Original subtitles

♪♪

Williams: Paranormal phenomena.

I didn't believe in this kind of stuff, but then...

[ choking ]

All of a sudden, I feel this thing around my neck.

It's got me hanging, hanging, and it's pulling on my leg.

Whatever it was...

-[ yells ] -[ screams ]

...It wanted to kill me.

It's up there, hasn't it?

I started to believe.

♪♪

♪♪

Man: This was real.

I had solid proof.

I started to believe.

♪♪

[ indistinct conversations ]

♪♪

Man #2: Okay, we're set.

Williams: In the late 1980s,

I was working as a photographer for the hollywood studios.

When you work in the movie business,

You get accustomed to make-believe.

You see behind the curtain.

And it kind of makes you question everything.

♪♪

Hey, buddy. Hey.

My buddy kenny hanson was a videographer.

He got a call from this psychologist friend of his.

She hired kenny to shoot an interview

With a lady who claimed her house was haunted.

Kenny wanted some still shots while he was doing

The interview, so he brought me along.

♪♪

Mary gonzales, 37.

She's part of this research project.

Abnormal encounter.

It says that she claims

To have seen her walls bleeding, kenny.

Oh, yeah.

Kenny and I didn't believe in this kind of stuff,

But [scoffs] what the heck.

A job's a job.

♪♪

This is it.

Uh...That look haunted to you?

I guess.

[ chuckles ]

I never suspected that this job...

Would change my life.

♪♪

Hi, I'm kenny hansen. This is jeff.

We're here to do the interview.

Are you miss gonzales? Mary gonzales?

Um, yeah. Um, okay.

♪♪

Okay.

Right away, this place gives me the creeps.

Why don't we set up right here?

There was a strange stillness in the air.

♪♪

Mary seemed really on edge.

♪♪

Okay.

Okay.

So, you know, before we start,

You know, take your time.

Relax. No rush. You know?

Let's start recording.

Let's just start with your name.

Mary gonzales.

Alright, mary.

And this is your house?

Yeah. This is my house.

And how long have you been here?

About nine months.

Okay. Great.

You know, and at first,

There wasn't really anything strange.

I didn't notice anything.

Um...It started in the attic.

There was a lot of banging and crashing.

Then I started seeing

These, like, floating balls of light.

They just looked like giant orbs of light.

I don't -- I don't know how you explain that.

I-I'm not really sure.

And I would turn the corner,

And then they'd just be gone.

And I didn't know where it went.

And, you know, there's no explanation for that, right?

Like, what would cause that?

And our cat -- I'll see our cat sitting in the hallway

Just staring into a room and he'll just start hissing.

My little boy, he can't even go into a room by himself.

And then the other day, I came down

And there was blood on the wall.

At least I think it was blood.

I don't really know.

It was just red drops of something

On the wall there.

And even though I scrub it off,

I'll come back the next day,

And there'll be little droplets still there.

What is that?

There's nothing leaking from the roof.

There's no explanation for that. It's so strange.

And I'll come into this room, and I'll see

A man sitting in that rocking chair.

A man? A man.

And I've never seen him before.

But he'll just be sitting there

And he just rocks back and forth.

I was standing there listening

To what sounded like crazy talk.

I don't know what possessed me,

But I reached out to touch the rocking chair.

♪♪

Suddenly I got this feeling like, "bad idea."

As if something was telling me not to do it, not to touch it.

I told myself to get a grip.

♪♪

But when we were packing up to leave, I got an idea.

Do you have a camera, mary?

No.

I want you to take this.

It's real simple -- point and shoot.

I figured if she could see on film

That there was nothing in the photographs,

Maybe she would realize it was in her head.

All you need to do is when you feel a presence

Anywhere in the house,

I want you to just point at it

And take some pictures. Okay? Okay.

Especially the old man in the rocking chair.

We really would like to get some pictures of that

If you can. Okay.

Okay. Alright.

Thank you guys very much.

Thank you.

♪♪

♪♪

[ camera shutter clicks ]

♪♪

It started in the attic.

Actually, there was a lot of sounds coming from there

And a lot of banging and I just didn't know what it was.

And then I'd walk down the hall sometimes,

And there'd be these orbs.

They just looked like giant orbs of light.

I don't -- I don't know how you explain that.

Wait, wait. What was that?

