Fact or Faked: Paranormal Files (2010) s02e03 Episode Script
Raining Ufo's & Ectoplasmic Pic
Tonight, on "Fact or Faked: Paranormal Files" It seemed like it's going really, really fast.
Oh, gosh.
Look at that, guys.
They were trying to proof life after death.
Almost like a ufo seeding the earth.
Two, one.
Light it up.
- Go! - Look at it go! Let me get the lights.
Photo! Oh, my God! Oh, my goodness! There's a flying saucer.
I'm getting a series of lights right there.
Are you seeing what I'm seeing? What the heck is happening? Hey.
Good morning.
You guys bringing some good stuff to the table today? Always.
Yeah? All right.
Yeah.
So, Jael, what do you have for us? I have a case from Christmas night of 2004.
A police helicopter was doing its routine patrol over Long Beach, California, when their thermal-imaging camera captures some kind of burning-hot liquid in the sky, almost like a UFO seeding the earth.
Check out this video.
It looks like something's melting off of it.
The movement is so organic.
That's true.
And there are so many elements being dropped.
What did the police think this was? Well, they had no idea what it was, so they passed the footage along to the military.
To this day, no one has been able to release an official statement of what it was.
Now, we've seen a lot of UFO videos, but none that really depict this kind of heated liquid that drips off of it in mid-flight.
I agree.
I've never really seen anything like it.
I think it would be a challenge to try and re-create it.
I think this has a lot of potential.
I want to see what else we have today.
So, Chi-Lan, what do you have? I have a really recent video, guys.
Last year, Ken Goldstein, an Australian photographer, thinks that he hears noises coming from his photography studio.
He heads down to the basement, and he sees a shadow, so he quickly grabs his video camera.
And he thinks that he captures genuine poltergeist activity.
Take a look at this.
- Oh, my gosh.
- Oh, my gosh.
Wow.
Easy.
Look at the way it's tipping over the box.
Oh, wow.
This poltergeist continues to wreak havoc on Ken's life.
We have another video here.
Ohh! Wow! Ohh! This is a really violent poltergeist.
It started with scooting boxes, and now it's escalated to breaking glass.
It's kind of odd that it's just that open cabinet, though.
The one that happens to be open is where items fly out of.
There could be a hole in the wall, and somebody is just throwing objects through it.
Ben, can you go back to the first video in the basement? You guys can see that there's some sort of a piping system on the ceiling.
It is possible that maybe monofilament lines are draped down and pulling the objects across.
- It's totally testable.
- I don't know.
I just feel every event here is way too easy to re-create.
I just don't really see this poltergeist being worth our time.
- No.
That makes sense.
- Yeah.
Well, we have some more to look at today.
I've got a really cool UFO video for you.
Now, this comes from the big island of Hawaii.
Supposedly, a paranormal researcher was out driving near a government facility.
Now, over the property, he sees these three lights that come together and then separate many times.
He grabs his video camera, and this is what he captured.
Oh.
What's that? Oh, wow.
Is it a triangular UFO? No, it's not.
It looks like separate drones.
Oh, wow.
Wow.
It's like they're separate drones, but like they're coordinated.
And then there they go.
Then they just disappear.
The way they disappear at the end is pretty suspicious.
But, you know, you could do that with editing software.
The lights are really, really bright.
I don't see any shadows.
I don't see any shading.
This is super-easy to do with a computer.
The reason I brought it is because, really, the implication that it's over a government facility.
Now, I believe kind of with Chi-Lan -- If it were a hoax, I'm gonna say it's C.
G.
I will try to do some more on the backstory and try to source the video before we take any action on it.
Okay? Cool.
Okay.
So, Devin, what do you have for us? All right, you guys.
Do you guys all remember in "Ghostbusters," when people would get sled? Yes.
Of course.
Now, that movie was obviously fiction, but the slime was based on a substance known as ectoplasm.
Now, in the 1920s and '30s in north America, séances were huge.
Now, ectoplasm is believed to be the physical manifestation of a spirit.
And it supposedly oozes from the orifices of a medium, like the ears and the nose and the mouth.
Now, in Canada, there was a doctor named T.
G.
Hamilton who was obsessed with the idea that ectoplasm was physical proof of the afterlife.
So he did tons of séances, took thousands of photos, actually capturing this substance.
Check this out.
Oh.
Wow.
Weird.
Whoa.
It's bizarre.
What is that? Is there a face in that ectoplasm? Yeah.
The idea is, is that the face of the spirit they were trying to contact was showing up in this ectoplasm.
Supposedly, there were witnesses to this.
So this wasn't just something that was caught in the photo, and people actually saw it.
I actually know a little bit about the history of Dr.
T.
G.
Hamilton's photographs.
Scholars and experts have studied the negatives and the prints from these sessions, and they say that they don't see any evidence of tampering.
They were using cameras that used photographic-sensitive plates.
So it wasn't like necessarily they could edit it like we can do now with computer software.
If this is actually gonna be a hoax, and it was done in the 1920s and '30s, I think this all has to be done practically.
We've never investigated a case like that before.
It's got a lot of potential.
So, which cases do you like the most? I want to investigate ectoplasm.
This case has real historic significance.
Ectoplasm is well-known and debated throughout the paranormal community.
Now, guys, I have to say -- I love the poltergeist video from Australia.
But I also love the ectoplasm because this is literally one of the first documented cases of paranormal activity.
My vote goes for seeding UFO.
I've never seen anything like it, and it stumped the military.
I think we have to investigate.
There has to be a way to figure out what's giving off that heat signature.
This UFO case is so popular, so many people wanting to know what it was, and no one's really put it to the test yet.
I'm gonna have to go with ectoplasm, you guys.
There are so many gadgets that I could build that would help us replicate these photos.
So, I'm thinking, Jael, if you want to go to the Long Beach UFO with me and Austin, then Bill, Chi-Lan, and Devin can go do the ectoplasm.
Perfect.
This is gonna be awesome.
Okay? Yep.
Good cases today, guys.
Yep.
All right.
Sound great.
So, here we are in Long Beach, the fifth-largest city in California and the site of our next UFO investigation.
This is a very popular case.
The footage was captured on Christmas night of 2004.
A police helicopter pilot -- he's flying around, and he sees this UFO.
It looks like it's dropping white-hot seeds For almost three minutes over the Long Beach harbor.
The report said the pilots had no clue what it was.
That's why they turned the footage over to the police department -- let them investigate it.
And from the police department, it went to the military and then escalated up to the FBI.
There's so many agencies involved with this, and the secrecy makes it really unique.
It is kind of strange that law enforcement still hasn't come up with an official explanation for this.
I think we need to verify the facts with both the military and law enforcement before we conduct any of our tests.
We'll be meeting first with a lieutenant David Canan.
Now, he was with the Long Beach police department at the time that this event occurred.
- You must be David.
- Yes.
I'm Ben.
Hi, Ben.
You know that we're looking into this case that Long Beach police department filmed.
Correct.
Can you just start off by telling us how you became involved with it? Well, at that time, I was a spokesman for the police department.
Well, I went to our air support unit and asked them what occurred.
They said that they saw something in the sky that they couldn't readily identify.
They filmed it.
And because they felt it was a hazard to aviation, they turned over what they had to the military.
What kind of camera did the pilot use to film this object? It's called a FLIR -- forward looking infrared camera.
And it's mounted on the undercarriage of the aircraft.
How far from the helicopter was the object? I believe they were about a quarter-mile away.
When you saw the footage, did you know what the object was? No.
You didn't? I did not.
So, guys, I managed to track down Tyler Burke.
Now, he was the duty officer who was at the Los Alamitos military base the night the tape was delivered.
You Tyler? I'm Ben.
Yes.
Hey, we just talked with lieutenant Canan of the Long Beach police department, and we understand that the tape was turned over to your military base.
Right.
Once the tapes came in, what happened to them? The tape came in, and I showed it around the office to different instructor pilots to see if maybe we could figure it out.
Does the military have an official stance on what the object in the footage was? As far as I know, no.
I've flown about 2,500 hours using flir systems.
