Fact or Faked: Paranormal Files (2010) s01e07 Episode Script
Haunted Mansion Mist & Starlight Intruder
Narrator: Tonight, on "fact or faked: Paranormal files" Woman: Oh, my gosh.
I can see it moving right around in front of me.
As soon as I saw it moving really quickly, I said, "whoa.
This is something different.
" Yeah, there it is.
These things are flying and crawling all over me.
Ready? Let go! Jael: Looks like it's about to crash! Are you seeing anything on the camera right now? Oh, my gosh.
Did you see that? Oh, my goodness! There's a flying saucer.
I'm getting a series of lights right there.
Oh, my God! What the heck is happening? Ben: Welcome back, everyone.
Hey, there.
Hey, Ben.
How's it going? How you guys doing? Good.
Excited to be here.
Well, guys, I'm excited to see what you have today, but I think we'll start with something that I brought a haunted mansion.
It's called the mcpike mansion.
It was built in 1869, and it hasn't been lived in the past 60 years.
Now, a group of ghost hunters led by Renee cruse went through and videotaped something very strange in the cellar.
This is what they got.
Bill: Very strange.
Now, watch this mist that appears.
Woman: Oh, my God, i can see it moving Wow.
It, like, switched direction.
Well, that's really strange.
Like, the mass seems to ricochet off the wall.
Yeah, it changes direction, and it keeps doing that.
It appeared in one room, then went to the next room.
So, I'm thinking maybe if it's a group of people, they could have just been kicking up some dust.
But when you look at it, dust clouds usually form in a circular pattern, and then they dissipate immediately.
This actually seemed like it ricocheted, and it stayed in that same formation and then just bounced somewhere else.
Larry: They could be bugs of some sort.
I've seen those gnats that kind of congregate into a little group, and they just fly around.
Austin: You could definitely replicate it with natural elements, but could you replicate that movement? That's my question.
Can we really replicate that movement? I don't think that easily.
At one point, she walked into the thing, and she had a thermometer.
It dropped from in the 70s all the way down to between 8 and 15 degrees.
I know a lot of people say that ghostly entities could manifest as energy, and that could really account for the temperature change.
This is a closed basement, and if there's no air currents, I don't know what that mist is.
It's reappeared on more than one occasion.
It's been videotaped on more than one occasion.
People believe that the place is haunted.
People are taking photographs, and figures are showing up in a window that weren't there.
There's orbs.
There's lights.
Some people have their clothes tugged on, you know, or felt like they were being touched.
I think a haunted mansion is a perfect setting for a ghost hunt.
From just speaking with Renee she's a Professor at a university I think she does seem very credible.
I think we should put it up on the list of things to highly consider today and look at the other videos and see what else we have.
Agreed.
Larry: All right, guys.
So, we're all familiar with crop circles, correct? Right.
Well, this is a little different.
This takes place a little outside of el Paso, Texas, on the sand bar of the Rio Grande river.
This is a sand circle.
Bill: Look at that.
Jael: Wow.
The witness says he was walking around the river, and he saw a light land on the ground and then take off.
He went and checked it out, and this was the result.
You can't even see any footprints.
You know, I mean, we're talking about sand, so if someone walked over and actually put that there, it would be difficult to cover up the footprints later.
You're right.
And it's huge.
And it's really, really deep in the sand, so it's not like someone can go out and do this in a night.
You know, growing up in Texas, I would always hear about these ufo sightings out in west Texas, and, sure enough, this is in far west Texas.
Ben: As you know, one of my interests is cereology, and doing a lot of research, I actually know about this case.
And a few weeks after this was reported, a local artist named Michael alford came out and said it was an art project.
No kidding.
Larry: What happened to the guy's story, said he saw a light touch down? Ben: A coincidence, or he's building upon the legend.
He wanted his friends to come out and see it.
Who knows? I'm kind of disappointed, I hate to say, because I liked the case.
I was hoping it was something else.
Bill, I hear that you have a really interesting case.
I do have a case.
I have a triangle ufo, but this isn't just, like, a little fuzzy image.
This is really clear.
Why don't you roll it and take a look at it? This is a really good one.
Okay.
Okay.
Oh, I love it already.
Look at this thing.
Five lights on that? Ben: Yeah.
It's going pretty fast.
This was shot by Pablo mejia December 5, 2008, in his backyard in fremont, California.
For a skywatcher, he's able to identify a lot of crafts.
And he wasn't able to identify this.
Chi-LAN: Did he hear any noise coming from the craft? Didn't hear any noise.
Now, bill, correct me if I'm wrong, but did I see a commercial airliner also in the video? That's what it appears to be.
Fremont is a very busy airspace.
There's a lot of airports nearby.
Any military bases? Travis air force base, which is one of the busiest ones in the country, is nearby, as well, and another one, which I find really interesting, is the NASA ames research center.
Want to see something even more compelling? Take a look at the next clip.
The video has now been clarified.
Larry: Oh, wow.
Ben: Whoa.
Jael: The speed on this thing is incredible.
I know.
Look how they pass all those markers.
Those are stars.
And they're still.
Guys, I'm hyped about this one.
I really like it.
It's got good video, it's got an available witness.
I say we put this one up there also on the list.
Jael, that leaves us with you.
And you have a final case today? Yes.
I have a really fun case comes from Virginia.
It happened in '09, so it's pretty fresh, and I am bringing bigfoot back.
A guy named Eric Cunningham was out in the woods, and he caught sight of something that actually turned a lot of the heads in the cryptozoology world and was believed to be genuine.
There it is, there it is.
Yeah.
Chi-LAN: Whoa! You see? I know that that area, that region in the South, does have a lot of folklore that aually speaks about a creature like bigfoot being in the area for hundreds and hundreds of years.
Well, that's why I love the case, because usually the bigfoot sightings are in the Northwestern region, but, you know, it was interesting 'cause this is in Virginia, and lately, you know, people have been talking about seeing them in Tennessee and Georgia.
Chi-LAN: I'm curious about this video, because it's so far back, you can't really see any detail.
Are we seeing hair? I actually have a clarified version, so I think we should take a look at that before we go any further.
So, the red tint that we're looking at here, guys, is chroma separation.
I've done this because it actually boosts up the dark colors into reds.
That way it's a more defined figure.
Maybe that's a hunter's camouflage on him.
Ben: Yeah, there's something on the top.
Like a baseball hat.
That seems too staged to me.
You think so? Yeah.
Larry: It doesn't seem to be scared by the atv at all.
I'd like to pursue a bigfoot case.
I'm not sure if this is the one.
How does this stack up with those other cases we've seen today? This doesn't even compare.
Personally, I think mcpike just has so many elements to it.
I would love to go.
Mcpike is my favorite today.
Yes.
I like fremont.
Chi-LAN: This video is really compelling.
We can't explain it.
And there's a possibility of it being a hoax, it being military, it being a weather balloon, or it actually being extraterrestrial.
We've never had a video that had all of those factors and a credible witness.
I would love to go to fremont.
Bill: Obviously, I want to do that case.
So, mcpike and fremont.
So, jael, Larry, and bill, you guys want to do fremont? Yes, indeed.
And chi-LAN, myself, and Austin will go to mcpike.
Yes.
All right.
Okay.
Let's get to it.
Ben: Out in Illinois, guys.
