Files of the Unexplained (2024) s01e06 Episode Script

[epic, mysterious music plays]
[ominous tone plays]
As a Karuk person,
Mount Shasta is the final destination
for our prayers.
We don't look up when we pray,
we look toward Mount Shasta.
Native people,
we have places on the landscape
that it's not our place to be.
The peak of Mount Shasta,
higher elevations on the mountain,
those are places
where the spirit people inhabit.
A lot of the Native American accounts
describe Mount Shasta
as a creator-made temple or church.
[ominous ethereal music plays]
And just like some parts of churches
and temples are off-limits,
that's how they feel about the treeline.
Native people actually said,
"If you ever build something up here,
the mountain's going to destroy it."
In 1959,
developers leased land
from the Shasta-Trinity National Forest,
intending to build the Ski Bowl,
the biggest ski resort
in the United States,
on the top of Mount Shasta.
We consider it a sacred mountain,
and building this ski resort
was a violation.
[man 1] In 1971,
the ski lodge caught on fire
and burnt to the ground.
And then a massive avalanche took out
the main chairlift on Mount Shasta.
[man 2] People think
they're smarter than nature.
Sad news for those folks.
They're never gonna win.
Places all over this mountain
hold mysteries
that humans will never understand.
[theme music plays]
[narrator] In Northern California,
Mount Shasta rises
over 14,000 feet above sea level.
Its mysteries go far beyond
the destruction of the ski lodge.
For thousands of years,
Mount Shasta has been
a spiritual nerve center.
Seekers claim to be called
to the mountain by a greater force.
Is it all a coincidence,
or could the mountain have a power
that exceeds our understanding?
[uplifting classical music plays]
For thousands of years, Indigenous people
lived in these landscapes.
The Karuk name for Mount Shasta,
we call it
The Karuk tribe, our practices
originated here in this place.
According to our origin stories,
at the beginning of time,
only the spirit people roamed the Earth.
And they say at the time
of the great transformation,
some of those spirit people
were transformed into animals
and rocks, trees, water,
all these things
that exist in the natural world.
And some of those spirit people
were transformed into human beings.
It's really important
that people develop a relationship
with the mountain,
with all the spirit people.
[ethereal music plays]
We don't see humans and nature
as separate things.
It's a mutual relationship
that is co-dependent.
[lighthearted classical music plays]
[man] The northern part of California
is very sparsely populated.
It's just miles and miles
of open country and farmland.
And in the center of that,
we have Mount Shasta,
and at the foot of Mount Shasta
is the city of Mount Shasta.
And it's not like
the surrounding communities.
You really have so many
different types of people coexisting
in a fairly small community,
about 3,600 people.
People come from all over the world
to climb Mount Shasta,
and it's one of the best places
in the country to do outdoor activities.
But about 50% of the people
that came to the mountain
actually said
they came for spiritual tourism.
[narrator] Despite its tiny population,
Mount Shasta draws
more than 25,000 tourists a year.
And many of them take to social media
to share the town's unique spirituality.
[TikToker narrating]
Dropping down the light,
through into our heart.
[speaking alien tongue]
Mount Shasta is
an incredibly eclectic melting pot
of spirituality of every stripe
from around the world.
Some people refer to it
as sort of a New Age mecca.
Everybody was drawn here for something.
I've lived here for over 20 years now.
I first heard about Mount Shasta
when I was a teenager living in Utah.
There were stories
about people seeing entities
and different spiritual apparitions
while they were up hiking on the mountain.
And stories about a lost civilization.
You know, it fascinated me.
[menacing, droning music plays]
Mount Shasta is like
this revolving door to the paranormal.
It's possible for anything
of a spiritual nature to come through.
In the wilderness
surrounding Mount Shasta,
there's thousands of caves and tunnels
that radiate out in all directions.
Pluto's Cave is the closest one
directly to the mountain.
Sometimes when you go into this place,
it can feel really oppressive,
like you're being watched.
Just the seein' somethin'
out of your peripheral vision,
and you sense that someone's
moving around down there.
[eerie music plays]
A lot of people describe
seeing things walk into walls,
as if there is a door there,
and disappearing.
There's always been this idea
of some kind of spiritual realm
that you can gain entrance into
through Mount Shasta.
Pluto's cave is said
to hold some kind of doorway
that leads into a lost civilization
called Lemuria.
[narrator] The lost civilization
of Lemuria
is one
of Mount Shasta's most enduring legends.
But many believe
Lemuria isn't a myth at all.
[suspenseful music plays]
What mysteries
do the mountain's caves conceal?
