All language subtitles for Atlas.of.Cursed.Places.S01E05.The.Curse.of.West.Virginia.720p.WEBRip.x264-CAFFEiNE.eng

♪ ♪

Sam: This is his car.

Sam: That's our boy.

Sam: Hey man!

Sam: Well, that happened.

You might be
wondering how I ended up here.

I know I am.

I was just planning to get
on a plane and knock back a

Gin and tonic or a
couple of sambucas,

And after a nice turbulence-free
flight we're in west virginia.

I'll take a whimsical look at
the curse of a mythical winged

Creature called the mothman.

I was gonna, you know, maybe
stake out a haunted house,

Take a boat ride, do a
rock skipping contest.

I'm pretty good
at skipping rocks.

But then, just like senior prom,

Nothing goes quite as you hoped.

Crew: Our tires got slashed?

Sam: Yeah.

Dan: Chief cornstalk said,
"may the stain of our blood

Curse your lands
and your industry."

Peggy: The mothman appeared.

Dorsel: And boom!
The ubb mine blew up.

♪ ♪

Sam: We are down
in the holler now.

Here's a quick story about
point pleasant, west virginia,

A town with a terrific name.

So, it's November 1966, and
a couple of guys are digging

A grave at the local cemetery.

Don't worry, it's their job.

When suddenly they see a
large winged creature with

Red eyes hovering over them.

Three days later, some
teenagers are playing

Grab (bleep) at the local
abandoned tnt storage facility,

You know, where we
all had our first kiss,

And they see this
humanoid winged creature,

But this time it follows their
car going 100 miles an hour.

Next thing you know it's
taken another guy's dog,

And then here's where
the story gets really weird.

People all over town started
reporting these strangers in

Suits and a waitress in a
diner says they ordered food

But didn't know how to use their
hands to pick up their utensils.

No, seriously, she said that.

And then, in December of '67,
people said they saw the

Mothman circling a bridge.

Seconds later, the
unthinkable happens.

Peggy: It was
December 15th, a Friday.

It was really gray
and overcast that day.

It was cold.

Sam: Right.

Peggy hubert was 21 years old
and driving her brand-new

Red convertible the
day the curse of the
mothman really took off.

Peggy: Traffic was
extremely heavy,

And two semis went by,
and they wouldn't give me

A break in traffic.

Sam: Were they kind
of giving you, like, a
little bit of a hard time?

Peggy: Yeah.

I couldn't make the green light,

So I stopped, and I had
reached down to check the

Knobs on the radio and
heard this awful noise.

And when I looked up,
the bridge was falling.

It just looked like tinkertoys.

The cars fell and the steel
beams fell on top of the cars.

Sam: Do you know how many
people died on that bridge?

Peggy: I believe there was 46.

Sam: 46 dead? Peggy: Mhm.

Sam: I mean, if those
guys had let you in,

You know, you must
think about that sometime.

Peggy: Yeah, I
would have been right
between them on the bridge.

That would have
changed my whole life.

Sam: It was the deadliest bridge
collapse in american history.

And some locals say it
was caused by the ultimate

Harbinger of doom.

Peggy: They said that he
appeared before the bridge fell,

And it got labeled the mothman.

It's like a legend,
and the story was that,

Wherever he was, that there
was going to be a disaster.

The following year the
point pleasant courthouse

Had an explosion.

They blamed the
mothman for that, too.

Sam: Do you believe it?

Peggy: I think
there's reason behind it,

It just didn't happen to happen.

Sam: So, if you see the
mothman on your bridge,

Peggy: Don't cross the bridge.
Sam: Don't cross the bridge.

That's good advice.

Now here's the thing, I'm not
here to rain on your parade

About the mothman or any
other fusion of human and

Nocturnal insect of
the order lepidoptera,

But this part of west virginia
has seen an awful lot of

Tragedies since the
curse of the mothman began:

Rivers of black sludge
wiping out entire towns,

Mines collapsing,
apocalyptic factory explosions?