I've never seen anything like it.
I'm really curious to see what this is.
I do believe it was a UFO.
The little green men -- Well, I guess I'll leave that up for you guys to decide.
Okay.
Good enough.
Thank you, Tyler.
All right.
Now we need to get to the test site and run some experiments to see what this UFO really was.
I think that that out here in the desert, we have plenty of room to safely do our tests.
Wow.
What you got here, Ben? I like the way you roll.
Show us the inside.
This thing is cool.
Let's take a look at all the toys in here, guys.
All right.
We'll be able to film all of our thermal-imaging and all the experiments from this rig.
Now, our thermal-imaging cameras are attached as 30-foot masts.
It also allows them to turn 360 degrees.
We can film all of our experiments from here.
One thing that will definitely create a significant heat signature is a military flare, so we're gonna test the theory that the object over the Long Beach harbor Was a parachute flare that was launched from the Los Alamitos military base.
Our thermal camera has a 750mm zoom lens, which is the same one that was used to capture the original footage.
And we're gonna maneuver it from our control center to track this flare in the sky.
I'm using this electronic range finder to secure our launching point -- that way, we have the exact same distance as the original footage.
If we can't figure out what this object was with all of this cutting-edge technology, then maybe this was a UFO.
Austin to command center -- you copy? Come in, Austin.
Do you have a visual on me now? We do have a visual on you.
As soon as I pull the trigger on this gun, this flare is gonna launch easily to an elevation of around 500, 600 feet.
It's about the same altitude that the helicopter was flying when they actually captured the Long Beach UFO on video.
All right, Austin, we're all framed up and calibrated.
Here we go.
Three Two One.
Launch flare.
Whoa! There it goes! Oh, my God, Ben! Yeah.
We're gonna test the theory that the object over the Long Beach harbor was a parachute flare that was launched from the Los Alamitos military base.
Here we go.
Three Two One.
Launch flare.
Whoa! There it goes! Oh, my God, Ben! Yeah.
Look at that.
Wow.
It looks like the sun.
I'm seeing it start to trail off stuff.
Oh, my gosh.
Look at that.
Look at them dripping.
It's definitely got the dripping.
It's super bright.
I mean, the only thing I would say is that it's very apparent there's a chute there.
Definitely.
We're seeing two different objects.
Got the parachute now is black -- it was heated up at first -- Right.
And then the flare itself.
Oh! Austin, well done.
Why don't you come on back so we can do our side-by-side comparison? Take a look at this.
This is our original video over here on the left.
Okay.
Okay, from the police helicopter.
Here's what we just shot.
You can see the flare takes off.
You get this artifact, which is kind of like this blooming effect as soon as it goes up.
Right.
Then it starts actually dripping.
The heat signature is giving us that seeding-droplet look, but it's just not lasting long enough.
No.
When you launched it, it only dripped for the first few seconds.
And then all of a sudden, we get the silhouette of the parachute.
It's falling down.
This continues to drip.
The police air crew filmed this for over three minutes.
Right.
I would say, tops, it was like a minute and a half the whole parachute was in the air.
It definitely wasn't hovering.
I think we can kind of rule out, you know, that it was a flare.
I'm just wondering if the fact that it was shot on Christmas has anything to do with it.
I mean, what would people be launching up into the sky on Christmas night? Long Beach has a large Latino community, and they have a lot of traditions.
You know, sometimes they launch these floaters, like Chinese lanterns, into the sky for celebrations like weddings or quinceañera.
It's possible that maybe they launched one for Christmas.
I like it.
I like where you're going with this.
I've never seen one, but I think we absolutely have to get one of these up in the air and see what it looks like on a thermal camera.
Our next theory is that the UFO might actually just be a simple homemade hot-air balloon.
They're really easy to make.
All you need is a large bag.
And you attach that to a really lightweight platform.
When you light the candles, it actually heats up the air inside the balloon and causes it to take off.
As the wax from the candles melts and falls off the platform, it could create that dripping effect from the original footage.
All right, guys, floater's done.
I'm gonna head to the launch point.
You just let me know when you're ready to rock.
And three Two One.
Release floater.
Oh, there it goes.
There it goes.
Yeah, there it is.
It's starting to fly a little bit.
Yeah.
It's actually taking off.
Austin for command center.
We have official lift-off.
This thing's actually taking off pretty good.
Yes, it is.
Copy that.
We're watching it right now.
Oh, look at that.
Oh, my God! Look, we got some drip.
Yep, it's starting to drip.
Look at this.
Oh, my God, there goes the wax.
Look at that! Wow! Oh, my God! Hey, buddy, come back over here.
Let's compare this to the original footage.
All right, I'll see you guys in a minute.
You have to see this.
Now watch as this starts to drip.
There we go.
Now, watch.
Look at that.
That's the seeding effect.
Yeah.
Guys, this is really close.
It looks a lot like our video.
I do have two concerns, though -- We didn't get it quite as high as the 500-foot level.
My other concern is that it's not getting that constant stream we're looking for.
So, now we're gonna move on to our next test.
We're gonna launch a remote-controlled airplane that can definitely get the same altitude we were seeing in the original footage.
Plus, it'll be able to maintain that same altitude.
The original image appeared to be seeding something with a significant heat signature.
So in order to replicate that, we're going to tape sparklers to the tail of this plane, and hopefully our sparklers will create a dripping effect that our thermal-imaging camera can pick up.
I've seen a lot of videos where extreme hobbyists attach all kinds of things to their planes -- I mean, flashlights, fireworks, stuffed animals.
You name it, people have tried to attach it to their plane to fly it.
I think we're solid.
Done? I think that's good.
All right, let's go.
All right.
Austin, you ready to launch this thing? You know I am.
All right, Ben, we're cleared for launch, so just let us know when you're ready to rock.
Get ready to light it in three Two One.
Light it up.
There we go.
Go! Whoa, there she goes! There she goes! Yeah! So, now we're gonna launch a remote-controlled airplane that can definitely get the same altitude we we're seeing in the original footage, plus something that's going to burn a little bit brighter when seen through the thermal imager.
So, our r.
C.
Plane has a bellyful of fireworks.
When this thing takes off, it's gonna light up like a Christmas tree.
Get ready to light it in three Two One.
Light it up.
Here we go.
Go! Ben, she's in the air! She's in the air! Yeah! Beautiful.
Beautiful, beautiful.
That looks good.
Hey, Austin, can you get it to go straight up and just keep it in a hover? Dude, how is that? There we go.
All right, Ben.
That was fun.
How did it look? Nice job.
Are you ready to see a good spark show? Yes.
I am.
I can't see.
Okay.
Look at the stall you maintained right here.
Wow! Look at the stream of sparks that's coming down from it.
We definitely got a very consistent seeding effect.
I originally thought this looked like chunks of like liquid metal almost coming off.
We're looking at sparks, though.
And I am sold on the idea that this has a logical explanation, but just because we've re-created this Long Beach UFO video and it looks like it could have been an r.
C.
Plane or a floater doesn't mean that it was.
Long Beach has had a significant increase in UFO activity.
I think it would behoove us to go back there and do a night watch.
Okay.
Sounds smart.
I'm in for that.
Let's pack up.
Let's follow up.
All right.
We got all the important areas covered.
Camera one and four we got covering the east and west skyline.
We got camera three -- shoreline to my right.
Two -- this one's covering the shoreline to the opposite side of the pier.
Check out our latest equipment.
Okay? Nice.
This is the new thermal-imaging scope.
It is very, very sensitive -- really cool technology, very compact, you know, used in law enforcement, surveillance, that type of thing.
I'm bringing the camera with infrared so that if -- you know, if we do catch sight of something, we'll document it.
Perfect.
So, Jael and I are gonna take off.
We're gonna go exploring the shoreline.
All right, so we'll be in touch.
Ready, guys? Ready.
Let's go green.
You know, with the fog rolling in and this low cloud cover, when you're trying to see something in the sky, it definitely limits your visibility.
You can't help but feel almost claustrophobic.
If something's out there, you really can't see it.
Let's get up here so we can take a better look.
It's kind of weird.