Chi-LAN: It's one of the most haunted cities in America.
Not only that, but one of the most haunted spots in America is located right here.
Mcpike mansion.
Ben: Henry mcpike raised his family there.
He had at least two wives, a few children.
And it sounds like a lot of strange things are going on now.
Wow.
When I think of a haunted mansion, this is exactly how I pictured it.
Definitely.
I mean, the architecture is phenomenal.
It has three floors And all of these great windows.
Ludkey: Welcome to mcpike mansion.
I'm Ben.
Nice to meet you.
Hi, I'm chi-LAN.
Thanks for having us.
Austin: Pleasure.
Nice to meet you, too, Austin.
So, is Henry at home? I think he is.
Would you mind giving us a tour? I don't mind at all.
Excellent.
Ludkey: I want to take you guys into the room that's known as "the sad room.
" This was Henry's room.
Ben: Are you all right? You doing okay? Austin: Yeah, I'm fine.
I just got light-headed, kind of like evething went kind of day-glo kind of real quick.
What Austin's feeling right now with the dizzy light-headedness, has anyone else come into this room and felt that way? My friend sue brown, when she comes in here, that happens frequently for her when she comes up here.
Ben: You all right to finish the tour? Yeah.
All right.
Cool.
Ludkey: Come on.
We'll go into this room way in the back.
As far as dã©jã vu, once, my friend sue and I were standing at that window kind of looking out, talking, and I just felt like I had done that with her before.
Are you guys ready to go to the cellar? Wow.
Narrator: Coming up on "fact or faked: Paranormal files" These things are flying and crawling all over me.
Are you seeing anything on the camera right now? Chi-LAN: Oh, my gosh.
Did you see that? Yeah, there it is! Jael: Hey, looks like it's about to crash! Chi-LAN: Alton, Illinois home of the famous mcpike mansion.
Ben: We're really hoping that we can get out there and replicate something like we saw in the video.
Ludkey: Are you guys ready to go to the cellar? Well, this is the vaulted wine cellar.
Wow.
So, this is where Renee cruse's video was shot.
The mist started out there in the hallway.
Woman: Oh, my God.
Okay.
I'm recording.
I am on record.
I was in the hall.
She walked into it, and I'm thinking in my head, "wow.
This is a hot July day.
"It's very humid.
It's 100 degrees.
What are we all excited about here?" But this mist moved from place to place, dissipated, reappeared.
It wasn't just a little bitty mist.
It was a big mist.
It was really something else.
Got a lot to cover.
You've given us a whole lot of information.
All right.
Thank you.
Thank you so much for your time.
All righty.
Ben: Sharon is a really nice lady, and she took a lot of time explaining to us the history of this mansion.
We're hoping that while we're here, we can actually find some scientific proof or evidence of o own to go along with those stories.
I brought the anemometer, 'cause as you guys know, one of the prevalent theories was that there perhaps was some air current or something that was picking up dust and stuff here.
So, I think I'm just gonna do a quick reading and see if we're getting any airflow here.
Sounds good.
Okay, I'm not seeing any air-current flow as of yet, but what I'm thinking is that if you look on the walls here, this masonry work is really old.
I mean, look at that stuff.
It crumbles right off.
These little, fine granules, plus the dirt that we're standing on I think we have our dust.
Austin: Well, I think us trying to replicate it on our own using perfect conditions lets us know, with the elements that are here, if it could have been a natural occurrence.
All right, let's do it.
All right, guys, let's get this dust-cloud experiment started.
Well, you've got the camera and stuff, and, Austin, I think a good place for you is to set up with our shop-vac.
The shop-vac will help give us the ideal airflow.
We can take this Fuller's earth and lay it right across the top.
The reason we're using Fuller's earth is because it's very dry.
We're trying to create the most ideal conditions to see if we can create a dust cloud, see how close we can get to the actual video.
Well, I'm down here, guys, with the camera.
I'm ready to go.
I double-checked the footage, and the frame that I have right here is exactly what I see in the footage from Renee cruse.
Okay, lights off in three Two One.
[ Shop-vac whirring .]
Oh, there it is.
I see the swirling.
Wow.
That is really starting to look like the video, isn't it? Okay.
Why don't you shut it off for a second and come down here? [ Whirring stops .]
Austin: How did it look? I didn't honestly expect that much movement.
I didn't, either.
I really didn't expect it to be able to come in and almost make a circular pattern very similar to what we saw in the video.
I did notice also, in the original video, there were five different people.
And they're all moving around.
Exactly.
The one thing that really is still bothering me about this, though, is look we just shut that off.
It's been a little while now, and it's still hanging in the air.
And what we saw in the video was more concentrated.
And it moves somewhat like a living organism would.
And I know that we talked about one of the big theories being that it's a swarm of insects.
So, what I've gone ahead and done is scheduled a studio off-site so that we can have a controlled experiment in a controlled environment and see if we can re-create what that video looks like using living organisms.
So, the way that we've designed the insect test is that we've got We've set up a plexiglass environment that is 8 feet by 6 feet by 6 feet.
I've gone ahead and thrown in a background that looks very similar to the brick cellar background.
I have my I.
R.
Camera set up.
We're gonna throw the insects in there, cut off the lights, and then we're gonna stimulate their movement with a flashlight that'll also give us that same flashlight/eerie movement just like in the video.
All right, Ben, you ready? Ben: Yep.
All right.
In three Two One.
Release.
Oh, my gosh.
Look at them.
That is insane.
Crazy, guys.
I mean, they're really swarming.
Austin: You know what? They are swarming.
In the video, it all moves one direction at the same time, and it changes direction at the same time.
And these are more of, like, a siphon, kind of a tornado effect.
They're moving as a mass, but at different angles all the time.
Take a look at this.
Look at that.
There is someone walking through the swarm of insects.
So that probably has an effect on their movement.
- We need some human interaction.
- I think so.
Yeah.
One of us has to go inside the box.
Austin.
Austin.
Woman: Oh, my God.
Okay.
I'm recording.
I am on record.
Oh, we can really see it now.
Austin: On the original video, amongst the mist, there was human interaction.
So in the name of science, I'm about to take one for the team.
All right, Austin.
Ben: Oh, yeah.
Oh! Oh, my gosh! Oh! Let's hit the lights.
Ready? Lights off.
Okay, are you seeing any swarms right in front of you there? No.
The footage I'm getting from my angle looks absolutely nothing like the original footage.
Definitely not swarming in the same way, not following the same flight pattern.
The human interaction does not really affect how they're moving.
You can tell these things are flying, crawling all over me.
As much fun as this is, I think it's time to move on to the next experiment.
I'm out.
Well, Austin just came out of the box that we built, and for a second, there, when he got in there, there was a movement where we thought insects might form a mass very similar to the mist, but then they just started landing on him.
And once we shut off the lights in the environment, they just clung to the walls.
They just stopped moving.
So, we have to head back to the mansion and see what else we can figure out.
Ben: So, one of the prevalent theories is that this phenomenon is caused by fog or mist.
Fogs are generally created when the ambient temperature is brought to within 4 or 5 degrees of what's called the "dew point.
" In order to help us get there, we're going to use the air conditioner to bring down the temperature and at some point kick in a humidifier.
And hopefully we'll see concentrated fog that will look something like what we saw in the video.
