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MacLeod Andrews (0:52)

Ghost hunting shows on television aren't exactly known for their realism. Some might say they have a tendency to overdramatize or even fabricate their scares outright. But what happens when a jaded camera crew actually encounters the real deal and comes face to face with a haunting that terrifies them more than their smoke and mirrors ever could? Welcome to Sightings, the series that takes you inside the world's most mysterious supernatural events. I'm MacLeod.

Brian Sigley (1:25)

And I'm Brian. And for the rest of October, we're bringing you the spookiest sightings we could find. So for today's episode, we're heading to my hometown of Colorado Springs for one of the most chilling ghost stories I've ever heard.

MacLeod Andrews (1:38)

That's right. We're heading to the darkest pockets of the Black forest, where, in 1992, an unwitting television crew learns the true meaning of the phrase real life haunting. Find out how on this episode of Sightings. How's it going there? My name is Micah Pullman. I live in Los Angeles. I work in tv, I like surfing, and I promise this isn't a call and dating ad. It's just how things work in my business. You intro the protagonist, drop in fun facts that make them feel like a neighbor or even a family friend, then dive into their story. And this story, my story, happens to be a hell of a thing. But I'm probably getting ahead of myself. For this to make any sense at all, I've got to set up the world. By which, of course, I mean the world of the Void. I'm sure you've heard of it. The paranormal investigation show that sends camera crews to investigate supernatural phenomena. The ratings juggernaut with the catchy theme song. That's one. And I was its lead segment producer, which meant I chose the jump cuts and music Cues that creeped millions right out of their seats. Because that was the point, you know. Entertainment and chills every week at 9pm Eastern. Even if it was all smoke and mirrory bullshit. At least it usually was. See what I did there? It's called a teaser. Now most of my weeks at the Void usually started the same way. I'd come in, drink my coffee, then roll the dice with that week's submission tapes. We always had a boatload of mailed in videos about how such and such house was haunted or how so and so creature lived under the town bridge. One guy even accompanied his tape with his teeth that fell out after he was allegedly abducted by aliens. Of course he wasn't, and it turned out to be a drunken lunatic, but he still made for a hell of a convincing segment. Oh yeah, we shot it. But this particular Monday morning there was an entire box waiting on my desk. Now I half expected to find a dead animal inside because yes, that happened once before too, but was relieved when I found that it contained only videotapes and a handwritten note that I didn't even bother reading. Instead, I picked up the top cassette, the one with the watch first sticker, and popped it in my bay, vowing to give it just 30 seconds to determine if the entire box was worth my time or not. Then I pressed play and 30 minutes later I was still watching. The tape started off, as so many do, with a cabin in the woods, though in this case, cabin might be a bit of an understatement. The place was a well appointed log home with a four car garage and green trim that echoed the pine trees looming above its gabled roof. It was gorgeous. Dave Jones, a middle aged man with a great face for tv, stepped into frame and said that his family in Black Forest, Colorado had been besieged by nonstop paranormal activity and he was turning to the Void because his dream home had become a nightmare. I liked that turn of phrase. It could even work as a segment title. But I needed to see the goods and the clock was ticking. So as the video cut to a wide shot of shadowy forest at night, I searched the frame for any anything ghostly or eerie, but no, saw nothing at all. I checked my watch. 30 seconds was almost up. My finger was just reaching for the stop button when I noticed it, a wisp of light traveling across the frame. I leaned in close and realized that it was a pale orb of some kind streaking through the forest with a ghostly tail following it. A second shot revealed two more orbs moving through space, seemingly dancing among the tree trunks. Then A third shot showed four of them undulating through the air like ghostly serpents to my eye. Yeah, they looked good. Real, even. I mean, I'd never seen anything like it before, and trust me, I'd seen everything. So I kept watching. Only to find the orbs give way to something much more chilling. A new shot panned across a well appointed bedroom. Strange thumps rattled my speakers as though someone were stomping on the ceiling above that bedroom. Then the frame settled on an old mirror situated above a dresser. A voice said, wait for it. So I waited on the edge of my seat. I mean, shit, this was good. Then. Then the mirror changed. It grew foggy, as if a smoky haze had swept across it. And then through the haze, I saw the faces. Six ghostly faces had filled that mirror. At first, I wasn't sure I was actually seeing what my eyes were registering, but as I paused the tape and enhanced the image, my. My jaw dropped. Do you see what I'm doing? It was literally my mouth hung open. I immediately took the tape to the guy who does our special effects. He's