Original subtitles

The mother's interest.

Are you back?

And the father's disbelief in the paranormal.

How many times do we have to go over this? Ghosts do not exist, all right?

Really?

Reaches a new level.

When their daughter has an encounter... Get out!

Get out!

She was hearing voices.

Tell me who won't leave you alone.

The ghost.

She couldn't control what was being said in her head. I wish you were dead!

Is he real?

Or just a figment of the imagination?

They wanted to take my child away from me and put her somewhere to study her.

And I said, no one's going to take my kid. You're going to hurt yourself!

Stop!

In America, there is real evil.

It lurks in the darkest shadows and in our most ordinary towns.

Between the worlds we see and the things we fear,

there are doors when they are opened.

Nightmares become reality.

Just miles outside of San Francisco, along the coast of the Pacific Ocean,

lies an idyllic California beach town.

Pacifica is a quiet community, very friendly community.

Everybody helps each other out. You can actually leave your doors open, very low

-key, and everybody knows everybody.

In 2016...

Emiliano Balistreri, a San Francisco police officer, is getting ready to head

into work.

So I've been a police officer for almost 18 years.

I'm currently assigned to a night watch.

Hey, I was watching that.

8.30, kiddo.

Time for bed.

Just a few more minutes, please.

Stuff will rot your brains out.

Despite working nights... Emiliano does whatever he can to spend time with his

daughter, Alyssa.

How about a book?

Alyssa and I are extremely close.

I come home from work every morning, make her breakfast, get her dressed, get

her to school.

Aha! Not that one. I've read it a million times.

Alyssa is very outspoken.

She's a little bit defiant, very energetic.

It's getting late.

You should probably get going.

Okay, fine.

That's my girl.

You know I love you, right?

My husband and Alyssa, they are so close.

She's a total daddy's girl.

My daughter Alyssa and I, our relationship is very open.

She tells me everything.

Sometimes she tells me some great stories.

Angelina and Emiliano have been married 14 years.

See you at breakfast?

It's a date.

He's just such a family guy, and he's just strong.

We have a great relationship.

Angelina, Alyssa, and myself are a very tight family.

Hey, you stay out of trouble.

No, you stay out of trouble.

Alone in the evenings, Angelina attends to her routine.

When Angelina and I got married, I was assigned to midnight, so she's very used

to me working at night.

We have an alarm system, so she's securing the house.

My husband's always working.

It was a little concerning for a little bit, but I've gotten used to being home

alone.

I turned around down the hallway and the lights turned off in the bathroom.

Hello?

Are you back?

It's been a while.

Angelina is not the least bit startled.

I've always felt a presence in my house.

The lights in my house would constantly burn out.

I would hear noises, boxes moving, things getting knocked over.

At times I would hear a voice.

I wasn't too scared about the presence so much. That actually got me interested

in the paranormal.

Okay, well, go to bed now.

Good night.

Honey, it's late. What are you still doing up?

I saw the lights going on and off in the bathroom, so I wanted to see who's the

ghost. Like her mother, Alyssa is intrigued by the idea of living with a

ghost. All right, maybe next time. Right now, I've got to get you to bed.

It's a school night, honey.

It was quite cute to see her interest.

I never saw her really frightened about it. For her, it was kind of cool.

One afternoon, Angelina picks up Alyssa from school and pays her friend Harvey a

visit.

Hey there.

So good to see you.

Yeah.

So, what do I have the pleasure of this visit?

Hope it's not about that little incident last week.

It got what was coming to him. All right, just relax.

I'm not here about that.

I met Harvey when he was Alyssa's teacher.

We just started a conversation, and actually, we just hit it off.

Are you going to talk about ghosts?

Can I stay?

Please?

We figured out we had a common interest in the paranormal, and we just started a

friendship. I was excited to know that he knew a lot about the paranormal

because I needed to know more. I was just starting to be educated about it.

And I was intrigued that he had been doing it for so many years.