Air conditioner's set up, ready to pump this baby full of cold air.
I have the humidifier over here, and that's gonna give us our warm air.
Okay, threeTwoOne Go.
Nice.
That is misty-looking.
Okay.
We're definitely getting some.
I can see why someone would say this thing moves in an organic manner and followed someone.
Ben, why don't you walk through it and see what happens to the fog? Ben: How's it looking? Doesn't look anything like the video.
Austin: Look.
It just lingers in here.
In the video, it dissipates and almost goes.
So the movement, I think, we could actually do a fairly decent job replicating it's the fact that it just lingers afterwards, that that's what confuses me.
Ben: I think that's a major shortcoming of this experiment, is that we're getting a movement, we're getting a swirl, but it's just not disappearing.
It's lingering in the air, and it's not quite on the video.
I think it's probably time we start looking to see if this could be something paranormal.
Would you guys be interested in staying overnight here and doing a little investigating? Okay.
Let's pack up.
Let's clear this place out.
According to what Renee said, there seems to be activity on every single level of this house, so it's important that we set up our cameras on every single level, as well, just in case.
I think, most importantly, we got to get camera one in the cellar.
Sounds good.
Stay safe out there.
We've gone ahead and set our cameras on every single floor of the house.
Right here is the cellar.
This is the hotspot of the entire house.
A lot of activity has been reported right here.
Here's the first floor.
This is covering the parlor and the rest of the hall.
This is the second floor.
And this is the third floor.
Hey, Austin.
We're on the first floor.
How about you go up to the fourth Perfect.
And work your way down.
I'll work my way up, meet in the middle.
Call me if you find anything.
All right.
Wow.
This place is just on the verge of falling apart.
Austin: All right, I'm at the top floor of the mcpike mansion.
What I'm gonna be doing, I'm gonna do a visual and audible check in every room as I sweep.
I'm gonna be checking any spikes in the magnetic field, I'm gonna be looking for any fluctuations in temperature, as well as I'm gonna be taking a picture in every room, because I want to see if I can capture anything that I possibly missed or couldn't see with the naked eye.
[ Camera shutter clicks .]
Ben: This is a device that measures electromagnetic fields and temperatures.
Now, if somebody's here, if I bang on this wood, can you replicate the sound and let us know that you're here? Take a look at this.
Look at the temperature readings.
It's going from a constant 76 to 1,100 degrees.
I've never had that problem with this meter before.
Austin to chi-LAN.
Go for chi-LAN.
I just heard something in this back room.
It sounded like a faint whisper.
I couldn't make anything out.
Are you seeing anything on the camera right now? Oh, my gosh.
Did you see that? Chi-LAN: We've gone ahead and set up cameras on every single floor of the house.
This is the hotspot of the entire house.
A lot of activity has been recorded right here.
Austin: I just heard something in this back room.
Are you seeing anything on the camera right now? Oh, my gosh.
Did you see that? Ben: So, guys, how was fremont? Bill: Fremont was great.
Fremont went really good.
What about mcpike? Well, mcpike, if you remember the video Woman: I can see it changing directions.
This mass seemed to have a certain motion about it.
That's what we really tried to focus our experiments on.
It's an old, dusty, condemned house, so we decided to see if this mass could have been swirling dust.
We actually had to use a shopvac and put it in reverse to blow this thing, so it's very noisy.
And it actually dissipated equally throughout the whole room.
When speaking with the eyewitness, she actually said that she saw the fog appear as one entity, not dissipate through a room.
So, in order to test the next theory, I had the privilege of getting in a giant box filled with gnats and flies by the thousands.
And believe me, itooked absolutely nothin' like the video.
They just don't swarm.
All they really do is land on you and annoy the heck out of you.
So, you couldn't get them to move in any unified direction.
I had no control over the insects at all.
So, the next thing that we thought about was, what if it's another natural occurrence? What if it's mist? The big issue was, again, we couldn't keep it as one entity, we couldn't keep it as one ball of mass.
So that left us wanting to explore more of the paranormal explanations.
So we did a night investigation.
We put an I.
R.
Cam in the cellar, and that's where the activity took place, and it actually caught some really interesting activity.
So, of course, I went in and investigated to see what was there, and the entire cellar was empty, guys completely empty.
So, there was nothing that could have gone in front of that lens, but again, this is an old, dilapidated mansion it could possibly have been just an insect.
And after we had our own kind of strange experiences, Austin and I went back to evps.
During the evp, I asked the question, "if someone is here, can you replicate the sound?" And I give three taps.
Now listen very closely to what you hear afterwards.
If I bang on this wood, this table that was sitting here, can you replicate the sound? [ Tap, tap, tap .]
[ Tap, tap .]
Larry: Yeah? Wow.
Yeah.
You hear it very faintly.
No, it was clear.
In the end, there was two, possibly three taps.
That is that's clear.
Larry: I think you guys got great evps.
As for the experiments, I mean, you weren't able to replicate it exactly, but it was very similar.
I got to tell you, I was there, and I saw the dust in the cellar.
I think it was really dust.
We couldn't replicate the video, so I'm not saying it is not paranormal fog, but I do think with the perfect conditions it still could have been dust.
But even if it was, I think we were really pretty successful in picking up at least some type of possible paranormal evidence.
The fact that I walked in I felt like I was gonna pass out, and chi-LAN seeing stuff.
Others have been through the mansion on tours and investigations and have their own evidence, which leads me to believe it's quite possible the mcpike mansion does have paranormal activity.
Well done, guys.
Bill, tell us about fremont.
How'd it go for you guys? Well, the fremont ufo case is great.
I have a triangle ufo, but instead of, like, a little fuzzy image, this thing's pretty clear.
We got some really good results.
Check this out.
All right, guys.
So, we've made it to fremont.
We're in northern California.
And this is the exact area where this ufo was seen.
Pablo mejia, who was filming in his backyard, captured it on video.
Pablo's really into ufos.
He's been trying to catch one for a while.
On this particular night, he was able to find something.
Bill: Got a lot of experiments that we can run, but first we have an eyewitness that really believes in the footage that he's captured.
Pablo.
Hey, how you doing? I'm bill.
Good.
Hi.
Nice to meet you.
Nice to meet you.
Hey, that's quite a video you got there.
We're really excited to talk to you about it.
Can you show us where you shot this video? Sure.
Come on back.
Okay.
Bill: So, tell us about the night you shot the video.
Mejia: Sure.
I went out about 10 minutes And then I saw a commercial airplane over there, and I kind of zoomed in on it, and then I saw the craft flying above it, going straight that way.
Jael: And what you saw definitely looked very different than a normal airplane.
That's right.
As soon as I saw it moving really quickly, I said, "this is something different.
" It was going a lot faster than a commercial plane and a private plane, too.
Did you hear anything when you saw it? Nope, I only heard the commercial plane, and then, as it passed, I saw that other craft.
It didn't make any sounds.
Do you think that this very well could be a ufo, from extraterrestrials? Yeah, it's a possibility.
So, tell us about this setup, this rig that you've got on your camera.
Just a regular consumer camcorder, and then I attached a night-vision monocular to it.
And I have a 3rd-generation, which lets you see the stars pretty well.
Do you mind if we borrow the gear you use, your rig? Oh, sure.
Well, thank you so much, Pablo.
We're gonna go do some experiments right now.