Is it all caused by the mothman?

This may be not the most
obvious first culprit that

Comes to mind, but I'm not
carrying a gavel and, hopefully,

Neither are you, so
instead of getting all judgey,

Just take my hand and let's jump
down this rabbit hole together.

Faye: This is the statue here.

Have y'all seen it?

Sam: There it is,
what do you think?

Is that what it looked like?

Faye: No, that's not
what it looked like.

It was not
musclebound like that,

Nor the wings weren't like that.

Sam: This is faye leport.

In the fall of '67, she's
one of the many people in

Point pleasant who
say they say the mothman.

How old were you at the time?

Faye: I was about
probably 12, 13 and about

Where that green sign is.

Sam: Alright.

Faye: That's when
my brother noticed
something was beside my window.

Sam: What was it?

Faye: It was between a
human and a bird put together,

And the eyes it had, they
were really big and red.

You could just
see it plain as day,

It was just right there.

Sam: Were you scared? Faye: Yes.

Sam: So, what happened?
What'd you guys do?

Faye: My brother starts
speeding up and this was

The tnt area, where they
made the weapons for the war.

So he jerked up in here.

He slammed on the brakes,
and then it jumped right on

The hood here, and it just
turnt sideways and it took off

And opened up the big bird-like
wings that was big enough to

Carry it up, up in
the air like that,

And it just went
off into the night.

But my brother wanted
to go back out there,

So the next day we
come back down here and

There was the
military already there.

Sam: Really? Faye: Yeah.

Sam: Wow!

It's not just faye
and her brother,

Other people in town say
they saw the military swarm

The mothman's lair.

Faye: There is a bunker up here.

People say the
mothman lives inside of.

But I've never been in to it.

Sam: So this is mothman's lair?

Faye: Yeah.

Sam: You want to
come look, faye?

You coming in with us?

Faye: No, I'll leave
that all up to y'all.

Sam: Alright, alright.

Faye: Don't bring him back.

Sam: Maybe I'm gonna walk in
there and find visual proof of

The mysterious bird-man and
make tv history, fame at last!

Or maybe, maybe more like
geraldo storming al capone's

Vault utter national
permanent disgrace,

A mustachioed
laughingstock for eternity.

If only I could
swing the mustache.

This is it.

This is the mothman's lair.

Advertise your product or brand here
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Hello! Mr. Mothman?

Sam: Deep in the
mountains of west virginia,

The people of point pleasant
pinpointed this particular

Place as the
palace of the pothman.

Sorry, the alliteration,
just I couldn't stop it.

As the palace of the mothman,
a flying humanoid creature

With a terrible curse.

If you see him, something
awful is gonna happen.

Do I knock?

(door screeching)

Hello? Mr mothman?

So, this is it,
the mothman's lair.

Wow!

This is a tnt storage facility,

And this whole area is dotted
with these storage bunkers.

There was 30 or 40 of them.

This whole facility was
producing tnt all through

World war ii, and right
at 1945 as the war ended,

They shut this place down.

In 1983, this was declared
an epa superfund site.

So, there's no mothman here,
but there is chemical poisoning.

From a sudden bridge collapse
that killed 46 people to the

Military allegedly swarming a
remote tnt bunker in the woods,

There's no doubt that
strange events have gone down

In point pleasant,
but is a supernatural
monster really to blame?

Let's dig deeper into some of
the other mysterious disasters

From this area.

The hills in this part of
west virginia are a honeycomb

Of coal mines.

It's a dangerous industry,
one that's no

Stranger to catastrophe.

Toni: I had a real
good friend got killed.

You know,
sometimes you're just within
seconds of being a fatality.

Sam: Wow!

Sam: Killed him?

Sam: Ugh!

Sam: What happened there?

Sam: There was an explosion?

Sam: The upper big branch,
or ubb, mine exploded one

Afternoon in April of 2010,

Deep in the heart of
west virginia's coal country.

