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WILLIAM SHATNER: You know, I've been around for a while.

Met some interesting people, done some crazy things.

So you just might think that there's not much that

can take me by surprise.

You'd be wrong.

The world is full of stories and science and

things that amaze and confound me every single day,

incredible mysteries that keep me awake at night.

Some I can answer.

Others just defy logic.

NARRATOR: Do ghosts exist?

Should we fear the paranormal?

In California, a woman is terrorized by an invisible

attacker.

Is she the victim of a genuine haunting?

BARRY TAFF: Forget the silly movies that are out there.

This is real.

NARRATOR: In New England, a mother undergoes a

violent transformation.

Has she been possessed by a demon?

BOB LARSON: It'll make a cold chill go up your spine.

NARRATOR: And a British teenager claims to see ghosts.

Does she have the gift?

FAE JACKSON: Like the fear, it was uncontrollable.

WILLIAM SHATNER: Yeah, it's a weird world.

And I love it.

[♪]

WILLIAM SHATNER: Have you ever seen a ghost?

Over ninety million North Americans claim to have

done just that and forty million others say they

have physically experienced a paranormal event.

Many of these events are easily explained but some

are not only weird and inexplicable - most

disturbing of all, they seem to be evidence of pure evil.

Do ghosts exist?

And what are they anyway?

Is the paranormal something we should fear?

Or is it simply uh...

hogwash?

NARRATOR: August 8th, 1989.

Barry Taff, one of the world's leading paranormal

investigators, responds to the call of a distressed

woman in San Pedro, California.

He brings along a colleague, photographer

Jeff Wheatcraft.

BARRY TAFF: After five thousand cases, you go out

expecting nothing to happen and most of the

time that's exactly what does occur - nothing.

NARRATOR: The terrified woman is Jackie Hernandez,

a single mother who claims that someone or something

has turned her home into a living hell.

BARRY TAFF: She reported apparitions of an old man,

strange lights.

Somebody tried to smother her a couple times.

Things were flying at her.

It was extraordinary.

NARRATOR: But perhaps most chilling, on several

occasions Jackie claims to have seen a corpse in her

son's bed.

Intrigued, the ghost hunters decide to look around.

BARRY TAFF: I have this attitude where I'm very

skeptical because you know that a lot of people

embellish and exaggerate and misrepresent what's going on.

NARRATOR: But in Jackie's house they find something

unexpected - and very weird.

BARRY TAFF: We were taking pictures all over the

house and we saw this strange liquid - I don't

know what, viscous liquid dripping out of a wall.

NARRATOR: Unable to explain the weird slime,

Taff is now convinced Jackie's not faking

anything and real paranormal activity is

occurring in her home.

They take samples and promise to return,

but just three days later - another call.

This time, it's an emergency.

Whatever is in Jackie's house is on a rampage.

The physical attacks have become so violent and

severe she fears for her life.

BARRY TAFF: I was unavailable because my

father had a heart attack.

So they were there without me.

NARRATOR: Jackie reports the evil entity is

now in her attic.

It has been tormenting her with strange lights and

ear-shattering banging.

Jeff and Gary decide to investigate.

Nothing could prepare them for what they find.

BARRY TAFF: They hear 'ohh' like a yell or a moan

and Gary turned back to see what happened to

Jeff and he couldn't see.

It was too dark in the attic.

NARRATOR: Despite his terror, Gary snaps some

photos in the darkness.

What they reveal will haunt them forever.

BARRY TAFF: You can see that Jeff, a six foot two

man, about two hundred and fifteen pounds, something has

wrapped itself around his neck and it's pulling up,

him up against the rafter and, yet,

there was no one there.

It was Jeff and Gary.

And he cut him down.

He had a rope burn on his neck.

It would have killed him.

The question is there was no one else there, so what

tried to kill him?

How and why?

NARRATOR: Something had tried to murder Jeff Wheatcraft.

The investigators leave the house only to make

another chilling discovery.

The forensic lab report on the ooze from Jackie's

walls is in.

BARRY TAFF: The conclusion was it was human blood plasma.

That's something you will lose sleep over literally.

Forget the silly movies that are out there.

This is real.

NARRATOR: Now certain they are dealing with an evil

homicidal phenomenon, they tell Jackie to get out and

never come back.

What was in Jackie Hernandez's house,

and was it out to kill?

Jackie's story became known as The San Pedro Haunting -

one of the most mysterious paranormal

events in history.