Did you see that? See what?

Take it back, take it back.

...They'd just be gone.

[ tape rewinding ]

♪♪

I don't -- I don't know how you explain that.

Can we look at frame by frame?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I would turn the corner, and they'd be gone.

♪♪

[ speaks indistinctly ]

Williams: Strange as hell.

There was something flowing through her image.

We were sitting right there the whole time

And never saw anything.

Yet here it was, captured on tape.

This is not normal.

But, of course, I tried to rationalize it.

Is that lens flare?

I'm not sure what it is.

I thought whatever it was, it wasn't some ghost.

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

Inside was a roll of film.

♪♪

I started developing the film.

♪♪

There was something there.

I could tell it before I even printed it.

I could see it on the negative.

There were these bizarre orbs of light

Right there in her kitchen.

♪♪

What was in those photos?

♪♪

It was definitely weird.

♪♪

I was blown away.

As a photographer,

I know the tricks to create strange visuals.

But mary wouldn't know this stuff.

She was just pointing the camera and pushing the button.

I thought the camera would prove to mary

That it was all her imagination.

But now I'm not so sure.

♪♪

♪♪

I was eager to go back.

I wanted to see if I can get something

With my top-of-the-line camera and lens.

♪♪

When we arrived, mary was hysterical.

Said there was something in the attic.

It's right there.

I've been hearing a lot of bangs.

We'll take a look, alright?

♪♪

The attic entrance is just a square

Piece of plywood on a hinge.

♪♪

[ door closes ]

♪♪

You okay up there, jeff?

♪♪

I kept thinking...

[ camera shutter clicks ]

..."I know I'm alone up here."

♪♪

But at the same time, a little part of me was saying...

..."no, you're not."

[ camera shutter clicking ] [ roars ]

♪♪

I never suspected that this job would change my life.

♪♪

After seeing some truly bizarre videos...

Williams: What the hell?

...And photos, I was eager to go back.

This time, I wanted to see if I can get something

With my professional camera and lens.

[ camera shutter clicks ]

♪♪

The camera strap was violently yanked from my neck,

And I just stood there petrified.

♪♪

My legs were shaking as I climbed back down the ladder.

Where's your camera?

I got torn off my neck, I think.

I guess it just got stuck on a nail or something.

You know?

You gonna leave it up there?

You should go get it. Yeah.

After a few minutes, I calmed down a bit.

I tried to rationalize things.

Probably just got snagged on something in the dark,

But I was still not going back up there alone.

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

Williams: Found it.

And there's no lens.

Where's the lens?

♪♪

♪♪

Here it is.

Looks fine.

There's not a scratch on it.

♪♪

Williams: That lens can't just pop off.

You have to physically remove it.

Something or someone did that.

♪♪

It's up there, isn't it?

♪♪

This was not some figment of mary's imagination.

And that camera was yanked off my neck.

This happened to me.

I started to believe.

It was the moment I knew something was in the house,

And I had to find out what.

♪♪

♪♪

You ready?

Uh, y-yeah.

Murray was gonna be a fresh, objective period of eyes.

[ grunts ]

Kenny was at the bottom of the stairs,

Filming everything.

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

Okay, now what?

[ gasps, choking ]

All of a sudden, I feel something

Tightening around my neck.

Choking.

Oh, my god. Let's get out of here.

Let's go.

[ coughing ]

♪♪

[ indistinct conversations ]

Hansen: Here's the mike. Here's the mike.

Jeff, here you go. Here you go.

What the hell happened?

Are you okay, buddy?

Look at his neck.

Jeff, what's behind your neck?

I don't know what's on my neck.

-Are you okay? -I'm fine.

Jeff, tell me what happened, buddy.

All of a sudden, I feel this thing around my neck.

And it's got me hanging.

Hanging and it's pulling on my leg.

You were hanging? Yeah. I was hanging.

♪♪

In those minutes or maybe seconds,

My entire life really did flash before me.

What is this knot?

This is a seaman's knot.

What does that matter, kenny?

All I knew was that someone or something wanted to kill me.

♪♪

Murray had his still camera equipped with a flash.

He heard me choking.

[ camera shutter clicks ]

Managed to snap off a frame.

Yeah.

That's the picture.

It still gives me the chills.