the real deal and has worked on movies you'd know. Big ones. So I sat him down, showed him the footage, and asked him what he thought. He sat in silence for a long time, then said that most of the anomalies would be difficult, if not impossible to reproduce. In fact, many seemed to defy the laws of optics entirely. So it was a great fake, I thought. An excellent fake, even. And I was the only one who had it. Within 48 hours, I was on a flight to Colorado Springs. Joining me were Clay, my camera op, and Nicole, my pa. They were as ruthlessly efficient as I was, so I suspected we'd be in and out within 24 hours. As the flight attendants did drink service, I ran through my game plan. We'd get interviews, of course, and would try to replicate the anomalies that the family had already caught on tape. Naturally, I didn't expect that to happen without a bit of TV magic, but that happened to be my specialty. Perfect example. We did an episode on the Jersey Devil, this monster from the armpit of the armpit state. And at one point, someone on camera said they heard something above us. So we panned up and spotted this spooky shadow set against the full moon. And while I'm not saying the shadow was a cardboard cutout, I'm not exactly saying it wasn't. Hey, don't judge. I mean, christ, we weren't. 60 minutes soon enough, we were on the ground in Colorado, where the Final member of our team was already waiting for us. Gilly was a psychic medium and dressed for the part. Ethereal dress, heavy makeup, wide eyes, you know the deal. And while she claimed to have actual metaphysical abilities, all I cared about was her talent for putting on a damn good show. So we all piled into a rental car and began the trek to the Black Forest. As we drove, Nicole gave us the rundown of her research on the area. The story of how a powerful lumber hub in the 19th century gave way to a quiet bedroom community. How it was Native American land before that. Soon the foothills gave way to an expanse of ponderosa pines so dense they nearly blotted out the sun. This was the Black Forest, all right. And I beamed with anticipation, knowing the place would look incredible on camera. But as we rolled up the family's long and lonely driveway, I began to feel something else. A sudden chill, as if the air conditioner had just blasted on. And, you know, even stranger, I felt an odd sense of. Oh, I'm not sure how to describe it. Malaise? Melancholy? Or was it fear? Yeah. Couldn't have been. I'd been all over the world and was renowned for never shuddering. Never. So I sucked back the odd feeling, mentally justifying it as an adverse reaction to the altitude. Then, out of nowhere, Gilly set her hand on mine. It's not the altitude, she said. Dave and his wife Paula waited on the front porch as we pulled up to the house. They were perfectly pleasant people whose all American charm would surely win the hearts of our audience. We said our hellos, and before I knew it, Dave was leading me around the five acre property, gesturing wildly as he explained his family's history with the supernatural. He said he was a truck driver by trade and moved here after being charmed on his drives through the state. He thought this was the place he was destined to settle down and raise his children. And when he stumbled upon this property, he knew it was the one. It seemed serene, peaceful, perfect. And it turned out to be anything but. Soon after he moved in, strange sounds, lights and smells began to plague his family. Bet you didn't think about that. Smells. No one mentions smells, do they? One evening, they came home to flashing lights in their living room and loud booms that rattled their ceiling. Another night, they heard the sound of rattling chains, and on another, a full blown orchestra. Untraceable chemical smells began to permeate rooms, burning their eyes and throats. And their two children regularly complained of frightening, unexplainable shadows looming over their beds. Soon, every night brought a New terror. And Dave vowed to get to the bottom of what was happening. So he bought some top of the line cameras and motion detectors. And over the next two years, recorded over 60 so called break ins with no clear explanation. Eventually, the police had been called to the house so many times that they just stopped coming altogether. So now Dave knew of nowhere else to turn but to us. Truly, I fell for the guy. Even. Even if I was certain this was just a case of paranoia fueled by some admittedly weird but ultimately explainable incidents. I mean, I'd seen it countless times before, and yes, I'd managed to make a killer segment out of every one of them. So we got to work. As night fell, we set up advanced camera systems in the three places Dave and Paula said were most prone to unusual activity. The exterior wall by the satellite dish, the living room and the master bedroom. But as we set up the last system, Gilly pulled me aside and whispered that something was happening in this house. Something unlike anything she'd ever experienced before. I couldn't help laughing and I told her to just cool her jets until it was her time to shine. Seriously, the cameras weren't even on yet. But soon we began rolling. And not even five minutes later, a loud boom shook the house. To my ear it sounded like like a giant had stomped on the roof. But when I ran outside to check, there was nothing visible out there and nothing inside. At