I've never really been scared of the ocean at all, but it's definitely -- oh! Austin to team.
Are you there? Go ahead, buddy.
Guys, on camera four, covering the east sky, I just saw -- I'm not sure what it was, but it looked like a craft, but I can't tell.
Do you guys see anything on the flir or the thermal camera? It was flying extremely fast.
It looked small.
Oh, that's odd.
Yeah.
Team to Austin, team to Austin -- Are you seeing what Ben and I are seeing? Whoa.
Man, wait till you hear about the equipment we got to use.
Yeah? So, we got to play with a lot of really cool equipment in our case.
If you remember, the UFO in Long Beach -- it was a police helicopter filming what looked like this strange object dripping some hot liquid.
For our first test, we launched a military-grade parachute flare into the air, and we actually tracked it using the exact same thermal-imaging camera that they had in the police helicopter.
Oh, look at that.
Wow.
You got it to release something.
Yeah, it looks like it's dripping in the sky.
Yeah.
The problem was that the flare actually went out before we could get enough of that seeding effect.
So we needed to do something that gave us a more pronounced dripping effect, and we moved on to another test.
Now, Long Beach has a large Hispanic community, and it's part of their tradition to make these homemade hot-air balloons, or floaters.
It's possible that somebody launched one of these floaters to celebrate Christmas.
With how easy this is to make, you won't believe the results.
Take a look for yourself.
Look at that.
Nice.
Oh, look! Oh! That is amazing.
So, that's just hot wax coming down? It's wax.
It also heated up the bag.
And that melted, and chunks of it came off.
But we still weren't The floater couldn't reach the same altitude we saw in the video because we were only up a few hundred feet.
And in order to get a bigger heat signature from the droplets, we decided to move on to another experiment.
A remote-controlled airplane strapped with fireworks.
Extreme hobbyists attach all kinds of thing to their planes.
Check this out.
No way.
Wow! No way! - Wow.
- Wow! Austin was actually able to put the r.
C.
Plane in a stall so it looked like it was hovering.
That looks right on.
It's dripping so much.
That is seriously a match, guys.
That's amazing.
So, guys, just because we re-created the video and it looks like it could have been an r.
C.
Plane or a floater doesn't mean that it was.
It could have been an actual UFO in the skies that night.
There has been increased activity in Long Beach.
So we decided to do our own night-sky watch.
At one point, I did catch like an unusual light on the I.
R.
Camera, kind of just zip across the screen.
Let me know what you guys think of this.
Whoa.
Wow.
Whoa! I mean, at first look, it seemed like it's going really, really fast.
Is there any chance that it could be a satellite in the sky? No, 'cause you see how close it is to the screen? And if you notice, it goes faster than anything else you can honestly visibly see in the sky.
What -- but it wasn't an airliner? Like, you didn't hear it? I didn't hear or see anything.
Plus, we had a lot of cloud cover that night.
What do you guys think it is? Well, take a look at this.
If we back this up, it looks like it's blinking Or maybe the wings of a bird flapping.
- Oh, yeah, yeah.
- Ah.
Man.
Well, good job.
You guys proved that the UFO could have either been a remote-controlled plane or a floater.
Thank you.
So, guys, tell me about the ectoplasm investigation.
Well, if you guys recall, we went up to Canada to investigate this historic ectoplasm case.
We selected four of the most intriguing photos And we tried to replicate them in the same house where they were originally taken.
Check it out.
Coming up on "Fact or Faked: Paranormal Files" He was interested in the facts.
They were trying to prove life after death.
I'm gonna hit the lights.
Ready? Three, two, one -- lights.
So, we're gonna be examining a truly historic case that documented the phenomenon of this ectoplasm, which is supposedly a substance that emanates from the body of a medium during a séance or a trance.
And these spiritual manifestations are purportedly secreted from the medium's orifices, like the mouth and the ears and the nose.
In the 1920s and '30s, a doctor in Winnipeg, Dr.
T.
G.
Hamilton -- he was actually really interested in psychic research.
He conducted thousands of séances in his house and was able to capture all of this ectoplasm on film.
And Dr.
Hamilton was apparently very scientific with his approach.
People would be frisked before they'd enter the room.
The room would then be sealed to avoid outside contamination.
And the participants were allowed to examine the film as it developed.
This is the cemetery where T.
G.
Hamilton is buried and where we're gonna be meeting Walter Meyer Zu Erpen.
He's an expert on Hamilton and on ectoplasm.
Walter? Hello.
This is the Hamilton gravestone right here.
This one right here? Everything in front of the stone, sort of a semicircle here, is all the Hamilton graves.
So, tell us a little bit about Hamilton and his psychic research.
Thomas Glendenning Hamilton was a medical doctor here in Winnipeg.
He was a fellow of the American college of surgeons.
He was a very upstanding member of the Winnipeg community.
He became interested in psychic research about 1918.
They were studying telekinesis, table levitations.
They were trying to prove life after death.
We should really go over and have a look inside the house, I think.
Let's do it.
This is the room that séances were conducted in, in the 1920s and early 1930s.
The group would come upstairs, sometimes two to three nights a week, and there might be eight or nine sitters on any given evening that would be here.
What experiments did he actually conduct here, in terms of psychic research? The earliest experiments were the table levitations.
After Mary Marshall and her sister-in-law, Susan Marshall, became members of the group, they started to observe and photograph ectoplasm.
That's what we're really interested in -- ectoplasm -- 'cause those photographs are amazing.
And we're wondering, "How did they come about? What happened during those séances?" The sitters would be seated holding hands.
So you'd have a half-circle all around.
The windows were permanently darkened.
Was it pitch-black while they were doing these séances? They were actually sitting in the dark.
And they would sit sometimes for half an hour, sometimes for an hour before anything would happen.
And they saw the ectoplasm in the flash.
A lot of our photos have this same woman in it.
Why do you think Dr.
Hamilton used Mary Ann Marshall so much in so many of the photos? Well, she was chosen because she was the individual who had the ability to produce ectoplasm.
She had the ability to produce it? Primarily.
Can ectoplasm be seen with the naked eye, or does it just have to be captured with photography? Oh, no, certainly, during that brief moment when the flash was exploded, they could see the substance in the room.
How do you respond to the skeptics and people who say that this is a parlor trick? If you look at the professionals who were involved -- the medical doctors, the clergymen, the lawyers -- they had so much to lose if they were participating in fraud.
Walter, thanks for your time.
Most welcome.
Thanks.
Thank you.
Now that we know more of the history of Dr.
Hamilton's experience with ectoplasm, we've picked four of his most famous photographs to base our experiments on.
Take a look at this picture that was taken of Mary Ann Marshall.
Look at how that ectoplasm just comes out of her mouth and seems to envelop her face.
It does seem like, in a number of these ectoplasmic photos, that it's a smoky-like substance.
So I think smoke is a great place to start.
I think, you guys, that if we use a cigar and I puff on it and I slowly let the smoke come out of my mouth -- my face is moving forward -- I think it might curl around my face just like in the original photo.
I mean, just take a look at the contrast here.
It's like super-dark darks, super-bright whites.
So, to get that, I'm gonna use this vintage 35mm film rig, and I have a flash attached because, remember, Hamilton did use flashes in here, and that's how he was able to capture the pictures.
Because Hamilton took his photos in the dark, we're gonna do that, as well.
- Hey, Devin.
- Yeah? Can you do that kind of shape with your mouth? Yeah.
Open on both sides? Like this? That's actually really good.
So if you exhale and you kind of Lean forward? Okay.
Yeah, I can do that.
We have to make it pretty flat.
There you go.
There you go.
Oh, Bill's got hops.
Devin, you ready? I'm ready.
Chi-Lan, you ready? I'm set.
Okay, let me get the lights.
On threeTwoOne Photo.
We are in Winnipeg to examine a truly historic case that documented the phenomena known as ectoplasm.
They were studying telekinesis, table levitations.
They were trying to prove life after death.
We picked four of Dr.
Hamilton's photographs with ectoplasm to base our experiment on.
