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[upbeat rock music playing through headphones]

- 93.3 WMMR.

It's everything that rocks, "Preston & Steve" show.

and we have a few guests that are here in the studio, Steve?

- Oh, yeah, this--this all speaks to me.

- Exactly. It's right up your alley.

- Yeah.

- We want to welcome to our studio--

we have Rich and Katrina and Chris and John and Becky.

They are the "Real Fear" gang.

- Yeah.

- And welcome to the Preston & Steve Studios, guys.

Love this idea, by the way.

You will go in and take an in-depth look

at some of the most iconic horror films of all time.

- This is great because a lot of people don't know

perhaps a favorite horror movie is based on something

that might have actually occurred.

- Do you ever get scared?

- Yes. - Really?

- Something will just happen right at that moment

where you're not expecting it,

and it'll just shake you to your core.

- Yeah. - Your response

is just to take off and find safety.

- And what movies are you exploring this time?

- Looking at, uh, "Haunting in Connecticut,"

the story behind that.

- Yeah.

- So we're gonna go meet the real people,

see the real house. - What other films?

- "Fire in the Sky" is one of them,

a spectacular abduction case that took place many years ago.

We'll also be looking into

the truth behind the movie "Nightmare on Elm Street,"

which, believe it or not, as crazy as that sounds,

there may be a scientific reality

behind at least part of that.

- Would that be someone who can actually infiltrate your dream

and wears bad sweaters?

- Yeah. [laughter]

- Dreams that are so terrifying

and a shared type of dream

so frightening that you could die.

- Wow. - Man.

- Yep.

- We're also looking at "The Blair Witch Project,"

which is tied to the Pine Barrens.

The Jersey Devil was actually connected to witchcraft.

- Which is a longstanding urban legend.

- And it still stands pretty firm to this day

that there's something out there in that wilderness.

- There are people who go off the grid

and go and live in the recesses of these forests and things...

[chuckling] And you don't know what they're doing.

- Yeah. - And you don't wanna know.

- That's what frightens me the most, quite honestly.

- Yeah, yeah.

- I'm worried that we'll run into murderous psychopaths.

- Some "The Hills Have Eyes"... - Sure, sure.

- Type of family that nobody's seen in--yeah.

- What if it does get hairy? Ooh--

- Got any protection? - Becky's our protection.

She's definitely the most buff out of all of us.

[laughter]

- Got clubs, proton packs, things of that nature?

- Yeah, proton packs, yeah. Yeah, I have mine in my trunk.

- I love the whole idea of this.

- Yeah. - People actually going after

the stories in the movies you already know

and taking a deeper look into that and see,

"Is there a grain of truth to some of this stuff?"

Well, hey, guys, thank you so much for being here.

- Thank you. - Let's hear it.

It's the "Real Fear" gang

here on "The Preston & Steve Show."

Thank you guys so much. We appreciate it.

We're gonna take a break.

We'll be back with more on "The Preston & Steve Show" on MMR.

- "Preston & Steve" on 93.3.

[Shovelhook's "Crawl Back Down"]

[heavy rock music]

- [singing] Crawl back down

[singing] Crawl back down

[singing] Crawl back down

[discordant scream builds, fades]

[ominous music]

- First we're going to Southington, Connecticut,

to meet with Carmen Reed and John Zaffis,

two of the key people involved

in the famous "Haunting in Connecticut" case.

I remember seeing the movie "A Haunting in Connecticut"

a couple of years ago, and I have to say,

it was one of the creepier movies that I've seen.

- We're gonna go talk to Carmen Reed,

the actual mother.

She was portrayed in the movie.

We're also gonna go speak with John Zaffis.

He was one of the original investigators.

There's a case in Connecticut that was brought to me

by a couple paranormal investigators.

I'm gonna see if we can get into the house tonight.

It's pretty much the next "Haunting in Connecticut."

"The Haunting in Connecticut" came out in 2009,

and this movie is based on a real story

that happened to a family in the mid-'80s.

They moved to Connecticut

because they had to be closer to a hospital

due to their son needing cancer treatments.

Long story short,

the son starts having all these weird experiences,

and they had to bring in paranormal investigators.

- This was a fascinating case in which a family experienced

extended poltergeist phenomenon and even worse.

- As we see in the movie,

it's all due to the past of the house

being a funeral home.

- There's a lot of really dramatic things

that happen in the movie.

"The Haunting in Connecticut"

fits the horror movie genre really well.

It's always based around a family.

They go into a new house.

One family member starts experiencing things,

and there's that level of doubt

that the other family members have,

but it gets worse.

And then suddenly,

a few other people start experiencing these things.

Then as it progresses, you get the stage of the movie

where they--there's some investigation done,

and someone finds out why this is happening.

In the film,

the son and the cousin investigate and find out

that there was all of this paranormal activity

that occurred in the house years and years before.

And then you get to the end,

the climactic moment where things get really crazy.

Some kind of dramatic thing usually happens

at the end of these movies,

and that's exactly what happened

when you get the bodies coming out of the wall,

and you've got this huge fire at the very end

that sort of purges the entities that were there

so that they can be released.

Classic ending to a modern horror movie.

The question is what's the reality behind that movie?

That's what we're going to look into.

First we're going to meet with Carmen Reed.

Carmen is the mother of the family

that experienced this tremendous series of events.

Meeting Carmen outside the house

where she lived during this experience.

- "The Haunting in Connecticut,"

as far as being well-known cases,

is right up there.

It's right up there with the "Amityville."

People know about it throughout the country,

throughout the world,

and with the movie,

now millions of people know Carmen's story.

- There was some bloodstains on the wall

from where they were embalming.

There was an intestine in the utility sink

that we pulled out when we were cleaning.

- Oh, my goodness. - An intestine?

- That's what it was. A human intestine?

- That's what it looked like. - Okay.

- The gurney, that actually happened.

My son did it to more than one person.

He got Tammy one time, and he got Brad one time

to get on the gurney, and then he spun them,

and Brad saw flashes of just spirits,

not what they showed in the movie of those bodies.

- There are a lot of elements

that match up to the real-life story.

The son really did have cancer,

and the family really did have to move to Connecticut

for that reason.

The house really was a funeral home,

and the son really did sleep in the basement

where they used to embalm bodies.

There were a lot of elements to the real-life story

that were kind of skewed a little bit in the movie.

For instance,

when Matthew puts down the plates on the table

and then he turns around, and he looks back

and they're gone, that really did happen,

but it happened to Carmen.

[suspenseful music]

Same with when the niece is in the shower,

and the shower curtain just wraps around her

and starts suffocating her, and she falls out of the tub.

That really did happen,

but again, it happened to the mother, Carmen.

- The son, in reality, did have marks on his skin,

but not the kind of detailed writing

that the movie portrayed.

- Oh, my God. What have you done to yourself?

- And clearly the house did not burn down.

I stood right in front of the house.

Nothing like that happened in reality.

[fire crackling]

- Who were some of the investigators

that came onto your case?

- Well, originally I called Lorraine Warren,

and she brought in a whole-- I mean, there had to be

about 15 or more people that came into the house,

but I latched on to John Zaffis immediately

because he started explaining things to me,

giving me prayers to do, protection things to do.

- There was an outside investigator

in both the movie and in real life.

- What is that?

- Magnets, iron magnets.

Iron defends from evil.

So it's no accident

that prisons have iron bars to not merely contain the body

but the evil that may lurk within it.

- In real life, that outside investigator was John Zaffis.

John Zaffis did spend an extended amount of time

at that house

and did experience

what he felt was true paranormal types of activity.

Looking forward to finding out his take on his investigation

and how this whole thing progressed in his own mind.

The character who was really portraying you

seemed to have been under some kind of psychic pressure

from this entity.

Did anything like that happen to you?

- Carmen and Al would be sleeping in their bed.

I had a mattress on the floor. - Mm-hmm.

- And Carmen would go into these deep paralysis.

We call it phantomania.

It's when a person can't move. They can't reach out.

They can't talk to you-- nothing whatsoever.

There were two different occasions

where I experienced things at the same time she was.

I was getting pulled right into wherever this was taking her.

You don't forget those types of things

when you go through them.

- What did you see that was not portrayed quite accurately

in the movie, or differently?

- Her son did not break the walls open

and bodies come tumbling out.

- The movie depicted a much different story

than what really happens.

You know, there were no bodies in the wall.

You know, there was no family that was having séances

and trying to raise the dead.

There was no ectoplasm.

There were no eyelids in a box.

- There were no known stories about cadaver mutilation.

Made for a good movie,

but really did not match up with real life.

- There was a reality to "The Haunting in Connecticut,"

just a little bit different

than how the movie portrayed it.

A difficult experience for everyone involved in this case.

In fact, so much so

that John Zaffis left the investigation

and reevaluated whether or not

he even wanted to continue as a paranormal investigator.

He decided to come back and finish the investigation.

In fact, he's been doing that to this day.

- I didn't want anything to do with this.

