Fact or Faked: Paranormal Files (2010) s02e01 Episode Script
The Real Battle of LA & Queen Mary Menace
Tonight on "Fact or Faked: Paranormal Files" - I've never seen anything like that before.
- Right! Oh, my goodness.
Isn't that amazing? Is there anybody here with me? - Oh, my God! - - Whoa! Oh, my gosh.
Wow! Did you see that? There it is.
It is moving.
What I have for you is the real Battle of L.
A.
Stand by! Whoa! Oh, my goodness! There's a flying saucer.
I'm getting a series of lights right there.
Are you seeing what I am seeing? What the heck is happening? - Hey, guys.
- Hello.
You guys all remember Devin? - Hi, Devin.
- Our new team member and tech expert.
How's it going? Why don't we start off? - Austin, want to kick us off? - All right, guys.
Who's ready for a little bit of poltergeist in their life? Nice.
Oh, those are awesome.
Coming from the land down under, Annandale, Australia.
Glenn Smith, October 17, 2010, captures this poltergeist activity actually on his girlfriend's cellphone.
- Oh, my God! - - Whoa! Oh, my gosh.
Oh, my God.
Watch the bookshelf.
Okay.
Oh, my God! Wow.
The first thing I noticed about this is that they sound genuinely freaked out.
They're so scared.
I just felt like that was a pretty natural reaction.
Oh, my God! Really quick, let me sort of point out something.
To this side of the refrigerator It's like these cabinets keep going, so somebody could actually be there maybe even with a fishing line.
Oh, my God! It definitely meets that criteria.
We do have the witnesses, great footage, and it's definitely testable.
I do like the video, the witnesses.
I'm not quite so sold as some of you to the reactions of the people, but why don't we see what else we have and maybe come back to it? Okay.
Agreed, totally.
Okay? Chi-Lan, what do you have for us? I have a really great video, guys, and it is the most phenomenal video I've seen in a long time.
I can see the hole now.
A family was vacationing in Napa Valley outside of Lake Barryessa, and they come upon this amazing vortex.
Oh, my goodness.
Isn't that amazing? Wow! Doesn't that look like it has to be from a movie? I've never seen anything like that before.
Right! Neither have I.
And I've been to Lake Barryessa, and I've never seen this.
Imagine taking a boat on water when this is happening.
To me, it almost looks like there's a structure, you know, underneath the water.
You guys, I've actually seen this video before, and there is a natural explanation.
This Lake Barryessa has one of the largest spillways in the world.
It's actually a giant cement drain that prevents flooding.
Ah.
So when the reservoir gets too high, the spillway opens up, the water goes down, and that prevents flooding.
Well, I liked it, though.
It was an awesome video.
Now, guys, what I have for you is one of the most historic UFO cases there ever was.
This is the real Battle of L.
A.
So, picture this February 25, 1942.
This was just a little over two months since the attack on Pearl Harbor and five full years before Roswell in '47.
In the middle of the night in Los Angeles, all of the sudden, the military gets a radar return on an inbound aircraft like 120 miles offshore.
They think they're under attack.
So, just after 3:00 A.
M.
, witnesses start hearing anti-aircraft shelling.
And the whole scene goes chaotic.
This is the photo that was taken by the L.
A.
Times that appeared on February 26th.
Wow.
Where the spotlights are converging, it looks like a saucer-shaped craft.
Well, you know, a lot of skeptics say that that's just an optical illusion from all of the convergence of the spotlights in one spot.
It looks like an artifact.
Isn't this the same photograph that was used for public relations for "Battle: Los Angeles," a movie that just came out? Right.
This movie was inspired by this event, and it's about an alien invasion.
These little lights here anti-aircraft fire.
Over 1,440 rounds were fired at something in the sky.
- What? - Geez.
- What was it? - The air force released that it was just a weather balloon like years later in the '80s.
I wouldn't say it's another weather balloon.
I mean, that sounds like Roswell all over again.
Right.
What were they trying to hide? That's the question.
Think about all the ways we could test this.
I mean, you've got artillery fire Searchlights Machine guns.
Machine guns.
Well, guys, it sounds like we're all really excited about this case, so why don't we see what else we have today and come back to this one? 'Cause I think it's way up there.
Okay.
Bill? I have a rare piece of evidence.
An apparition recorded in 2008 aboard the Queen Mary, which is docked in Long Beach, California.
The videographer recorded this by accident.
His name is Ryan Caudill.
This is a camera that was just set down, and he didn't know it was recording, and it's pointed down a hallway on the promenade deck.
Oh! Oh! Oh! Wow.
Yeah.
That's like a shadow figure, but instead of it just being shadows, it's actually white.
That's a ghost.
I mean, I shot a documentary about the haunted Queen Mary, and this is still the best piece of evidence that I've ever seen.
I really like this case.
It does have a lot of things we could test.
Today we looked at a lot of cases.
So, what do you say? I think the evidence we have for the Queen Mary case is very strong, and we have an available witness.
I agree.
It meets our criteria.
It's definitely testable.
If you go to Queen Mary, I'm with you.
If we're going off popularity, Battle of Los Angeles is huge.
I'll trade my video for some guns.
All right.
You want in on this machine-gun action with me? I want in on the Battle of L.
A.
Okay, Devin.
Yes, please.
Let's definitely lock in Battle of L.
A.
, then, and, Jael, you want to come? Absolutely.
All right.
And you guys We're locking in Queen Mary right here.
Queen Mary.
And the room is divided.
Queen Mary it is.
Guys, this is awesome.
We've got two cases, both in Southern California.
That's a first.
It is.
It is a first.
Well, let's get packing.
Yeah, let's do it.
So, guys, here we are in Los Angeles, the City of Angels, the entertainment capital of the world, and the site of our next investigation.
Now, this case has inspired articles, books, even movies and is still a mystery after 70 years.
If you guys look at the photo that was taken, you've got eight searchlights trained on one mysterious object in the sky And then you've got artillery fire exploding up all around it.
It makes you wonder if this really was a UFO or if the government was trying to cover something up.
Well, for a lot of UFO researchers, this case represents the ground 0, and it happened five years before Roswell.
First, we need to check out the site where one of the original gun batteries still exists Fort MacArthur.
We'll talk to Stephen Nelson, the fort museum's curator, and we'll see if we can get a little bit of insight.
So, here we are at Fort MacArthur.
Guys, check out all this cool artillery.
Wow.
Wow.
Look at that.
Look at the size of that cannon.
Hey, are you Steve? I'm Steve.
Ben.
Nice to meet you, Ben.
Nice to meet you.
This is Devin and Jael.
Hi.
Hi, there.
This is Marty Morgan, our World War II expert.
Wow.
Pleased to meet you.
Thank you so much for having us here today.
So, we're talking about February 25, 1942.