It was the
deadliest mining disaster in

The us in more than 35 years.

Well, it seems like it's
a super dangerous job.

Dorsel: That is a fact.

Toni: Coal mining is
dangerous but still,

You know, I hate to say this,
but most of the fatalities are

Here in west virginia.

Sam: No (bleep).

Toni: It makes you wonder.
Sam: Right.

Toni: Knock on wood.

Sam: West virginia often
leads the nation in annual

Coal mining fatalities,
and that's a contest
nobody wants to win.

But the truth is, the majority
of the fatalities inside the

Coal mines of west virginia
happened long before the

Mothman was even a whisper.

So, could there be
something else going on here,

Something more ancient?

Could it be that the rabbit hole
goes deeper than we thought?

Now, faye mentioned something
to me yesterday in the car,

And I had originally
dismissed it as witty banter.

Sam: Wow!

Sam: So, who exactly is
this chief cornstalk,

And could the legend of
the mothman be a distraction

From another curse?

Something much older,
something written in blood

From our savage
colonial history.

Well, for those of
you in the back seat,

Buckle up, I've got a theory.

I'm not saying it's brilliant,
but I'm also not saying

It's not brilliant.

Sam: I came to west virginia
to look into the curse

Of the mothman, a
winged harbinger of doom

Who first appeared in 1966.

But there's a laundry list of
tragic events going down here,

Long before the
mothman even appeared.

And now I'm hearing
about a lesser known
but much older curse,

That some say is the origin of
west virginia's tragic history.

Sam: Wow!

Sam: Okay, chief cornstalk
and a deathbed curse

Hundreds of years
before the mothman?

I'm listening!

Dan: In the 18th century,
the british governor met this

Shawnee chief called cornstalk.

He asked cornstalk for
100,000 acres of indian land,

And cornstalk told him, "I can't
give you what I don't own."

The governor told him, "if
you don't give me the land,

I will come up here
and attack your towns."

Sam: Because the
shawnee refused this perfectly

Reasonable offer to just give
their land to the british like

God intended, the governor
and the colonists attacked.

They launched a nasty,
six year struggle,

Culminating in the bloody
battle of point pleasant at

The confluence of the
kanawha and the ohio rivers,

The very spot where the
silver bridge would collapse

Nearly 200 years later.

The colonists
captured acres of land and

Slaughtered hundreds of shawnee.

Three years later,
chief cornstalk
was taken hostage,

And soon met his final fate.

Dan: Cornstalk was said to have
raised up one arm, and said,

"I have never warred with you
save to protect my wigwams

And my lands, and I
have been murdered.

For this I call on the
great spirit to blight your

People and your
industry and your lands.

May the stain of our blood
curse anything you try to do."

It was the last thing he said.

Sam: That's insane, wow!

Dan: The european community
was scared to death of that.

Sam: Right.

Although there's
no written record,

Some have
interpreted cornstalk's
final words as a curse,

A decree that all who would
inhabit this land were doomed,

And if you ask
people around here,

They may be inclined to agree.

Dan: I have to say, all
kinds of disappointments

Has happened here.

This is a old industrial area
and there's tons of things

That went wrong.

Silver bridge was
just one of the things
they blamed on the curse.

Sam: Interesting.

The collapse of the
silver bridge might have more

Of a connection to
chief cornstalk's curse,

Blighting the
people and industry,

Than it does to any 8 foot
tall half man, half moth.

Well, at least there's
a real grievance, right?

I need to keep digging.

Kerry: This is it!

Sam: You were how old?

Kerry: Nine months old.
Sam: Nine months.

Kerry: My mother and
brother heard a truck coming,

And my brother came out
and he was seeing this,

Just like a tsunami.

It was about 20 foot of
black water that was just like

Rushing through the valley.

Sam: Wow!

Kerry: So, he went back
in and he told my mother,

You know, "run for the hills!"