I wouldn't take telephone calls, nothing,

but we had a friend in the family who was a bishop.

And he said to me at that point in time--

he goes, "John, you make that decision to do that, it won.

"It scared you enough so you never wanna help people again,

"you never want to get involved with it.

Are you gonna let it win?"

So three days later, did I go back into that house?

Yes. Was I scared?

Hell, yeah.

- He's done many, many cases, but I think John would say

"The Haunting in Connecticut" was probably his biggest case.

It was certainly his most important case

in the sense that it really helped to define him.

[ominous musical sting, whispering voices]

- There's a lot of artifacts in here

that I've been collecting over the past 40 years.

Walk around, look at some of the different things

and some of the items from Carmen's home 24 years ago.

- John Zaffis invited us to his house,

where he has all kinds of artifacts

he's collected from different hauntings over the years.

- I kinda didn't want to touch anything in there.

- Sure has a lot of stuff.

I was--I was floored by how much there was in there,

honestly.

- I'm gonna say his museum is very creepy.

You go down there,

and it literally feels like 1,000 eyes are on you

at all times.

- This one is definitely one of the most creepiest things

in this whole museum.

- Creeped out a little boy's mom also.

The little boy kept claiming

that this ventriloquist was talking to him,

going back and forth to him.

Well, the mom never seen anything

or experienced anything with it.

And one day, they were sitting in the living room.

They were watching TV.

She decided to go into the kitchen and make snacks.

She came back into the living room,

and the little boy wasn't there.

She walked into his bedroom,

and he was sitting on the corner of his bed,

and he was having a conversation,

going back and forth,

and his mouth was actually moving, going up and down.

Well, she got so creeped out and freaked out over that,

she called her minister.

He came in. He blessed the house.

And she literally took that

and threw it out in the backyard.

She gave me a call and asked me to come by and pick it up

'cause she really didn't want that in the house anymore.

Items that you would least expect

could have some major issues with them.

- Yeah, a child's doll. We never would expect it.

- Well, that one, though. - Yeah.

- Why would you give that doll to your child?

It looks evil. It looks like it would talk.

- Anything happen down here with that?

- No.

I haven't had any problems with him.

I haven't seen him move or anything.

- [chuckles nervously]

- He's got some interesting pieces there, man.

A lot of stuff Carmen had given him,

and he's got, like, an entire little section for that.

- This is the Madonna

that the deacon had brought into the house.

He brought in--before the exorcism, he placed relics,

religious relics all over the house.

- Mm-hmm.

- And this one was in the living room on the mantel.

And when he went to collect them after the exorcism,

I said, "Aren't you gonna take that one?"

And he said, "No, its hands are gone."

And if you look here, it looks as if they were kind of melted.

And I can't explain it and he couldn't explain it,

but he would not touch it.

So I've been carrying it around until John opened his museum,

and then I gave it to him to put in here.

- It's just a very bizarre thing to see.

The hands just melted right off of it, and I'm like,

"I don't know if I should be holding this.

This was so close to evil, and now it's in my hand."

- And this is a coffin handle.

I want you to note

the way the head of the Jesus came off of that.

- Oh, wow. - And the hands--

the hands, like the Madonna. - Yeah.

- Crucifixes were disappearing over the wall.

They were disappearing from over the doorjambs.

- I asked her-- I said, you know,

"Knowing what you know now,

"would you have still moved into that house

and had that experience?"

And she said, "Absolutely not."

What is it like to have all these objects

in your hand again after all these years?

- It's kind of creepy, really.

- It still affects her to this day

to the point where she has nightmares,

or when she talks about the things that happened

in that house-- 30 years ago at this point--

she'll have paranormal activity.

This is not over for her.

- Something odd happened in my own meeting

with John and Carmen

while we were in John's office.

John looks up, he says, "Whose phone is that?"

I'm thinking,

"Well, it looks like it's this phone that's ringing.

It's coming from this phone."

So he picked it up, and there was nothing there.

And of course there was nothing there

because it had been unplugged and off power.

That was not supposed to happen, and it did.

- Yeah, that happened in my house several times.

It--more often than I'd like to count.

- In Southington? - Oh, yeah.

It would be in the basement all the time.

It was disconnected, no dial tone.

- So you were talking about the case, and then...

- You're giving recognition.

- They feed off of it. - They feed off of it.

- We're talking about this haunting case,

and a phone in his office that was unplugged rings twice?

I don't have a conventional explanation for it.

- Many times in my life and your life as well, John,

that we've not been able to find logical

or physical explanations.

So we just call them mysteries.

- You have to wonder, is this following her around?

[sharp musical sting]

[suspenseful music]

[loud bang] - Oh, my God.

- Did you hear that?

- Now, this is an extraordinary thing.

Having finished looking into

the "Haunting in Connecticut" case,

we're going to look into

a current haunting in Connecticut case.

- There is another house

not too far from Carmen's old house

that is experiencing a lot of activity.

- Apparently there's been a lot going on there.

[suspenseful music]

- I wanna introduce you to Craig.

This is our client. - Nice to meet you.

- Nice to meet you too. Thanks for having us out.

So what's been going on here?

- We came in here, you know,

were excited about our new place.

My girlfriend and her two-year-old son,

we stayed over a couple nights.

In the middle of the night

you hear banging throughout the walls.

You'd hear, kind of, voices

like somebody was talking in the room next to you.

Lights would go on, off.

The faucet turned on full blast out of nowhere.

No one was in the house.

So we decided to call the Connecticut Soul Seekers,

have them come out and take a look

and see what they could find.

- We've been here several times,

and we've--actually,

each time we've been out here, we got quite a bit of stuff.

I can show you some of the evidence now

if you'd like to see.

This is in the back master bedroom,

and you're gonna hear a quick "Yeah."

Is there someone in this room with us?

- Wow, yeah. - Yeah.

- That's a very, very good one, wow.

- Yeah, one of the things that was kind of disturbing

that led them to call us--

I'll show you what happened while they were sleeping.

Craig decided to start recording

because they were hearing all these noises

and these different things going on,

and this is what happened

while they were sleeping during the night.

You're gonna want to watch right in here.

- Mm-kay.

Mm. - No.

- Mm. - No.

- Whoa.

Whoa. - Get out.

- Who is this right here? - This is Craig right here.

- That's me and then my girlfriend.

- And that's his girlfriend right there, yeah.

- Yep. - I'm just gonna wind it back.

Did you want me to go back a little bit?

- Play--play it back, please. - Okay.

- I would love to see that again.

Can you guys all see over me?

- [gasps] - Yes.

- Oh, my God.

- Do it again.

- Oh, man.

- I don't like that one bit. - Mm-mm.

- It's just the two adults that--where's the--

- Yes, he wasn't even in the house at this point

because of what we were experiencing.

We didn't want him in the house

until we knew what was going on.

- What I found particularly interesting was the video.

Unknown to anyone else in the room,

I had seen a video very much like this

that had been shot in Turkey just a few years earlier.

- The way he described it, it sounded pretty spot on

as far as, you know, comparisons.

What was weird about it was Rich said

they were experiencing UFO activity.

- This house has been so hard.

There's so many different things.

- And previous tenants haven't said anything?

- Not that we know, no. - Not--no, not that we know of.

- And you guys experienced things in the past?

Is this your first-- - Never, no.

- So this is your very first haunting?

- Yeah.

- They were, you know, just regular, everyday people.

They didn't want this to become

the next big thing that's going on.

They just wanted it to stop

so that they could move into their house

and be comfortable.

- I didn't even wanna call them.

- Yeah.

- I didn't know how I was gonna call them.

Like, "Hey, I think I got something in my house,"

you know? It's...

- This is the most active residential location

that we've ever investigated.

- Activity going on outside that I could investigate?

- You can try if you want to.

- All right, I'll go outside. You guys have fun in here.

- Actually, I don't know if you're gonna wanna go out there

after you hear this last one.

I'll play it for you now

and see what you guys think about it.

- Set your camera right over here.

[something roars]

- What is that? - I wish I could tell you.

- Is that the growl you heard?

- No. We didn't actually hear that.

- No, this was actually while

we were setting up to investigate.

This was before-- - You did not hear this

when you were setting up? - Did not hear it.

Was talking about, like, where we were putting cameras,

and when we heard it back, we were just like,

"What in the world could that be?"

- Set your camera right over here.

[something roars]

- They have multiple things going on.

They've seen multiple apparitions.

They've heard multiple voices,

and they're all very, very different,

where they don't really seem connected,

and that's how Carmen's case was.

Nothing really seemed to gel

until literally all hell broke loose

and they finally understood what kind of haunting they had.

- You guys are more than welcome to stay

and check out some of the rooms in the house

and see if maybe you can pick up on anything like we did.

- Yeah, I think we should. - Yeah.

- A house that has something very, very strange going on.

It's very real.

It's definitely...

I mean, for lack of a better term, haunted.

[intense dramatic music and indistinct voices]

[suspenseful music]

- I can't even see where I'm going.

