a former police

officer who knows enough about police

investigative techniques to do that.

ROBERT STACK: Michael Berens is convinced

that one killer is responsible for the eight murders.

He is equally convinced that the victims were

all doomed by their occupation.

MICHAEL: I think the killer, no doubt,

picked prostitutes because he knows that it does affect

the quality of investigation.

Prostitutes aren't going to be pursued

as aggressively as if it was a child or a suburban housewife.

That's a fact of life, and I think

everyone would agree to that.

I think that the public has compassion for anybody

who is innocently murdered.

No matter what their profession, no matter how they live

their life, when someone's life is

snuffed out, for absolutely no reason,

I think people get angry.

The last known victim in Ohio was

discovered in November of 1990.

However, authorities have been stunned to learn

of as many as 150 other homicides nationwide

that fit the same basic pattern.

Recently, truck drivers have been arrested in three

separate murder investigations.

In each case, the victims were prostitutes,

but none of these suspects has been connected

to any of the Ohio murders.

At least two of the victims were last

seen getting into a black or dark blue Peterbilt tractor,

possibly pulling a refrigerated trailer.

The driver may use a CB handles Dr. No, Stargazer, or Dragon.

LEE: I'd like to be able to say that we

know now whether it's one person and whether it's

a serial murderer.

The truth is that we don't.

And while that is certainly a plausible theory,

at this point, it's nothing more than that.

ROBERT STACK: Stay tuned.

An elegant mansion in New Jersey is said to be haunted

by the ghost of its builder.

Do ghosts really exist?

The fact is that 25% of all Americans

today believe they do.

Perhaps ghosts are no more than their own need for something

beyond the world we can touch and feel

and logically comprehend.

Or perhaps as one family in New Jersey believes,

they're really out there.

In 1923, a man named Bill Beaty had a dream.

He imagined a 17th century Norman castle rising stone

by stone on 150 acres of woodland

in Basking Ridge, New Jersey.

BILL: Yeah.

Everything Is coming along just fine.

I've just completed work on the kitchen and the basement.

ROBERT STACK: Bill Beaty had the means

to make his dream come true.

As an advertising executive in New York City,

he had amassed a sizable fortune.

His wife, Sarah, was wealthy in her own right.

BILL: Don't do anything with the window until the oak comes in.

Well, when is the oak coming?

It's going to take two or three days.

This is the window I was talking about.

ROBERT STACK: The Beatys envisioned their castle

as the center of an artist's colony surrounded by bungalows

fronting a man-made lake.

How far up are we going to go?

We're going to go up another foot.

And you're can have 5.

You're going to have 11 by 5.

ROBERT STACK: In 1930, before construction was complete,

the Beatys moved into the castle with their four children,

but Bill Beaty would never see the completion of his dream.

Just one year later, he died at the age of 45,

a victim of influenza.

His castle would not be finished for another five years.

Sarah Beaty never remarried.

She raised all four children in the castle

and lived there until 1941.

From 1945 to 1971, the castle was occupied

by two different boys schools.

From the start, students and teachers

reported eerie organ music echoing through the corridors.

Oddly, the school owned no pipe organ.

However, the long, dead Bill Beaty had owned one.

Was it possible that Bill Beaty loved

his castle so much that he refused

to leave, even in death?

Old timers remember that Sarah Beaty often held seances trying

to communicate with Bill.

When the second boys school moved out of the castle,

many of the faculty and students remained convinced

the premises were haunted.

In 1972, Don and Carol Burlingame bought the castle

and began to remodel.

They would soon learn about the ghost in residence first hand.

DONALD: Carol was really the first one

to feel some sort of presence, and she

had a friend that was sort of an amateur parapsychologist.

And we brought her in, and she said, well, there

definitely is a presence here.

He is definitely friendly, and he's male.

And Carol said, well, maybe we should try to get rid of him.

Shouldn't we have a seance? And she said, no.

You better leave things exactly the way they are.

He's friendly.

He's happy.

Let it go at that.

ROBERT STACK: After the Burlingames

moved in hammering noise resounded through the hallways,

and disembodied footsteps trod the stairs.

Before long, the ghost made his presence known

in other more high-tech ways.

DONALD: What's going on?

CAROL: I don't know.

Let me see if I can fix it.

You'd just get into a movie, just

the really interesting part and all of a sudden

the station would change.

It would go from two to three to four to five,

and it happened more than one time.

I knew there was a presence here,

but what I couldn't figure out was why was he here?

Who was he?

When was he going to leave, if in fact,

was he ever going to leave?

It was something I couldn't figure out.

The Burlingames began to delve into the history of the castle.

Soon Eugene Melville, who is now 78 years old, turned up.

He had worked for Sarah Beaty from 1933 to 1937

and had his own remarkable tale of countering the ghost.