Why don't you go get yourself a little snack, okay?

Outside of his day job, Harvey has worked as a paranormal investigator for

more than 20 years.

So, what's up?

I have a favor to ask you.

All right, you know how we've spoken a few times about how I think my house is

haunted? Yeah.

Well, I really need to find out for sure.

I was hoping you could help me with that.

Actually, show me how you work.

Angelina, when she found out I did paranormal investigating, oh, she was

very excited. She had so many questions.

So many questions.

She was very inquisitive.

She told me there were some things going on at her house and asked me if I could,

you know, train her in how to do it.

I think that that might work best for you.

She wanted to know that she wasn't crazy, and she wanted to catch

something, evidence of anything.

I can come over this weekend.

Perfect.

But what would Emiliano say?

My husband wasn't a believer in the paranormal.

The activity to myself.

We'll find out, won't we?

Okay.

I needed to know more. I was convinced there was something going on.

One night.

Elissa Balistrieri shares her mother's interest in the paranormal.

But one night, she actually sees something.

Dinner's ready, sweetie.

Mommy.

I saw the ghost.

You mean you saw the lights flickering again?

No, it was the ghost. I swear.

Alyssa was very aware that there was something there.

Look, honey, you know all this stuff about ghosts.

It's really just for fun, okay?

I didn't want her to be scared, and I would just make light of it. I was kind

of... make it seem like a normal thing that's happening in our home so she

doesn't have to overthink things.

Okay, time for you to get washed up for dinner.

Okay.

Is it a nice

ghost?

Over the next few days, light bulbs continue to burn out in the house.

Did I scare ya?

Alyssa, that's not nice.

Hey, so how was the party?

Awesome. Yeah?

Is Mr. Harvey coming over soon?

Harvey?

When, tonight?

He's gonna look for the ghost.

That's just great.

I didn't like the fact that Alyssa was very much into the paranormal.

Why don't you go play?

Angelina's into this. She's following suit in this. She's starting to believe

things that are not true.

How many times do we have to go over this? There's nothing in this house.

Ghosts do not exist, all right?

Really? My husband was a huge skeptic, and he would look at me and just, no,

you're just imagining these things. And he would tell me, oh, it's not real. How

many light bulbs have you had to change this month?

One of the lights would blow out. I would replace it. Another light would

blow out, and I would replace it. I believe that maybe it was a short in the

system, maybe too much current running through. We're spending a fortune on

light bulbs.

You don't find that a little weird?

Harvey says that that's a sure sign of paranormal activity.

Harvey explained to me that spirits can use electrical energy.

Fine. But I don't want to be around, and I don't want Alyssa around either.

That's all I ask.

Okay.

Ghosts.

I had no problem with Harvey or Angelina, you know, doing what they have

to do around the house.

I just, I wanted nothing to do with it.

If that's what they enjoyed, I'm in power to you. Just keep me out of it.

That night, Harvey arrives.

Okay, so some of these things are highly sensitive, fragile, but this one, just a

general magnetic field. I see it as a meter.

Yeah. This.

It's like infrared, so you can mount it in a corner.

When Harvey came over to my house to investigate, I was so excited. My first

paranormal investigation.

This is just for sound.

I brought a couple of my little gadgets with me. I brought a gauss meter.

I brought a digital recorder.

She wanted to learn the proper ways of using the equipment to see if she could

capture, you know, activity.

Huh. What's this?

That.

That is the K2.

So this can pick up on the most sensitive electromagnetic fields in the

room. This is probably one of the best tools in my kit.

Okay. So that was really late.

What is it?

Harvey is not only a paranormal investigator, he's also an intuitive.

He can sense spirits as well.

I actually started feeling something.

Most people say, you know, the hairs on the back of my hands raised up and my

neck.

Not me.

Between my eyes, it starts to buzz.

Did you feel that?

Yeah.

There's definitely something here.

I felt the temperature change. Very chilly, like a cold breeze going across

the front of my face.

What is it? Do you see that?