Oh, my God.

- Chris.

You all right? - Yeah, yeah.

- Dude, you scared the [bleep] out of me.

- I'm sorry.

- I can't believe I'm in this basement.

It is so creepy down here.

- It's--I still don't know what to make of this balance issue

that I seem to have in this house.

- Could you knock on a wall or tap on a wall?

[something knocks once] Oh, my God.

- There's a strange vibe in this house.

- Yeah.

- It really is.

There's something different.

- I, like, can't breathe well.

- Maybe that's just because you're scared.

- No. - Yeah, ah--

- It's different, man. It's not that.

- See, I need to sit down.

- I'm not seeing Katrina in that bedroom.

She must be off--off the IR.

- Yeah.

- Okay...

[something knocks again]

- Oh, my God, oh, my God, oh, my God.

- Becky's down in the basement, and I can't really see her.

- Mm-hmm. - And I'm just wondering...

Because I thought I heard someone,

a female voice, sounding a little bit upset.

- Mm-hmm.

[loud bang] - Oh, my God.

- Did you hear that?

- Sounded like a big thump noise.

It sounded like it came from the basement.

- [gasps]

[loud crack]

- [bleep]. Oh, my God.

I can't be down here anymore.

I, like, bolted up the steps because

I did feel like something was standing behind me--

like that feeling of something, like, present.

I know that I'm happy to be out here

and not inside there anymore.

- On any of the cases I've done,

I've never had that feeling of consistently being pushed back.

- It just felt like something was pushing down.

- I truly can say I did feel that way.

- Yeah.

- I couldn't breathe right, and I--you know,

I'm a fitness guy, so I know my body really well,

and it's not from anything but--I don't--

I couldn't explain it.

- I'm a fitness guy too.

[both chuckle sarcastically]

And I--I really felt like my body

was telling me to leave.

- [laughs]

- [sighs]

- When you're watching the movie,

after 90 minutes, it's done.

It's over. You go home.

And you kind of forget that, somewhere in America,

there are real people that live through this,

and they're still living through it.

- I was just so out of my mind with fear.

That's when I suddenly could focus

on this alien face so close to mine.

- The most famous abduction case ever is your case.

- That's what they say.

- Think so.

- We're heading to Montour Ridge, Pennsylvania, now.

This "Haunting in Connecticut" case

is still on my mind a bit.

In particular, that video that I saw,

and the reason is that the video that I had seen previous

was connected to a UFO case.

We're going to be meeting with Travis Walton,

probably the most famous UFO abductee in the world,

and we're meeting him in Montour Ridge

because that is the site of another case

that may have been connected to an unexplained death

of a man who lived in that area named Todd Sees.

- Do you see any similarities between, you know,

"Fire in the Sky" and Todd Sees' case?

- There is this--this point of similarity

where you've got these two men gone

for a certain number of days.

There are definitely other cases of people

having encounters in the woods with what appear to be UFOs

or even other entities.

It's unusual, though.

The Todd Sees case is really fascinating.

Why hasn't this been explored or investigated in more detail?

There's a lot of mystery about it.

I mean, this would be just another tragic death

if it were not for the fact

that there have been alleged connections to UFO sightings.

There's a report of three, possibly four people

seeing an actual UFO

lifting a body of a man up into a craft.

[suspenseful music]

Todd was a hunter,

and he went out deer spotting one day.

Didn't come back

in the two hours he told his wife he'd be back.

It's a small town. Everyone knows each other.

They all go looking for him, and they can't find him.

No trace of him.

He's gone for about two days.

The search parties continued.

They find him.

The guy looked like he'd just been dropped from the sky

into a bunch of thickets.

And it was also a spot that they had already looked.

It was a place where they had already searched before.

Something completely unexplainable.

[mysterious ambient music]

When Todd did go missing,

there were reports of UFO sightings in the area

right at the same time.

[growl]

[music sharpens]

- [panting]

- The interesting thing is the similarities

between Walton and Todd Sees.

Both men were subject to large manhunts--

hundreds of volunteers combing the woods, looking for them.

Travis turned up alive five days later.

Todd Sees, unfortunately, he did not.

At the very least, it's a tragic death.

Is there something more to it?

There were a number of reports alleging a UFO connection

that makes it intriguing from that point of view.

Well, we're gonna get a chance to meet Travis Walton, who is--

he's the "Fire in the Sky" abductee.

He's the one that--

he's probably the most famous abductee

in the world at this point.

- That's one of the movies that seriously had

a profound effect on me.

It's very hard for me to watch that movie

without getting scared,

and the fact that we're meeting Travis--

like, someone who's been touched by aliens,

and I literally mean, like, abducted,

taken into a spaceship... - Yeah.

- Had God-knows-what happen to him,

and all of my fears about aliens

have been rooted in his story.

- From that story.

- It's a little nerve-racking for me.

- You're basically helpless.

If you're taken and they have you,

from everything that we've been able to learn about this,

you're under total control until you're released.

And that--that was the case with him.

He was gone for five days, and he was believed to be dead.

I've been looking into UFOs for such a long time.

The Travis Walton case, to me, is very significant.

You have a guy who passed several polygraph tests,

many witnesses.

Everyone corroborates each other perfectly.

Now, these guys were under suspicion of murder

for five days.

It was a very thoroughly investigated case.

It was, like, the case of the decade, really, of the 1970s.

Over the years, Travis has been very steady

in everything that he's said,

and there was a movie made

about his extraordinary experience

called "Fire in the Sky."

- "Fire in the Sky" came out in 1993,

and it's based off of Travis Walton's experience

where he was abducted by aliens.

This is a movie that has stuck with me

ever since I was a child.

- This is really

the most infamous UFO abduction story there is,

and a major Hollywood movie was made.

- As a kid,

it's everything that I thought would possibly happen

if you were abducted.

- Very cool movie,

definitely a freaky take on alien abductions.

- I remember every single part of that movie,

like, 20 years later.

- Stop, Mike! Stop the truck!

- The movie portrayal, he's in the vehicle.

He's riding shotgun. He gets out.

- They stop the car, and Travis Walton gets out.

- Travis!

- He goes in front of this craft.

- He goes up to it,

and he's just amazed at what he's seeing.

- Travis, get back here!

- They see this big spacecraft in the sky.

- Something happens where he's struck in the chest

with this bright beam of light.

- This beam of light throws him.

- Knocks him back and out of consciousness.

- At that point his friends thought he was dead.

They were freaked out.

They were terrified, and they took off.

- Nobody actually went to check on him.

I guess they were scared out of their minds.

They saw all that happen to him.

Out of just being frantic and not knowing what to do,

they just left the scene.

- Travis's coworkers assumed that they were probably next.

- Everybody stay down!

- And that really explains their own panic,

and they drove for five minutes or so at breakneck speed

through the woods when they realized,

"We can't just leave our friend behind like this.

- We gotta go back. - No way!

- No! - What are you talking about?

- If you don't wanna go, get out of the car now.

I'll come pick you up later.

- His one friend, Mike,

goes back to go get him, and he's gone.

- When we're watching these movies,

it's kinda fascinating for us,

but this has been a 35-year nightmare for this man,

and there's part of me that almost wonders, like,

does he ever fear that this would happen to him again?

[suspenseful music]

- We're heading to Montour Ridge, Pennsylvania, now.

We're gonna be meeting with Travis Walton,

a very humble and intelligent guy

who just happened to have an extraordinary experience.

What do you say about what you recall

actually happened to you, the reality,

as opposed to some of the things

that were portrayed in the movie?

- Everything that happened aboard the craft

was completely different.

They have it portrayed as looking organic

and very cluttered

when it was actually very mechanical

and very smooth and featureless.

The one spoken word in that whole abduction sequence

is when the actor comes upon space suits.

"Space suits," he says,

but these space suits had very large eyes,

whereas the creatures that they portrayed

in the--in the movie had very small eyes,

and I guess that was their one concession to the idea

that they were large eyed--

that maybe some people were looking

at something wearing a suit.

- Travis remembers the ship being more, kind of,

modern, I guess, if you want to call it that.

You know, metal and things of that nature,

where, in the movie, it's depicted

as just a very scary, dark place.

- In the movie, Travis wakes up in this pod,

breaks out, and he has jelly all over him.

- You see him coming out of these pods,

and he's floating around.

- He floats down to the bottom of this large human hive.

That's the only thing I can really call it.

- While he's at the bottom, he finds space suits,

essentially, for aliens.

- Space suits.

- The space suits that Travis is checking out

looks like your standard alien.

- He finds these alien space suits,

and he's looking at them, and the alien comes up to him,

and he freaks out, kicks him in the face,

and tries to run away.

- If these things are real-- the Greys--

that's what people are seeing: the aliens in the space suits.

The movie shows you what's behind the space suits.

- He's being dragged down this hallway,

and he's just trying to grab on to anything he can find,

and you see, you know, a shoe from someone else.

You see glasses from someone else.

What terrified me about that was jeez, like,

how many people do they take?