Many people believe
that there's a physical civilization,
this gigantic city,
under Mount Shasta.
It's an extraordinary concept.
[narrator] According to legend,
Lemuria was an ancient continent
populated by an advanced race of beings.
But Lemuria was destroyed.
Some say a war erupted.
Others say the continent
sank to the ocean floor.
Whatever the cause,
Lemurians were forced to flee.
Many believe they made their way
to Mount Shasta,
where they built a new home
hidden deep within the mountain.
I have been searching the truth
for so long.
I was born and raised a Mormon,
and I believed their truth
for the first 19 years of my life.
And so, on this search,
I have come across Lemuria.
Lemuria looks a lot
like it does here on Earth,
but it's a little more majestic.
And it's beautiful,
the waterfalls are pink and green.
The love is so thick there
you can cut it with a knife.
There is no negativity going on there.
The popular descriptions
that you hear about Lemurians
is they're taller than average people,
they're white, blue-eyed,
blond-haired, Nordic-looking beings.
[narrator] Some say
that when the Lemurians went underground,
they named their city Telos.
And many believers
now use the names interchangeably.
[intriguing music plays]
[Elijah] There's a lot of controversy
around where these entrances
to Lemuria or Telos are.
There are people who come here
looking for physical entrances.
Those are rumored
to be all over the place,
and you can probably find people
who will accept your money
and claim to be able
to lead you to the entrance.
But more often than not,
it's a non-physical entrance.
Uh, you're encouraged more
to meditate and work on yourself
and hope to be invited.
That sounds like some New Ager stuff
to me, but it doesn't offend me.
Indigenous people also have stories
of little people,
and have stories of big people
on the mountain as well.
It's not that they travel
through a portal or something like that.
They are actually another species of human
that we're related to.
So, having a relationship
with the spirit people
that exist on the mountain,
those are things
that are natural for human beings.
[gentle music plays]
I've had meditation experiences
where I've been welcomed into Telos.
And what I experienced was
going through the mountain
into the sphere of the city.
There were different beings
that were tall and short.
It was a very grounding experience,
and it was truly
a spiritual journey for me.
Telosians are advanced versions
of ourselves,
and they really offer us
the opportunity to learn,
if we're open to that.
[Ashalyn] I take people,
through meditation,
into the inner-Earth city of Telos.
One woman, I took her into Telos.
After several minutes, she started sobbing
with tears coming down her face.
She goes, "I have never, ever felt
that kind of love,
and I've been looking for it all my life."
[sinister music plays]
How do you get to Telos?
You just have to be open-minded,
and uncritical,
and be in an acceptive state of mind.
And then perhaps you will see Telos.
And being a scientist,
I think it's absolutely ridiculous.
I don't think Telos is a real place. No.
People see Telos
because they wanna see Telos.
Or just because
they wanna be accepted by a group.
But silly stories can still
have spiritual consequences.
[suspenseful classical music plays]
[Elijah] Getting to be invited
into a spiritual paradise
inside of Mount Shasta
was a very strong selling point, I think,
for the spiritual scene here.
But Lemuria originated, actually,
as a zoological idea.
There was a gentleman named Philip Sclater
who was trying
to figure out why fossilized lemurs
in Madagascar and India
resembled each other.
So, he postulated
that there was some kind
of sunken land bridge or there's something
that would've allowed the lemurs
to migrate from one to the other.
And I think he was kind of joking
when he called it "Lemur-ia."
[bold classical music plays]
A lot of people latched
onto the idea of a sunken continent
because nothing really fires
the imagination like something like that.
There were a number
of occultists and mystics
who picked up
on that scientific idea of Lemuria.
And they started introducing
their own spiritual
and metaphysical ideas into it.
Over time, when you have these legends,
as more people tell the story,
they add embellishments to it.
[Elijah] And so, what began as lemurs
crossing a land bridge in the Indian Ocean
eventually became a sunken civilization
in the Pacific Ocean,
the inhabitants of which fled
to Mount Shasta.
Eventually, as it went on,
it became more and more
of a mystical order
that lived inside the mountain.
And if you were on the right frequency
and knew the right m place to look,
if you were
evolved yourself enough, spiritually,
you might be invited to go inside.
I'd love for there to be
an ancient civilization
under the mountain.
That'd be that'd be really interesting.
But I I'm very, very skeptical of that.
Very, very skeptical.
If you hollow out
that much of the mountain,
it's gonna start sinking.
It just, geologically,
would be too impossible.
All this stuff intersects
with science fiction constantly.