So, they grabbed me as
fast as they could and ran,

And the water had
gotten to their ankles,

So they couldn't pick their
feet up anymore because it's,

It's a sludge.

So, the only thing that they
knew to do was to grab one arm

And one leg, count to three and
throw me as far as they could.

Sam: And that's what
they did, they just threw

You as far as they could?

Kerry: Yeah.

And after they threw me,
both of them drowned.

Sam: Ugh!

Thanks to his mother's heroism,

Kerry survived.

He was one of the lucky few.

Kerry: It was totally
devastating because,

In this area, there's
about 5,000 people and

4,000 left homeless,
not to mention that it
was 125 that were killed.

These were all coal camp houses.

Sam: Okay.

Kerry: Coal industry
kind of built them where
they owned the place.

Sam: They
owned everything, right?

Kerry: Yeah.

And when they clean the coal,
they have to put the

Waste behind a dam.

Sam: Mhm, right.

Kerry: And, of course,
they're all made of dirt.

Sam: Right.
Kerry: But the rain came.

And, of course, they all broke.

Sam: Wow!

Kerry: Everyone in the
community kind of knew that

Those dirt dams weren't stable,

But they're very trusting.

Everyone is very loyal.

Coal is a good job,
and you know,

You put faith in your employers.

Sam: Right.

What was the coal
company's excuse?

Kerry: To get out of it,
they said that, you know,

It rained so hard that
that's an act of god,

So it was an act of god
that caused the damage.

And it's insulting just
to think that all the people

Here are that stupid.

Look, anybody can
see through that.

Sam: Right.

Just trying to weasel
their way out of it.

So, is this just
another isolated tragedy,

Or does the data
support a larger pattern of

West virginia's
industry leading to disaster?

There's an agency
that has the answers.

The department of
environmental protection in

This state has to have a
responsibility to communicate

With the public and to
take calls with the press.

So that's exactly
what I'm gonna do.

I'm gonna make some phone calls,

Get in touch with
someone at the department
of environmental protection,

And set up a meeting
so I can ask a high
level government official

About a 240 year
old shawnee curse

And maybe hit him hard
with some follow-ups

About the mothman because, yeah,

That's what I do now.

Sam: I came to west virginia
to look into the curse

Of the mothman, but in just a
few days the situation on the

Ground has radically changed.

Dan: Cornstalk said, "I call
on the great spirit to blight

Your people and your
industry and your lands".

Toni: Sometimes you're within
seconds of being a fatality.

Sam: Wow!

So, we have claims of a
240 year old native american

Curse blighting the
land and its industry.

Coincidentally, we
have bridge collapses,

Failed dams and coal mine
disasters all in the same area.

So my question is, is
there an actual pattern?

Is there a
statistical connection between

West virginian
industry and calamity?

The key to answering that
question is austin caperton,

The head of the
state's department of
environmental protection

And, believe it or not,
he's agreed to speak to me.

It's not every day you get a
meeting with one of the most

Powerful people
in the state and,

As my sixth-grade teacher,
miss zenaski used to say,

"luck happens when
preparation meets opportunity."

Because I'm,
looking to get lucky,

I'm doing my homework before
I sit down with austin in a

Couple of days.

♪ ♪

But you come from
a coal background, right?

Dustin: Yeah, yeah.

So, I grew up with
coal miners on both sides of

My family for generations,
right to my own father.

Sam: Dustin white,
from the ohio valley
environmental coalition,

Has been one of the
loudest voices policing the

Practices of big business
here in west virginia.

But it turns out loud voices
aren't necessarily welcome.

Dustin: We've had folks who
have had their pets poisoned,

Homes shot at, tires slashed.

My life has been threatened.

Sam: Really?

Dustin: That comes
with the territory.

You know, growing up,
I was very pro-coal,

But I really had my eyes
opened when I took a fly-over.

I knew strip mining existed,
but when I saw it from the air

It just blew my mind, because it
was literally like every other

Mountain had just
been completely devastated.