EUGENE: I said to them what I seen there,

and they said they sensed something themselves,

but they never seen him.

But I felt him there a lot.

But I only seen him that once.

I can truthfully say that was the only time I ever

laid eyes on him was that once.

It doesn't seem to be under here, Mrs. B.

Why don't you look--

ROBERT STACK: It was 1934, three years after Bill Beaty's death.

Eugene Melville was helping Sarah search

for a bracelet which had been lost during a family gathering.

It's Bill, my husband.

But he's dead, Mrs. B.

But it was a figure of a man standing there.

It didn't stay long for me to examine it very good.

It was gone just like that.

It was scary.

I don't know about this.

It frighten the daylights out of me.

And I never seen him again.

I just never wanted to go on that balcony.

I never went in there again.

It bothered me.

I passed by it, but to get me in there, to stand there,

oh, forget it.

I wouldn't go in there.

ROBERT STACK: Don and Carol Burlingame

finally understood that they shared their home

with a ghost of Bill Beaty.

They believed that on one occasion

Bill demonstrated how much she cared about the castle.

DONALD: We decided we were going to go off for a little ride.

And Carol was sort of a fresh air fiend.

So she had all the windows open in the servants wing

where we were living.

Then Don said, you better close all the windows.

It was supposed to rain. I said, no, it's not going rain.

Don't worry about it.

I'm leaving them all open.

So I left them open, we went out, and it rained.

[inaudible]

All right.

I'll get upstairs.

We came home, and all of the casement windows,

which opened from the inside and open to the inside,

were all closed and latched.

How wet did it get?

It didn't.

There's no water on the floor, everything's fine,

and the windows are closed.

Well, how is that possible?

I don't know.

So there wasn't a drop of rain in the house.

So our only conclusion was, because there's

no other way for them to have been closed,

is that Bill helped us out.

When he saw the rain coming, he closed all the windows

and gave us a hand.

ROBERT STACK: From that day on, Bill

Beaty's ghost was a constant presence

in the Burlingames' lives.

CAROL: Bill and I have an agreement.

I chatted with him one day.

Of course, I didn't see him, but I chatted with him anyhow.

And I said, Bill, you can stay here for as long as you want.

I enjoy having you around.

You don't bother me.

Just don't ever let me see you because if I do see you,

I'll probably wind up in a padded cell somewhere.

So you're welcome to stay just don't materialize.

And he never has.

We've had several experiences in the house, one of which

was I have a habit of leaving the bread out

because it's handy.

And I'd leave it out somewhere and

the next thing I'd turn around it would be on the floor.

I was alone in the kitchen.

The bread was on the counter.

There was no way that it could have fallen off by itself.

And when it did fall off or fly off,

it went a considerable distance.

So I know that someone had to have moved it.

There was no one else there with me at all, no animals,

Don wasn't around, and there was no way

the bread could have gone off the counter

because it was set square.

OK, Bill, that's enough.

Knock it off.

And that led me to believe that Bill had to be there saying,

hi, I'm here.

There was just no way that that break could have fallen

off the counter by itself.

ROBERT STACK: In 1986, the Burlingames

invited Dr. Michaeleen Maher, a noted parapsychologist

to visit the castle.

Maher, along with an assistant, conducted a series of tests

for paranormal activity.

DR. MAHER: Our physical instruments were not

able to detect anything unusual, but in this particular case,

the sheer volume of the reports adds

to the credibility of the case.

People have experienced similar phenomena

when living at the castle, even though these

are people who may never have spoken to each other.

One of our witnesses in this case,

a particularly credible witness, in fact,

a professional person of some stature,

reported seeing in the driveway in front of the castle

a person who dissipated right in front of his eyes.

Can I help you?

Who are you?

DR. MAHER: I think the big news here is that human persons can

act as sensors, and when we quantitatively evaluate

their responses, we find that we cannot dismiss this evidence

as caused by coincidence.

Well, the steer treads are going up on that second floor.

OK. Come on.

You're all right.

CAROL: The key to existing with the ghost

is if you can accept it, you can enjoy it.

And when things happen, you just write them off

as, oh, it must be the ghost or it

must be Bill if you happened to know who it is,

as is in our case, we do.

And you can have fun with it.

I firmly believe he will never leave the castle.

The love of the thing maybe got the better of his soul.

And I think that's thing got such power is the soul.

It's eternal.

ROBERT STACK: It's been said that the spirits of those who

die with unfinished business are destined

to wander for eternity.

This would seem to be the case with Bill Beaty.

In 1991, after nearly two decades in the castle,

the Burlingames moved away.

As far as they know, the ghost of Bill Beaty stayed behind.

The Burlingames hope that when the castle is next sold,

his new owners will enjoy the ghost's

presence as much as they did.

Join me next time for an all new edition

of "Unsolved Mysteries."

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