[narrator] If Telosians truly exist
inside Mount Shasta,
it begs the question,
how did they get there?
Some believers say
the mountain isn't just the home of Telos,
it's a portal to the stars.
[energy pulses]
I do believe that Telosians
are what we would consider aliens.
Mount Shasta is somewhat of a epicenter
for intergalactic travels, communications.
It's almost like an intergalactic airport.
UFO sightings on Mount Shasta
are extremely common.
It is almost unusual not to see activity.
[gentle ethereal music plays]
[man] One night in 1992,
friend of mine and I decided to drive up
and go and look at the stars
on the east side of the mountain.
So, we were hangin' out
in the back of my pickup,
and we were lookin' in the sky,
and there was a configuration
of three stars
on equal angle of triangle,
which is the portal.
Basically, it's a shortcut
through hyperspace.
All of a sudden, these stars blinked,
and out of the center of it,
it looked like if you shake up
a a soda bottle and you pop the lid.
It looks like there's a roiling of energy.
A UFO came out of it.
And it took a pause
as it materialized completely.
It did a right-hand turn
and it went directly
into the side of the mountain.
There's a door
on the side of the mountain,
but it was cloaked well.
If you looked at it,
it seemed like there was nothing there
except a sheer cliff.
And another ship came out
15 minutes later,
and it did the same pattern.
We watched for three hours.
Nine craft came out
and went into the side of the mountain.
I was blown away.
I think that the off-worlders are here
to observe and keep tabs
on how we are maturing.
To stop us from destroying ourselves
and maybe other civilizations as well.
[otherworldly music plays]
[Kay] I believe the UFOs and aliens,
they are an advanced reality
of where we could be.
There's a purpose to seeing them,
and it's just the awareness
that we are not the only life form
that exists here.
And so, when you see them,
instead of feeling terrified
or fearing, fearful,
you can just recognize
that we're not alone.
[mysterious music plays]
Mount Shasta is one
of those classic UFO mountains,
probably because of the lenticular clouds.
[Bill] It's one of the best places
in the world to see a lenticular cloud,
which, if you have a mountain,
and you have moist air,
and if it has enough force,
it gets lifted up and over Mount Shasta.
And as soon as it goes up,
the air expands and cools.
All of a sudden, a cloud appears,
and then as it comes down the other side,
it instantly compresses
and the cloud instantly disappears.
So, what you're seeing
is a constantly
creating-and-disappearing stream of air.
But a lot of people think
that there are Telosian spacecraft
hidden within the lenticular clouds.
Things like UFOs, alien contacts, uh,
you know, millions of people
living under Mount Shasta
All those kinds of ideas,
they strain your credulity.
You're kinda at the mercy
of people's imaginations.
I think if an alien s species
was going to hide itself using a cloud,
they might not use a cloud that was shaped
exactly like the thing
that they were trying to hide. [laughs]
I'm not a total skeptic
on stuff like this.
I don't think any of it's
really out of the question.
Almost anyone can come up here
and have some kind of experience
that's out of the ordinary.
And, most of the time, I think
that's a positive and healthy thing.
But, sometimes, this can be carried away
into, like, a dark place.
And people can become twisted.
[narrator] While many find enlightenment
at Mount Shasta,
there's no denying its troubled history.
Why are dark forces drawn to the mountain?
[dramatic classical music plays]
There's tons of different cults
who trace their origin in some way
back to this mountain.
It offends me when somebody
is clearly exploiting people.
You can tell which people
want to be a cult leader,
and we've had many of them
here in Mount Shasta,
including Amy Carlson.
You know, that famous leader
of Love Has Won.
[narrator] Amy Carlson became notorious
when her extreme ideas and unusual death
spread across news and social media.
The leader of a cult was found dead
and mummified in a sleeping bag.
The body was found in a back room
of the house, fully clothed,
decorated with Christmas lights,
and with glitter makeup around its eyes.
Carlson believed that she had lived,
oh, hundreds of times,
and at one point was Marilyn Monroe
and Cleopatra and Joan of Arc.
[narrator] As the leader of Love Has Won,
Amy Carlson proudly shared
her bizarre beliefs and behavior
across TV and social media.
Greetings, love beings.
It is Mother God.
Mother of Creation,
Mother Gaia, Mother Earth.
We finally got rain here at Mount Shasta.
Are y'all aware that she says
that she's actually Jesus?
- Yes. Yeah, she has the documentation.
- Yes.
I commanded all my atoms
to come home and back into the light.
Cabal, over!
Spiritual ego whore, done!