We have 1,400 rounds of artillery shooting over a major populated city.
- What's going on? - This was a group of soldiers on the ground that were looking at a sky that had been told, "The enemy will be in your air space tonight.
" At 2:43 A.
M.
, they have radar contact with unidentified aircraft.
At 3:06 A.
M.
, the guns open fire.
The next thing you know, over 1,000 rounds get put in the sky over L.
A.
In fact, let me show you the projectiles.
You're talking this size shell right here.
Yeah, feel that.
You got 28 pounds of 3-inch shell right there.
in the sky that night were .
50-caliber machine-gun cartridges, so that's what's in here.
So, what do you guys think was in the sky the night of the Battle of L.
A.
? There isn't one story for the evening.
We know for sure that a meteorological balloon was launched.
Well, what boggles me is that they have all these searchlights on this so-called object, and nobody can tell you what it was.
Is this one of the arc lights that was used? This is the same type of light that would have been used that night.
So, if it was a balloon in the sky, what, approximately, do you think the altitude was of this object? Well, from the famous photograph of the Battle of Los Angeles, the object looks like it's about Okay.
So, we have an object, maybe a balloon, at 2,000 feet in the air, and you have a .
50-caliber bullet that's firing at it.
Why didn't they hit it? It's just a balloon, right? I don't know that I have an answer for you.
So, now that we've seen one of the actual gun batteries, it's time to start running some tests and see if we can replicate the photo.
I think in the desert, we have plenty of room to do our test.
So, our first test is the artifact test.
An artifact is actually an optical illusion.
Some people theorize that in this particular photo, what was happening is these searchlights are combining to create what looks like a solid object in the sky when there really wasn't one.
It will be really cool once we get our lights up to see if we can create that same-looking solid object when there's really no object at all.
And we want to do We can set up our lights in a half circle 2,000 feet out.
If we angle our beams properly, I think we're gonna be able to converge right above this point.
We need to get the lights out and set before it gets dark.
Let's go.
Great.
Now, guys, these babies are the latest in portable searchlight technology.
They have the same color temperature and luminosity as our World War II carbon arcs, except for, obviously, they're a lot smaller.
Compact.
Exactly.
This is so much better because at least the two of you can handle that.
All right, guys, got that one in place.
Let's move on to the next one.
So, for this test, we set up eight searchlights which are the same color and luminosity as what was used in 1942.
We're going to see if we can actually create an artifact of a solid object, which could explain what was seen in the photo.
The original camera used for the photograph in the Battle of L.
A.
Was a Graflex speed graphic.
This is the modern-day equivalent.
What we've done is attached a self-developing film pack to the back of it, which can develop a 4"x5" print within 60 seconds.
All right, Jael, I'm in position.
Okay, we're set when you are.
And 3 Illuminate artifact! So, our first test is the artifact test.
We're in the middle of the desert.
We've set up eight searchlights.
We're going to see if we can actually create an artifact of a solid object, which could explain what was seen in the 1942 photo.
And 3 Illuminate artifact! Oh, wow! - Okay.
- Hey, guys.
Hey, guys.
Wow, look at that.
Yeah, it looks pretty cool, huh? It looks like a giant bouquet of lightsabers.
It looks pretty good.
Tell me you got a really good shot of this.
Yes.
Get an artifact? Wow.
That is definitely brighter in the center.
However, it's really nothing quite like that almost disk-like shape we're seeing in the '42 photograph.
And an obvious thing is the beams are going right through our artifact and continuing on.
Maybe it's because of the flak.
Yeah.
There's all kinds of flak in the sky, anti-aircraft shells detonating around the convergence point.
Maybe that's why the beams in the original photo are stopping.
I would love to shoot some anti-aircraft artillery, but, of course, Ff.
A.
A.
won't allow that.
So, let's reduce the scale, which means to keep the same angles, we're gonna have to move the lights all in, as well.
Okay.
So, we'll bring everything in closer, moving our artifact lower, and then we shoot it.
And then we have a war from 1942.
You guys ready? If we're gonna match the original photograph, we need to add smoke in the sky to simulate the anti-aircraft shells detonating around the convergence point.
We're moving all the searchlights in a little bit closer.
We're bringing our convergence point down, so that way we can meet F.
A.
A.
restrictions and actually fire our own flak into the sky and create a wall of smoke.
All right, Jael, all the lights are in place.
Yes, I see that.
And you guys are ready to go with your big guns.
We've got this grenade launcher.
And we have a shotgun.
We're shooting bird bombs.
So, this is gonna put that smoke up in the sky.
It'll give us a more defined artifact in the middle.
All right.
Good luck, guys.
Standing by! And 3 2 1.
- Open fire! - Firing! Cease fire.
Cease fire.
Whoo! Let's see.
It captured every single one of those explosions.
But we do still have that problem where the beams of light are passing through the point.
You're right.
The lights pass right through.
Guys, as you know, in 1983, the air force's explanation was that this was a weather balloon.
We need to put this to the test to see if it's even possible such an object would make, you know, an artifact like we're seeing here.
A weather balloon could potentially stop those beams right at the convergence point rather than having them push through.
That on top of some smoke in the sky.
We need more war.
Yes, next test.
So, we have a latex rubber balloon which is made of the same materials and the same type of weather balloon that they would have had in 1942.
We have a spindle of 200 feet of parachute wire.
We attach the weather balloon, we slowly let it out, and then we shoot around the balloon.
We're gonna see what it looks like.
All right, Jael, we are loaded, and we are ready! Roger that.
I'm gonna count you down.
And 3 2 Fire! So, we have a latex rubber balloon which is made of the same materials that they would have had in 1942.
We slowly let it out, and then we shoot around the balloon, and we're gonna see what it looks like.
And 3 2 Fire! - Whoo! - Yeah! That was great! The weather balloon is just completely glowing.
Yeah.
You know what else I love about this, guys? The smoke and the balloon It seems to actually have stopped some of those beams from going through.
There are a faint couple that are still pushing through there, but it's better.
The question is how did these guys not get this thing down after 1,440 rounds of fire? Let's say they hit it with at least one bullet.
How long did it take for it to come down? I think that we should just shoot this thing and see what happens.
You want to see my true marksmanship now, is what you're saying.
Yes! You want to see what I can do.
Yes.
Okay.
So, our weather-balloon test confirms that the combination of searchlights Smoke And an 8-foot weather balloon come a lot closer to matching the original photograph.
However, those lights that were not blocked by that balloon continued right on through the convergence point.
Therefore, it wasn't an exact match.
Our World War II expert said that of the 1,440 rounds that were shot that night, the majority were .
50-caliber.
I'm going to take a .
50-caliber machine gun, and I'm going to shoot at this weather balloon to see what happens and how fast it will come down.
Oh, my God.
This is an actual .
50-caliber machine gun The same type that was used in 1942.