How often does this happen?

- It makes you think, like,

this could possibly happen to any of us,

and then your whole life is just completely changed.

- You saw these beings

that were not human-looking around you?

- Yeah.

- And you were intensely afraid.

- That's when I suddenly could focus

on this alien face so close to mine.

The stare that they were giving me

was the most disturbing feeling.

Every time I talk about it, it's like reliving it,

and, you know, you feel it in the pit of your stomach.

- [breathing frantically]

- Now, in the movie, they did portray beings around him.

They did portray him in this kind of small,

claustrophobic environment,

all of which was accurate as far as he can remember,

but there were definite differences.

- Travis remembers waking up on a table,

and there's a bright light above him,

and his first thought is, you know, he's in a hospital.

And he sees what we call "Greys,"

kind of the typical thing when you think of an alien.

- In the movie,

the aliens look like a more organic life form

than the standard alien that everyone talks about,

which is what those space suits look like.

- There is one sequence in there that does a better job

of communicating

why I was just so out of my mind with fear

better than if they'd have showed what actually happened.

The scene where the actor is down on the table

and there's this membrane over his face.

I felt like I was suffocating,

and that is the main thing that caused so much panic.

The feeling of suffocation

triggers fear at a very fundamental,

almost instinctive level,

probably at the cellular level.

- And you were at that level of fear yourself?

- Yeah. I was out of my mind with fear.

- Yeah. Wow.

- [gagging]

- Travis, as far as what's depicted in the movie,

being dragged down this hallway

where experiments were performed on him,

he doesn't remember anything like that,

but the fear you feel when watching that movie

is exactly what he was feeling.

- How well did you feel the movie depicted

the actual event

where you were hit with this beam of light?

- That one particular part, they downplayed it.

According to the crew, it was like

I'd stepped on a land mine,

dust blowing up around me.

They immediately started yelling,

"He's dead. It killed him."

One of the crewmen said,

"It looked like he'd disintegrated,"

and the other guy said,

"No, no, no, I saw him hit the ground,"

but I think that was because of the incredible brightness

of the--of the energy that was surrounding me.

In the movie, you know, it seems like

just a spotlight comes on the actor

and just kind of lifts him--holds him there

for a second and then just tosses him back

rather than this violent explosion of energy.

- While you were gone for those five days,

of course the big suspicion was murder,

and the crew were all questioned by the sheriff.

They took polygraph tests.

How well do you feel the movie portrayed that whole sequence?

- The accusations of murder were very intense,

and, you know, the--

the condemnation from the community,

condemning the crew for not being more heroic

and staying there to pull me back before I was taken--

but, you know, I don't feel that way at all, you know?

I think that they did what they had to do.

It wouldn't have made sense for them to risk their life

to save somebody they thought was already dead.

Their belief that I might have been killed

kind of fueled the suspicion that the lawmen were having

that this is just some crazy story

to cover up for why we'll never see Travis again.

- To me, the best part of "Fire in the Sky"

was the time when Travis was missing,

when all of his friends and coworkers

are essentially being blamed for Travis's disappearance.

They know that what they tell people is hard to believe,

but they still tell people.

- They took him.

- You expect me to believe

that a flying saucer came down

and took your friend away

to outer space?

- That's the truth, mister. That's exactly what happened.

- We all saw the guy get zapped.

- Well, what do you think?

Think we ought to head up there?

- It's too late. Not enough men.

We'll head out in the morning.

- How those boys came up with such a crazy story?

Back on Earth, we're dealing with a murder,

plain and simple.

Good night, Sheriff.

- They don't even feel welcome in their own town.

Not just being misunderstood,

but not being believed is a big fear for people.

Anyone can relate to that.

- When you're brought back,

the movie portrays you

as basically not wearing clothing.

- No, I was fully clothed.

I was still wearing the same work clothes

as the day it happened.

- David, grab that flashlight! - Got it!

- Travis comes back. His friends find him.

In the movie, it's a very frantic moment.

- Water, water, somebody get him some water!

- And they call the only person they can think of,

and it's that UFO expert,

and he comes and he's grilling Travis.

He wants to know what happened, what he saw.

- Mr. Walton?

Mr. Walton, did you make contact with aliens?

- Mike!

- It's important the entire world

learns of your experience.

- That's enough, Mike! - The thing is,

as he tries to assimilate back into life,

at the same time, deal with this traumatic event,

that stuff still happens.

People grill him all the time. People doubt him.

It's gotta have a draining effect on you,

and it's really gotta mess with you psychologically.

As he keeps telling the story, he's reliving the story again

every time he tells it.

All this stuff is still with him today.

- The most famous abduction case ever is your case.

- That's what they say.

- Yeah, think so.

- Stories like this, Travis Walton and Todd Sees,

you just think about the size of the universe

and what could be out there and what could be coming here.

We talked to Travis Walton earlier,

who vividly remembers

everything about his abduction.

If that's something that Todd Sees went through, I mean...

- Not in our neck of the woods, man, that's for sure.

- It's important to hear from Peter Davenport

about the Todd Sees case

because he really is the only investigator

who's actually gotten anywhere

and spoken to at least some of the individuals

involved in the case.

- It's pretty compelling stuff,

and it's almost as if a mystery is unfolding in front of us.

- The first inkling I have of this incident,

I believe, was on the 18th of August, 2002

when I received the first report.

It was written by a person who alleges to be a farmer.

He claimed that he and three fishermen watched

as a man's body

was floated up in a shaft of light

that was connecting a disc

hovering motionless above Mount Montour.

- It does appear, Peter, doesn't it,

that Todd Sees's ATV was, in fact,

at the top of Montour Ridge about two miles from his home.

He, however was found quite a long distance from that ATV.

- What would be the reason for him

to be so widely separate from the ATV?

- There are a lot of unexplained aspects

to this case.

- If this were just a death,

a tragic death of somebody in the woods--

there remains so much mystery over this, so much concealment.

- This investigation is--

is comparable to mine in some ways.

This case is maybe ten years old,

and there's still a lot of unresolved questions,

curiously so.

These cases of missing persons in connection with UFOs--

and there's been a number of cases in my area--

it's a disturbing alternative.

Are these truly UFO related or not?

Good talking to you guys. - Thank you.

- Thanks, man. - The UFO reports

sent to the National UFO Reporting Center

explicitly claimed a man was taken by a beam

from a craft at 5:30 a.m.

Todd Sees left his home at 5:00 in the morning.

His all-terrain vehicle

was found at the top of Montour Ridge.

He certainly could have gotten to that location by 5:30,

which was when the reports said this event happened.

[ATV engine whirring]

[indistinct shouting]

[eerie resonant music]

You think about it: you've got 200 volunteers

and you've got bloodhounds out combing the area,

and no one found him until the evening of the second day,

when he was fairly close to his own house.

He was about 150 yards from his house when they found him,

not two miles from his house where his vehicle was.

- If you believe what some people say,

that Todd Sees was abducted by aliens

and ultimately died because of that,

this is, like, the last area

that he probably saw when he was alive.

- They basically sent out a search party,

and they searched for two days, found him two days later.

It was in a place that they had already looked.

- Oh. - It was, like,

in a bunch of thickets where you couldn't really walk into.

- They picked a really isolated place to get someone.

We talked to Travis Walton earlier, who...

[chuckles]

Who vividly remembers everything about his abduction,

and you can just kinda see it when he talks about it.

You can just see it in his face.

If that's something that Todd Sees went through, I mean...

- We are not in our neck of the woods,

man, that's for sure.

[suspenseful musical sting]

- We're looking up, and we see this bright light

coming from the sky,

and then it came down

and hovered the ground for a little while.

- Are you getting that?

- Yeah, it's right there.

Look.

This thing's acting crazy.

- John, let me hear you, buddy. [walkie-talkie blips]

Hey, John, this is Chris, over. [walkie-talkie blips]

- What's up, Chris? [walkie-talkie blips]

- We definitely saw something.

It came all the way down to, like,

the floor of the woods here, and you should come over here.

[walkie-talkie blips]

- So Chris and Becky say they saw something,

so I'm gonna go check it out.

- We definitely saw some odd light.

We both saw it at the same time,

and it just, like, floated down

and then was right, you know, hovering above the ground,

and, you know, I'm not saying it was a alien spacecraft,

but it was definitely odd.

And then it just disappears.

- It was hovering over there for a little while,

and then it just disappeared.

- If it's--it could be anything.

It could be anybody. - That's what's more scary.

- Yeah. - And not for nothing.

We're definitely a little out of our element here.

So I mean, it's not a bad thing to play it safe.

- Let's head back.

- All right.

- I've read what is available to read

from the newspaper accounts regarding the Todd Sees case.

Just going on that basis alone,

there is some very bizarre mysteries.

This was a really huge event.

You had 200 people in a very sparsely populated area,

a very rural area, on a major manhunt,

and it just generates

a couple of actually really small articles.

It has to be emphasized:

it is not known what really caused the death of Todd Sees.