least nothing visible to the naked eye. So I decided to check our footage. Which was easy because we only had a few minutes of it. And indeed, a few seconds before the boom, all three camera systems picked up anomalies on tape. It was those ghostly orbs. The same ones from the tapes Dave sent me. The ones I dismissed as great fakes. But I could tell you 100% these weren't faked. I'd been sitting right by one of the cameras myself. And you know what happened? As I realized what was happening here might actually be real, I shuddered. We left the three camera systems rolling as we set up our mobile unit to follow Gilly and the Joneses on the walk through of the house. As Clay. You remember Clay. He's my camera guy. Slid a camera onto his shoulder and Nicole clipped a lavalier mics to everyone. I asked Gilly if she was ready for this. I should pause here. I should pause here to quickly explain how things worked with psychics on the Void. We never told them what to say on camera, but we also never tell them to hold back at all. We wanted them to milk each location for everything it was worth. And they were usually. Oh, my gosh, they were usually fantastic at it. Gilly, especially, was one of the best. She reveled in her job and could find a ghost in a shoebox if she had to. But tonight, she seemed to have an unbearable weight on her shoulders, and that PT Barnum like glimmer in her eye was noticeably absent. But she nodded that she was ready and began her walk through the house. The Joneses followed close behind, pointing out this or that while she proceeded in silence, pausing periodically to touch something as if the gesture had some profound meaning. I mean, I knew this routine well, and eventually Gilly would indicate that a supernatural entity was present. Of course, it was all smoke and mirrors, but right then, in that house, I wasn't so sure. As we entered the living room, we were assaulted by a powerful chemical odor. I could neither locate nor identify the smell. All I knew was that it burnt the hell out of my nose and throat. At one point, I even had to stabilize Clay's camera as he tried his damnedest to hold back a cough. Gilly, meanwhile, held a hand to her head and told us there was a spirit in the room with us, a male named Tom, who said that this was his home. At first, I thought this was part of the act. Gilly's hand to head thing was kind of her signature move. But Nicole soon tapped my shoulder and proved otherwise. She'd been tasked with holding a handheld thermal imaging device, and its screen revealed a large human shaped mass standing in the corner of the room where no physical body was present. But as quickly as it appeared, the shape vanished, and Gilly proclaimed that it was on the move. So all of us followed her up the stairs to the house's vaulted second level. We rounded a corner past a line of doors, and finally reached the master bedroom. Taking in the room, Gilly warned that it was not a restful space and that more spirits lurked there. That room, in fact, was likely the hub of their activity. Finally speaking, Dave and Paula confirmed that more had happened to them there than in any other room in the house. I looked around, but saw nothing with my own eye. Nicole's thermal imaging device caught nothing either, but Gilly stared intently at the large mirror hanging above the dresser. The same mirror I'd seen in Dave's first videotape. Up close, I saw that the thing was ancient, at least 100 years old and hazy from age. Was this the haze I'd seen on the videotape? And were the faces I'd seen within it just simple optical tricks? They had to have been, because right then I couldn't see anything in the glass but our own reflections. But Gilly leaned in closer to the reflective surface. This is the source, she said. A gateway to the other side. Whew. Damn, that woman was good. Gave me chills even telling you about it now. Suddenly, I felt Nicole's hand on my shoulder. She nodded to her thermal imaging device, and I saw that strange humanoid shape had reappeared on the screen. And this time it was standing right behind Gilly. Clay noticed the figure as well and locked nervous eyes with me. I mouthed, don't you dare stop, and he kept rolling. Then what appeared to be an arm extended from the dark thermal mass, which of course, was impossible. But I couldn't pry my eyes from the thermal screen as a dagger like shape extended down from the arm and seemed poised to attack Gilly. I tried to say something. I did. I tried to say something, but my voice felt frozen in my throat. So I braced for the worst when Nicole suddenly shouted out. What? I couldn't stop. As soon as the sound left Nicole's lips, the entity vanished from the thermal imaging screen. There was a loud bang, and the camera system we'd set up earlier suddenly crashed to the floor on the other side of the room. We all stood there, dead quiet, struggling to grapple with what had just happened. All I knew was that this job had just become unlike any I'd encountered before. And I can't believe I'm saying this, but I think we'd pissed off an actual ghost. After the master bedroom incident, all of us gathered in the kitchen to regroup and prep for an interview segment between Gilly and the Joneses. I could tell that Clay and Nicole were unsettled, but they were professional as always. We'd get what we needed and get out. So the cameras started rolling again, and Gilly began to