Sam: Strip mining, also
called mountaintop removal,

It took off in
west virginia in the '90s.

It turns out sending a bunch
of people into caves to remove

Coal by hand is expensive,
so the coal companies

Got a brilliant idea.

Dustin: They move onto a site,
they bulldoze all the trees.

They bring in these drill rigs,

Pack the holes with
ammonium nitrate,

Which is also toxic, and
just blow up the mountain.

Sam: It's got to
go somewhere, right?

Dustin: Exactly.

So, of course, now
all the stuff is toxic,

It goes into the valley and
now creates just a channel

For run-off of toxic water.

At last count, we had over
300 streams in west virginia

That have been biologically
impaired because of the

Fossil fuel industries.

Sam: You know, the
longer we spend here
and the more we learn,

Whether the
curse is real or not,

The industries are the blight,
and the things that are

Destroying the environment
are the things that,

You know, the whole
state is geared around.

Sam: Although not
exactly scientific,

In this part of west virginia
there certainly does seem to

Be a pattern of
catastrophic events and

Environmental turmoil
at the hands of industry.

And whether or not there's any
connection to cornstalk's curse,

His words still
ring eerily true.

Sam: A whistleblower who
used to work at one of the

Major coal companies has agreed
to give me the lowdown on what

Really goes on
behind the scenes.

So we're not gonna film
his face or use his name.

I'll just call him "bobby."

Sam: Right.

Crew: Yeah, yeah,
let's get you back.

Sam: Bobby's clearly on edge,
and I've made enough people

Edgy in my life to know when
it's time to just call it a day.

Hopefully, he'll be
willing to talk to us
more in a couple of days,

After our meeting
with austin caperton.

(phone ringing)

Crew: Hey? What's going on?

We just wrapped up.

Yeah, no, it went well.

Yeah, okay.

Alright um, well
sam's not gonna be stoked.

Yeah, I'll break the news,
I'll let him know. Bye.

Um so, I just got off
the phone with patrick.

Sam: Yeah.
Crew: Caperton bailed.

I wonder why he bailed.

Sam: Two short sentences is
all it takes to throw a major

Wrench into our gears.

Caperton was my
seat at the table.

A meeting with him gave me
access to the highest levels

Of state government.

I mean, I was hoping he would
be the gatekeeper to precious

Data and reveal what is
actually going on with all the

Disasters here in west virginia.

So, I just can't
take no for an answer.

At least not in writing.

Sam: Good morning, mr. Caperton,

This is sam sheridan, and I
was just gonna try one more

Time to see if we could have
a conversation and you know,

I'd love to hear
your take on things.

Give me a call back on this
number if you get this message

And have any interest, thanks.

And that's a
beautiful friendship started.

Although I'm clearly
not above begging,

I can tell when I'm
beating a dead horse.

So, we got to move on, to one
more meeting that I hope will

Explain why there seems to be
so many strange disasters here

In west virginia.

Crew: Let's do it,
get on the road.

Sam: Alright.

♪ ♪

Crew: The (bleep)?
Sam: What happened?

Crew: Look at this!

Sam: Oh, (bleep) our
tires got slashed?

Crew: Yeah.

Sam: (bleep).

Crew: What the (bleep)?

Sam: What happened?

Crew: Look at this!

Sam: Oh, (bleep)
our tires got slashed?

(bleep).

Could be a coincidence, or
it could be that word got out

That a film crew was poking
around asking questions that

People just don't like.

Crew: That's not accidental.
Sam: That's not accidental.

Now it's getting creepy.

So, to review, our
whistleblower gets skittish

On the mountaintop,
and then a high-ranking

Government official sets a
meeting and then cancels it.

And now the air is
let out of our tire.

I have no idea what's
going on and I, you know,

I'm not saying
austin caperton snuck into our

Hotel parking lot during
breakfast and slashed tires,

But I do feel a
little unwelcome.

I am a little concerned now.