Not at all.
You're welcome.
Bill: So, we've got Pablo's camera, and so now we're gonna head over to the testing location, and we're gonna put some of these theories we have into motion.
Bill: All right, guys, well Jael: Looks like a good spot.
Larry: Yeah, it is a good spot.
Open field, away from everything.
That's right.
Let's get to it.
Let's get started.
Bill: So, guys, we're at the first experiment.
The popular theory is that maybe it's a delta-wing-shaped kite and so it's five l.
E.
D.
S attached to it.
Okay.
So it seems simple enough to attach them to the five points, run it up, shoot it with video, and see what it looks like.
You know what's interesting, guys, is that we're not gonna have any reference point to employ forced perspective.
So can we take something this small and make it look like something really large that's high up in the sky, the way Pablo's video did? It could be something very large and far away, but who's to say that it's not something smaller and really close? We won't get 30,000 feet, but maybe at a couple of dozen feet we'll see what it looks like then.
So, why don't we start our l.
E.
D.
S.
There u go, Larry.
That's for you.
Looking good, guys.
How far back do you want me to go? Oh, I'll tell you when.
Just keep going.
Okay.
All right, bill.
You stay right there.
Me and jael are gonna walk back a little bit, let some string out, and I'll let you know when to let go.
Okay.
You better hurry! It wants to fly! All right.
Ready? Let go! Oh, my gosh.
Bill: The popular theory is that maybe it's a delta-wing-shaped kite.
It wants to fly! All right.
Ready? Let go! Jael: It looks good here.
I can see all the lights in the triangular formation, but I can also see the kite.
The other thing is that it's just floating in one area.
We kind of need it to go from one end of frame to the other.
That's true.
Jael: In the original footage, we had an object that was zooming through the sky, and it was going from one side of the frame to the other.
With the kite, we're just not getting that.
Larry, can you run a bit? Okay.
OneTwoThree.
Go, Larry! Oh! It's kind of unstable.
It's not rigid enough.
Looks like it's about to crash.
Yeah, it lost control.
The wind gusts are unpredictable.
Well, there goes our delta wing.
I mean, when I got it up, there was a consistent wind.
After I got it up in the air, the wind would just disappear, and it would start to fall and I'd have to run with it.
And so, I just couldn't keep running.
And, finally, I stopped, and when there was no wind, it would fall.
I wish it would have worked, but it was just flying too erratic.
It's just so susceptible to the winds.
I agree.
I think it's time we bust out the big guns.
You guys wait here.
The big guns.
The big guns.
I think this is gonna do the trick.
I've been really excited about this one, actually.
Yeah, that's really cool.
It's gonna go a lot faster.
It's not gonna be as erratic.
This thing can go up to 80 Miles an hour.
Wow.
Really? Really, 80? It has a distance of about five Miles.
What's the altitude? We can get it to about 400 feet, but we're not gonna have to go that high, because the lights are so close together, we're not gonna have to take it that high.
I think the biggest advantage of this is just gonna be able to have that control.
Well, can we get it ready to launch? Yeah, let's get it ready.
All right, guys, here we are at our launchpad, so, bill, I'm actually gonna have you toss it in the air for me.
You know, I'm not too comfortable with it.
One shot to get this right.
Yeah, if it drops, it could break and our experiment's over.
There's no backup.
Why don't you guys step back, and I'm going to do my best here.
Okay.
I'm gonna get a vantage point from on this side.
Over there? Okay.
You ready? Three Two One.
[ Swooshing .]
Jael: It worked.
It's looking pretty good, guys.
You can make out some of the definition.
Look at it.
You can see the light.
The only difficult thing is actually keeping it in frame.
Larry: Well, and you know what, you can also hear it, but in Pablo's video, there is no sound.
Bill: What if we got it to a higher altitude? All right, I'm gonna bring it back around.
Hey, Larry, can you do me a favor and take it further out in the field? Okay.
Yeah.
Take it a little further.
In Pablo's video, it didn't seem to have that size variation, as moving closer and further.
It makes me think that the object in Pablo's video is actually a lot larger than this.
Nice job.
That was pretty good.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You did a great job keeping it in frame.
Thanks.
I thought that looked pretty good.
The only problem with the r.
C.
Is that when it was dipping left and right, we would lose the triangular formation that we were looking for.
Now, the kite maintained the delta shape But the problem was it was just being buffeted by the wind, so, the l.
E.
D.
S were just sort of bouncing around.
With the airplane, it's hard to keep in frame of the camera, because it's so low, moving so fast.
So, we got to think bigger, more control, higher altitude.
No noise.
Larry: No noise.
All right, guys.
What we're gonna do is we're gonna attach these l.
E.
D.
Clusters one at the nose, two on the crossbar, and two on the back of the ribs of this hang glider.
This is gonna create the "v" formation that we're seeing in the video.
Jael: And you know what I'm excited about is that these hang gliders are really smooth when they fly in the sky and they're silent, which are two key things that we're looking for.
It's gonna be smooth, it's bigger, and I think we're gonna be able to get it up to an altitude in which we weren't able to get the kite and the airplane.
Jael: All right, guys.
I think all we have to do now is just get this baby airborne.
Actually, we're not gonna be able to launch it from here, so I'm gonna go with our pilot, Gabe, and launch from down here with a tow line.
And you guys stay back here with Pablo's camera and shoot in the air and see what it finally looks like.
All right, just radio us and let us know when he's ready.
Larry: All right, bill, jael, we are ready when you are.
We're in position, all set, ready to go.
Okay, we're gonna be rolling.
All right, we're ready to launch.
FiveFour ThreeTwoOne.
All right, he's up there.
Look at it! Is it showing up? Look, there it is! Wow! Look at that! Larry: Let go! After the kite It looks like it's about to crash! And after the motorized airplane [ Swooshing .]
Honestly, I think the hang glider is going to be the closest.
It's gonna be smooth.
It's bigger.
All right, we're ready to launch.
FiveFour ThreeTwoOne.
All right, he's up there.
What the heck is going on? Look, there it is! Bill: So, there were a lot if ideas on how we could replicate Pablo's video.
One of them was to simply attach l.
E.
D.
S to the bottom of a kite.
But once Larry started to move with it, the wind became a problem.
Larry: The wind was so crazy that night, it was shaking the kite everywhere, it was hard to keep up, and eventually it crashed and fell to the ground.
Obviously, the kite has no propulsion system of its own, so it's really just wind-driven, but despite the fact that we had a lot of wind, you still couldn't get the kite to move fast enough.
So, after having done this experiment, we decided we need something with a little more speed, which actually led to our r.
C.
Jet.
The thing about the jet it certainly had the speed, but almost too much speed.
So, every time it would tilt, it would lose the delta formation that you see.
The other problem we have with the r.
C.
Jet is that it was loud, and Pablo stated that when he shot the original video, he heard nothing, it was completely silent.
So, we had to have a silent craft, so that led to a human-piloted hang-glider experiment.
Oh! That's exact.
Look at that.
Yeah.
That's, like, smooth.
It was matching fairly close to the original video.
We're quite happy with that.
It's my opinion that this is likely what we're seeing in Pablo's original video.
And there are nighttime hang gliders that do this very thing.
They go hang gliding at night, they do attach l.
E.
D.
S to theirKite, and that is for safety reasons, sort of like anti-collision lights, basically.