question the homeowners. Dave and Paula were great talkers and tried to explain how they couldn't even admit that anything paranormal was happening to them until a few months ago. Gilly asked what had changed, and Dave answered sheepishly, that his bank account finally smacked him in the face one day. He'd spent $40,000 and two years trying to get to the bottom of the events here. And after all that money, all that time, he was further from answers than ever before. That's why he finally turned to our show. Gilly continued her line of questions, but as the couple talked, I noticed Paula was looking more and more uncomfortable with each passing moment. But before I could even say anything, she Gasped that she was having trouble breathing and that it felt like someone was holding her down. Nicole rushed in to help, only to fall to the floor and cry out in terror that something went inside her. And as she screamed bloody murder that her arms and legs were going numb, all Clay and I could think to do was get her out of that house as fast as humanly possible. So we carried her outside, and once we reached our car, she finally calmed down. Clay decided that she needed to go to the hospital, and I felt I had no choice but to concur. But I wouldn't go with them. No, I wouldn't be the producer who abandoned the segment of a lifetime. So a few moments later, I found myself standing alone on the Joneses driveway, dwarfed by those murky, haunting pines. Soon Gilly appeared on the front porch. She reported that Paula was feeling better and thought it best to perform a smudging ritual to cleanse the house of the malevolence plaguing it. I wanted to get that on camera, of course, so I started back toward the front door. But I caught something in the corner of my view. It was one of those orbs, and this time I could see it with my own eyes. The thing danced among the trees, leaving a luminous tail flowing behind it. I followed it as best as I could until suddenly it flew past me like Maverick buzzed the Tower and Top Gun. And as it danced along the porch of the house, I realized that it was taunting me, beckoning me. So I followed it. It moved inside the house, where it bounced around the living room, casting an unearthly glow. I called out for Paula and Gilly, but they must have been in some remote corner of the residence, just out of earshot. So I picked up Clay's mobile unit and started shooting. I followed the thing up the stairs and down the hall. And as it darted inside the master bedroom, I began to smell that stench again, that unplaceable chemical tang that assaulted us earlier. But I didn't stop. I kept tracking the orb with the camera, following it in my viewfinder as it bounced from wall to wall. And even though I could barely breathe from the smell, I had to keep going. This. This was the money shot. Then I realized the thing had disappeared. I desperately searched for it, trying to locate it again, until my camera viewfinder finally settled on the mirror. That mirror. And this time, there were faces in it. Dozens of them, with wide, terrifying eyes and gaping mouths, howling, inaudible screams. So many that I hardly even noticed as a massive shadow rose in the room behind me and Then all of a sudden, a stabbing pain ripped through the back of my head and everything went black. This is usually the part of the story that we call an epilogue, the place where we wrap things up with a nice neat bow and leave the audience feeling satisfied. You know, sometimes things aren't quite so simple. 48 hours after I fell unconscious at the Jones house, I woke up in Memorial Hospital in downtown Colorado Springs. My head throbbed awfully, as though it had been ravaged by a sledgehammer. But as I reached to touch my scalp, I realized it wasn't bandaged. In fact, I could feel no physical injury at all. And before I could fully process that, I heard a familiar voice. They couldn't find anything wrong with you, clay said. My eyes focused and I found him sitting in a chair at the foot of the bed. He told me that I was fine, that Nicole was fine, and that the doctors had diagnosed us both with unusually severe cases of shock. Nothing more. But as I tried to explain the pain in my head, Clay stopped me. He handed me a sheet of photo paper, and as I stared at it in horror, I realized how naive I'd been about the supernatural and about that house. Because it had all been real. All of it. I never went back to work on the Void, of course, and instead found a job producing sports segments. High pressure. Yeah, but predictable. Plus the pace. Great. Meanwhile, the Void continued on, and even cobbled together an episode about that lonely redwood house in a deep, dark forest. But I never watched it and never will. It's now been, what, five years since that night? And yep, I still get headaches every day. I shudder at the smallest things and have a newfound problem with the dark. I guess you could say that I'm pretty screwed up. But this is Hollywood, after all, so I suppose it's fitting. And despite all that, I still keep a memento from that house in the forest, locked away inside a box, just in case I ever need a reminder that nothing in this world is a joke. It's a single frame from the camera in the master bedroom, printed on photo paper. An image that shows me staring intently at a mirror with a horrifying shadow looming behind me. And it's plunging a shadowy dagger right into my head.