We're not in a position

where we can draw a definite conclusion about that case.

I do believe

that the Todd Sees case will resurface in the future.

- I can't imagine where you're looking at this thing

from another world, and then it's that moment

when you realize they know you're there,

and that, to me, is absolutely terrifying.

- You don't wanna stay? Are you feeling something?

- I don't know if I wanna stay all night by myself

in one of these rooms.

Not--not really.

- I've been doing this for the majority of my life.

I grew up in a haunted house.

If someone asked me to do that, my answer would be "Eff you."

Don't do it.

- Here's a question for you.

Can you die of fright in your dreams?

Can a dream frighten you so much that you die?

And this, of course,

ais the theme of the movie

"A Nightmare on Elm Street."

- So you guys have all seen

"A Nightmare on Elm Street," right?

- Yeah.

- Yeah, what do you guys think about it? Scary?

- I don't wanna meet Freddy.

- As a child, terrifying.

I got more creeped out more by the imagery of the whole thing,

and especially the third one.

Rusted pipes everywhere

and--it freaks me out.

- This whole idea of dreams that could kill you,

until really recently,

I did not think that there was much to it.

Turns out maybe there is a little more to it

than we might have thought.

There's actually something called a nocebo effect,

which is almost the opposite of the placebo effect.

In the nocebo effect,

if you think that something really evil has befallen you,

you can become sick and, possibly,

as in the case of some of these dreams

we're talking about, maybe you could die.

The question that neurologists have is

whether it's all internal

or if there's an external component.

In other words, the spiritual realm.

You think, "'Nightmare on Elm Street'?

"Nah, no way could that have any possible connection

to reality."

But in fact, there is a connection.

- "A Nightmare on Elm Street" came out in 1984.

Wes Craven stated that he didn't want to do

more than one, but it was so successful,

they just kept making movie after movie after movie.

Wes Craven actually got real-life inspiration

for this movie.

- Wes Craven based "A Nightmare on Elm Street"

on the story he read about

Asian immigrants that came to America,

are sharing the same visceral, horrific nightmare.

- Laotian individuals who were experiencing recurrent,

horrific nightmares, many of whom did die,

apparently in their sleep,

during the very dreams that were terrifying them.

- Like the kids do in the movie, they are trying

to stay awake any way they can.

Wes Craven reads a story of these guys,

and something goes off in his head,

and it really inspires what became

one of the most iconic horror film series in history,

"Nightmare on Elm Street."

- The "Nightmare on Elm Street" movies

were definitely freaky, man.

That scene in the first one,

where Johnny Depp gets, like, sucked into the bed

and then spewed out like a--like a blender,

you know, all over the room,

that scene was pretty horrific.

Definitely good horror-film stuff.

"Dream Warriors,"

"Nightmare on Elm Street 3," takes place in a mental ward,

so they're dealing with all the patients who are,

you know, having this group psychosis.

They're all having the same dreams.

- Hey, no, man. Don't put me to sleep.

I don't wanna go to sleep.

Ain't nobody gonna put me to sleep.

Get your hands-- I ain't going to sleep!

- The doctors are trying to make them go to sleep,

and they're doing everything they can to not fall asleep.

- We're going to Pennhurst Asylum,

which is located right outside of Philadelphia.

There's been a number of people who, after visiting Pennhurst,

have had reoccurring nightmares.

I called in a very good friend of mine, Chip Coffey.

He's a renowned psychic,

and I'm hoping, you know, he can give us some insight

as to what we might be dealing with here tonight.

- Children were in this awful, awful facility.

Some of them died there.

If you believe that there's a spiritual realm

or some kind of dimension of reality

beyond what we perceive, you really might wonder

if there's some very, very bad mojo

that could translate into our reality here.

[suspenseful music]

We're going to the Pennhurst psychiatric facility

to explore, among other things,

the whole mind-body connection.

- Can a nightmare really kill you?

- Can something actually happen to us in our dreams?

- When you get to Pennhurst,

there's only one feeling you have about this place,

and that it really is not a good place to be.

- Pennhurst is known to be

one of the most haunted places in America.

- And it's also true that a number of individuals

who have gone to this facility and spent time there

have said that, in the aftermath of it,

that they themselves experienced

recurring nightmares.

[muffled child's voice]

- There's been a lot of bad things that happened

to kids here, and just people in general,

so I'm sure a lot of that negative energy is still here.

After I left here, for a couple weeks, even till today,

I've had a reoccurring dream of the hallways in this building

and of a shadow figure at the end of the hallway

where I can't move, and it's getting closer,

and I can't get out of the building.

Over a year later,

I still occasionally have that same dream.

It's the only dream I've had reoccurring like that.

- When you were here,

did you witness or experience a shadow person?

- A pretty solid shadow figure in this building

was one of the more bizarre because it was

something that was at the end of the hallway,

and it--kinda like my dream... - Mm-hmm.

- Only in the dream, it came closer and closer and closer

until it was almost in front of me.

- People feel drawn to certain places--

usually places that are charged, if you wanna say,

with activity or energy or spirits.

That might be part of what's going on with Mike.

[suspenseful music]

- I believe the activity in this building

is--is second to none on the campus.

My very first paranormal experience

took place back by the stairwell.

I heard a whisper in my ear, and there was nobody behind me.

I was backed up into a corner.

That's generally the area

where the little girl seems to hang out.

- What about claims of nightmares here?

- Had my share.

My wife is wondering what's going on.

I don't wanna tell her because she would never

let me come back.

- Would you ever sleep here alone?

- Oh, no, no.

This place really, really scares me.

- Tortured spirits of children inhabit the place...

and we're sleeping there.

[suspenseful music]

- I'm really interested in seeing what we might get

as the night goes by.

- Katrina brings in her good friend Chip Coffey.

She's worked with him before.

Chip comes in and--really, so we can get a feel

for how afraid of this place we should be.

- What? - Like, throw up.

"Stop, don't do this to me anymore, stop."

Female. - Is she in pain?

- Mm-hmm. - Who is she yelling at?

- It may be Eugene, and they called him Gene.

He's raping her.

The "sick" is pregnant,

and she didn't have the baby.

It's pretty horrific.

It's not a one-time thing.

[distant thump]

Thump? - Yeah.

- Can you thump again? Can you do something

that'll give us a sign if you're here with us?

[Chip knocking]

[soft bang]

- Wow. - Yeah.

- Another knock, please?

[soft bang]

We got the knock. - Wow.

- Did you hear that?

I heard a thunk. - It was right here, lie...

- It's the same exact sound, a knock--

- Exactly. - That you asked for.

Like, the same every time. - Did you hear that?

- We walked around with Chip, and he picked up on several,

I think he called them, peripheral spirits

that were just ripples in time.

- I was like, "I can't believe

I'm gonna have to spend the night in this place."

- Did that get shoved in here?

- I don't know where that was, but--

- That was not on the floor when we walked in

'cause I was focusing on the floor.

- You didn't see it?

- That's a question mark for sure.

- Yeah. - Yeah.

- I'll stand behind you.

- Old woman, Edith.

"Why the hell can't I just go ahead and die?

Just let me die. Jesus, come and take me."

Boy, she's close, Katrina.

I saw them smother her.

Hmm.

- Why are you looking that way? - I don't know.

I'm just really drawn down the hallway again.

I think you've got some...

intelligent activity here.

All of those things are coming into play here.

Paranormal storm of things that are going on here

on the campus of this facility.

- In your opinion, if we were to stay here tonight,

would any of us be...

in danger?

- Not a good idea to stay here.

- You don't wanna stay? Are you feeling something?

- I don't know if I wanna stay all night by myself

in one of these rooms, not--not really.

- By yourselves? - Mm-hmm.

There's been reports of people having reoccurring nightmares

after they come here, and one of the reasons we wanna stay

is to see if-- can we get to sleep?

Does anybody have any dream disturbances?

Or are we experiencing anything by ourselves?

- I've been doing this for the majority of my life.

I grew up in a haunted house.

If someone asked me to do that, my answer would be "Eff you."

Don't do it.

- We tell Chip Coffey that we intend

to spend the night at this place.

He doesn't think it's a good idea.

- Chip really said, "If you were gonna sleep there,

it'd be wise to sleep in close quarters."

Of course, we were sleeping in totally separate areas.

- Bad idea, says Chip.

This is a really awful building.

- I mean, honestly, the fact that he wouldn't stay here...

- Watch yourselves tonight.

- This place has got a lot of hurt and pain and anger.

It's got spirits, or ghost energies.

I would have to say the place is active.

Do I think that you would have experiences

that would be significant,

that have the potential to scare the bejesus out of you?

I think that there--there would be every probability

to believe that you would have significant experiences.

That would be my prediction.

Probably we'll hear the knocks and the groans

and the moans and things like that,

and the energies that are here.

I would not stay in a room here

in this facility by myself overnight

and expect to come out feeling good about it tomorrow morning.

Be in communication with each other.

If someone does freak out, you know what I'm saying?