You guys nailed it.
Yeah.
This is a hang glider.
Great job, guys.
I can see it moving right around in front of me.
As soon as I saw it moving really quickly, I said, "whoa.
This is something different.
" Yeah, there it is.
These things are flying and crawling all over me.
Ready? Let go! Jael: Looks like it's about to crash! Are you seeing anything on the camera right now? Oh, my gosh.
Did you see that? Oh, my goodness! There's a flying saucer.
I'm getting a series of lights right there.
Oh, my God! What the heck is happening? Ben: Welcome back, everyone.
Hey, there.
Hey, Ben.
How's it going? How you guys doing? Good.
Excited to be here.
Well, guys, I'm excited to see what you have today, but I think we'll start with something that I brought a haunted mansion.
It's called the mcpike mansion.
It was built in 1869, and it hasn't been lived in the past 60 years.
Now, a group of ghost hunters led by Renee cruse went through and videotaped something very strange in the cellar.
This is what they got.
Bill: Very strange.
Now, watch this mist that appears.
Woman: Oh, my God, i can see it moving Wow.
It, like, switched direction.
Well, that's really strange.
Like, the mass seems to ricochet off the wall.
Yeah, it changes direction, and it keeps doing that.
It appeared in one room, then went to the next room.
So, I'm thinking maybe if it's a group of people, they could have just been kicking up some dust.
But when you look at it, dust clouds usually form in a circular pattern, and then they dissipate immediately.
This actually seemed like it ricocheted, and it stayed in that same formation and then just bounced somewhere else.
Larry: They could be bugs of some sort.
I've seen those gnats that kind of congregate into a little group, and they just fly around.
Austin: You could definitely replicate it with natural elements, but could you replicate that movement? That's my question.
Can we really replicate that movement? I don't think that easily.
At one point, she walked into the thing, and she had a thermometer.
It dropped from in the 70s all the way down to between 8 and 15 degrees.
I know a lot of people say that ghostly entities could manifest as energy, and that could really account for the temperature change.
This is a closed basement, and if there's no air currents, I don't know what that mist is.
It's reappeared on more than one occasion.
It's been videotaped on more than one occasion.
People believe that the place is haunted.
People are taking photographs, and figures are showing up in a window that weren't there.
There's orbs.
There's lights.
Some people have their clothes tugged on, you know, or felt like they were being touched.
I think a haunted mansion is a perfect setting for a ghost hunt.
From just speaking with Renee she's a Professor at a university I think she does seem very credible.
I think we should put it up on the list of things to highly consider today and look at the other videos and see what else we have.
Agreed.
Larry: All right, guys.
So, we're all familiar with crop circles, correct? Right.
Well, this is a little different.
This takes place a little outside of el Paso, Texas, on the sand bar of the Rio Grande river.
This is a sand circle.
Bill: Look at that.
Jael: Wow.
The witness says he was walking around the river, and he saw a light land on the ground and then take off.
He went and checked it out, and this was the result.
You can't even see any footprints.
You know, I mean, we're talking about sand, so if someone walked over and actually put that there, it would be difficult to cover up the footprints later.
You're right.
And it's huge.
And it's really, really deep in the sand, so it's not like someone can go out and do this in a night.
You know, growing up in Texas, I would always hear about these ufo sightings out in west Texas, and, sure enough, this is in far west Texas.
Ben: As you know, one of my interests is cereology, and doing a lot of research, I actually know about this case.
And a few weeks after this was reported, a local artist named Michael alford came out and said it was an art project.
No kidding.
Larry: What happened to the guy's story, said he saw a light touch down? Ben: A coincidence, or he's building upon the legend.
He wanted his friends to come out and see it.
Who knows? I'm kind of disappointed, I hate to say, because I liked the case.
I was hoping it was something else.
Bill, I hear that you have a really interesting case.
I do have a case.
I have a triangle ufo, but this isn't just, like, a little fuzzy image.
This is really clear.
Why don't you roll it and take a look at it? This is a really good one.
Okay.
Okay.
Oh, I love it already.
Look at this thing.
Five lights on that? Ben: Yeah.
It's going pretty fast.
This was shot by Pablo mejia December 5, 2008, in his backyard in fremont, California.
For a skywatcher, he's able to identify a lot of crafts.
And he wasn't able to identify this.
Chi-LAN: Did he hear any noise coming from the craft? Didn't hear any noise.
Now, bill, correct me if I'm wrong, but did I see a commercial airliner also in the video? That's what it appears to be.
Fremont is a very busy airspace.
There's a lot of airports nearby.
Any military bases? Travis air force base, which is one of the busiest ones in the country, is nearby, as well, and another one, which I find really interesting, is the NASA ames research center.
Want to see something even more compelling? Take a look at the next clip.
The video has now been clarified.
Larry: Oh, wow.
Ben: Whoa.
Jael: The speed on this thing is incredible.
I know.
Look how they pass all those markers.
Those are stars.
And they're still.
Guys, I'm hyped about this one.
I really like it.
It's got good video, it's got an available witness.
I say we put this one up there also on the list.
Jael, that leaves us with you.
And you have a final case today? Yes.
I have a really fun case comes from Virginia.
It happened in '09, so it's pretty fresh, and I am bringing bigfoot back.
A guy named Eric Cunningham was out in the woods, and he caught sight of something that actually turned a lot of the heads in the cryptozoology world and was believed to be genuine.
There it is, there it is.
Yeah.
Chi-LAN: Whoa! You see? I know that that area, that region in the South, does have a lot of folklore that aually speaks about a creature like bigfoot being in the area for hundreds and hundreds of years.
Well, that's why I love the case, because usually the bigfoot sightings are in the Northwestern region, but, you know, it was interesting 'cause this is in Virginia, and lately, you know, people have been talking about seeing them in Tennessee and Georgia.
Chi-LAN: I'm curious about this video, because it's so far back, you can't really see any detail.
Are we seeing hair? I actually have a clarified version, so I think we should take a look at that before we go any further.
So, the red tint that we're looking at here, guys, is chroma separation.
I've done this because it actually boosts up the dark colors into reds.
That way it's a more defined figure.
Maybe that's a hunter's camouflage on him.
Ben: Yeah, there's something on the top.
Like a baseball hat.
That seems too staged to me.
You think so? Yeah.
Larry: It doesn't seem to be scared by the atv at all.
I'd like to pursue a bigfoot case.
I'm not sure if this is the one.
How does this stack up with those other cases we've seen today? This doesn't even compare.
Personally, I think mcpike just has so many elements to it.
I would love to go.
Mcpike is my favorite today.
Yes.
I like fremont.
Chi-LAN: This video is really compelling.
We can't explain it.
And there's a possibility of it being a hoax, it being military, it being a weather balloon, or it actually being extraterrestrial.
We've never had a video that had all of those factors and a credible witness.
I would love to go to fremont.
Bill: Obviously, I want to do that case.
So, mcpike and fremont.
So, jael, Larry, and bill, you guys want to do fremont? Yes, indeed.
And chi-LAN, myself, and Austin will go to mcpike.
Yes.
All right.
Okay.
Let's get to it.
Ben: Out in Illinois, guys.
Chi-LAN: It's one of the most haunted cities in America.
Not only that, but one of the most haunted spots in America is located right here.