Oh, it's strong in here.

A drop in temperature usually indicates a possible spirit energy trying to

manifest. It's like a vacuum.

It's drawing the nearby energy as it can.

inadvertently reduces the temperature.

It's activity.

That's our ghost.

I felt a presence.

Didn't know who it was. To me, it did feel male, though, but I couldn't say

for sure.

But I didn't feel anything negative.

The investigation confirms Angelina's belief that her home is haunted.

It's off the charts.

I was right. There was some paranormal activity.

Over the next few days, Angelina is hooked.

The experience only fuels her interest in the paranormal.

I had fun with it. And I bought every little gadget possible.

Harvey. He just says, if they get playful, they get naughty, make sure

that you just, with conviction, just tell them just to not bother you.

The activity appears to be stronger in certain moments.

Angelina and her daughter, Alyssa, are both convinced their house is haunted.

I wanted to know more about it, and I started investigating my own home.

For Angelina, it's all fun and games.

While Alyssa has had an altogether different experience.

There is

one

skeptic in the family.

Emiliano thinks it's just a harmless pastime.

Angelina, if she enjoyed it, so be it as long as she understood that in

my eyes, it's not real.

I was a non-believer.

I would debunk everything and anything.

I would make jokes of it.

I think people were crazy.

Because I work nights, it's very difficult for me to start to fall

asleep. I kind of have to calm down a little bit.

I started hearing...

A lot of banging, I mean, very loud banging coming from the front door.

As if somebody's got actually a sledgehammer and is trying to blow the

door open.

For safety, being a police officer, I grab my gun.

Who's out there?

Opened up the door.

Looked out.

Nobody there.

Damn kids.

Emiliano rationalizes the event.

My first initial thought was maybe high schoolers, kids, you know, running

around doing a prank.

One morning, Angelina gets ready to go on a business trip.

I'm an administrative assistant.

A biotech firm.

I was going out of town for a few days, and it was just going to be Emiliano and

Alyssa.

Maybe I should cancel.

I really hate leaving her when she's not feeling well.

She'll be okay.

I took her temperature. She doesn't have a fever.

It's okay. I'll take good care of her.

Emiliano reassures Angelina that he has a few days off work to look after

Alyssa.

Okay. I'll call you when I get there.

Okay. Be safe.

Alyssa is lively, energetic, dancing, singing.

This particular morning, she was kind of pale, very quiet.

I knew something was wrong.

I just didn't know what.

My first thought is...

It'll pass. It's just a one-day thing.

We all wake up on the wrong side of the bed every now and then.

I heard what sounded like heavy breathing.

At first, I didn't... I thought that maybe, okay, you're hearing something.

While his wife is out of town, Emiliano Balistreri, a San Francisco police

officer, makes contact with something he can't explain.

I heard what sounded like heavy breathing.

I thought, OK, there is something behind me.

I felt something grab my right shoulder.

I immediately spun around, thinking somebody's behind me.

There was nothing there.

It stunned me. I was speechless for a few minutes, just a lot of thoughts

racing through your head.

Doing the job that I do, you have to solve problems.

And this one here stumped me because...

I could not solve it.

What's more, whatever appears to be ailing his daughter Alyssa is getting

worse.

Daddy, make him stop.

Please make him stop.

He scares me.

He's saying things to me. Bad things.

As the week went on, I noticed that Alyssa was

changing. He's saying things to me. Alyssa was telling me that she was

hearing voices in her head. I knew something was wrong. I started to worry

that it could have been a medical cause.

Get out.

Get out.

Get out.

Stop. Get out. My God, what's going on?

I don't know.

She hasn't been herself all week, and then I come in today, and she's like

this. Out.

Alyssa looked very tired, very worn out.

You could tell she was going through a lot.

It was like it was not my child.

Get out. Alyssa, what are you doing? Get out.

Stop it, honey. Why are you doing this? Get out.

Get out. Get out. Get out.

She was just hitting her head.