Now, we know a .
50-caliber round is eventually going to bring a balloon down.
What we want to know is how.
This is Howard.
He's our weapons specialist.
And what we've done is mounted this on this lift, and I'll be taking this up shooting from about 600 feet away, and we'll see what happens.
The really big thing about this test, you guys, is that whether or not this balloon is gonna pop or not or if it's gonna deflate.
So, I've got a stopwatch here.
We'll be able to time how long it takes the balloon to drop from 40 feet down to the ground.
We'll be able to calculate using those numbers how long it would have taken in the original photograph for the balloon to drop.
Ben, this is your bad-ass moment.
Do it.
Whoa! Coming up on "Fact or Fake: Paranormal Files" Maybe this was a UFO.
Oh, yes.
The Queen Mary is considered one of the most haunted locations in the world.
Phantom.
There is it.
It is moving.
It looks like two eyes.
This is an actual .
50-caliber machine gun, the same type that was used in 1942.
Whoa! Ben, I still have an adrenaline rush.
So much fun.
So, you remember the Battle of L.
A.
Now, the only known photograph of the event depicts some type of object.
It looks like a saucer shape that's sitting in the convergence of eight spotlights.
Now, one of the theories is that the object in the sky is an optical illusion, what they're calling an artifact.
We took eight high-powered spotlights, and they converged at about And this is what that looked like.
Oh, wow.
Nice.
There you go.
It did create somewhat of a slight artifact, but the beams passed straight on through the convergence point.
After our first test, we realized the searchlights in the original photo are illuminating the smoke from the explosions.
So, this is the Battle of L.
A.
, right? We decided to create our own battle.
We brought in and 40-millimeter grenade launchers shooting pyrotechnic shells.
Oh, yes! As you can see, Ben and Devin definitely had quite a war.
So, seeing that with this test, we still had the problem with the beams going past the convergence point, we decided to test that it's just a weather balloon.
We floated an 8-foot weather balloon into the sky, fired at it, and we took another photo to see what it looked like it.
Yeah, you did.
Let's see it.
Now, just the very fact that we're aiming these spotlights at the balloon made it very reflective.
The smoke did a pretty good job of blocking off a lot more of those lights from passing through.
So, we decided, "Well, what if this was a weather balloon?" How could a weather balloon stay in the sky after 1,440 rounds were shot at it? So, the only way to get an answer was to test it for ourselves.
Whoa! - Right? - Wow.
All right.
So, you guys, I timed how long it would take for the balloon to hit the ground once it was shot, and it took 3.
7 seconds Which means that even if a balloon was all the way up at 8,000 feet and it was hit, it would have taken a matter of minutes for it to come to the ground.
It wouldn't have been a balloon with a hole in it, slowly deflating all the way down the coast.
If a weather balloon is that easy to shoot down, it causes me to question the official air force report.
You have all these highly trained soldiers, and they shoot off over 1,400 rounds, and there's no reports of debris.
Maybe this was a UFO.
Which would be more than enough reason to cover the whole thing up.
But there's another possibility.
One of the other theories was that there was a barrage balloon.
Now, these were big, kind of blimp balloons, that were put over factories so that if enemy aircraft came in, they'd get all tangled up in the balloon.
It would make it difficult for them to bomb.
Now, there is some information that, possibly, one of these balloons got loose.
This is what it looks like.
Here's your big, silver object right there.
That does make sense.
So, Pearl Harbor just happened.
The military is on high alert, and somebody mistakes a barrage balloon for an enemy aircraft.
The problem is, you guys, is that it's still just a big balloon.
They should have been able to bring it down.
That's a good point.
Well, I think you guys did an amazing job at showing what this photo was not.
It was not an artifact, - and it was not a weather balloon.
- Right.
I believe there was an object in the sky.
Now, we ruled a lot of things out, but for all intents and purposes, it's still a mystery.
So, let's hear what happened with you guys.
Well, as you'll recall, we went down to Long Beach to investigate the possible hauntings on the Queen Mary.
We ran a series of tests, and we got some interesting results.
With a long history of ghostly legends, the Queen Mary is considered one of the most haunted locations in the world.
You know it was originally used as a cruise ship for the world's rich and famous that traveled along the Atlantic? That's right, and in 1939, when World War II broke out, she was actually put into active duty and transported over As a matter of fact, during World War II, the Queen Mary was painted grey and became known as the grey ghost, because Hitler's u-boats had a bounty to sink the ship, obviously without success.
Within the last 60 years, 49 people have died on the Queen Mary.
And in 2008, actually, one of the visitors, Ryan Caudill, caught what he believes is a ghostly manifestation on the Queen Mary.
We're gonna start off by getting a tour with resident Queen Mary paranormal expert Pat Wheelock.
I've heard some pretty creepy things happen when the sun goes down.
Anchors aweigh, everybody.
Chi-Lan, Austin.
Hi.
How are you? Pat Wheelock.
Welcome aboard.
It's good to be here.
You all ready to go on the tour? We are.
Let's head on.
All right, let's do it.
Okay.
Whoa.
So, this is the pool.
This is the first- and third-class pool.
And this place looks really, really creepy, I have to tell you.
And you said this is one of the hottest spots in the ship for reoccurring phenomenons? Oh, we get it almost daily People reporting hearing a child giggle or shadows of people walking around.
Let's head on back to the changing-room area.
Okay.
That's down this hall, right? Uh-huh.
The claim is that, actually, where you all are standing, you're in the middle of a vortex.
Why is this the vortex? People get dizzy.
They feel that it's a passageway through to another realm or another world.
Got it.
Okay.
So, it can be disorienting? Exactly.
Back this way.
Okay.
We have our work cut out for us.
Now that we know more about the Queen Mary's history, we're headed to talk to Ryan, the videographer.
Hey, you must be Ryan.
I am.
How you doing? So, what happened that night? Well, I was down here with a couple friends, and we were up here at the bar, just playing around with the camera, and we stepped out for a moment, and we left the camera on the windowsill.
So, you can say with 100% certainty that you don't believe either you were hoaxed or have been part of a hoax? It was not a hoax.
Would you mind retracing the exact steps that you went through that night - so we can kind of see exactly what happened? - Absolutely.
Great.
Lead the way.
Sure.
So, this is the hallway that you were able to capture the ghostly apparition.
This is it.
Wow.
And this is where I set the camera down.
Now, Ryan, there's these glass cabinets here.
Is it possible that you set it behind one of the glass cabinets and you were shooting through it? You know what? I don't remember these cabinets even being here.
Well, like, right now, both these two outside doors are open, allowing the outside air to come in.
Do you remember if they were open that night? Yes.
They were? Well, that door was open.
Now, did you actually bring the original camera? We always like to do some experiments and hopefully use the same equipment.
I-I absolutely did.
Here.