What you don't see is I felt this force pulling down

On my legs, making the noose tighten.

You okay?

Yeah, no, I need some water or something.

♪♪

Goodbye, haunted house. Good riddance.

She put 100 miles between her family

And the haunting.

But I found myself looking for answers.

Kenny and I both tried coming up with explanations

For everything.

Take a look in there.

Did a little bit of digging into mary's house.

"police find body of young seaman under wharf."

Turns out the home was built in the 1920s on a tract of land

That was set aside for merchant seamen.

The first owner was one of these guys.

His son worked the docks alongside of him.

But one day in the early 1930s,

The son was found floating in the harbor

With a rope wrapped around his neck.

Rope around his neck

Was tied with a seaman's knot.

Lohan: Oh, my god!

I could almost feel that clothesline on my own neck.

♪♪

[ telephone ringing ]

♪♪

Hello?

In the middle of the night, I got a call from mary.

Yes, the old man in the rocking chair.

He's back.

He's followed me.

What?

She called me...

The only other person who's truly experienced her terror.

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

Take a seat.

♪♪

♪♪

Let's join hands.

♪♪

And let's close our eyes.

♪♪

We invite the spirits that are near

To join our circle.

Please make your presence known.

Who are you?

Why are you here? What do you want?

Please leave me alone.

♪♪

We waited for some kind of an answer,

And then without even thinking, I spoke.

Are you the man whose son died at the docks?

♪♪

[ rocking chair creaking ]

♪♪

The sinister, ghostly presence

Drove mary gonzales away from her home.

Whatever it was...

All of a sudden, I feel this thing around my neck

And it's got me hanging.

...It was still stalking her.

♪♪

Are you the man whose son died at the docks?

♪♪

[ rocking chair creaking ]

♪♪

-[ grunts ] -[ screams ]

Williams: Next thing I know, I'm flat on my back.

It's like a blast of energy knocked the wind out of me.

Mary is just screaming.

[ screaming ]

Are you okay?

♪♪

Hey, hey, what happened?

What happened?! What happened?!

Holy...

Get out! Leave us alone!

Get out of my house!

[ yelling ]

♪♪

♪♪

[ crying ]

Williams: That was it.

He or it or the presence or whatever you want to call it

Just stopped.

I'm finally at peace with getting a glimpse

Of the other side.

Although I now believe there is a spirit life,

A different realm of existence.

It could happen to anyone at any time.

But if it happens to you, you'll never be the same again.

Man #2: Here we go.

Quiet, please.

♪♪

Carter: Sometimes a job can change your life for the better.

[ static ]

[ indistinct whispering ]

And sometimes it can really mess you up.

[ indistinct whispering ]

My experience working security at the capitol theater

Was definitely the latter.

♪♪

♪♪

It was a beautiful historic theater.

Absolutely gorgeous.

♪♪

It was just me and the other night security guard.

♪♪

Carter: Clear.

The guard doing the rounds was responsible

For checking all the doors and the windows...

♪♪

...Everywhere but the basement.

♪♪

Management told us it was just used for long-term storage

And they kept it locked up.

Barnes, the other security guy...

Anything exciting?

You know, always.

...Was a marine and had done a tour in iraq.

♪♪

Everything was great with the job.

But then strange things started happening.

♪♪

Later that night,

Barnes radioed me that he heard what sounded like a door

Slamming near the basement stairs.

♪♪

Copy that.

He asked me to check the security footage

To see if we caught something on tape.

Hey, standby.

♪♪

At first, I didn't see anything strange.

But then the screen went all fuzzy for a second.

♪♪

That was about it.

I'm not seeing anything on the cameras.

Just a weird bit of static.

♪♪

♪♪

We decided to go, have a listen at the basement door together.

Strength in numbers, right?

[ indistinct whispering ]

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

[ soft growling ]

Someone's messing with us, man.

♪♪

I was trying to make sense of it.

What?

♪♪

Somebody's got to be in there.

[ door rattling ]

♪♪

It's locked!

♪♪

Barnes had a look on his face like he was going in.

We got to check it out here.

Come on.

Let's go.

I didn't want him to think that I was scared.

But the truth is...

I was.

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

Carter: The things I saw and heard while working

In the capitol theater back in 2011...

It's locked.

...Have stayed with me ever since.

♪♪

Carter: I think there's a door over there.