Don't think you've gotta be the big, brave person.

Get the hell out.

Ooh.

Whatever is in my head just said,

"We'll hit you at your most vulnerable point."

Have each other's backs.

I mean, that's what being a part of the team is.

- Mm-hmm.

- Thanks for having me here. - Thank you.

- It's good to see you guys. - It's good to see you.

- So we're walking around with Chip through this place.

He's sensing all kinds of suffering

that took place at this facility.

- He's just like, "I mean,

"I feel something everywhere here.

There is activity everywhere."

That there was a lot

and that it was definitely gonna make itself known.

- This is a really awful building.

It's got awful memories.

- I mean, honestly, the fact that he wouldn't stay here...

- Watch yourselves tonight.

[intense dramatic music]

- This is where they all slept, "Nightmare on Elm Street 3."

- This does remind me. - Does it?

- Yeah.

There was one scene where one of the patients,

he was in a wheelchair.

This room reminds me of his room that he stayed in.

[suspenseful music]

- Does it make you think at all

that some of these patients weren't crazy?

- It's--it's pretty sad to know that

some of them weren't, you know? - Yeah.

- Definitely a creepy feeling everywhere.

- Are you scared? - Yeah, definitely.

- Oh, we are on the first floor.

That totally tripped me out for a second,

and that's what freaks me out about later.

Like, this place is a maze.

- Nightmares come from stress during the day

or an unconscious conflict, some Freudians say.

Repeated nightmares is a different story.

Often that's someone who's had trauma.

- If we have people sleeping here...

- Right. - Through this night

in this place, which is a awful, creepy place,

what would one want to look for?

Is it possible that there is something in this place

independent of one's thoughts that actually can come in

and kind of affect your thoughts?

And I realize that's a speculation,

but if that's the case,

could it then create a negative effect on them?

- Come to an old, dilapidated mental hospital,

people probably had lobotomies,

and they were put in, you know, insulin comas,

and I'm sure there was a lot of abuse that went on here

and people who commit suicide

and it's kind of loaded.

It could get into the placebo effect.

You feel something's gonna happen.

You're creeped out.

- Yeah. - And then you create it.

- Are there elements of the mind that might go beyond

the body or go beyond the brain,

and is it possible that

the mind has an interaction with this reality?

- There's a lot of evidence for a mind

that exists outside of the brain,

and so we may be getting the psychic impressions

and information all the time,

and it doesn't make it through to our conscious awareness,

but some people who maybe are psychic or more sensitive

have a looser or thinner boundary,

or their filter is faulty,

and they get more of this information.

- Is it just possible

that they're perceiving this other reality?

That they're actually going into another reality

when they're having a nightmare?

- I mean, the physicians and other individuals

who claim that when we dream,

a part of our consciousness

is actually leaving our body and...

- Right, exactly. - And we're dreaming this

in another dimension. - Can a nightmare kill someone?

There's a famous case of Laotian immigrants

into the United States, Hmong people in the late '70s,

early '80s, I believe. - Right.

- If someone believes that there's a curse on them

or if someone believes that there's some kind of

horrible thing that may happen to them,

is it possible, then, that the mind could create

within the body some negative effect?

Could it raise your heart rate, for example?

- Absolutely, absolutely.

I mean, if you're having a nightmare,

you--and you go into the fight-or-flight mechanism,

it will raise your heart rate and your blood pressure,

absolutely.

- Dr. Ed Modestino did acknowledge that the fear

of an intense nightmare could kill you.

Have you guys all gotten places

where you're gonna be spending the night?

- John and Chris are gonna be stationed on the second floor.

Becky and I are gonna go into the basement tonight.

- We got walkie-talkies.

If something happens, we'll be in touch.

We decide we're gonna split up

and team members are gonna be

in different parts of the facility,

and the idea is they're gonna sleep there in total darkness

with only an infrared camera on them.

My job is to monitor on a couple of screens,

and we're in touch with each other via walkie-talkies.

It didn't take long, truthfully,

for some very disturbing developments to happen.

- One of our production assistants starts to freak out

and completely, like, lose it.

- Just exhale real sl-- - Okay.

- All the way, all the way out, slow.

Keep it out. Keep it out, way out.

All the way out. Count to five, calm down.

- Okay, well, I just--my heart just started,

like, literally, like, beating

like, really fast, like, all of a sudden.

- Let's go outside, seriously, okay?

- Okay. - Come on, come on.

Come with me. This'll be all right.

Let me get my flashlight. Don't go away.

She became frightened immediately.

Something about this place had just upset her,

that I had to walk her out of the building.

- She was just really freaked out just from being in there.

- Just take it easy.

- Okay. - You know what I mean?

Take some deep breaths. Sip some water.

- Yeah. - Tea, whatever's gonna--

- It's, like, seriously intense in there.

- If I were alone in any of these rooms,

I would be scared. - Yeah.

- They usher her out of the building,

and I'm like, "Great, we get to sleep here."

And it's definitely starting to sink in a little bit more

that, like, we're actually gonna sleep here.

[dramatic music]

[suspenseful music]

- This really was a crazy situation.

You're in pitch black in a really awful place.

- Being in that building is extremely overwhelming.

There's not one inch of that place that you can walk

where you don't feel something.

I did not feel alone at any point.

- In the movie, all these kids

are living at this insane asylum,

and they're trying to do everything they can

to fight sleep, and now here's us.

We're voluntarily sleeping in an insane asylum

where horrific things happened to people.

- Many people have claimed that there's severe

and intense paranormal activity

that has occurred in this facility.

- What the hell was that?

If there's something there, make a noise again.

[something drags on floor]

[gasps]

- Whoa, whoa, hey.

- One more time?

[loud dragging] Oh, my God.

Katrina? [walkie-talkie blips]

- Katrina.

[walkie-talkie blips]

- I just heard a banging sound in the other room.

Did you hear--have you heard anything?

[walkie-talkie blips]

- Two minutes ago, I thought I heard some breathing

coming from the hallway, kind of like a...

[exhales] ...kind of thing,

and just maybe 45 seconds ago,

my hair moved.

Something touched it.

[walkie-talkie blips]

- It just got really super cold in here.

I'm, like, freaking out.

[walkie-talkie blips]

- Do you want me to come in there?

[walkie-talkie blips]

- I'm gonna try to hang for a couple more minutes.

[walkie-talkie blips]

- Was somebody crying?

[walkie-talkie blips]

- Jesus.

- I think I'm hearing crying somewhere.

[walkie-talkie blips]

- Is that noise coming from your room?

Like a moan.

[intense static interference]

[interference continues] I'm just scared.

[interference continues] This is just too much.

- What the hell was that noise?

- I keep hearing something in this back room.

I keep hearing something rustling around back there

and banging.

It won't let me sleep.

Every time I try and fall asleep, it bangs.

[walkie-talkie blips]

- Are you sure no one's-- I keep hearing--

I don't know if it's crying or...

- What the hell?

- I can't really make it out, but it's really freaky.

[walkie-talkie blips]

- Oh, jeez.

Oh, something just breathed right in my ear.

[walkie-talkie blips]

- Chris, whatever that was, I think, just ran by my stall.

[walkie-talkie blips]

- That scared the [bleep] out of me.

[walkie-talkie blips]

- John, how are you doing? [walkie-talkie blips]

- I am not in a good situation right now.

- He's freaking out. I mean, everyone here.

- Look, I don't think this sleeping thing

is gonna happen right now.

Do you really need me-- us--up here, or...

[laughs] I'm not falling back asleep after all of this.

[walkie-talkie blips]

- Listen, time for us to get out of here.

[walkie-talkie blips]

Things just got so intense.

I mean, the walkie-talkie was constantly in operation

by just about everyone.

Katrina and Becky,

both of them were very, very deeply frightened.

The really disturbing elements of this

happened with the guys upstairs.

At one point, John's hearing the sound of a woman

or a girl weeping.

He also was experiencing or felt

that there was something that went by him several times.

He heard something dragging along the floor.

Chris said that he felt a breath go right on his face.

Like, a hot breath.

It was very distinct, no getting around it.

I saw the reaction on Chris's face when he came to see me,

and I saw the reaction on John's face.

They were experiencing something out of the ordinary.

- Definitely all of us had something happen to us.

Pennhurst is haunted.

Point-blank. [laughs]

Pennhurst is haunted.

- I really hope I make it back here.

[animal screech]

- What was that?

- It's running around in the woods right here.

It's, like, right here.

- We're going to the Pine Barrens of New Jersey

in connection with another famous iconic movie,

"The Blair Witch Project."

"The Blair Witch Project" was set in a large woods

where people got lost and they died.

The Pine Barrens is very large,

and people disappear there every year.

Like "The Blair Witch Project,"

in the Pine Barrens, you have a legend

connected to someone called Mother Leeds.

She was said to be a witch

and gave birth to this horrible monster

which became known as the Jersey Devil.