Well, thank you so much for taking the time to meet with us, and we'll let you know if we find anything.
Thanks for the camera.
Absolutely.
One of the most popular theories of what Ryan captured on video is that it's shadows.
But it doesn't actually account for what we're seeing in the beginning of the video, which is a very clear-cut, white apparition in the center of the hallway.
Shadows don't exist like that.
So, what we're gonna do now is we're gonna perform an experiment that incorporates the environmental elements, such as the fog that you see outside.
We can actually project things onto that fog and hopefully create the white apparition that we're seeing in Ryan's video.
We basically need to make a mini movie so we have something to project.
Chi-Lan's gonna film me against a black backdrop, and I'll walk the same pattern as the ghostly apparition in the video.
Good job, ghost.
High five.
Rock 'n' roll with that walk.
Once we get the footage we need, we're just gonna load it into the projector and project it down the hallway on the haze.
Hopefully this will replicate the original footage.
What we're gonna do now is use a haze machine to add to the humidity in the hallway.
Hey, guys, you can see the haze in the hall.
You guys ready to start this experiment? On 3 Phantom.
So, what we're gonna do now is we're gonna perform an experiment that incorporates the environmental elements, such as the fog that you see outside.
We can actually project things onto that fog and hopefully create the white apparition that we're seeing in Ryan's video.
On 3 Phantom.
Wow! Look at that.
That looks creepy.
It actually does work.
Wow.
It actually looks really similar.
We're seeing the light actually shoot from the projector.
That is the problem.
You can see the beam of the projector.
We were able to create a similar moving image, but once the haze filled up the hallway, you could clearly see that it was simply a projection.
The fact that those glass cases were in the hallway gave us an idea That Ryan's video was simply an optical illusion.
In our next experiment, we're gonna attempt to manipulate perception.
And the way that we're gonna do that is actually just use this presidential-style teleprompter.
I put the camera about a foot away from it.
We're gonna project Austin's image that we recorded earlier, superimposing him on top of the hallway.
It should match pretty close to what we're seeing in Ryan's video.
Okay, on 3 2 Play video.
Hey, hey.
There you are.
Oh, wow.
How's it working? This is awesome.
It looks pretty close.
It really looks ghostly.
You have a transparency, and you're walking like the guy in the video.
So, this is almost like proof of concept that by using reflective surfaces, it is possible that maybe this is how Ryan's video was created.
Yeah.
I think that we found a great way to hoax these videos.
Now that we've done the forced perspective test and we can see that the video can be hoaxed, we still have to consider the long history of the Queen Mary.
There have been so many eyewitness accounts of paranormal activity, so we're gonna go ahead and do a night investigation.
All the cameras are set up.
Yeah, we're ready to go.
Changing room, ballroom.
Boiler room, deck, and, of course, where Ryan Caudill shot his footage.
All right, guys.
I'm gonna bring my DSLR for stills.
I'm also gonna check the thermal cam, see if there are any unusual heat signatures on the ship.
Sounds good.
Flashlight.
Very handy.
You guys ready to go green? All right.
Right now, I am on top of the bridge that is over the boiler room, and I am scanning the room for any unusual heat signatures.
Bill to Austin.
Austin for Bill.
I'm gonna have an EVP session in the changing room where the vortex has been reported.
Copy that.
We're now setting up audio recorders to record electronic voice phenomena.
This is Bill.
I'm on the Queen Mary.
I'm here to learn from you.
Is there a message that you would like to deliver to the people who visit the Queen Mary? Whoa.
Did you see that? Now that we can see that the video can be hoaxed, we still have to consider the long history of the Queen Mary.
There have been so many eyewitness accounts of paranormal activity, so we're gonna go ahead and do a night investigation.
I am scanning the room for any unusual heat signatures.
Whoa.
Did you see that? I'm catching some type of heat signature, and it is moving, but I don't see anything with the naked eye.
If it's one of the sailors or if it's one of the passengers that was once aboard the Queen Mary, we'd like to able to learn from you.
I just heard, like, a creak, or maybe that was a groan.
Could you leave me a message in words that I can understand? Can you speak to me? Austin for Bill.
Are you there? Go for Bill.
I swear to you, I just saw eyes next to the It looks like the entrance of the changing room.
Eyes? Yes.
It looks like two eyes.
There it is.
It is moving.
What is that? So, Bill, tell me about it.
What did you guys do? We went down to Long Beach to investigate the possible hauntings on the Queen Mary.
First we wanted to eliminate the obvious, that the ghost that we're seeing in Ryan Caudill's video wasn't a result of shadows because of light sources in the hallway.
The shadows will cross the floor as well as the walls.
But there's nothing that actually stands within the middle of the hallway, which is where all of Ryan's apparitions appeared.
We started thinking that maybe this is a hoax.
There was a lot of condensation in the Long Beach Harbor, and we were thinking this could very easily act as a backdrop for us to project our own image onto.
We projected a mini movie of Austin down the middle of the hallway so that we could get that white apparition walking straight down.
- That looks great.
- That is really cool.
It was pretty amazing how well it worked, but the deal was is that you could see the beam of light from the projector cutting through the haze.
The next test we did had pretty striking results, as well.
We manipulated depth perception by using a presidential-style teleprompter.
Whoa! Wow.
To drive the point home that a video like this can be hoaxed, I shot the empty hallway.
Then I took the video of Austin, and I composited the two.
Wow.
That looks great.
I think we got a pretty close match here.
It shows that that video could have been hoaxed in a number of ways, but it doesn't mean that there isn't any paranormal activity to be found on the Queen Mary.
So, we thought, "We have to do a night investigation so we can collect our own evidence.
" I was in the middle of an EVP session when Austin radios me.
"There's a pair of glowing eyes looking at you!" - Eyes? - Yeah.
I just see these bright, glowing eyes staring at me right where Bill is.
No way.
Play the clip.
Seriously.
No way.
Aah! So, do you see this? What the I have no idea what they are, but as they start coming closer to the I.
R.
camera, I found out the ship actually has a couple stowaways.
Oh, my gosh.
A raccoon! A raccoon.
It turns out that there are a number of raccoons that live in the belly of the ship.
That was a false alarm, but we did not leave empty-handed.
During the EVP session, something was recorded.
No way.
Why don't you guys listen to this audio file and tell me what you hear? No way.
We're all here to learn from you.
Oh, my gosh.
Are you kidding me? That, to me, sounds like a little girl snickering.
It's exactly what it is.
We're all here to learn from you.
Oh, my goodness.
So, team, what do you think? Ryan's video fact or faked? There's a number of ways that this video could have been faked.
But that does not discount the numerous eyewitness accounts of actual paranormal activity.
The video is certainly questionable, but I think the EVP session shows that there may be paranormal activity aboard the Queen Mary.
Sounds like we agree.