If we use a cigar and I puff on it and I hold the smoke in my mouth, I think it might curl around my face just like in the original photo.
Okay, let me get the lights.
On threeTwoOne Photo.
That was eerie.
All right, let me get the lights back on.
Yeah? You just looked like a haunted face.
With the flash reflecting against you and the smoke, it was really neat.
Really? We got to see the picture.
Yeah, definitely.
I'm gonna go ahead and process this film.
And then we'll print it out.
Okay.
Hamilton was a photography enthusiast.
He used a number of film formats to take pictures of his séances.
So right now I'm setting up our own darkroom in the Hamilton house to make sure that we can develop our negatives here, as well as process the pictures so we can control all elements of the experiment.
Oh, my gosh! Guys, take a look! Let me see.
Oh, my God.
Look at that.
That is a pretty close match.
There are many similarities, but I do see differences.
Look at the density.
The smoke from our cigar was very wispy and very light, where this was sort of congealing together.
Yeah, but, you guys, with the perfect setting and the smoke, the ability to direct the smoke, it might have been thicker-looking.
Our recreation photo does have striking similarities to the original, which does suggest that this ectoplasm may have been smoke.
So it's time to move on to a new photo.
For the next photo we've selected, we have a really well-known image.
And some people speculate that the medium that we see in the photo was actually vomiting.
Mm-hmm.
But to me, it looks like this material is floating.
I want to see if there's a material that I can expel that looks like what we see in this picture.
Yeah, it looks like there's maybe some cotton or something coming out of her mouth and going into her blouse, and I think that could be easily rigged with cotton balls, maybe some netting and some monofilament line pulling through.
There are other people in the room.
There have been numerous witnesses.
If this is a hoax, no one's saying that they were a part of it.
Maybe it was being pulled off without their knowledge.
So it's got to be done in a way that it doesn't tip off anybody else.
Right.
We'll now try to replicate the photo of the medium that has ectoplasm coming out of her mouth and on to her shirt.
We're exploring the theory that the others in the photo weren't aware of what was happening or how it was done.
This can totally be pulled off with some monofilament line and a cotton ball compressed in a tubular shape, coming right out of Bill's mouth, who will be playing the part of our medium.
He'll simply pull down on the filament line.
It'll come out his mouth, go right through his shirt -- Ectoplasm.
Bill, I've attached the monofilament line to a pulley.
Will you grab that and just pull on it? This is so elaborate.
I can't imagine them pulling this off without somebody detecting it.
It was reported that all of these séances and stuff happened in the dark, so what if this happened without anyone noticing? Everyone in the photo was holding hands.
Mary Ann didn't yank it with her hand, so maybe she had control with her foot and she just did it by herself.
I'm ready to start this test.
Let's do it.
I'm gonna hit the lights.
Ready? ThreeTwoOne Lights.
Ooh, that's good, Bill.
Me think we got it.
Let me get the lights.
Guys.
What up? Wow.
How did that feel? How did that taste? Yeah.
Dry, but, you know, it was tolerable.
Take a look at this! Oh, man.
That ectoplasm coming out of her mouth could have just been cotton, cheesecloth, maybe just some gauze.
The density may be not matching 100%.
But what we've proved is that the effect can be faked, but we haven't disproved the existence of ectoplasm.
Good point.
So, now we're gonna move on to a more complex photograph Where the medium is lying down on a cot and her face is covered in the ectoplasm.
When you're thinking about it, this medium is actually right by the radiator, which is here, and this is an old-school steam radiator.
So some people could say that they loosened the nozzle.
But this is really hot steam.
No one can actually be close to the radiator if that is the case.
This could simply be done with dry ice.
And considering at dry ice was invented in 1925 and this photo was taken after that -- totally possible.
But look -- there's witnesses in the room, so it's got to be done in a way that doesn't tip off anybody else.
Well, okay.
With the dry ice, you can easily wrap it in rice paper to, say, protect your skin.
A simple bowl with warm water in it -- You just drop the dry ice in it.
And as soon as it contacts that warm water, you're gonna get smoke for maybe two to three minutes.
All right, I'm gonna hit the lights now, guys.
You all set? All right, we're ready.
Okay, in threeTwoOne.
It's the moment of truth.
What I have here is dry ice bubbling in warm water.
We're gonna place this cup right underneath Bill's arm.
When he drops the dry-ice pellets in, it's gonna bubble just like this, and we're gonna have ectoplasm running right up his face.
All right, I'm gonna hit the lights now, guys.
You guys set? All right, we're ready.
Okay, in threeTwoOne.
Drop it.
Okay.
Perfect.
I'm gonna turn on the lights.
All right.
Okay.
Here we go.
Thank you.
I'm so excited to see how this experiment works out.
Yeah, me too.
Oh, man, guys.
Take a look at this.
Wow, I didn't even know there was so much smoke.
Yeah! That little piece of dry ice created all of this smoke that's enveloping your entire upper body.
The smoke from dry ice is more dense and cooler than atmospheric air.
That's why it hovers and it sinks around its source.
Our smoke stayed contained in the area that we wanted it to, and it created a cloak of mist over your upper body.
It totally could have been mistaken for ectoplasm.
We've been pretty successful with our experiments thus far.
Now it's time to move on to one of the more complicated documentations of ectoplasm -- The phantom faces that appear in some of the photographs.
This is supposed to be an image of the deceased person that the medium's communicating with.
One popular hoax theory is that the medium ingested the photo before the séance.
And then once the séance got going, she regurgitates it, and it's supposed to be the person they're communicating with in the spirit world.
I think that we can achieve similar results by just putting a picture on the outside of a cotton swab and then having you chew on a seltzer tablet.
I mean, that seltzer tablet will give you that type of foam.
So, I have volunteered to be the medium for this particular experiment.
We're gonna use sodium bicarbonate and citric-acid tablets.
And we're going to put those in my mouth.
They're gonna bubble up, and when my mouth becomes too much to bear, it's gonna burst out.
When that happens, this little photo of Bill, which will be planted in my mouth And it will pop out.
And hopefully the bubbles will go around it and it'll replicate the original photo really nicely.
I think it's gonna be pretty good.
When you think about how much these seltzer tablets can foam, it's gonna give us a really good look.
I do wonder about controlling the foam around the picture.
But I say, "Hey, we can't figure it out until we do it, right?" I got four total right now.
All right.
I have two here.
So you're gonna have six, total.
See if you can chew all of these with as little water as possible 'cause we want to make sure that the foam coming out of your mouth doesn't pull down with the weight of the water.
We want to make sure that it foams around the picture of Bill.
Oh, all right.
All right, let's rock 'n' roll.
Okay.
Give us a signal.
He'll hit the lights, and we'll be good to go.
Three, two, one Lights out.
All right, I think I got it.
One thing that I think was different is that you had a lot more foam on your clothing than what we see in the photo.
So good thing that you're wearing this bag here.
All right, well, let's take a look at what the results are.
I'm ready.
Look at that, guys.
Oh, my God.
For our final photo, we've moved on to an iconic image of ectoplasm, with a face appearing right in the ectoplasm.
I actually took a picture of Bill.
We cut it out, put it on the end of a cotton swab.
Devin was able to put that into his mouth and also chew up about six to seven seltzer tablets.
And once it was ready, mixed with a little bit of water -- kaboom! -- It comes out, and he flips Bill's head out of his mouth.
So, go ahead and take a look at this one.
Oh, wow! Look at this! It's all in the name of science.
So, you guys, what do you think about the photos -- Fact or faked? In the original photographs, the ectoplasm has kind of a fuzzy edge.
And in your photographs, it's very defined.
I just can't buy this one.
I think it's a complete hoax.
We were convinced that we could replicate these photos well, but I can't say with certainty that the original witnesses were part of any hoax.
It really makes me question the validity of the medium, Mary Ann Marshall.
Remember -- all of this happened to her.
Could she have been hoaxing everybody? I think you guys more than did your due diligence in showing there are numerous methods in which you can re-create these photos.
Agreed.
Well, I'd like to look more into ectoplasm.
But in this case, we weren't trying to prove that ectoplasm doesn't exist.