Mcpike mansion.
Ben: Henry mcpike raised his family there.
He had at least two wives, a few children.
And it sounds like a lot of strange things are going on now.
Wow.
When I think of a haunted mansion, this is exactly how I pictured it.
Definitely.
I mean, the architecture is phenomenal.
It has three floors And all of these great windows.
Ludkey: Welcome to mcpike mansion.
I'm Ben.
Nice to meet you.
Hi, I'm chi-LAN.
Thanks for having us.
Austin: Pleasure.
Nice to meet you, too, Austin.
So, is Henry at home? I think he is.
Would you mind giving us a tour? I don't mind at all.
Excellent.
Ludkey: I want to take you guys into the room that's known as "the sad room.
" This was Henry's room.
Ben: Are you all right? You doing okay? Austin: Yeah, I'm fine.
I just got light-headed, kind of like evething went kind of day-glo kind of real quick.
What Austin's feeling right now with the dizzy light-headedness, has anyone else come into this room and felt that way? My friend sue brown, when she comes in here, that happens frequently for her when she comes up here.
Ben: You all right to finish the tour? Yeah.
All right.
Cool.
Ludkey: Come on.
We'll go into this room way in the back.
As far as dã©jã vu, once, my friend sue and I were standing at that window kind of looking out, talking, and I just felt like I had done that with her before.
Are you guys ready to go to the cellar? Wow.
Narrator: Coming up on "fact or faked: Paranormal files" These things are flying and crawling all over me.
Are you seeing anything on the camera right now? Chi-LAN: Oh, my gosh.
Did you see that? Yeah, there it is! Jael: Hey, looks like it's about to crash! Chi-LAN: Alton, Illinois home of the famous mcpike mansion.
Ben: We're really hoping that we can get out there and replicate something like we saw in the video.
Ludkey: Are you guys ready to go to the cellar? Well, this is the vaulted wine cellar.
Wow.
So, this is where Renee cruse's video was shot.
The mist started out there in the hallway.
Woman: Oh, my God.
Okay.
I'm recording.
I am on record.
I was in the hall.
She walked into it, and I'm thinking in my head, "wow.
This is a hot July day.
"It's very humid.
It's 100 degrees.
What are we all excited about here?" But this mist moved from place to place, dissipated, reappeared.
It wasn't just a little bitty mist.
It was a big mist.
It was really something else.
Got a lot to cover.
You've given us a whole lot of information.
All right.
Thank you.
Thank you so much for your time.
All righty.
Ben: Sharon is a really nice lady, and she took a lot of time explaining to us the history of this mansion.
We're hoping that while we're here, we can actually find some scientific proof or evidence of o own to go along with those stories.
I brought the anemometer, 'cause as you guys know, one of the prevalent theories was that there perhaps was some air current or something that was picking up dust and stuff here.
So, I think I'm just gonna do a quick reading and see if we're getting any airflow here.
Sounds good.
Okay, I'm not seeing any air-current flow as of yet, but what I'm thinking is that if you look on the walls here, this masonry work is really old.
I mean, look at that stuff.
It crumbles right off.
These little, fine granules, plus the dirt that we're standing on I think we have our dust.
Austin: Well, I think us trying to replicate it on our own using perfect conditions lets us know, with the elements that are here, if it could have been a natural occurrence.
All right, let's do it.
All right, guys, let's get this dust-cloud experiment started.
Well, you've got the camera and stuff, and, Austin, I think a good place for you is to set up with our shop-vac.
The shop-vac will help give us the ideal airflow.
We can take this Fuller's earth and lay it right across the top.
The reason we're using Fuller's earth is because it's very dry.
We're trying to create the most ideal conditions to see if we can create a dust cloud, see how close we can get to the actual video.
Well, I'm down here, guys, with the camera.
I'm ready to go.
I double-checked the footage, and the frame that I have right here is exactly what I see in the footage from Renee cruse.
Okay, lights off in three Two One.
[ Shop-vac whirring .]
Oh, there it is.
I see the swirling.
Wow.
That is really starting to look like the video, isn't it? Okay.
Why don't you shut it off for a second and come down here? [ Whirring stops .]
Austin: How did it look? I didn't honestly expect that much movement.
I didn't, either.
I really didn't expect it to be able to come in and almost make a circular pattern very similar to what we saw in the video.
I did notice also, in the original video, there were five different people.
And they're all moving around.
Exactly.
The one thing that really is still bothering me about this, though, is look we just shut that off.
It's been a little while now, and it's still hanging in the air.
And what we saw in the video was more concentrated.
And it moves somewhat like a living organism would.
And I know that we talked about one of the big theories being that it's a swarm of insects.
So, what I've gone ahead and done is scheduled a studio off-site so that we can have a controlled experiment in a controlled environment and see if we can re-create what that video looks like using living organisms.
So, the way that we've designed the insect test is that we've got We've set up a plexiglass environment that is 8 feet by 6 feet by 6 feet.
I've gone ahead and thrown in a background that looks very similar to the brick cellar background.
I have my I.
R.
Camera set up.
We're gonna throw the insects in there, cut off the lights, and then we're gonna stimulate their movement with a flashlight that'll also give us that same flashlight/eerie movement just like in the video.
All right, Ben, you ready? Ben: Yep.
All right.
In three Two One.
Release.
Oh, my gosh.
Look at them.
That is insane.
Crazy, guys.
I mean, they're really swarming.
Austin: You know what? They are swarming.
In the video, it all moves one direction at the same time, and it changes direction at the same time.
And these are more of, like, a siphon, kind of a tornado effect.
They're moving as a mass, but at different angles all the time.
Take a look at this.
Look at that.
There is someone walking through the swarm of insects.
So that probably has an effect on their movement.
- We need some human interaction.
- I think so.
Yeah.
One of us has to go inside the box.
Austin.
Austin.
Woman: Oh, my God.
Okay.
I'm recording.
I am on record.
Oh, we can really see it now.
Austin: On the original video, amongst the mist, there was human interaction.
So in the name of science, I'm about to take one for the team.
All right, Austin.
Ben: Oh, yeah.
Oh! Oh, my gosh! Oh! Let's hit the lights.
Ready? Lights off.
Okay, are you seeing any swarms right in front of you there? No.
The footage I'm getting from my angle looks absolutely nothing like the original footage.
Definitely not swarming in the same way, not following the same flight pattern.
The human interaction does not really affect how they're moving.
You can tell these things are flying, crawling all over me.
As much fun as this is, I think it's time to move on to the next experiment.
I'm out.
Well, Austin just came out of the box that we built, and for a second, there, when he got in there, there was a movement where we thought insects might form a mass very similar to the mist, but then they just started landing on him.
And once we shut off the lights in the environment, they just clung to the walls.
They just stopped moving.
So, we have to head back to the mansion and see what else we can figure out.
Ben: So, one of the prevalent theories is that this phenomenon is caused by fog or mist.
Fogs are generally created when the ambient temperature is brought to within 4 or 5 degrees of what's called the "dew point.
" In order to help us get there, we're going to use the air conditioner to bring down the temperature and at some point kick in a humidifier.
And hopefully we'll see concentrated fog that will look something like what we saw in the video.
Air conditioner's set up, ready to pump this baby full of cold air.
I have the humidifier over here, and that's gonna give us our warm air.