It's getting weird.

I'll probably never know
why our tires got slashed,

But we're here to figure out
if a curse is connected to all

The disaster here
in west virginia,

And that's what
we'll continue to do,

With a fresh rental car.

Driving through
the appalachians,

You're just really hit
by the two contrasting

Faces of west virginia.

One minute, god's green earth,
right out of a postcard,

Beautiful mountains
covered in happy little trees,

Just bob ross everywhere.

And then you turn a corner
and it's chemical factories and

Coal plants billowing
particulate and smoke

Of an unknown origin.

It kind of looks like
tim burton's take on

The industrial revolution.

(carnival music playing)

And, whether it's tnt
chemicals left behind inside

The mothman's lair, or
mine explosions or a flood of

Black sludge that
wipes out an entire town,

This is a place that has
seen a lot of human tragedy.

You can bundle it up
under the blanket of a curse,

But you can't deny that there
is something at work here,

Some relationship between
west virginian industry and a

Seemingly endless
cycle of calamity.

And since austin caperton
won't be providing any answers,

I'm turning to a
trusted old buddy, science.

Matt: So what we do in this
lab is we build stuff and we

Break it to figure out
how to make it stronger.

Sam: What a cool job, man.

No disaster is woven
into the local folklore of

West virginia quite like the
collapse of the silver bridge.

Peggy: I think
there's a reason behind it.

It just didn't happen to happen.

They said that the mothman
appeared before the bridge fell.

It's like a legend.

Sam: Although I'm fairly
certain a flying cryptid

Didn't case this disaster, the
silver bridge did collapse at

The exact spot where the battle
of point pleasant was fought,

And some say that
was the cause of

Chief cornstalk's dying curse.

Sam: So, what does
science have to say about

That peculiar coincidence?

Matt: This is a model
of the silver bridge.

Sam: Cool!

Matt: So, the silver bridge was
similar to a suspension bridge,

Except that the suspension
cables were actually eye bars.

Sam: So, tell me exactly
how the silver bridge failed.

What happened?

Matt: There was a flaw, it was
actually located at the end of

The eye bar.

That flaw was
extremely small and actually,

Wasn't visible because it was
hidden under the cap of the pin.

And then this case, a very
small flaw initiated a fracture.

Sam: Can you show me
what that would look like?

Matt: Yeah.

Okay, so we're gonna
apply a tension load,

Meaning we're
gonna pull on this.

Sam: What's this "kip"?

What is that?

Matt: So, a kip is 1,000 pounds,

So we're at .21 thousand pounds,

Or in other words, 22 pounds.

It's incrementally adding load.

This no longer is
contributing at all.

All the force that was in
this component is now dumped

Into this one.

Sam: Right.

Matt: In the case
of the silver bridge,

This happened so fast.

The first one
failed and, immediately.

Sam: Let's do it on our model.

Matt: Okay.

Sam: And here's where we smash
stuff in the name of science.

Matt: So we're gonna simulate
the fracture of the eye bar by

Cutting one of
the yellow strings.

When one eye bar failed, there
just wasn't enough capacity in

The rest of the system to
resist all of the weight of

The structure and, therefore,
the entire bridge collapsed.

Sam: So, the
silver bridge collapses.

What's the way this
could have been prevented?

Matt: The original designs
for this bridge called for a

Suspension cable, but they
decided to opt for a less

Redundant system
with the eye bar chains,

Which allowed them to
dramatically reduce the cost,

But it also dramatically reduced
the redundancy in the system.

Sam: For those of you
at home who never took an

Interest in civil engineering,
let me spell it out for you.

Redundancy equals safety.

So, if they hadn't done
this with the lowest bidder,

There's a possibility that that
failure would have happened,

But they would have
had enough redundancy that the

Bridge wouldn't have collapsed.

Matt: That's right.

Sam: For decades,
west virginians have blamed

An 8 foot tall winged creature
or a 240 year old shawnee curse

For the pattern of
death and destruction.