We were just looking at these photographs.
And I think we've pretty well showed they could have been faked.
It was an excellent job, guys.
Oh, gosh.
Look at that, guys.
They were trying to proof life after death.
Almost like a ufo seeding the earth.
Two, one.
Light it up.
- Go! - Look at it go! Let me get the lights.
Photo! Oh, my God! Oh, my goodness! There's a flying saucer.
I'm getting a series of lights right there.
Are you seeing what I'm seeing? What the heck is happening? Hey.
Good morning.
You guys bringing some good stuff to the table today? Always.
Yeah? All right.
Yeah.
So, Jael, what do you have for us? I have a case from Christmas night of 2004.
A police helicopter was doing its routine patrol over Long Beach, California, when their thermal-imaging camera captures some kind of burning-hot liquid in the sky, almost like a UFO seeding the earth.
Check out this video.
It looks like something's melting off of it.
The movement is so organic.
That's true.
And there are so many elements being dropped.
What did the police think this was? Well, they had no idea what it was, so they passed the footage along to the military.
To this day, no one has been able to release an official statement of what it was.
Now, we've seen a lot of UFO videos, but none that really depict this kind of heated liquid that drips off of it in mid-flight.
I agree.
I've never really seen anything like it.
I think it would be a challenge to try and re-create it.
I think this has a lot of potential.
I want to see what else we have today.
So, Chi-Lan, what do you have? I have a really recent video, guys.
Last year, Ken Goldstein, an Australian photographer, thinks that he hears noises coming from his photography studio.
He heads down to the basement, and he sees a shadow, so he quickly grabs his video camera.
And he thinks that he captures genuine poltergeist activity.
Take a look at this.
- Oh, my gosh.
- Oh, my gosh.
Wow.
Easy.
Look at the way it's tipping over the box.
Oh, wow.
This poltergeist continues to wreak havoc on Ken's life.
We have another video here.
Ohh! Wow! Ohh! This is a really violent poltergeist.
It started with scooting boxes, and now it's escalated to breaking glass.
It's kind of odd that it's just that open cabinet, though.
The one that happens to be open is where items fly out of.
There could be a hole in the wall, and somebody is just throwing objects through it.
Ben, can you go back to the first video in the basement? You guys can see that there's some sort of a piping system on the ceiling.
It is possible that maybe monofilament lines are draped down and pulling the objects across.
- It's totally testable.
- I don't know.
I just feel every event here is way too easy to re-create.
I just don't really see this poltergeist being worth our time.
- No.
That makes sense.
- Yeah.
Well, we have some more to look at today.
I've got a really cool UFO video for you.
Now, this comes from the big island of Hawaii.
Supposedly, a paranormal researcher was out driving near a government facility.
Now, over the property, he sees these three lights that come together and then separate many times.
He grabs his video camera, and this is what he captured.
Oh.
What's that? Oh, wow.
Is it a triangular UFO? No, it's not.
It looks like separate drones.
Oh, wow.
Wow.
It's like they're separate drones, but like they're coordinated.
And then there they go.
Then they just disappear.
The way they disappear at the end is pretty suspicious.
But, you know, you could do that with editing software.
The lights are really, really bright.
I don't see any shadows.
I don't see any shading.
This is super-easy to do with a computer.
The reason I brought it is because, really, the implication that it's over a government facility.
Now, I believe kind of with Chi-Lan -- If it were a hoax, I'm gonna say it's C.
G.
I will try to do some more on the backstory and try to source the video before we take any action on it.
Okay? Cool.
Okay.
So, Devin, what do you have for us? All right, you guys.
Do you guys all remember in "Ghostbusters," when people would get sled? Yes.
Of course.
Now, that movie was obviously fiction, but the slime was based on a substance known as ectoplasm.
Now, in the 1920s and '30s in north America, séances were huge.
Now, ectoplasm is believed to be the physical manifestation of a spirit.
And it supposedly oozes from the orifices of a medium, like the ears and the nose and the mouth.
Now, in Canada, there was a doctor named T.
G.
Hamilton who was obsessed with the idea that ectoplasm was physical proof of the afterlife.
So he did tons of séances, took thousands of photos, actually capturing this substance.
Check this out.
Oh.
Wow.
Weird.
Whoa.
It's bizarre.
What is that? Is there a face in that ectoplasm? Yeah.
The idea is, is that the face of the spirit they were trying to contact was showing up in this ectoplasm.
Supposedly, there were witnesses to this.
So this wasn't just something that was caught in the photo, and people actually saw it.
I actually know a little bit about the history of Dr.
T.
G.
Hamilton's photographs.
Scholars and experts have studied the negatives and the prints from these sessions, and they say that they don't see any evidence of tampering.
They were using cameras that used photographic-sensitive plates.
So it wasn't like necessarily they could edit it like we can do now with computer software.
If this is actually gonna be a hoax, and it was done in the 1920s and '30s, I think this all has to be done practically.
We've never investigated a case like that before.
It's got a lot of potential.
So, which cases do you like the most? I want to investigate ectoplasm.
This case has real historic significance.
Ectoplasm is well-known and debated throughout the paranormal community.
Now, guys, I have to say -- I love the poltergeist video from Australia.
But I also love the ectoplasm because this is literally one of the first documented cases of paranormal activity.
My vote goes for seeding UFO.
I've never seen anything like it, and it stumped the military.
I think we have to investigate.
There has to be a way to figure out what's giving off that heat signature.
This UFO case is so popular, so many people wanting to know what it was, and no one's really put it to the test yet.
I'm gonna have to go with ectoplasm, you guys.
There are so many gadgets that I could build that would help us replicate these photos.
So, I'm thinking, Jael, if you want to go to the Long Beach UFO with me and Austin, then Bill, Chi-Lan, and Devin can go do the ectoplasm.
Perfect.
This is gonna be awesome.
Okay? Yep.
Good cases today, guys.
Yep.
All right.
Sound great.
So, here we are in Long Beach, the fifth-largest city in California and the site of our next UFO investigation.
This is a very popular case.
The footage was captured on Christmas night of 2004.
A police helicopter pilot -- he's flying around, and he sees this UFO.
It looks like it's dropping white-hot seeds For almost three minutes over the Long Beach harbor.
The report said the pilots had no clue what it was.
That's why they turned the footage over to the police department -- let them investigate it.
And from the police department, it went to the military and then escalated up to the FBI.
There's so many agencies involved with this, and the secrecy makes it really unique.
It is kind of strange that law enforcement still hasn't come up with an official explanation for this.
I think we need to verify the facts with both the military and law enforcement before we conduct any of our tests.
We'll be meeting first with a lieutenant David Canan.
Now, he was with the Long Beach police department at the time that this event occurred.
- You must be David.
- Yes.
I'm Ben.
Hi, Ben.
You know that we're looking into this case that Long Beach police department filmed.
Correct.
Can you just start off by telling us how you became involved with it? Well, at that time, I was a spokesman for the police department.
Well, I went to our air support unit and asked them what occurred.
They said that they saw something in the sky that they couldn't readily identify.
They filmed it.
And because they felt it was a hazard to aviation, they turned over what they had to the military.
What kind of camera did the pilot use to film this object? It's called a FLIR -- forward looking infrared camera.
And it's mounted on the undercarriage of the aircraft.
How far from the helicopter was the object? I believe they were about a quarter-mile away.
When you saw the footage, did you know what the object was? No.
You didn't? I did not.
So, guys, I managed to track down Tyler Burke.
Now, he was the duty officer who was at the Los Alamitos military base the night the tape was delivered.
You Tyler? I'm Ben.
Yes.
Hey, we just talked with lieutenant Canan of the Long Beach police department, and we understand that the tape was turned over to your military base.
Right.
Once the tapes came in, what happened to them? The tape came in, and I showed it around the office to different instructor pilots to see if maybe we could figure it out.
Does the military have an official stance on what the object in the footage was? As far as I know, no.
I've flown about 2,500 hours using flir systems.
I've never seen anything like it.
I'm really curious to see what this is.
I do believe it was a UFO.