Okay, threeTwoOne Go.
Nice.
That is misty-looking.
Okay.
We're definitely getting some.
I can see why someone would say this thing moves in an organic manner and followed someone.
Ben, why don't you walk through it and see what happens to the fog? Ben: How's it looking? Doesn't look anything like the video.
Austin: Look.
It just lingers in here.
In the video, it dissipates and almost goes.
So the movement, I think, we could actually do a fairly decent job replicating it's the fact that it just lingers afterwards, that that's what confuses me.
Ben: I think that's a major shortcoming of this experiment, is that we're getting a movement, we're getting a swirl, but it's just not disappearing.
It's lingering in the air, and it's not quite on the video.
I think it's probably time we start looking to see if this could be something paranormal.
Would you guys be interested in staying overnight here and doing a little investigating? Okay.
Let's pack up.
Let's clear this place out.
According to what Renee said, there seems to be activity on every single level of this house, so it's important that we set up our cameras on every single level, as well, just in case.
I think, most importantly, we got to get camera one in the cellar.
Sounds good.
Stay safe out there.
We've gone ahead and set our cameras on every single floor of the house.
Right here is the cellar.
This is the hotspot of the entire house.
A lot of activity has been reported right here.
Here's the first floor.
This is covering the parlor and the rest of the hall.
This is the second floor.
And this is the third floor.
Hey, Austin.
We're on the first floor.
How about you go up to the fourth Perfect.
And work your way down.
I'll work my way up, meet in the middle.
Call me if you find anything.
All right.
Wow.
This place is just on the verge of falling apart.
Austin: All right, I'm at the top floor of the mcpike mansion.
What I'm gonna be doing, I'm gonna do a visual and audible check in every room as I sweep.
I'm gonna be checking any spikes in the magnetic field, I'm gonna be looking for any fluctuations in temperature, as well as I'm gonna be taking a picture in every room, because I want to see if I can capture anything that I possibly missed or couldn't see with the naked eye.
[ Camera shutter clicks .]
Ben: This is a device that measures electromagnetic fields and temperatures.
Now, if somebody's here, if I bang on this wood, can you replicate the sound and let us know that you're here? Take a look at this.
Look at the temperature readings.
It's going from a constant 76 to 1,100 degrees.
I've never had that problem with this meter before.
Austin to chi-LAN.
Go for chi-LAN.
I just heard something in this back room.
It sounded like a faint whisper.
I couldn't make anything out.
Are you seeing anything on the camera right now? Oh, my gosh.
Did you see that? Chi-LAN: We've gone ahead and set up cameras on every single floor of the house.
This is the hotspot of the entire house.
A lot of activity has been recorded right here.
Austin: I just heard something in this back room.
Are you seeing anything on the camera right now? Oh, my gosh.
Did you see that? Ben: So, guys, how was fremont? Bill: Fremont was great.
Fremont went really good.
What about mcpike? Well, mcpike, if you remember the video Woman: I can see it changing directions.
This mass seemed to have a certain motion about it.
That's what we really tried to focus our experiments on.
It's an old, dusty, condemned house, so we decided to see if this mass could have been swirling dust.
We actually had to use a shopvac and put it in reverse to blow this thing, so it's very noisy.
And it actually dissipated equally throughout the whole room.
When speaking with the eyewitness, she actually said that she saw the fog appear as one entity, not dissipate through a room.
So, in order to test the next theory, I had the privilege of getting in a giant box filled with gnats and flies by the thousands.
And believe me, itooked absolutely nothin' like the video.
They just don't swarm.
All they really do is land on you and annoy the heck out of you.
So, you couldn't get them to move in any unified direction.
I had no control over the insects at all.
So, the next thing that we thought about was, what if it's another natural occurrence? What if it's mist? The big issue was, again, we couldn't keep it as one entity, we couldn't keep it as one ball of mass.
So that left us wanting to explore more of the paranormal explanations.
So we did a night investigation.
We put an I.
R.
Cam in the cellar, and that's where the activity took place, and it actually caught some really interesting activity.
So, of course, I went in and investigated to see what was there, and the entire cellar was empty, guys completely empty.
So, there was nothing that could have gone in front of that lens, but again, this is an old, dilapidated mansion it could possibly have been just an insect.
And after we had our own kind of strange experiences, Austin and I went back to evps.
During the evp, I asked the question, "if someone is here, can you replicate the sound?" And I give three taps.
Now listen very closely to what you hear afterwards.
If I bang on this wood, this table that was sitting here, can you replicate the sound? [ Tap, tap, tap .]
[ Tap, tap .]
Larry: Yeah? Wow.
Yeah.
You hear it very faintly.
No, it was clear.
In the end, there was two, possibly three taps.
That is that's clear.
Larry: I think you guys got great evps.
As for the experiments, I mean, you weren't able to replicate it exactly, but it was very similar.
I got to tell you, I was there, and I saw the dust in the cellar.
I think it was really dust.
We couldn't replicate the video, so I'm not saying it is not paranormal fog, but I do think with the perfect conditions it still could have been dust.
But even if it was, I think we were really pretty successful in picking up at least some type of possible paranormal evidence.
The fact that I walked in I felt like I was gonna pass out, and chi-LAN seeing stuff.
Others have been through the mansion on tours and investigations and have their own evidence, which leads me to believe it's quite possible the mcpike mansion does have paranormal activity.
Well done, guys.
Bill, tell us about fremont.
How'd it go for you guys? Well, the fremont ufo case is great.
I have a triangle ufo, but instead of, like, a little fuzzy image, this thing's pretty clear.
We got some really good results.
Check this out.
All right, guys.
So, we've made it to fremont.
We're in northern California.
And this is the exact area where this ufo was seen.
Pablo mejia, who was filming in his backyard, captured it on video.
Pablo's really into ufos.
He's been trying to catch one for a while.
On this particular night, he was able to find something.
Bill: Got a lot of experiments that we can run, but first we have an eyewitness that really believes in the footage that he's captured.
Pablo.
Hey, how you doing? I'm bill.
Good.
Hi.
Nice to meet you.
Nice to meet you.
Hey, that's quite a video you got there.
We're really excited to talk to you about it.
Can you show us where you shot this video? Sure.
Come on back.
Okay.
Bill: So, tell us about the night you shot the video.
Mejia: Sure.
I went out about 10 minutes And then I saw a commercial airplane over there, and I kind of zoomed in on it, and then I saw the craft flying above it, going straight that way.
Jael: And what you saw definitely looked very different than a normal airplane.
That's right.
As soon as I saw it moving really quickly, I said, "this is something different.
" It was going a lot faster than a commercial plane and a private plane, too.
Did you hear anything when you saw it? Nope, I only heard the commercial plane, and then, as it passed, I saw that other craft.
It didn't make any sounds.
Do you think that this very well could be a ufo, from extraterrestrials? Yeah, it's a possibility.
So, tell us about this setup, this rig that you've got on your camera.
Just a regular consumer camcorder, and then I attached a night-vision monocular to it.
And I have a 3rd-generation, which lets you see the stars pretty well.
Do you mind if we borrow the gear you use, your rig? Oh, sure.
Well, thank you so much, Pablo.
We're gonna go do some experiments right now.
Not at all.
You're welcome.
Bill: So, we've got Pablo's camera, and so now we're gonna head over to the testing location, and we're gonna put some of these theories we have into motion.