I remember reading about it
in the newspaper
and what a shocking strange story it was,
and then reading further to realize
that her previously-known location
was ten miles away
from where I live, and
I mean, it it's a little surprising,
until you think about it
for about ten seconds
and you go, "Yeah, that makes sense."
[narrator] Love Has Won's connection
to Mount Shasta
went far beyond
residing in the town of Dunsmuir.
Carlson also claimed
to be the Queen of Lemuria.
[Dustin] They trafficked
in a lot of New Age stuff.
They talked about Lemuria
and all of the things
that you see up here,
and these ideas can turn
into something really dark, real fast.
[melancholy music plays]
[narrator] For decades,
Mount Shasta has provided a foundation
for many cults to take shape.
[sinister music plays]
[Bill] A woman who went
by the name of Sister Thedra
claimed to be, since the 1950s,
in daily contact with these space beings.
Her ideas reached Mount Shasta
from Chicago, where she lived.
And she prophesized
that they would be picked up
by a spaceship and taken off the planet
before there was this big cataclysm
of earthquakes and horror.
They gave up their possessions,
quit their jobs.
and went with her to the appointed time.
Turns out two sociologists infiltrated
her group in Chicago
and wanted to know
what would happen to her followers
when this event didn't happen,
when the prophecy failed.
And lo and behold,
they all believed that their love
had prevented the catastrophe,
and they doubled down on the belief
in Sister Thedra and the space beings.
And the sociologists
coined the term "cognitive dissonance."
You're so much involved
with the thing you believe in
that you can't see
the proof that it's not there.
Later, Sister Thedra
moved to Mount Shasta.
And she had
a big group of followers there,
some very well-educated people.
But even intelligent people
don't wanna see proof.
Very few people have
the tools to evaluate truth.
[sinister music intensifies]
[Dustin] Cult leaders become obsessed
with power and control over people.
And they invent these spiritual constructs
to be able to control their behavior
and what they do and think.
And another way this stuff is used
is to control the narrative of the past.
You can invent a story
in order to justify your entitlement
to a place that doesn't belong to you.
[tense ethereal music plays]
Native Americans, they've been here
since time immemorial.
Mount Shasta is really
a Native American sacred mountain.
This idea of some kind of spiritual realm
that exists, you know,
inside the mountain,
that comes directly
from Native American-sourced cosmology
and history.
When you come to a place like Mount Shasta
and you claim
that the Lemurians or the Telosians
have been here for a million years,
that's a kind of theft of history.
It does a disservice to Indigenous people
and their history
and connection to the mountain.
[sparse ominous music plays]
The earliest types of rituals
that were done in this cave
were Native American.
They did ceremonial
spiritual practices here,
and when the settlers settled this area,
all of these caves around here
were taken over by secret societies
who practiced occult rituals
in the Masonic tradition.
This is one of the things
that introduced darkness
into a place like this.
This was done by a secret society
who called themselves
the Improved Order of the Red Men.
They would come down into this cave,
and they would dress up
as Native Americans,
and they would just make a mockery
of their culture and rituals.
It was kind of, like, a way
to dehumanize them.
People have come here
and done depraved things.
[gentle ethereal music plays]
Humans can have some weird concepts
that they think somehow makes
their time on this Earth better.
Indigenous people have sustained
their cultures and for millennia.
As human beings,
we're all related.
We all have responsibility to one another.
[tense ethereal music plays]
[narrator] The legends
that surround Mount Shasta
may always be shrouded in mystery.
When so many people claim
to have the same experience,
is it real, or is it a figment
of the collective imagination?
Whatever the answer,
something extraordinary
is happening at Mount Shasta.
I do certainly think
there's something paranormal and spiritual
that's going on around here.
It just seems to take on the form
of whatever you're holding in your mind.
That can be something benign
or that could be
something harmful for people.
[Elijah] There is no substitute
to coming here yourself,
and then the person next to you
is telling you
that they're hearing voices in their head.
You're looking them in the eyes and you're
like, "This person is not lying to me."
Keep expanding, keep on going,
haven't disappeared,
because there's just something
about that awesome beauty
and naturalness of the place
that helps people
have unusual experiences.
The narratives, I think, are all false,
but they all have a grain
of some kind
of experiential truth to them.
You kinda have to ask your intuition,
what resonates with you?
But it starts with being open.
Come on the mountain
and have an experience yourself.
Come on the mountain, open yourself up
to the many possibilities that may exist.
[Leaf] It is the great mystery and
we don't know everything
about what goes on all around us.
I don't spend my time
tryin' to understand things that just are.
Some of those things
aren't meant for us to understand.
[mysterious music plays]