We're looking into this--

origins of the "Blair Witch" story

and how that whole thing developed

and what that might have been based on,

and we know it was at least related to a previous movie,

"The Last Broadcast,"

which dealt with the Jersey Devil.

So now we're heading into the Pine Barrens,

and I've just been looking up the origins

of the Jersey Devil's story,

and there is a connection to Benjamin Franklin,

Benjamin Franklin.

- The, like, founding father?

- The founding father, and... - Fat.

- It's not that he started the stories of the Jersey Devil,

but it's true when he was writing

for "The Pennsylvania Gazette" in 1730,

he was in his mid-20s at the time.

He was a young man, and he was reporting

a witchcraft trial in Mount Holly, New Jersey,

which is not far from Philadelphia.

It is believed but not proven

Franklin's reporting of this witchcraft trial

inspired the stories of the Jersey Devil that followed.

Only five years later,

Burlington County records show stories of a devil

beginning to circulate in New Jersey.

So the first mention that we have of a Jersey Devil,

or as it was called back then, a Leeds Devil, come from 1735,

just five years after Franklin wrote about it.

- Rich, I'd heard Franklin was writing about the trials,

but it was actually, like, a fictional piece?

- I also did hear that he was having some fun.

- Seemed to me like it's a very old version

of the Blair Witch,

where people took this fiction

and thought it was completely true.

- It would be, like, an ultimate irony, wouldn't it?

If Franklin actually made this up,

just like the "Blair Witch" creators did?

- Right. - Yeah.

- You know, 250, 60 years later.

- "The Blair Witch Project" came out in 1999

and centers around three college students

who are filmmakers,

and they're making a documentary

about the Blair Witch,

and the Blair Witch was a woman

who was banished from her town in the 1700s

because she was practicing witchcraft.

The whole story kinda centers around the 1940s

when all these kids go missing.

Throughout the story,

you see these three filmmakers going through the woods,

and they start getting lost.

- These guys go out into the woods.

They think they know where they're going.

They get turned around.

They end up walking in circles and don't know where they are.

- And then they stumble across all these occult objects.

You know, stacked rocks,

things that kinda look like a voodoo doll,

weird objects made out of sticks,

and then at night--

this is probably one of the creepiest moments

of the film for me-- they find this house,

and that's when the cameras, you know, go off,

and you just assume kind of what happened to them.

- [scream]

- An interesting tie-in between "The Blair Witch Project"

and the story of the Jersey Devil

is a movie called "The Last Broadcast,"

which was just made one year

before "The Blair Witch Project."

"Last Broadcast" was about the Jersey Devil,

and it was filmed in the Pine Barrens.

Like "The Blair Witch Project,"

it helped to pioneer this idea of found footage

as a basis of a movie,

where people find this lost footage of some investigation

that's gone horribly wrong.

You get that with "The Last Broadcast,"

and then you get that with "The Blair Witch Project."

- My buddy Paul Phillips from the band Puddle of Mudd

is coming by.

He's just a big-time horror fan,

totally into this stuff,

so he's gonna, like, tag along with us

and see what we see out there in the woods.

- Oh, poor guy has no idea what he's in for.

[suspenseful music]

- Just the "Blair Witch" movie,

we're talking to people in the town.

We're gonna go try and live this thing for real.

- You want to believe in these things.

You want to see it, you know?

It's like a great mystery.

You want to get to the bottom of it.

- My buddy Paul Phillips,

he's definitely really into this stuff,

so it's gonna be good to have him on this one.

He knew about the Jersey Devil

and the Mother Leeds story and everything.

I was impressed.

- Have you done a lot of research

on the Jersey Devil?

- I did, I did.

I did my research on it and found out a lot,

and I'm fascinated by it.

Benjamin Franklin writing the article

which may or may not have started this

about a witch and a witch trial,

and there's even some speculation

that the witch trial was for Mother Leeds.

- Right. - And maybe

the so-called Jersey Devil is a curse

for her being a witch, and she was cursed.

That's one of the theories, the many theories,

so there's definitely some witchcraft rooted in there.

I'm excited to go out and play Blair Witch.

- In the Pine Barrens,

it's not difficult to find people

who claim that they have encountered the Jersey Devil

in one way or another.

- Camping out in Bass River State Forest

a few miles north of here, out looking for dry firewood,

and I was always out there looking around,

and this thing comes running by on its hind legs,

winged, looked over, and it had this red glare in his eyes,

and it just, like, kept on going.

It was definitely not a normal animal in the woods.

- Do you know anybody else who's seen it?

- I know a lot of people that have seen it, yeah.

- So there's been different stories about

if she was a witch or not.

- There was some sort of witchcraft involved.

She kinda, like, cursed it herself.

- Right. It came out normal and then--

and then transformed and flew away.

- It flew out the window. - Yeah.

- It's hanging out here somewhere now.

- It did kill the midwife first, so.

- Strange, crazy.

- We're camping out tonight. You got any advice?

- Keep your eyes peeled. I don't know.

- Thanks, Anthony. - Thank you.

- Yeah, man, thanks, man. - Yeah, appreciate it.

- We'll see what we see tonight.

- Nice to meet you. Maybe next time

we'll share stories.

[suspenseful music]

- It was my brother, two of my best friends.

We were walking down the road.

It was probably, like, 1:00 in the morning,

and when we get to about over there,

something jumps out from the middle of the cemetery

to the middle of the road,

and this thing was probably, like, 7, 8 feet tall.

It--skinny legs.

You can hear the hooves hit the ground,

and it stopped in the middle of the road.

As soon as it looked at us, it ran right into the woods.

Weird-shaped face, wider at the center of the body.

Wings were down to its side, more.

I was very scared, to be honest with you.

I didn't stay at my dad's house for two weeks afterwards.

I stayed at my mom's.

- How do you feel being here today?

- Being here

and actually talking about it brings it back.

- Do you know if there are any

Leeds family members buried in there?

- There is definitely Leeds family members.

There is a couple Leeds tombstones

where it came from in there.

Just being out here, you hear the legends

all the time about the Jersey Devil,

and, you know, I'll never forget it.

- Well, Mike, thank you very much...

- Oh, you're very welcome. - For coming down

and talking with us. - Yeah, thanks, man.

Thanks for scaring the crap out of me.

- Yeah, right?

Just don't stand right here when it's dark, you know?

- Yeah.

- The Leeds family was very prominent.

That family owned much of the land

that is now the Pine Barrens.

You get the Leeds name everywhere.

We were in the local cemetery

when we happened to run into the caretaker,

and he just turned out to be the local historian.

That was a stroke of luck for us.

- The normal legend is that in 1735,

Mother Leeds had a 13th child,

and it was possessed and became the Jersey Devil.

In some of the Jersey Devil stories,

there's a reference to possible witchcraft

being a basis for the bias against the Leeds family.

We do believe that there is a basis.

Every legend has a basis.

- Mm-hmm. - 1700 to 1720 is a time period

when Leeds Point was settled.

Daniel Leeds acquired the property earlier.

The Leeds family were primarily Quakers.

Most of the people

that they probably enticed to come to the area

were probably Quakers.

Quakers were as superstitious as anybody

at that point in time.

It wasn't really that long after the Salem Witch Trials.

Some of the people came down from New England.

Of course, they would have known

about the Salem Witch Trials. - Mm-hmm.

- You have to relate back to the time period.

- Are there stories that you're familiar with

of strange creature sightings in this area?

- I've roamed these woods and these marshes right down

in here with my grandfather.

I was out there when I was five.

I've heard many strange noises at night,

seen things run through the woods

that I didn't know what they were.

I know people who will swear they saw something.

Some people swear they saw

something sitting on their roof.

- And that road we just drove down to get here,

is that significant in terms of the whole Leeds story?

- Rumored birthplace of the Jersey Devil

is in a house that was on that road.

The house is no longer existent.

There are some discrepancies between locals and historians

as to which side of the road,

but they all agree on the street.

- So we're close to it.

Whether we'll know the exact location, that's another story.

- Unless you wanna sit here at midnight and see what happens.

[suspenseful music]

- I felt--like, I felt a presence behind me,

and I--and I turned around, and I saw this huge shadow

of wings up above this big wall,

and this is a really big expanse here,

so it stretched clear across.

I mean, that was, like, pretty creepy,

when you see these big, huge wings.

- What do you think the Jersey Devil is?

- I know the Jersey Devil story is a folklore,

but the areas here, it was the Leeds family.

The Leeds family is still here.

It's written in history that this woman had 13 children.

- It's quite striking how many people in this area claim

to have seen an apparition like the Jersey Devil.

- I know.

So there has to be some truth to it.

I believe it. I know what I saw.

- Are you excited for tonight?

- The witness kinda freaked me out, Anthony,

'cause he said that he spotted the Jersey Devil,

and it came up to his campsite.

- This kinda reminds me of "Blair Witch."

We're, like, interviewing witnesses in town.

- Mm-hmm, yep. - And we're going out

in the middle of the woods in the middle of nowhere.

- Does it freak you out a little bit?