Bill: All right, guys, well Jael: Looks like a good spot.
Larry: Yeah, it is a good spot.
Open field, away from everything.
That's right.
Let's get to it.
Let's get started.
Bill: So, guys, we're at the first experiment.
The popular theory is that maybe it's a delta-wing-shaped kite and so it's five l.
E.
D.
S attached to it.
Okay.
So it seems simple enough to attach them to the five points, run it up, shoot it with video, and see what it looks like.
You know what's interesting, guys, is that we're not gonna have any reference point to employ forced perspective.
So can we take something this small and make it look like something really large that's high up in the sky, the way Pablo's video did? It could be something very large and far away, but who's to say that it's not something smaller and really close? We won't get 30,000 feet, but maybe at a couple of dozen feet we'll see what it looks like then.
So, why don't we start our l.
E.
D.
S.
There u go, Larry.
That's for you.
Looking good, guys.
How far back do you want me to go? Oh, I'll tell you when.
Just keep going.
Okay.
All right, bill.
You stay right there.
Me and jael are gonna walk back a little bit, let some string out, and I'll let you know when to let go.
Okay.
You better hurry! It wants to fly! All right.
Ready? Let go! Oh, my gosh.
Bill: The popular theory is that maybe it's a delta-wing-shaped kite.
It wants to fly! All right.
Ready? Let go! Jael: It looks good here.
I can see all the lights in the triangular formation, but I can also see the kite.
The other thing is that it's just floating in one area.
We kind of need it to go from one end of frame to the other.
That's true.
Jael: In the original footage, we had an object that was zooming through the sky, and it was going from one side of the frame to the other.
With the kite, we're just not getting that.
Larry, can you run a bit? Okay.
OneTwoThree.
Go, Larry! Oh! It's kind of unstable.
It's not rigid enough.
Looks like it's about to crash.
Yeah, it lost control.
The wind gusts are unpredictable.
Well, there goes our delta wing.
I mean, when I got it up, there was a consistent wind.
After I got it up in the air, the wind would just disappear, and it would start to fall and I'd have to run with it.
And so, I just couldn't keep running.
And, finally, I stopped, and when there was no wind, it would fall.
I wish it would have worked, but it was just flying too erratic.
It's just so susceptible to the winds.
I agree.
I think it's time we bust out the big guns.
You guys wait here.
The big guns.
The big guns.
I think this is gonna do the trick.
I've been really excited about this one, actually.
Yeah, that's really cool.
It's gonna go a lot faster.
It's not gonna be as erratic.
This thing can go up to 80 Miles an hour.
Wow.
Really? Really, 80? It has a distance of about five Miles.
What's the altitude? We can get it to about 400 feet, but we're not gonna have to go that high, because the lights are so close together, we're not gonna have to take it that high.
I think the biggest advantage of this is just gonna be able to have that control.
Well, can we get it ready to launch? Yeah, let's get it ready.
All right, guys, here we are at our launchpad, so, bill, I'm actually gonna have you toss it in the air for me.
You know, I'm not too comfortable with it.
One shot to get this right.
Yeah, if it drops, it could break and our experiment's over.
There's no backup.
Why don't you guys step back, and I'm going to do my best here.
Okay.
I'm gonna get a vantage point from on this side.
Over there? Okay.
You ready? Three Two One.
[ Swooshing .]
Jael: It worked.
It's looking pretty good, guys.
You can make out some of the definition.
Look at it.
You can see the light.
The only difficult thing is actually keeping it in frame.
Larry: Well, and you know what, you can also hear it, but in Pablo's video, there is no sound.
Bill: What if we got it to a higher altitude? All right, I'm gonna bring it back around.
Hey, Larry, can you do me a favor and take it further out in the field? Okay.
Yeah.
Take it a little further.
In Pablo's video, it didn't seem to have that size variation, as moving closer and further.
It makes me think that the object in Pablo's video is actually a lot larger than this.
Nice job.
That was pretty good.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You did a great job keeping it in frame.
Thanks.
I thought that looked pretty good.
The only problem with the r.
C.
Is that when it was dipping left and right, we would lose the triangular formation that we were looking for.
Now, the kite maintained the delta shape But the problem was it was just being buffeted by the wind, so, the l.
E.
D.
S were just sort of bouncing around.
With the airplane, it's hard to keep in frame of the camera, because it's so low, moving so fast.
So, we got to think bigger, more control, higher altitude.
No noise.
Larry: No noise.
All right, guys.
What we're gonna do is we're gonna attach these l.
E.
D.
Clusters one at the nose, two on the crossbar, and two on the back of the ribs of this hang glider.
This is gonna create the "v" formation that we're seeing in the video.
Jael: And you know what I'm excited about is that these hang gliders are really smooth when they fly in the sky and they're silent, which are two key things that we're looking for.
It's gonna be smooth, it's bigger, and I think we're gonna be able to get it up to an altitude in which we weren't able to get the kite and the airplane.
Jael: All right, guys.
I think all we have to do now is just get this baby airborne.
Actually, we're not gonna be able to launch it from here, so I'm gonna go with our pilot, Gabe, and launch from down here with a tow line.
And you guys stay back here with Pablo's camera and shoot in the air and see what it finally looks like.
All right, just radio us and let us know when he's ready.
Larry: All right, bill, jael, we are ready when you are.
We're in position, all set, ready to go.
Okay, we're gonna be rolling.
All right, we're ready to launch.
FiveFour ThreeTwoOne.
All right, he's up there.
Look at it! Is it showing up? Look, there it is! Wow! Look at that! Larry: Let go! After the kite It looks like it's about to crash! And after the motorized airplane [ Swooshing .]
Honestly, I think the hang glider is going to be the closest.
It's gonna be smooth.
It's bigger.
All right, we're ready to launch.
FiveFour ThreeTwoOne.
All right, he's up there.
What the heck is going on? Look, there it is! Bill: So, there were a lot if ideas on how we could replicate Pablo's video.
One of them was to simply attach l.
E.
D.
S to the bottom of a kite.
But once Larry started to move with it, the wind became a problem.
Larry: The wind was so crazy that night, it was shaking the kite everywhere, it was hard to keep up, and eventually it crashed and fell to the ground.
Obviously, the kite has no propulsion system of its own, so it's really just wind-driven, but despite the fact that we had a lot of wind, you still couldn't get the kite to move fast enough.
So, after having done this experiment, we decided we need something with a little more speed, which actually led to our r.
C.
Jet.
The thing about the jet it certainly had the speed, but almost too much speed.
So, every time it would tilt, it would lose the delta formation that you see.
The other problem we have with the r.
C.
Jet is that it was loud, and Pablo stated that when he shot the original video, he heard nothing, it was completely silent.
So, we had to have a silent craft, so that led to a human-piloted hang-glider experiment.
Oh! That's exact.
Look at that.
Yeah.
That's, like, smooth.
It was matching fairly close to the original video.
We're quite happy with that.
It's my opinion that this is likely what we're seeing in Pablo's original video.
And there are nighttime hang gliders that do this very thing.
They go hang gliding at night, they do attach l.
E.
D.
S to theirKite, and that is for safety reasons, sort of like anti-collision lights, basically.
You guys nailed it.
Yeah.
This is a hang glider.
Great job, guys.