The little green men -- Well, I guess I'll leave that up for you guys to decide.
Okay.
Good enough.
Thank you, Tyler.
All right.
Now we need to get to the test site and run some experiments to see what this UFO really was.
I think that that out here in the desert, we have plenty of room to safely do our tests.
Wow.
What you got here, Ben? I like the way you roll.
Show us the inside.
This thing is cool.
Let's take a look at all the toys in here, guys.
All right.
We'll be able to film all of our thermal-imaging and all the experiments from this rig.
Now, our thermal-imaging cameras are attached as 30-foot masts.
It also allows them to turn 360 degrees.
We can film all of our experiments from here.
One thing that will definitely create a significant heat signature is a military flare, so we're gonna test the theory that the object over the Long Beach harbor Was a parachute flare that was launched from the Los Alamitos military base.
Our thermal camera has a 750mm zoom lens, which is the same one that was used to capture the original footage.
And we're gonna maneuver it from our control center to track this flare in the sky.
I'm using this electronic range finder to secure our launching point -- that way, we have the exact same distance as the original footage.
If we can't figure out what this object was with all of this cutting-edge technology, then maybe this was a UFO.
Austin to command center -- you copy? Come in, Austin.
Do you have a visual on me now? We do have a visual on you.
As soon as I pull the trigger on this gun, this flare is gonna launch easily to an elevation of around 500, 600 feet.
It's about the same altitude that the helicopter was flying when they actually captured the Long Beach UFO on video.
All right, Austin, we're all framed up and calibrated.
Here we go.
Three Two One.
Launch flare.
Whoa! There it goes! Oh, my God, Ben! Yeah.
We're gonna test the theory that the object over the Long Beach harbor was a parachute flare that was launched from the Los Alamitos military base.
Here we go.
Three Two One.
Launch flare.
Whoa! There it goes! Oh, my God, Ben! Yeah.
Look at that.
Wow.
It looks like the sun.
I'm seeing it start to trail off stuff.
Oh, my gosh.
Look at that.
Look at them dripping.
It's definitely got the dripping.
It's super bright.
I mean, the only thing I would say is that it's very apparent there's a chute there.
Definitely.
We're seeing two different objects.
Got the parachute now is black -- it was heated up at first -- Right.
And then the flare itself.
Oh! Austin, well done.
Why don't you come on back so we can do our side-by-side comparison? Take a look at this.
This is our original video over here on the left.
Okay.
Okay, from the police helicopter.
Here's what we just shot.
You can see the flare takes off.
You get this artifact, which is kind of like this blooming effect as soon as it goes up.
Right.
Then it starts actually dripping.
The heat signature is giving us that seeding-droplet look, but it's just not lasting long enough.
No.
When you launched it, it only dripped for the first few seconds.
And then all of a sudden, we get the silhouette of the parachute.
It's falling down.
This continues to drip.
The police air crew filmed this for over three minutes.
Right.
I would say, tops, it was like a minute and a half the whole parachute was in the air.
It definitely wasn't hovering.
I think we can kind of rule out, you know, that it was a flare.
I'm just wondering if the fact that it was shot on Christmas has anything to do with it.
I mean, what would people be launching up into the sky on Christmas night? Long Beach has a large Latino community, and they have a lot of traditions.
You know, sometimes they launch these floaters, like Chinese lanterns, into the sky for celebrations like weddings or quinceañera.
It's possible that maybe they launched one for Christmas.
I like it.
I like where you're going with this.
I've never seen one, but I think we absolutely have to get one of these up in the air and see what it looks like on a thermal camera.
Our next theory is that the UFO might actually just be a simple homemade hot-air balloon.
They're really easy to make.
All you need is a large bag.
And you attach that to a really lightweight platform.
When you light the candles, it actually heats up the air inside the balloon and causes it to take off.
As the wax from the candles melts and falls off the platform, it could create that dripping effect from the original footage.
All right, guys, floater's done.
I'm gonna head to the launch point.
You just let me know when you're ready to rock.
And three Two One.
Release floater.
Oh, there it goes.
There it goes.
Yeah, there it is.
It's starting to fly a little bit.
Yeah.
It's actually taking off.
Austin for command center.
We have official lift-off.
This thing's actually taking off pretty good.
Yes, it is.
Copy that.
We're watching it right now.
Oh, look at that.
Oh, my God! Look, we got some drip.
Yep, it's starting to drip.
Look at this.
Oh, my God, there goes the wax.
Look at that! Wow! Oh, my God! Hey, buddy, come back over here.
Let's compare this to the original footage.
All right, I'll see you guys in a minute.
You have to see this.
Now watch as this starts to drip.
There we go.
Now, watch.
Look at that.
That's the seeding effect.
Yeah.
Guys, this is really close.
It looks a lot like our video.
I do have two concerns, though -- We didn't get it quite as high as the 500-foot level.
My other concern is that it's not getting that constant stream we're looking for.
So, now we're gonna move on to our next test.
We're gonna launch a remote-controlled airplane that can definitely get the same altitude we were seeing in the original footage.
Plus, it'll be able to maintain that same altitude.
The original image appeared to be seeding something with a significant heat signature.
So in order to replicate that, we're going to tape sparklers to the tail of this plane, and hopefully our sparklers will create a dripping effect that our thermal-imaging camera can pick up.
I've seen a lot of videos where extreme hobbyists attach all kinds of things to their planes -- I mean, flashlights, fireworks, stuffed animals.
You name it, people have tried to attach it to their plane to fly it.
I think we're solid.
Done? I think that's good.
All right, let's go.
All right.
Austin, you ready to launch this thing? You know I am.
All right, Ben, we're cleared for launch, so just let us know when you're ready to rock.
Get ready to light it in three Two One.
Light it up.
There we go.
Go! Whoa, there she goes! There she goes! Yeah! So, now we're gonna launch a remote-controlled airplane that can definitely get the same altitude we we're seeing in the original footage, plus something that's going to burn a little bit brighter when seen through the thermal imager.
So, our r.
C.
Plane has a bellyful of fireworks.
When this thing takes off, it's gonna light up like a Christmas tree.
Get ready to light it in three Two One.
Light it up.
Here we go.
Go! Ben, she's in the air! She's in the air! Yeah! Beautiful.
Beautiful, beautiful.
That looks good.
Hey, Austin, can you get it to go straight up and just keep it in a hover? Dude, how is that? There we go.
All right, Ben.
That was fun.
How did it look? Nice job.
Are you ready to see a good spark show? Yes.
I am.
I can't see.
Okay.
Look at the stall you maintained right here.
Wow! Look at the stream of sparks that's coming down from it.
We definitely got a very consistent seeding effect.
I originally thought this looked like chunks of like liquid metal almost coming off.
We're looking at sparks, though.
And I am sold on the idea that this has a logical explanation, but just because we've re-created this Long Beach UFO video and it looks like it could have been an r.
C.
Plane or a floater doesn't mean that it was.
Long Beach has had a significant increase in UFO activity.
I think it would behoove us to go back there and do a night watch.
Okay.
Sounds smart.
I'm in for that.
Let's pack up.
Let's follow up.
All right.
We got all the important areas covered.
Camera one and four we got covering the east and west skyline.
We got camera three -- shoreline to my right.
Two -- this one's covering the shoreline to the opposite side of the pier.
Check out our latest equipment.
Okay? Nice.
This is the new thermal-imaging scope.
It is very, very sensitive -- really cool technology, very compact, you know, used in law enforcement, surveillance, that type of thing.
I'm bringing the camera with infrared so that if -- you know, if we do catch sight of something, we'll document it.
Perfect.
So, Jael and I are gonna take off.
We're gonna go exploring the shoreline.
All right, so we'll be in touch.
Ready, guys? Ready.
Let's go green.
You know, with the fog rolling in and this low cloud cover, when you're trying to see something in the sky, it definitely limits your visibility.
You can't help but feel almost claustrophobic.
If something's out there, you really can't see it.
Let's get up here so we can take a better look.
It's kind of weird.
I've never really been scared of the ocean at all, but it's definitely -- oh! Austin to team.