- Will you sleep in the tent with me?

- You know what happens to the guy

that's the funny guy in all the movies, right?

He's the one that gets... [imitates slice]

You won't be funny anymore when you're dead.

- We wanna go camping tonight, and we wanna find a place

where the Jersey Devil's been spotted a lot.

- Stony-Brook is probably the best place that you could.

It's off of Leeds Point Road.

You make a left at the light right at the CVS.

Moss Mill Road. You take that all the way down.

Leeds Point will actually be on your right,

and then the trail leads you back into the woods.

- There's, like, a trailhead right on the side of the road?

- Yeah, yeah, it's huge.

Worst part is you could probably get lost.

It starts off on, like,

a narrow trail, and then it opens up into a meadow,

but then there's all different ways that you can go off,

so I don't know about camping out there tonight.

[laughs] It's--just, you know.

Be careful. Don't get lost.

- Here you guys go. - Oh.

- What do we got here? - Thank you.

- This is actually the Jersey Devil.

- This is the Jersey Devil? - Yeah.

- Welcome to the team, bud.

- Thank you, cheers. - Welcome.

- Appreciate it. - Glad to have you on.

- Thank you very much. Glad to be here.

- Should I drink from a straw, or is that too girly?

- I think it's too girly. - All right.

- Well, I drank from the straw, so let me turn it around.

- Well, maybe I shouldn't do that either.

- [chuckles]

- Ooh. - It's pretty good.

- Mmm. - I like it.

- I'm glad we found this.

We'll have to do this again sometime.

- All right.

I hope I find this out in the woods.

- What we're looking for. - I could deal with this.

- Yeah. [laughter]

[suspenseful music]

- It's getting serious. - This is getting real.

- Are you scared about the Jersey Devil?

- There's nothing you can do...

- I'm scared at our scenario

and if we're gonna be okay.

It's pretty vast out there.

We could get lost, and that would suck.

We don't have walkie-talkies.

It's raining, and it's late, and everyone's tired,

so we're definitely at-- we have a few disadvantages,

to say the least.

[dramatic music]

- I really hope I make it back here.

- A lot riding on this expedition.

- That's what I'm saying. - Yeah.

- What I'm trying to say. - All right, all right.

- Watch this branch. - Yep.

- What is that? Shine your light on it.

- Watch--watch your... - So Paul,

how do you--like, what do you think, man?

How do you feel? - So far, so good.

It's just a little ex--you know, it's a little--

- Are you glad you came out? - Yeah.

I think it's--anytime you're in the woods,

it's just a little eerie regardless of what's going on.

- Remember, stick together.

- Just, it's the same, all this--all these woods.

It just looks the same.

- We are going deeper... - Watch your head.

- And deeper into the woods.

- This is like getting lost deep in the woods,

like, right here.

This is where--can we start leaving, like, markers?

- No, quickly.

- Like, tying [bleep] around trees?

- Ow!

[loud growl]

- What the [bleep] was that? - What was that?

- What was that? - It sounded like growling.

- Yeah. - Rich, don't get too far, bud.

[animal screech]

- What was that? - That was a--

- That was weird. - A screech.

- I didn't like that. - A screech.

- Wait, wait, hold up, guys. - Hey, I'm not...

- Hold up.

- There's something right... - It's something, right?

- It's running around in the woods right here.

- Oh, you see it? - No, I hear it.

It's, like, right here.

- So you guys actually think

we're experiencing things right now?

- Yeah. - It's weird.

There's a weird energy out here, that's for sure.

- Yeah, and the deeper we get, like, it's just kinda...

- Do you think it's trying to separate us or to spook us out?

- Well, it's working. - It definitely is trying to.

- Yeah. - It's definitely working.

- Yo!

Hold up.

- What do you think so far?

- I mean, I was all right until that weird sound just occurred.

- There was a noise, a very odd noise up and to the left.

- Describe "an odd noise."

- A running sound that didn't sound like a person.

What I think the best thing to do would be to continue

going ahead, turn left,

and quietly.

We go quietly and slowly.

- I mean, I heard the growling back there.

That was freaking weird. I don't know what that was.

- No, it sounded--it was crazy. It was really close.

- Are you getting nervous? - A little bit, yeah.

From what I just heard, yeah.

- We're getting deep now. - Yeah.

- We've been walking through the woods.

- Yeah, we're getting to the thick of it now.

- Probably a good spot for camp though.

- This is good. This is good.

- I think this will be a clearing.

[loud snap]

- [gasps] - What's that?

[low growl]

- Oh, my God. - What the [bleep] is that?

- There's definitely something moving around.

I don't know what it is, but something out there.

- Oh, my God.

- It's, like, right-- - Do you hear that?

- It's, like, right there.

- I will jump out of this mother...

- Shh, it's okay. It's okay.

- I'm there already. I'm--I think I'm there.

- Are you already scared?

- What? - Are you already scared?

- We've heard, like, seven things already.

- That growl was evil. - Tha--yeah.

- I didn't feel like that was a normal sound.

- If we could set up our--our tents,

I think we'll be in a better position to hear things.

[dramatic music]

- There's something for sure. - Yeah.

It was big and close. - Yep.

- It growled, growled its [bleep] off.

- Yeah.

- This is odd, you know? I'm wondering if

your ears will just play tricks on you.

- Why? What are you hearing?

- Well, I thought I heard something walking closer by.

It sounded like something heavy pressing down some wood.

- We weren't gonna split away from the group, and...

- I know. - And here we are wandering.

I don't need--I don't need to be lost

in the Jersey woods.

- This is thick woods, man. - Yeah, it is.

- I don't know how comfortable I feel right now.

- Well, let's go back, then.

It's gonna be dead silent here at night.

- Mm-hmm. - And if we hear something,

we'll be with the rest of the group.

- When we get to the fork, we go right, right?

Yeah, I believe. - Yeah.

[crickets chirping]

- All right, here we go.

I see some lights for camp.

- There we go.

- You know, what's terrifying to me

is just not knowing what's out here,

not knowing what's behind these trees

or what's making these noises.

- I saw something. - You okay?

- What? - He said he saw something

and it bumped his head, up this hill.

What exactly happened?

You were alone. - I was just walking.

- Yes? - Something brushed me, fast,

knocked the recorder out of my hand,

knocked the battery case off.

I went to turn my light back on, the light's dead.

- Did you hear anything? - Yeah, I thought

it was somebody else in the crew running behind me.

I was like, "Hey, who's that?"

I'll just go back to the truck for a while.

- You don't have a light. You don't go back in the dark.

- I'll walk you back, bro. - Here, have mine.

- I just wanna get to, like, a safe zone.

Even where everybody else was at,

that's too close for comfort right now.

- Yeah.

- He was by himself.

So he had his recorder,

his audio recorder, and he had a flashlight,

and he said something brushed up

and physically knocked the recorder loose,

knocked the batteries out,

and somehow damaged his flashlight so it doesn't work.

So that's the case, you've got--you've got

something here that knew exactly what to do.

- All right, we're coming up to the RV.

- Yeah, regroup and everything. - All right, dude.

I know you wanna be off camera and stuff.

I'm gonna actually go back.

All right, that was totally whacked out.

- Something is giving us a very clear message

that we're being watched and that it can mess with us.

- Maybe we really shouldn't stay here tonight, honestly.

- Yeah.

- He's shook up, man.

- We're not gonna be sleeping out here.

- Yeah, we just decided that--

- We're breaking--breaking off.

- That's a good decision. [laughter]

- Let's break everything down. - Let's do it.

- John McGarry? - I thought so.

- Is he still breaking down? Yeah.

- Oh, he's over there.

- Wait. - Eric.

- No. - Yo.

- Is McGarry over there? - No.

- Where's McGarry? - John McGarry?

- Did he go this way? John?

- Which brings me back to my theory.

Something's trying to split us up.

- This is a weird place.

- John? What are you doing, man?

Those guys were just really worried,

so I was like--

you know, I just wanted to grab you.

I don't think we're gonna stay the night.

We're just gonna call it, man.

- John. I was surprised that you...

- Yeah, it was definitely weird.

The deeper you get into, like, these woods right here...

- Yeah?

- It's just not a very comfortable feeling.

- We're not staying.

- We're not--we're not doing the tent.

We're not sleeping here.

We're actually going.

- Everybody's upset. Like, it's just not smart...

- I don't think it's worth it. - To stay, honestly.

- Yeah.

- I do think that our behavior in the Pine Barrens

was a little surprising to me.

People did split up, and we didn't adhere to our plan.

- In all honesty,

if there's any kind of threat to the group,

there's a real danger for somebody to get hurt.

- The fear was real,

and I think it was true for all of us.

- When you look behind the scenes of all these movies,

you often find a bedrock of reality there.

- I think that's something that we'll look at

when we watch these movies.

When and where is the next story,

and how close are you gonna be to it?

[Shovelhook's "Crawl Back Down"]

- [singing] Crawl back down

[singing] Crawl back down

[singing] Crawl back down