♪♪

Must be to the boiler room.

There had to be some explanation.

It's locked.

What was behind everything we were seeing and hearing?

I don't know. Let's just get out of here.

Alright.

♪♪

We left the room and made sure to lock it from the inside.

♪♪

How do you explain something like that?

♪♪

♪♪

A few days pass with nothing strange.

We settled back into the routine.

♪♪

[ static ]

[ indistinct whispering ]

I could hear it as clear as day.

This voice coming over my walkie-talkie.

Come on, barnes, stop fooling around.

It was like someone was breathing

The word "fire" in my ear.

Fire.

♪♪

♪♪

The smell of smoke was the first thing we noticed.

You smell that?

We didn't actually see smoke.

Nothing was on fire.

But that smell of smoke...

It was overpowering.

Let's go.

♪♪

♪♪

What is going on here?

♪♪

There was this powerful blast of hot air

From under the boiler-room door.

[ steam hissing ]

And then...

[ panting ]

...It just stopped.

The rattling, the banging,

The hot air, everything just stopped.

[ heart beating ]

I touched the door.

It was cool, like the intense heat never happened.

It's not even warm.

How do you explain something like that?

I don't know what's going on,

But I'm not sticking around.

Let's go.

♪♪

♪♪

The next afternoon, I stopped by work to pick up my paycheck.

There was this old guy I'd never seen before.

He had worked there for years.

He told me he had originally started as a nightwatchman,

But today he doesn't like to go into the theater

After the sun goes down.

Then he came right out and said it.

The place was haunted and he knew why.

A guy died in that basement.

His name was richard duffin.

♪♪

Here it is.

♪♪

It's from July 4, 1951,

And it happened in the basement of the capitol theater.

♪♪

I was trying to make sense of it.

♪♪

The knob shaking as if someone on the other side

Was desperate to open it...

The smell of smoke...

The rattling, the banging,

Hot air from under the boiler-room door.

♪♪

I'm no expert on angry spirits and the afterlife,

But what other explanation is there?

♪♪

That night, I told barnes about the old man and the article

And that poor usher that burned to death.

I stopped just short of saying what I really thought.

I mean, what do you say to someone

When they say the word "ghost"?

But I could tell barnes knew what I was thinking.

I hoped he was thinking the same thing.

After everything I've seen and heard,

What other conclusion is there?

You know what we've got to do then.

[ sighs ]

We had to see for ourselves what was in the boiler room.

♪♪

We had several cameras, so barnes' grabbed one.

♪♪

♪♪

[ door creaks open ]

As we entered the boiler room,

We were hit with the pungent smell of smoke.

♪♪

This boiler hadn't been used for years,

But I could still feel the heat.

♪♪

-[ shrieking ] -[ gasps ]

♪♪

There's usually a pretty reasonable explanation

For most things that seem strange.

At least that's what I always thought.

But my partner, barnes, and I couldn't come up with one answer

For what was happening down in the basement

Of the capitol theater.

♪♪

[ gasps ] [bleep]

[ panting ]

They say that seeing is believing.

That was the usher, wasn't it?

You can see it right there in the footage.

♪♪

We just knew that we saw what we saw.

We left it at that.

I was done.

I quit right then and there.

And I never set foot in the capitol theater again.

It was all too much, and I wanted to put it

Behind me,

But I did more than see.

I felt it.

I felt him.

I still think about richard duffin.

♪♪

♪♪

I was a deputy with the alpine county sheriff's office

In california for 20 years.

Man #2: Deputy matthews interview.

♪♪

As a law-enforcement officer,

You never know what's gonna happen when you hit the streets,

But the night of August 14th was unlike any other.

♪♪

Charlene daniels and her 3-year-old son, reggie,

Had disappeared without a trace five days earlier.

They left stockton, california, headed for reno, nevada.

But they never arrived.

I was on the graveyard shift,

Which is 8:00 p.M. To 6:00 a.M.,

10 very long hours.

How's your night going?

I've been having a strange one myself.

Oh, yeah? Do tell.

The deputy responded to a 911 call

From a woman who was traveling along the northern section

Of route 4.

Woman: Hi. Hello.

I-I want to report something.

I was driving on route 4,

And I saw someone.

She was near the road.

The caller said she spotted a woman lying on the roadside.