But it turns out the
truth may be a lot scarier.

I do wonder, you know, how
much of the local disasters

Can be thrown on the doorstep
of general economic pressures

And lax government regulations.

If I was a government
official that was part of
the silver bridge fiasco,

I'd be all too happy
to have the public focus

On the mothman or
cornstalk's curse.

The supernatural is a way
easier pill to swallow than

What might be the reality.

I mean, who wants to believe
that their own government is

Putting their lives at
risk for a couple extra bucks?

But, putting profits
above people is by

No means unique
to west virginia.

Hell, that's capitalism, which
is as american as apple pie.

So, is there something special
about this area that makes it

Susceptible to the
perils of big business?

Thanks again so much
for taking the time.

Ken: Sure.

Sam: I really appreciate it.

I don't always wear
a linen sports coat,

But when I do, I look
like a rugged james bond.

But you got to dress
the part when you meet
with a macarthur fellow,

Which is the greatest
award for reporting there is.

Ken: West virginia and its
coal industry helped build

This country and
helped win two world wars.

We're not a poor state.

West virginia is a
really rich state,

It's just that the wealth
of it isn't shared among the

People who took that
wealth out of the ground.

Sam: Right.

Ken ward is a reporter who
spent the last 28 years going

Down the exact same rabbit hole
we find ourselves in now.

How does one state get locked
in a particularly bad cycle of

Capitalism and calamity?

Ken: You have, like,
the department of
environmental protection,

That's supposed to
protect people and

The environment from the damages
that the coal industry can do,

And you have a revolving door
there of people who work in

The industry and then take
their turn running the agency,

And then go back out
working for the industry.

Sam: Which seems
like a sort of shameless,

You know, conflict of interest.

Ken: Sure.

And those conflicts
are so out in the open.

They don't hide them.

They're just so
much more brazen.

I think people are
increasingly getting fed up

With the way things
are but, you know,

Power doesn't give
up power easily.

Sam: Nobody gives up power,
you have to take it.

Ken: That's right.

Sam: In every
state in the nation,

There's supposed to be a system
in place to provide oversight,

That's government regulations.

But, according to ken,
west virginian business is

Operating
particularly unchecked,

So why aren't more
people taking notice?

Well, maybe they're too
distracted by an 8 foot tall,

Stainless steel monument.

So maybe we just need
a stronger visual aid.

Luckily, our coal company
whistle-blower has agreed to

Help us try and get footage of
illegal activity by one of the

Mountaintop removal companies.

I'm hoping that video proof
of business run rampant in

West virginia
will help us get the
attention of state officials,

Like austin caperton.

This is it here,
and this is his car.

Sam: That's our boy.

Sam: Hey, man.

Sam: I know.

Sam: And this is his car.

Sam: That's our boy.

Sam: Hey, man!

Sam: I know.

Hey, man! Did
something go wrong?

Sam: Man.

There's nothing
we can do to help.

Sam: No, no, we'll leave!

Sam: We'll leave, we'll leave,
we'll leave, we'll leave.

Alright, we're leaving.

Sam: Well, that
was short and sweet.

Sam: Short.

You know, we had our
tires slashed this morning.

You know, you're starting to
definitely feel not wanted.

That's not a great feeling.

Brett: We were not surprised
that austin caperton didn't

Want to talk to us.

Sam: Yeah.

Brett: And dropped out.

But I was not expecting the
guy who is supposed to be the

State's biggest watchdog.

Sam: This is a guy that you
thought was bulletproof, right?

Like, this is a guy that's like
a professional pot-stirrer.

Brett: Somebody got to him.
Sam: Something happened.

It's bananas.

Brett: Yeah.

Sam: When I was a kid,
there was another kid down the

Street from me who once
held me at gunpoint with his

Super soaker full of pee-pee.

Those were his words, not mine.

I didn't really expect to
relive that moment when we

Came to west virginia,
getting into the curse

Of mothman and chief cornstalk.