She wanted it out.

She was saying, I want it out. Like, knock it out of me. Get it out of me.

Get out.

Alyssa, you're going to hurt yourself.

Stop.

Please.

Honey.

Look at you.

You're stupid.

God, you're a moron.

I hate you.

You're worthless.

I wish you would die. Do you hear me?

I wish you were dead.

She said mean, hurtful things out of nowhere.

She looked fearful with the eyes of, like, I need help. I need you to help

me.

Baby, you won't leave me alone.

Why won't you just leave me alone?

Alyssa was scared.

She couldn't control what was being said in her head.

Baby, tell me who won't leave you alone.

A ghost.

Emiliano and Angelina take Alyssa to numerous doctors.

Although tests show that there is nothing medically wrong, they recommend

Alyssa be placed under psychiatric observation.

Leave me alone.

Get out of my head.

They wanted to take my child away from me and put her somewhere to study her.

And that didn't sit well with Angelina or with me. Get out!

Get out!

To have a doctor say that they're going to take her away, it literally feels

like somebody's gone inside, grabbed your heart, ripped it out, and you're

just dead to the world.

I was in tears, terrified.

I said, no one's going to take my kid.

Alyssa's parents are beside themselves.

It was heart-wrenching.

But we were comfortable enough to take her home.

They let us take her home.

I'm trying to be strong, but I was helpless seeing my daughter go through

this.

With the medical test results showing nothing amiss, Angelina wonders if her

daughter is being affected by something not of this world.

We need to talk.

Please don't get angry, but I think what's happening with Alyssa is

paranormal.

Can't believe I'm saying this, but you might be right.

I sat down with Angelina and just giving all the facts.

I said, you know what?

I'm going to believe here that it is paranormal.

It's after our little girl.

What are we going to do?

We got to this point where we're like, what are we going to do?

For my husband to believe in the paranormal was crazy. Quite a turning

point.

Emiliano looked at me and he said, call Harvey.

Call Harvey.

Angelina's friend Harvey, a paranormal investigator, agrees to come that

weekend.

Now, all the family can do is wait.

Melissa Balistrieri has been acting unlike herself.

Melissa, you're going to hurt yourself.

Stop. I hate you. I wish you were dead.

Fearing that she's being haunted by an evil spirit, her parents call in a

paranormal investigator.

Thank you for coming.

This.

as Father David.

He's dealt with this kind of situation before.

I've never had to involve a priest in any case I've ever worked in.

And this time, I felt I needed somebody who has a little bit more experience in

this than I do.

When Harvey contacted me, he was telling me they had this circumstance and they

really weren't sure what was going on. But they really felt that because I was

both priest and medium, if there was something that required a little more of

a spiritual touch to it, I would be able to get rid of it.

Hello there.

That's our daughter, Alyssa.

Alyssa, can you come say hello to Father David?

Alyssa, when I first met her, she'd been through a lot, and she was kind of weary

from it and uncertain about what was going on.

It's nice to meet you.

I know what you've been going through.

I'm here to help you, Alyssa.

Will you trust me?

Honey, why don't you go play outside for a while?

Your mom and I need to talk with Mr. Harvey and Father David.

Okay.

What exactly are we dealing with here? I mean, is this some kind of demon?

No.

Presence I sense here, it's not necessarily evil in nature. Wouldn't you

agree, Father?

Yes. I feel anger, hatred, fear.

It's dark energy, but it's definitely not demonic.

Finding out from Father David that it was not demonic was a huge relief.

But Alyssa, when she has one of these episodes, it's as if she's possessed.

She's not under possession.

She's channeling the spirit.

Alyssa has the gift.

For entities from the paranormal world, it's like moss to a flame.

David had some interesting news for us that we have a sensitive child.

She can see ghosts.

She can feel ghosts.

They come to her naturally.

Okay. Are you saying our daughter is psychic?

That's crazy. How is that even real?

It's as real as being grabbed by something you can't see.