Are you there? Go ahead, buddy.
Guys, on camera four, covering the east sky, I just saw -- I'm not sure what it was, but it looked like a craft, but I can't tell.
Do you guys see anything on the flir or the thermal camera? It was flying extremely fast.
It looked small.
Oh, that's odd.
Yeah.
Team to Austin, team to Austin -- Are you seeing what Ben and I are seeing? Whoa.
Man, wait till you hear about the equipment we got to use.
Yeah? So, we got to play with a lot of really cool equipment in our case.
If you remember, the UFO in Long Beach -- it was a police helicopter filming what looked like this strange object dripping some hot liquid.
For our first test, we launched a military-grade parachute flare into the air, and we actually tracked it using the exact same thermal-imaging camera that they had in the police helicopter.
Oh, look at that.
Wow.
You got it to release something.
Yeah, it looks like it's dripping in the sky.
Yeah.
The problem was that the flare actually went out before we could get enough of that seeding effect.
So we needed to do something that gave us a more pronounced dripping effect, and we moved on to another test.
Now, Long Beach has a large Hispanic community, and it's part of their tradition to make these homemade hot-air balloons, or floaters.
It's possible that somebody launched one of these floaters to celebrate Christmas.
With how easy this is to make, you won't believe the results.
Take a look for yourself.
Look at that.
Nice.
Oh, look! Oh! That is amazing.
So, that's just hot wax coming down? It's wax.
It also heated up the bag.
And that melted, and chunks of it came off.
But we still weren't The floater couldn't reach the same altitude we saw in the video because we were only up a few hundred feet.
And in order to get a bigger heat signature from the droplets, we decided to move on to another experiment.
A remote-controlled airplane strapped with fireworks.
Extreme hobbyists attach all kinds of thing to their planes.
Check this out.
No way.
Wow! No way! - Wow.
- Wow! Austin was actually able to put the r.
C.
Plane in a stall so it looked like it was hovering.
That looks right on.
It's dripping so much.
That is seriously a match, guys.
That's amazing.
So, guys, just because we re-created the video and it looks like it could have been an r.
C.
Plane or a floater doesn't mean that it was.
It could have been an actual UFO in the skies that night.
There has been increased activity in Long Beach.
So we decided to do our own night-sky watch.
At one point, I did catch like an unusual light on the I.
R.
Camera, kind of just zip across the screen.
Let me know what you guys think of this.
Whoa.
Wow.
Whoa! I mean, at first look, it seemed like it's going really, really fast.
Is there any chance that it could be a satellite in the sky? No, 'cause you see how close it is to the screen? And if you notice, it goes faster than anything else you can honestly visibly see in the sky.
What -- but it wasn't an airliner? Like, you didn't hear it? I didn't hear or see anything.
Plus, we had a lot of cloud cover that night.
What do you guys think it is? Well, take a look at this.
If we back this up, it looks like it's blinking Or maybe the wings of a bird flapping.
- Oh, yeah, yeah.
- Ah.
Man.
Well, good job.
You guys proved that the UFO could have either been a remote-controlled plane or a floater.
Thank you.
So, guys, tell me about the ectoplasm investigation.
Well, if you guys recall, we went up to Canada to investigate this historic ectoplasm case.
We selected four of the most intriguing photos And we tried to replicate them in the same house where they were originally taken.
Check it out.
Coming up on "Fact or Faked: Paranormal Files" He was interested in the facts.
They were trying to prove life after death.
I'm gonna hit the lights.
Ready? Three, two, one -- lights.
So, we're gonna be examining a truly historic case that documented the phenomenon of this ectoplasm, which is supposedly a substance that emanates from the body of a medium during a séance or a trance.
And these spiritual manifestations are purportedly secreted from the medium's orifices, like the mouth and the ears and the nose.
In the 1920s and '30s, a doctor in Winnipeg, Dr.
T.
G.
Hamilton -- he was actually really interested in psychic research.
He conducted thousands of séances in his house and was able to capture all of this ectoplasm on film.
And Dr.
Hamilton was apparently very scientific with his approach.
People would be frisked before they'd enter the room.
The room would then be sealed to avoid outside contamination.
And the participants were allowed to examine the film as it developed.
This is the cemetery where T.
G.
Hamilton is buried and where we're gonna be meeting Walter Meyer Zu Erpen.
He's an expert on Hamilton and on ectoplasm.
Walter? Hello.
This is the Hamilton gravestone right here.
This one right here? Everything in front of the stone, sort of a semicircle here, is all the Hamilton graves.
So, tell us a little bit about Hamilton and his psychic research.
Thomas Glendenning Hamilton was a medical doctor here in Winnipeg.
He was a fellow of the American college of surgeons.
He was a very upstanding member of the Winnipeg community.
He became interested in psychic research about 1918.
They were studying telekinesis, table levitations.
They were trying to prove life after death.
We should really go over and have a look inside the house, I think.
Let's do it.
This is the room that séances were conducted in, in the 1920s and early 1930s.
The group would come upstairs, sometimes two to three nights a week, and there might be eight or nine sitters on any given evening that would be here.
What experiments did he actually conduct here, in terms of psychic research? The earliest experiments were the table levitations.
After Mary Marshall and her sister-in-law, Susan Marshall, became members of the group, they started to observe and photograph ectoplasm.
That's what we're really interested in -- ectoplasm -- 'cause those photographs are amazing.
And we're wondering, "How did they come about? What happened during those séances?" The sitters would be seated holding hands.
So you'd have a half-circle all around.
The windows were permanently darkened.
Was it pitch-black while they were doing these séances? They were actually sitting in the dark.
And they would sit sometimes for half an hour, sometimes for an hour before anything would happen.
And they saw the ectoplasm in the flash.
A lot of our photos have this same woman in it.
Why do you think Dr.
Hamilton used Mary Ann Marshall so much in so many of the photos? Well, she was chosen because she was the individual who had the ability to produce ectoplasm.
She had the ability to produce it? Primarily.
Can ectoplasm be seen with the naked eye, or does it just have to be captured with photography? Oh, no, certainly, during that brief moment when the flash was exploded, they could see the substance in the room.
How do you respond to the skeptics and people who say that this is a parlor trick? If you look at the professionals who were involved -- the medical doctors, the clergymen, the lawyers -- they had so much to lose if they were participating in fraud.
Walter, thanks for your time.
Most welcome.
Thanks.
Thank you.
Now that we know more of the history of Dr.
Hamilton's experience with ectoplasm, we've picked four of his most famous photographs to base our experiments on.
Take a look at this picture that was taken of Mary Ann Marshall.
Look at how that ectoplasm just comes out of her mouth and seems to envelop her face.
It does seem like, in a number of these ectoplasmic photos, that it's a smoky-like substance.
So I think smoke is a great place to start.
I think, you guys, that if we use a cigar and I puff on it and I slowly let the smoke come out of my mouth -- my face is moving forward -- I think it might curl around my face just like in the original photo.
I mean, just take a look at the contrast here.
It's like super-dark darks, super-bright whites.
So, to get that, I'm gonna use this vintage 35mm film rig, and I have a flash attached because, remember, Hamilton did use flashes in here, and that's how he was able to capture the pictures.
Because Hamilton took his photos in the dark, we're gonna do that, as well.
- Hey, Devin.
- Yeah? Can you do that kind of shape with your mouth? Yeah.
Open on both sides? Like this? That's actually really good.
So if you exhale and you kind of Lean forward? Okay.
Yeah, I can do that.
We have to make it pretty flat.
There you go.
There you go.
Oh, Bill's got hops.
Devin, you ready? I'm ready.
Chi-Lan, you ready? I'm set.
Okay, let me get the lights.
On threeTwoOne Photo.
We are in Winnipeg to examine a truly historic case that documented the phenomena known as ectoplasm.
They were studying telekinesis, table levitations.
They were trying to prove life after death.
We picked four of Dr.
Hamilton's photographs with ectoplasm to base our experiment on.
If we use a cigar and I puff on it and I hold the smoke in my mouth, I think it might curl around my face just like in the original photo.
Okay, let me get the lights.