Paranormal activity in Ryan's video probably faked.
But the Queen Mary may be haunted.
Great job, guys.
- Right! Oh, my goodness.
Isn't that amazing? Is there anybody here with me? - Oh, my God! - - Whoa! Oh, my gosh.
Wow! Did you see that? There it is.
It is moving.
What I have for you is the real Battle of L.
A.
Stand by! Whoa! Oh, my goodness! There's a flying saucer.
I'm getting a series of lights right there.
Are you seeing what I am seeing? What the heck is happening? - Hey, guys.
- Hello.
You guys all remember Devin? - Hi, Devin.
- Our new team member and tech expert.
How's it going? Why don't we start off? - Austin, want to kick us off? - All right, guys.
Who's ready for a little bit of poltergeist in their life? Nice.
Oh, those are awesome.
Coming from the land down under, Annandale, Australia.
Glenn Smith, October 17, 2010, captures this poltergeist activity actually on his girlfriend's cellphone.
- Oh, my God! - - Whoa! Oh, my gosh.
Oh, my God.
Watch the bookshelf.
Okay.
Oh, my God! Wow.
The first thing I noticed about this is that they sound genuinely freaked out.
They're so scared.
I just felt like that was a pretty natural reaction.
Oh, my God! Really quick, let me sort of point out something.
To this side of the refrigerator It's like these cabinets keep going, so somebody could actually be there maybe even with a fishing line.
Oh, my God! It definitely meets that criteria.
We do have the witnesses, great footage, and it's definitely testable.
I do like the video, the witnesses.
I'm not quite so sold as some of you to the reactions of the people, but why don't we see what else we have and maybe come back to it? Okay.
Agreed, totally.
Okay? Chi-Lan, what do you have for us? I have a really great video, guys, and it is the most phenomenal video I've seen in a long time.
I can see the hole now.
A family was vacationing in Napa Valley outside of Lake Barryessa, and they come upon this amazing vortex.
Oh, my goodness.
Isn't that amazing? Wow! Doesn't that look like it has to be from a movie? I've never seen anything like that before.
Right! Neither have I.
And I've been to Lake Barryessa, and I've never seen this.
Imagine taking a boat on water when this is happening.
To me, it almost looks like there's a structure, you know, underneath the water.
You guys, I've actually seen this video before, and there is a natural explanation.
This Lake Barryessa has one of the largest spillways in the world.
It's actually a giant cement drain that prevents flooding.
Ah.
So when the reservoir gets too high, the spillway opens up, the water goes down, and that prevents flooding.
Well, I liked it, though.
It was an awesome video.
Now, guys, what I have for you is one of the most historic UFO cases there ever was.
This is the real Battle of L.
A.
So, picture this February 25, 1942.
This was just a little over two months since the attack on Pearl Harbor and five full years before Roswell in '47.
In the middle of the night in Los Angeles, all of the sudden, the military gets a radar return on an inbound aircraft like 120 miles offshore.
They think they're under attack.
So, just after 3:00 A.
M.
, witnesses start hearing anti-aircraft shelling.
And the whole scene goes chaotic.
This is the photo that was taken by the L.
A.
Times that appeared on February 26th.
Wow.
Where the spotlights are converging, it looks like a saucer-shaped craft.
Well, you know, a lot of skeptics say that that's just an optical illusion from all of the convergence of the spotlights in one spot.
It looks like an artifact.
Isn't this the same photograph that was used for public relations for "Battle: Los Angeles," a movie that just came out? Right.
This movie was inspired by this event, and it's about an alien invasion.
These little lights here anti-aircraft fire.
Over 1,440 rounds were fired at something in the sky.
- What? - Geez.
- What was it? - The air force released that it was just a weather balloon like years later in the '80s.
I wouldn't say it's another weather balloon.
I mean, that sounds like Roswell all over again.
Right.
What were they trying to hide? That's the question.
Think about all the ways we could test this.
I mean, you've got artillery fire Searchlights Machine guns.
Machine guns.
Well, guys, it sounds like we're all really excited about this case, so why don't we see what else we have today and come back to this one? 'Cause I think it's way up there.
Okay.
Bill? I have a rare piece of evidence.
An apparition recorded in 2008 aboard the Queen Mary, which is docked in Long Beach, California.
The videographer recorded this by accident.
His name is Ryan Caudill.
This is a camera that was just set down, and he didn't know it was recording, and it's pointed down a hallway on the promenade deck.
Oh! Oh! Oh! Wow.
Yeah.
That's like a shadow figure, but instead of it just being shadows, it's actually white.
That's a ghost.
I mean, I shot a documentary about the haunted Queen Mary, and this is still the best piece of evidence that I've ever seen.
I really like this case.
It does have a lot of things we could test.
Today we looked at a lot of cases.
So, what do you say? I think the evidence we have for the Queen Mary case is very strong, and we have an available witness.
I agree.
It meets our criteria.
It's definitely testable.
If you go to Queen Mary, I'm with you.
If we're going off popularity, Battle of Los Angeles is huge.
I'll trade my video for some guns.
All right.
You want in on this machine-gun action with me? I want in on the Battle of L.
A.
Okay, Devin.
Yes, please.
Let's definitely lock in Battle of L.
A.
, then, and, Jael, you want to come? Absolutely.
All right.
And you guys We're locking in Queen Mary right here.
Queen Mary.
And the room is divided.
Queen Mary it is.
Guys, this is awesome.
We've got two cases, both in Southern California.
That's a first.
It is.
It is a first.
Well, let's get packing.
Yeah, let's do it.
So, guys, here we are in Los Angeles, the City of Angels, the entertainment capital of the world, and the site of our next investigation.
Now, this case has inspired articles, books, even movies and is still a mystery after 70 years.
If you guys look at the photo that was taken, you've got eight searchlights trained on one mysterious object in the sky And then you've got artillery fire exploding up all around it.
It makes you wonder if this really was a UFO or if the government was trying to cover something up.
Well, for a lot of UFO researchers, this case represents the ground 0, and it happened five years before Roswell.
First, we need to check out the site where one of the original gun batteries still exists Fort MacArthur.
We'll talk to Stephen Nelson, the fort museum's curator, and we'll see if we can get a little bit of insight.
So, here we are at Fort MacArthur.
Guys, check out all this cool artillery.
Wow.
Wow.
Look at that.
Look at the size of that cannon.
Hey, are you Steve? I'm Steve.
Ben.
Nice to meet you, Ben.
Nice to meet you.
This is Devin and Jael.
Hi.
Hi, there.
This is Marty Morgan, our World War II expert.
Wow.
Pleased to meet you.
Thank you so much for having us here today.
So, we're talking about February 25, 1942.
We have 1,400 rounds of artillery shooting over a major populated city.