Wasn't it your right shoulder, Emiliano?

When Father David looked at me and he says, you were grabbed, I almost

passed out. I had told nobody about this. That was my secret. That point

right there.

changed my whole outlook in life regarding the paranormal.

This guy is the real deal. This is true.

Look at you.

You make me sick!

What is it, Father?

The spirit.

I need something that belongs to you, something that's

important.

In the hopes of learning about the spirit, Father David employs a technique

called psychometry, in which he draws information from an object.

What the object does is it helps give me a place to focus.

It's like being able to take a 360-degree view of the recent history of

that person.

What they've experienced, what their emotions were, who they encountered,

those things sometimes can all be imprinted on that object.

I began to identify it was a young male entity, and it was an angry male entity.

There was something definitely that had happened to his face that had disfigured

it, but he didn't allow me to see that clearly.

My sense is that this spirit was a troubled young man, and he was masking

that with a lot of anger.

I can't believe you're my son!

You hear me?

I had the clear sense this boy did not have a good father figure in life.

He had been told repeatedly that he was worthless, he was a bad seed.

I wish you were never a boy.

I wish you were dead.

When earthbound spirits are very troubled or have led a pretty dark life,

they're going to have that same kind of energy where it's a very dark energy.

While investigating a haunting at the Balistreri house, Father David senses a

spirit's past using a technique called psychometry.

Father David.

Father David, are you okay?

The spirit, it's...

It's a young man, about 17 years old.

It's a kid?

He died in a horrible car crash.

This boy had been driving a car at a high rate of speed on a winding road,

and he'd lost control of the car. The force of the accident just tore him

apart, so he was dead in an instant, but it was a horrific way to die.

You were there.

Yes.

My God, I remember him.

Is it really him?

I did go to an accident scene where it was a teenage boy. He died on impact.

There was no chance of survival.

And it was pretty gruesome.

He followed you home. He was scared. He doesn't know where to go.

Emiliano was the first one on the scene, and this boy didn't believe he could

cross over.

So he saw Emiliano as a comforting presence and as a place where he could

have stability.

So he attached himself to Emiliano and followed him home.

He needs to go into the light.

I can guide him.

Father David asks to be alone with the young man.

to help him cross over and find peace.

What keeps the spirit earthbound has to do with some sort of fear.

For this young boy, it was a fear that he wasn't worthy of crossing over.

I can't believe you're my son!

I wish you were never a good boy!

Don't be afraid.

You're going to a place where you'll be safe, where you'll be loved.

I promise you this.

My process is to create a portal of light and let him know that he could

cross over.

Go into the light, my son.

You'll find peace, happiness there.

Go on.

God is with you now.

It took some convincing that the prospect of him being allowed to cross

over was even real, but There was no hesitation at all.

Afterwards, Father David conducts a house blessing.

Jesus talks about how if you clear out the space, you need to fill it with

good. And otherwise, you're just leaving an open space that anybody can step

into.

Here to entertain.

Oh. Oh, let's see.

Weeks later, there is no sign of paranormal activity in the Balestrieri

house.

After the blessing, the overall feeling of the house was lighter.

We just exhaled like, it's finally done.

I got my daughter back. My daughter was back to normal.

The best feeling in the world is to watch your daughter sing, to watch your

daughter dance.

Peep comes out of her about what happened, just vanished. It's like it

was a dream.

Thank you.

This whole ordeal has changed my life completely.

I believe there's another world. I believe that there is a paranormal side.

This experience has not changed my views at all. I am still actively

investigating.

the paranormal, and I accept it, embrace it.

We love you.

Love you too.

As for Alyssa, she has a lifetime to explore her psychic abilities.

So Father David had told us she's going to see things from time to time. You're

going to have to deal with it.

Break it in slowly to her.

With Alyssa's new abilities being a sensitive, she sees things.

We kind of lightly have to tell her, hey, by the way, you have a gift.

But we'll explain to you when you're older.

And it's okay.