On threeTwoOne Photo.
That was eerie.
All right, let me get the lights back on.
Yeah? You just looked like a haunted face.
With the flash reflecting against you and the smoke, it was really neat.
Really? We got to see the picture.
Yeah, definitely.
I'm gonna go ahead and process this film.
And then we'll print it out.
Okay.
Hamilton was a photography enthusiast.
He used a number of film formats to take pictures of his séances.
So right now I'm setting up our own darkroom in the Hamilton house to make sure that we can develop our negatives here, as well as process the pictures so we can control all elements of the experiment.
Oh, my gosh! Guys, take a look! Let me see.
Oh, my God.
Look at that.
That is a pretty close match.
There are many similarities, but I do see differences.
Look at the density.
The smoke from our cigar was very wispy and very light, where this was sort of congealing together.
Yeah, but, you guys, with the perfect setting and the smoke, the ability to direct the smoke, it might have been thicker-looking.
Our recreation photo does have striking similarities to the original, which does suggest that this ectoplasm may have been smoke.
So it's time to move on to a new photo.
For the next photo we've selected, we have a really well-known image.
And some people speculate that the medium that we see in the photo was actually vomiting.
Mm-hmm.
But to me, it looks like this material is floating.
I want to see if there's a material that I can expel that looks like what we see in this picture.
Yeah, it looks like there's maybe some cotton or something coming out of her mouth and going into her blouse, and I think that could be easily rigged with cotton balls, maybe some netting and some monofilament line pulling through.
There are other people in the room.
There have been numerous witnesses.
If this is a hoax, no one's saying that they were a part of it.
Maybe it was being pulled off without their knowledge.
So it's got to be done in a way that it doesn't tip off anybody else.
Right.
We'll now try to replicate the photo of the medium that has ectoplasm coming out of her mouth and on to her shirt.
We're exploring the theory that the others in the photo weren't aware of what was happening or how it was done.
This can totally be pulled off with some monofilament line and a cotton ball compressed in a tubular shape, coming right out of Bill's mouth, who will be playing the part of our medium.
He'll simply pull down on the filament line.
It'll come out his mouth, go right through his shirt -- Ectoplasm.
Bill, I've attached the monofilament line to a pulley.
Will you grab that and just pull on it? This is so elaborate.
I can't imagine them pulling this off without somebody detecting it.
It was reported that all of these séances and stuff happened in the dark, so what if this happened without anyone noticing? Everyone in the photo was holding hands.
Mary Ann didn't yank it with her hand, so maybe she had control with her foot and she just did it by herself.
I'm ready to start this test.
Let's do it.
I'm gonna hit the lights.
Ready? ThreeTwoOne Lights.
Ooh, that's good, Bill.
Me think we got it.
Let me get the lights.
Guys.
What up? Wow.
How did that feel? How did that taste? Yeah.
Dry, but, you know, it was tolerable.
Take a look at this! Oh, man.
That ectoplasm coming out of her mouth could have just been cotton, cheesecloth, maybe just some gauze.
The density may be not matching 100%.
But what we've proved is that the effect can be faked, but we haven't disproved the existence of ectoplasm.
Good point.
So, now we're gonna move on to a more complex photograph Where the medium is lying down on a cot and her face is covered in the ectoplasm.
When you're thinking about it, this medium is actually right by the radiator, which is here, and this is an old-school steam radiator.
So some people could say that they loosened the nozzle.
But this is really hot steam.
No one can actually be close to the radiator if that is the case.
This could simply be done with dry ice.
And considering at dry ice was invented in 1925 and this photo was taken after that -- totally possible.
But look -- there's witnesses in the room, so it's got to be done in a way that doesn't tip off anybody else.
Well, okay.
With the dry ice, you can easily wrap it in rice paper to, say, protect your skin.
A simple bowl with warm water in it -- You just drop the dry ice in it.
And as soon as it contacts that warm water, you're gonna get smoke for maybe two to three minutes.
All right, I'm gonna hit the lights now, guys.
You all set? All right, we're ready.
Okay, in threeTwoOne.
It's the moment of truth.
What I have here is dry ice bubbling in warm water.
We're gonna place this cup right underneath Bill's arm.
When he drops the dry-ice pellets in, it's gonna bubble just like this, and we're gonna have ectoplasm running right up his face.
All right, I'm gonna hit the lights now, guys.
You guys set? All right, we're ready.
Okay, in threeTwoOne.
Drop it.
Okay.
Perfect.
I'm gonna turn on the lights.
All right.
Okay.
Here we go.
Thank you.
I'm so excited to see how this experiment works out.
Yeah, me too.
Oh, man, guys.
Take a look at this.
Wow, I didn't even know there was so much smoke.
Yeah! That little piece of dry ice created all of this smoke that's enveloping your entire upper body.
The smoke from dry ice is more dense and cooler than atmospheric air.
That's why it hovers and it sinks around its source.
Our smoke stayed contained in the area that we wanted it to, and it created a cloak of mist over your upper body.
It totally could have been mistaken for ectoplasm.
We've been pretty successful with our experiments thus far.
Now it's time to move on to one of the more complicated documentations of ectoplasm -- The phantom faces that appear in some of the photographs.
This is supposed to be an image of the deceased person that the medium's communicating with.
One popular hoax theory is that the medium ingested the photo before the séance.
And then once the séance got going, she regurgitates it, and it's supposed to be the person they're communicating with in the spirit world.
I think that we can achieve similar results by just putting a picture on the outside of a cotton swab and then having you chew on a seltzer tablet.
I mean, that seltzer tablet will give you that type of foam.
So, I have volunteered to be the medium for this particular experiment.
We're gonna use sodium bicarbonate and citric-acid tablets.
And we're going to put those in my mouth.
They're gonna bubble up, and when my mouth becomes too much to bear, it's gonna burst out.
When that happens, this little photo of Bill, which will be planted in my mouth And it will pop out.
And hopefully the bubbles will go around it and it'll replicate the original photo really nicely.
I think it's gonna be pretty good.
When you think about how much these seltzer tablets can foam, it's gonna give us a really good look.
I do wonder about controlling the foam around the picture.
But I say, "Hey, we can't figure it out until we do it, right?" I got four total right now.
All right.
I have two here.
So you're gonna have six, total.
See if you can chew all of these with as little water as possible 'cause we want to make sure that the foam coming out of your mouth doesn't pull down with the weight of the water.
We want to make sure that it foams around the picture of Bill.
Oh, all right.
All right, let's rock 'n' roll.
Okay.
Give us a signal.
He'll hit the lights, and we'll be good to go.
Three, two, one Lights out.
All right, I think I got it.
One thing that I think was different is that you had a lot more foam on your clothing than what we see in the photo.
So good thing that you're wearing this bag here.
All right, well, let's take a look at what the results are.
I'm ready.
Look at that, guys.
Oh, my God.
For our final photo, we've moved on to an iconic image of ectoplasm, with a face appearing right in the ectoplasm.
I actually took a picture of Bill.
We cut it out, put it on the end of a cotton swab.
Devin was able to put that into his mouth and also chew up about six to seven seltzer tablets.
And once it was ready, mixed with a little bit of water -- kaboom! -- It comes out, and he flips Bill's head out of his mouth.
So, go ahead and take a look at this one.
Oh, wow! Look at this! It's all in the name of science.
So, you guys, what do you think about the photos -- Fact or faked? In the original photographs, the ectoplasm has kind of a fuzzy edge.
And in your photographs, it's very defined.
I just can't buy this one.
I think it's a complete hoax.
We were convinced that we could replicate these photos well, but I can't say with certainty that the original witnesses were part of any hoax.
It really makes me question the validity of the medium, Mary Ann Marshall.
Remember -- all of this happened to her.
Could she have been hoaxing everybody? I think you guys more than did your due diligence in showing there are numerous methods in which you can re-create these photos.
Agreed.
Well, I'd like to look more into ectoplasm.
But in this case, we weren't trying to prove that ectoplasm doesn't exist.
We were just looking at these photographs.
And I think we've pretty well showed they could have been faked.
It was an excellent job, guys.