- What's going on? - This was a group of soldiers on the ground that were looking at a sky that had been told, "The enemy will be in your air space tonight.
" At 2:43 A.
M.
, they have radar contact with unidentified aircraft.
At 3:06 A.
M.
, the guns open fire.
The next thing you know, over 1,000 rounds get put in the sky over L.
A.
In fact, let me show you the projectiles.
You're talking this size shell right here.
Yeah, feel that.
You got 28 pounds of 3-inch shell right there.
in the sky that night were .
50-caliber machine-gun cartridges, so that's what's in here.
So, what do you guys think was in the sky the night of the Battle of L.
A.
? There isn't one story for the evening.
We know for sure that a meteorological balloon was launched.
Well, what boggles me is that they have all these searchlights on this so-called object, and nobody can tell you what it was.
Is this one of the arc lights that was used? This is the same type of light that would have been used that night.
So, if it was a balloon in the sky, what, approximately, do you think the altitude was of this object? Well, from the famous photograph of the Battle of Los Angeles, the object looks like it's about Okay.
So, we have an object, maybe a balloon, at 2,000 feet in the air, and you have a .
50-caliber bullet that's firing at it.
Why didn't they hit it? It's just a balloon, right? I don't know that I have an answer for you.
So, now that we've seen one of the actual gun batteries, it's time to start running some tests and see if we can replicate the photo.
I think in the desert, we have plenty of room to do our test.
So, our first test is the artifact test.
An artifact is actually an optical illusion.
Some people theorize that in this particular photo, what was happening is these searchlights are combining to create what looks like a solid object in the sky when there really wasn't one.
It will be really cool once we get our lights up to see if we can create that same-looking solid object when there's really no object at all.
And we want to do We can set up our lights in a half circle 2,000 feet out.
If we angle our beams properly, I think we're gonna be able to converge right above this point.
We need to get the lights out and set before it gets dark.
Let's go.
Great.
Now, guys, these babies are the latest in portable searchlight technology.
They have the same color temperature and luminosity as our World War II carbon arcs, except for, obviously, they're a lot smaller.
Compact.
Exactly.
This is so much better because at least the two of you can handle that.
All right, guys, got that one in place.
Let's move on to the next one.
So, for this test, we set up eight searchlights which are the same color and luminosity as what was used in 1942.
We're going to see if we can actually create an artifact of a solid object, which could explain what was seen in the photo.
The original camera used for the photograph in the Battle of L.
A.
Was a Graflex speed graphic.
This is the modern-day equivalent.
What we've done is attached a self-developing film pack to the back of it, which can develop a 4"x5" print within 60 seconds.
All right, Jael, I'm in position.
Okay, we're set when you are.
And 3 Illuminate artifact! So, our first test is the artifact test.
We're in the middle of the desert.
We've set up eight searchlights.
We're going to see if we can actually create an artifact of a solid object, which could explain what was seen in the 1942 photo.
And 3 Illuminate artifact! Oh, wow! - Okay.
- Hey, guys.
Hey, guys.
Wow, look at that.
Yeah, it looks pretty cool, huh? It looks like a giant bouquet of lightsabers.
It looks pretty good.
Tell me you got a really good shot of this.
Yes.
Get an artifact? Wow.
That is definitely brighter in the center.
However, it's really nothing quite like that almost disk-like shape we're seeing in the '42 photograph.
And an obvious thing is the beams are going right through our artifact and continuing on.
Maybe it's because of the flak.
Yeah.
There's all kinds of flak in the sky, anti-aircraft shells detonating around the convergence point.
Maybe that's why the beams in the original photo are stopping.
I would love to shoot some anti-aircraft artillery, but, of course, Ff.
A.
A.
won't allow that.
So, let's reduce the scale, which means to keep the same angles, we're gonna have to move the lights all in, as well.
Okay.
So, we'll bring everything in closer, moving our artifact lower, and then we shoot it.
And then we have a war from 1942.
You guys ready? If we're gonna match the original photograph, we need to add smoke in the sky to simulate the anti-aircraft shells detonating around the convergence point.
We're moving all the searchlights in a little bit closer.
We're bringing our convergence point down, so that way we can meet F.
A.
A.
restrictions and actually fire our own flak into the sky and create a wall of smoke.
All right, Jael, all the lights are in place.
Yes, I see that.
And you guys are ready to go with your big guns.
We've got this grenade launcher.
And we have a shotgun.
We're shooting bird bombs.
So, this is gonna put that smoke up in the sky.
It'll give us a more defined artifact in the middle.
All right.
Good luck, guys.
Standing by! And 3 2 1.
- Open fire! - Firing! Cease fire.
Cease fire.
Whoo! Let's see.
It captured every single one of those explosions.
But we do still have that problem where the beams of light are passing through the point.
You're right.
The lights pass right through.
Guys, as you know, in 1983, the air force's explanation was that this was a weather balloon.
We need to put this to the test to see if it's even possible such an object would make, you know, an artifact like we're seeing here.
A weather balloon could potentially stop those beams right at the convergence point rather than having them push through.
That on top of some smoke in the sky.
We need more war.
Yes, next test.
So, we have a latex rubber balloon which is made of the same materials and the same type of weather balloon that they would have had in 1942.
We have a spindle of 200 feet of parachute wire.
We attach the weather balloon, we slowly let it out, and then we shoot around the balloon.
We're gonna see what it looks like.
All right, Jael, we are loaded, and we are ready! Roger that.
I'm gonna count you down.
And 3 2 Fire! So, we have a latex rubber balloon which is made of the same materials that they would have had in 1942.
We slowly let it out, and then we shoot around the balloon, and we're gonna see what it looks like.
And 3 2 Fire! - Whoo! - Yeah! That was great! The weather balloon is just completely glowing.
Yeah.
You know what else I love about this, guys? The smoke and the balloon It seems to actually have stopped some of those beams from going through.
There are a faint couple that are still pushing through there, but it's better.
The question is how did these guys not get this thing down after 1,440 rounds of fire? Let's say they hit it with at least one bullet.
How long did it take for it to come down? I think that we should just shoot this thing and see what happens.
You want to see my true marksmanship now, is what you're saying.
Yes! You want to see what I can do.
Yes.
Okay.
So, our weather-balloon test confirms that the combination of searchlights Smoke And an 8-foot weather balloon come a lot closer to matching the original photograph.
However, those lights that were not blocked by that balloon continued right on through the convergence point.
Therefore, it wasn't an exact match.
Our World War II expert said that of the 1,440 rounds that were shot that night, the majority were .
50-caliber.
I'm going to take a .
50-caliber machine gun, and I'm going to shoot at this weather balloon to see what happens and how fast it will come down.
Oh, my God.
This is an actual .
50-caliber machine gun The same type that was used in 1942.
Now, we know a .
50-caliber round is eventually going to bring a balloon down.
What we want to know is how.