♪♪

Ma'am? Hello? Are you okay?

♪♪

The caller could have sworn the woman was dead.

♪♪

Ma'am, are you okay?

♪♪

Oh!

Uh...Hold on.

I'm -- I'm gonna go get help.

♪♪

Dispatcher: 911, what's your emergency?

The deputy met the witness where she made the call.

♪♪

Evening, ma'am.

You saw someone at the side of the road?

Her description matched charlene daniels to a t.

♪♪

They showed her charlene's photo.

-That's her. -Positive?

I would swear it.

Can you show me where she is? Absolutely.

Matthews: And then took her back

To where she claims she saw the woman.

She told them it was at a big curve in the road.

She was right here.

♪♪

But they didn't find anything.

Deputy: Checked the whole area.

There was no one there.

Maybe she saw a ghost.

Yeah. Maybe.

She seemed a little out of it.

Said she was driving down that road

Because she had some sort of a premonition.

♪♪

As I got down the road,

I pretty much dismissed the whole thing.

The deputy's incident report said they searched the area

And didn't find anything.

But just after 3:00 a.M., I got a call on the radio.

♪♪

♪♪

I was hoping that the missing woman's family member

Had some vital information on the case.

I'm deputy matthews. Hi.

So what can I do for you?

Charlene came to me...

In a dream.

I know this is gonna sound crazy...

♪♪

...But I know where they are.

Matthews: I was working a missing persons case.

Charlene daniels and her son disappeared.

There's one questionable witness

Who claimed to have seen the missing woman.

♪♪

Now a family member was coming forward

With what I hoped was a break in the case,

But the story kept getting stranger and stranger.

I know where they are.

Charlene came to me in a dream.

I felt for her.

She was heartbroken.

And that can play tricks on your mind.

But I needed facts, not foggy dreams or premonitions.

She was calling out for help.

I couldn't quite make out what she was saying.

Charlene daniel's aunt proceeded to tell me

She'd been having these recurring dreams.

It felt so real.

It looked like a forest.

And I kept seeing the number 13.

Matthews: When did these dreams start?

Five days ago.

The dream started on August 9th,

The night charlene daniels and reggie disappeared,

Even before anyone knew they were missing.

♪♪

Something about charlene's aunt had just gotten in my head.

She genuinely believed that charlene was leading us

To her and reggie.

And it was up to me

To somehow decipher these nuggets of information

Into real, actionable intel.

♪♪

And then I started thinking about the witness

Who claimed to see a body

By the side of the road near baxter's bend.

♪♪

So I just started driving towards baxter's bend.

And the closer I got,

The faster my heart started to beat,

The faster I started to drive.

♪♪

It goes against all my training and beliefs,

But it was almost like something was pulling me there.

♪♪

♪♪

I look towards the side of the road

And there it was --

A mile marker, number 13.

♪♪

Just a few yards in was the edge of an embankment --

A steep drop-off that went maybe 60 feet down.

I looked down.

I got a glint of metal.

It was...A car.

This is deputy matthews.

I'm at mile marker 13, baxter's bend.

I think I found charlene's car.

I'm going to investigate.

Charlene!

♪♪

Charlene!

♪♪

Charlene?!

♪♪

Inside the car was a woman...

...Still strapped into the driver's seat.

I was thinking, "could this possibly be the body

By the side of the road that the witness had seen?"

But now I knew that wasn't possible.

I could tell the woman had been dead for a few days.

Something I couldn't explain was at work here.

I found charlene.

She's in her vehicle in a ditch off mile marker 13.

She's d.O.A.

♪♪

In the seat next to her, curled up in the fetal position

Was a boy about 3 years old...

Reggie.

♪♪

Oh, my god. Reggie.

Hey, boy. Hi.

The boy's alive. Send paramedics to my location.

Hey, boy.

♪♪

The story made the papers all over the state.

He was in critical condition with severe dehydration.

It's unlikely he would have lived another few hours

If fate hadn't intervened.

Yeah.

A mother's love is a powerful force.

Maybe charlene somehow reached out

To her aunt through her dreams.

Maybe she projected herself up the hill

To the side of the road.

Maybe she helped me put it all together.

There are forces at work that, to this day,

I still can't explain.

If you ask me, charlene daniels

Saved her little boy from the grave.