Sometimes, when
people are afraid to talk,

That's where the
gold lies and, luckily,

I was able to find a few
brave voices who dared to

Penetrate that silence.

I've tracked down a woman
named susie worley-jenkins,

And she lives in a tiny
town called minden and,

Unlike everyone else
we've tried to talk to,

She and her doctor
want their story told.

When did you become
aware of, you know,

What was going on here?

Susie: About 38 years ago,
because there was, like,

2,000 people lived here
in this area and there's

460 some people that we're
aware of that died with cancer.

Sam: Wow! Susie: Yeah.

Ayne: My dad was a
hematologist/oncologist,

And his specialty was cancer,
and a lot of the patients that

Were coming in were coal miners
and he noticed that they all

Came from minden,
and so he was wondering if

Something was in the environment
affecting these people.

Sam: Right.

Ayne: So, he started
looking into the pcbs.

Sam: What's a pcb?

Ayne: It's an organic
compound that comes in
this jelly-like substance.

It looks like oil.

They use it in
mining equipment a lot.

They put it in transformers
or equipment to transfer heat.

Susie: My husband worked
fixing transformers for all

These coal mines and stuff.

He remembers all the
stuff in those transformers,

And it had all of that pcbs
in it and oils and stuff.

Ayne: By 1979 or so,
they realized that
pcbs as cancer causing.

Sam: Okay.

Ayne: So by the
early '80s, they stopped
letting companies use it.

So what happened back
then is they put all these

Transformers or
equipment in drums and
buried the drums in the soil,

Or they just took the stuff
themselves and buried them.

Sam: But they're burying them,
just like in these barrels or

Even loose, so they're leaking?

Ayne: Yes.

Susie: They used to take all
the pcbs and just dump it into

The mud wherever.

Sam: Just dump it?

Susie: And all of these
different waterways we have

Underground was
catching all that.

Ayne: And that is
what our problem is,

Everyone that lives there
has been kind of soaking and

Bathing in you know,
carcinogenic matter.

Susie: We lost our parents,
brothers, you know, and

My neighbors over here
died with brain tumors.

Skin cancer, breast cancer,
and kids, you know,

That was dying
with leukemia, brain tumors.

My mom died with
small cell lung cancer,

And my husband's had cancer,
I've had cancer six times.

Sam: Oh my god!

Ayne: Right now, the main
goal and the only goal is the

Residents want to move,
and that's.

Sam: Because they just feel
like they're being poisoned.

Ayne: Correct.

Toni: There's 250 people
left out of about 2,000.

Sam: 2,000.

Susie: There's 199 houses left.

They don't have any equity,
nothing in their homes,

Because they're worth nothing.

Sam: Yeah.

I mean, who's gonna buy
anything down in a toxic area?

Susie: Exactly.
Sam: Is there any hope?

Do you think
anything's gonna happen,

Or is it just gonna
keep getting worse?

Susie: I think it's gonna get
worse if we don't get some help.

Sam: Do you expect any action?

Ayne: Truthfully, no.
Susie: They don't care.

Sam: Right.

They're just
waiting for it to go away.

Susie: Exactly.

Sam: The good news for the
people of minden is that,

After 30 years of lobbying,
the town has finally been

Added to the epa's list
for further examination,

Which is great, because it's
the first step toward actually

Getting their town relocated
off this toxic waste dump.

The bad news?

There are 1,334 sites
that join them on the list.

There is a blight on the land
and the people of west virginia,

And it's not a
winged creature or

The dying words of a
native american chief.

Clearly, we've stumbled upon
something much more tangible

Than the
supernatural in the hills
and hollers of west virginia.

And it seems to me that the
perpetuation of a curse may

Just be a ploy to keep
people from noticing that

Big business is ruining
the land and destroying the

People in the name of profit.

The truth is,
west virginia is cursed,

By the resources
that lie beneath it,

And that's the real tragedy.

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