This is Howard.
He's our weapons specialist.
And what we've done is mounted this on this lift, and I'll be taking this up shooting from about 600 feet away, and we'll see what happens.
The really big thing about this test, you guys, is that whether or not this balloon is gonna pop or not or if it's gonna deflate.
So, I've got a stopwatch here.
We'll be able to time how long it takes the balloon to drop from 40 feet down to the ground.
We'll be able to calculate using those numbers how long it would have taken in the original photograph for the balloon to drop.
Ben, this is your bad-ass moment.
Do it.
Whoa! Coming up on "Fact or Fake: Paranormal Files" Maybe this was a UFO.
Oh, yes.
The Queen Mary is considered one of the most haunted locations in the world.
Phantom.
There is it.
It is moving.
It looks like two eyes.
This is an actual .
50-caliber machine gun, the same type that was used in 1942.
Whoa! Ben, I still have an adrenaline rush.
So much fun.
So, you remember the Battle of L.
A.
Now, the only known photograph of the event depicts some type of object.
It looks like a saucer shape that's sitting in the convergence of eight spotlights.
Now, one of the theories is that the object in the sky is an optical illusion, what they're calling an artifact.
We took eight high-powered spotlights, and they converged at about And this is what that looked like.
Oh, wow.
Nice.
There you go.
It did create somewhat of a slight artifact, but the beams passed straight on through the convergence point.
After our first test, we realized the searchlights in the original photo are illuminating the smoke from the explosions.
So, this is the Battle of L.
A.
, right? We decided to create our own battle.
We brought in and 40-millimeter grenade launchers shooting pyrotechnic shells.
Oh, yes! As you can see, Ben and Devin definitely had quite a war.
So, seeing that with this test, we still had the problem with the beams going past the convergence point, we decided to test that it's just a weather balloon.
We floated an 8-foot weather balloon into the sky, fired at it, and we took another photo to see what it looked like it.
Yeah, you did.
Let's see it.
Now, just the very fact that we're aiming these spotlights at the balloon made it very reflective.
The smoke did a pretty good job of blocking off a lot more of those lights from passing through.
So, we decided, "Well, what if this was a weather balloon?" How could a weather balloon stay in the sky after 1,440 rounds were shot at it? So, the only way to get an answer was to test it for ourselves.
Whoa! - Right? - Wow.
All right.
So, you guys, I timed how long it would take for the balloon to hit the ground once it was shot, and it took 3.
7 seconds Which means that even if a balloon was all the way up at 8,000 feet and it was hit, it would have taken a matter of minutes for it to come to the ground.
It wouldn't have been a balloon with a hole in it, slowly deflating all the way down the coast.
If a weather balloon is that easy to shoot down, it causes me to question the official air force report.
You have all these highly trained soldiers, and they shoot off over 1,400 rounds, and there's no reports of debris.
Maybe this was a UFO.
Which would be more than enough reason to cover the whole thing up.
But there's another possibility.
One of the other theories was that there was a barrage balloon.
Now, these were big, kind of blimp balloons, that were put over factories so that if enemy aircraft came in, they'd get all tangled up in the balloon.
It would make it difficult for them to bomb.
Now, there is some information that, possibly, one of these balloons got loose.
This is what it looks like.
Here's your big, silver object right there.
That does make sense.
So, Pearl Harbor just happened.
The military is on high alert, and somebody mistakes a barrage balloon for an enemy aircraft.
The problem is, you guys, is that it's still just a big balloon.
They should have been able to bring it down.
That's a good point.
Well, I think you guys did an amazing job at showing what this photo was not.
It was not an artifact, - and it was not a weather balloon.
- Right.
I believe there was an object in the sky.
Now, we ruled a lot of things out, but for all intents and purposes, it's still a mystery.
So, let's hear what happened with you guys.
Well, as you'll recall, we went down to Long Beach to investigate the possible hauntings on the Queen Mary.
We ran a series of tests, and we got some interesting results.
With a long history of ghostly legends, the Queen Mary is considered one of the most haunted locations in the world.
You know it was originally used as a cruise ship for the world's rich and famous that traveled along the Atlantic? That's right, and in 1939, when World War II broke out, she was actually put into active duty and transported over As a matter of fact, during World War II, the Queen Mary was painted grey and became known as the grey ghost, because Hitler's u-boats had a bounty to sink the ship, obviously without success.
Within the last 60 years, 49 people have died on the Queen Mary.
And in 2008, actually, one of the visitors, Ryan Caudill, caught what he believes is a ghostly manifestation on the Queen Mary.
We're gonna start off by getting a tour with resident Queen Mary paranormal expert Pat Wheelock.
I've heard some pretty creepy things happen when the sun goes down.
Anchors aweigh, everybody.
Chi-Lan, Austin.
Hi.
How are you? Pat Wheelock.
Welcome aboard.
It's good to be here.
You all ready to go on the tour? We are.
Let's head on.
All right, let's do it.
Okay.
Whoa.
So, this is the pool.
This is the first- and third-class pool.
And this place looks really, really creepy, I have to tell you.
And you said this is one of the hottest spots in the ship for reoccurring phenomenons? Oh, we get it almost daily People reporting hearing a child giggle or shadows of people walking around.
Let's head on back to the changing-room area.
Okay.
That's down this hall, right? Uh-huh.
The claim is that, actually, where you all are standing, you're in the middle of a vortex.
Why is this the vortex? People get dizzy.
They feel that it's a passageway through to another realm or another world.
Got it.
Okay.
So, it can be disorienting? Exactly.
Back this way.
Okay.
We have our work cut out for us.
Now that we know more about the Queen Mary's history, we're headed to talk to Ryan, the videographer.
Hey, you must be Ryan.
I am.
How you doing? So, what happened that night? Well, I was down here with a couple friends, and we were up here at the bar, just playing around with the camera, and we stepped out for a moment, and we left the camera on the windowsill.
So, you can say with 100% certainty that you don't believe either you were hoaxed or have been part of a hoax? It was not a hoax.
Would you mind retracing the exact steps that you went through that night - so we can kind of see exactly what happened? - Absolutely.
Great.
Lead the way.
Sure.
So, this is the hallway that you were able to capture the ghostly apparition.
This is it.
Wow.
And this is where I set the camera down.
Now, Ryan, there's these glass cabinets here.
Is it possible that you set it behind one of the glass cabinets and you were shooting through it? You know what? I don't remember these cabinets even being here.
Well, like, right now, both these two outside doors are open, allowing the outside air to come in.
Do you remember if they were open that night? Yes.
They were? Well, that door was open.
Now, did you actually bring the original camera? We always like to do some experiments and hopefully use the same equipment.
I-I absolutely did.
Here.
Well, thank you so much for taking the time to meet with us, and we'll let you know if we find anything.
Thanks for the camera.
Absolutely.
One of the most popular theories of what Ryan captured on video is that it's shadows.
But it doesn't actually account for what we're seeing in the beginning of the video, which is a very clear-cut, white apparition in the center of the hallway.
Shadows don't exist like that.
So, what we're gonna do now is we're gonna perform an experiment that incorporates the environmental elements, such as the fog that you see outside.
We can actually project things onto that fog and hopefully create the white apparition that we're seeing in Ryan's video.
We basically need to make a mini movie so we have something to project.
Chi-Lan's gonna film me against a black backdrop, and I'll walk the same pattern as the ghostly apparition in the video.
Good job, ghost.
High five.
Rock 'n' roll with that walk.
Once we get the footage we need, we're just gonna load it into the projector and project it down the hallway on the haze.
Hopefully this will replicate the original footage.
What we're gonna do now is use a haze machine to add to the humidity in the hallway.
Hey, guys, you can see the haze in the hall.
You guys ready to start this experiment? On 3 Phantom.
So, what we're gonna do now is we're gonna perform an experiment that incorporates the environmental elements, such as the fog that you see outside.
We can actually project things onto that fog and hopefully create the white apparition that we're seeing in Ryan's video.
On 3 Phantom.
Wow! Look at that.
That looks creepy.
It actually does work.
Wow.
It actually looks really similar.
We're seeing the light actually shoot from the projector.
That is the problem.
You can see the beam of the projector.
We were able to create a similar moving image, but once the haze filled up the hallway, you could clearly see that it was simply a projection.
The fact that those glass cases were in the hallway gave us an idea That Ryan's video was simply an optical illusion.
In our next experiment, we're gonna attempt to manipulate perception.
And the way that we're gonna do that is actually just use this presidential-style teleprompter.
I put the camera about a foot away from it.
We're gonna project Austin's image that we recorded earlier, superimposing him on top of the hallway.
It should match pretty close to what we're seeing in Ryan's video.
Okay, on 3 2 Play video.
Hey, hey.
There you are.
Oh, wow.
How's it working? This is awesome.
It looks pretty close.
It really looks ghostly.
You have a transparency, and you're walking like the guy in the video.
So, this is almost like proof of concept that by using reflective surfaces, it is possible that maybe this is how Ryan's video was created.
Yeah.
I think that we found a great way to hoax these videos.
Now that we've done the forced perspective test and we can see that the video can be hoaxed, we still have to consider the long history of the Queen Mary.
There have been so many eyewitness accounts of paranormal activity, so we're gonna go ahead and do a night investigation.
All the cameras are set up.
Yeah, we're ready to go.
Changing room, ballroom.
Boiler room, deck, and, of course, where Ryan Caudill shot his footage.
All right, guys.
I'm gonna bring my DSLR for stills.
I'm also gonna check the thermal cam, see if there are any unusual heat signatures on the ship.
Sounds good.
Flashlight.
Very handy.
You guys ready to go green? All right.
Right now, I am on top of the bridge that is over the boiler room, and I am scanning the room for any unusual heat signatures.
Bill to Austin.
Austin for Bill.
I'm gonna have an EVP session in the changing room where the vortex has been reported.
Copy that.
We're now setting up audio recorders to record electronic voice phenomena.
This is Bill.
I'm on the Queen Mary.
I'm here to learn from you.
Is there a message that you would like to deliver to the people who visit the Queen Mary? Whoa.
Did you see that? Now that we can see that the video can be hoaxed, we still have to consider the long history of the Queen Mary.
There have been so many eyewitness accounts of paranormal activity, so we're gonna go ahead and do a night investigation.
I am scanning the room for any unusual heat signatures.
Whoa.
Did you see that? I'm catching some type of heat signature, and it is moving, but I don't see anything with the naked eye.
If it's one of the sailors or if it's one of the passengers that was once aboard the Queen Mary, we'd like to able to learn from you.
I just heard, like, a creak, or maybe that was a groan.
Could you leave me a message in words that I can understand? Can you speak to me? Austin for Bill.
Are you there? Go for Bill.
I swear to you, I just saw eyes next to the It looks like the entrance of the changing room.
Eyes? Yes.
It looks like two eyes.
There it is.
It is moving.
What is that? So, Bill, tell me about it.
What did you guys do? We went down to Long Beach to investigate the possible hauntings on the Queen Mary.
First we wanted to eliminate the obvious, that the ghost that we're seeing in Ryan Caudill's video wasn't a result of shadows because of light sources in the hallway.
The shadows will cross the floor as well as the walls.
But there's nothing that actually stands within the middle of the hallway, which is where all of Ryan's apparitions appeared.
We started thinking that maybe this is a hoax.
There was a lot of condensation in the Long Beach Harbor, and we were thinking this could very easily act as a backdrop for us to project our own image onto.
We projected a mini movie of Austin down the middle of the hallway so that we could get that white apparition walking straight down.
- That looks great.
- That is really cool.
It was pretty amazing how well it worked, but the deal was is that you could see the beam of light from the projector cutting through the haze.
The next test we did had pretty striking results, as well.
We manipulated depth perception by using a presidential-style teleprompter.
Whoa! Wow.
To drive the point home that a video like this can be hoaxed, I shot the empty hallway.
Then I took the video of Austin, and I composited the two.
Wow.
That looks great.
I think we got a pretty close match here.
It shows that that video could have been hoaxed in a number of ways, but it doesn't mean that there isn't any paranormal activity to be found on the Queen Mary.
So, we thought, "We have to do a night investigation so we can collect our own evidence.
" I was in the middle of an EVP session when Austin radios me.
"There's a pair of glowing eyes looking at you!" - Eyes? - Yeah.
I just see these bright, glowing eyes staring at me right where Bill is.
No way.
Play the clip.
Seriously.
No way.
Aah! So, do you see this? What the I have no idea what they are, but as they start coming closer to the I.
R.
camera, I found out the ship actually has a couple stowaways.
Oh, my gosh.
A raccoon! A raccoon.
It turns out that there are a number of raccoons that live in the belly of the ship.
That was a false alarm, but we did not leave empty-handed.
During the EVP session, something was recorded.
No way.
Why don't you guys listen to this audio file and tell me what you hear? No way.
We're all here to learn from you.
Oh, my gosh.
Are you kidding me? That, to me, sounds like a little girl snickering.
It's exactly what it is.
We're all here to learn from you.
Oh, my goodness.
So, team, what do you think? Ryan's video fact or faked? There's a number of ways that this video could have been faked.
But that does not discount the numerous eyewitness accounts of actual paranormal activity.
The video is certainly questionable, but I think the EVP session shows that there may be paranormal activity aboard the Queen Mary.
Sounds like we agree.
Paranormal activity in Ryan's video probably faked.
But the Queen Mary may be haunted.
Great job, guys.