But what really happened?

NARRATOR: Javier Ortega is a paranormal researcher.

He has no doubt.

JAVIER ORTEGA: The Jackie Hernandez case is a very

extreme case of a haunting.

If somebody dared me to go in the house, I wouldn't

set foot in there.

NARRATOR: Haunting - we've all heard of it but what

does it really mean?

JAVIER ORTEGA: In a haunting it's usually uh

the spirit of a deceased person, the homeowner that

passed away in that house and they were so attached

to the physical object or location that they come back.

NARRATOR: Was Jackie's house haunted by someone

who had died there?

Incredibly, the investigation uncovered

something bizarre.

JAVIER ORTEGA: During the investigation of the

Jackie Hernandez case, she reported that her and some

friends were playing with the Ouija board and they

were able to talk with the spirit in the house and

the spirit had told them that he was a marine that

was murdered.

So they went out and they did some research and they

found out that there was a marine named

Herman Hendrickson who was found dead in 1930.

NARRATOR: Was the spirit of a murdered marine

responsible for the attacks on Jackie and Wheatcraft?

Does a haunting explain the other things she experienced?

JAVIER ORTEGA: A lot of the things that were

reported were apparitions.

You know, whether it was a disembodied head floating

in the attic or a uh a corpse-like old man

sitting in her child's bed.

Uh she, she also reported seeing strange lights.

They were described as globs of, of luminous light.

Free-floating globs of light have been reported

in haunted places as well.

NARRATOR: But for Ortega, the most compelling

evidence of a haunting is that mysterious goo Barry

and Jeff found oozing from Jackie's walls.

JAVIER ORTEGA: I mean it just sounds so, so

bizarre, you know, that you would have human blood

plasma oozing from the walls and when they

checked, there wasn't any device that, you know,

that was emitting this substance.

So that to me has to be one of the most compelling

cases in the paranormal.

NARRATOR: Was the marine so angry about being

murdered that he bled through Jackie's walls?

Incredibly, Ortega thinks Jackie wasn't the only victim.

JAVIER ORTEGA: When Jackie Hernandez left the

premise, people who inhabited that home

have also reported strange activities.

If you have the same reports happening year

after year on the same location when there's

different tenants, it usually tends to uh to

point towards it being a location haunting.

WILLIAM SHATNER: What an incredible story.

You know I mean strange things happen around my

house too but once I say I'm sorry everything's forgiven.

But human blood dripping from walls and a spirit

that is so angry it tries to kill you?

I mean who they gonna call?

Ghostbusters?

[chuckles] I've always wanted to say that.

[♪]

NARRATOR: Was Jackie Hernandez the victim of a haunting?

Or was it something else?

LOYD AUERBACH: It does not appear that the house

would fit the classic haunting.

NARRATOR: A terrified woman reports extreme

paranormal events in her home - weird lights,

strange noises, even physical attacks.

Did Jackie Hernandez live in a haunted house?

LOYD AUERBACH: It does not appear that the house

would fit the classic haunting.

NARRATOR: Loyd Auerbach is a paranormal investigator.

He believes the answer isn't ghosts at all.

LOYD AUERBACH: Knowing what I know about the

Jackie Hernandez case, it seemed that she herself

was a poltergeist agent.

NARRATOR: Poltergeist?

Isn't that just a hyperactive ghost?

Or is there a difference?

LOYD AUERBACH: What we learned in the last

hundred years is that these things relate

typically not to ghost sightings, not to

hauntings per se, not to a place being haunted but to

a person, an individual in this situation, who is

typically stressed or otherwise put upon.

NARRATOR: Many now believe poltergeists are not

ghosts but a manifestation of something called

psychokinesis.

LOYD AUERBACH: We call it PK for short and it's the

idea that the mind can directly interact or

affect matter and energy.

We typically think of it in the paranormal world as

affecting things outside your body, whether it be

moving objects, what people often call

telekinesis, or bending metal or even healing.

NARRATOR: Was Jackie Hernandez herself causing

the weird phenomenon in her own house?

If so, why?

And for that matter, how?

LOYD AUERBACH: Certain people, their unconscious

minds let loose.

I mean we see people who are stressed out, who are

put upon in society in really expressing that

stress in different ways.

Some people get enraged and they break things,

some people shoot people, some people keep it

bottled up and it can explode in kind of a

different direction for certain individuals,

which is a psychokinetic direction.

And we call those situations where there's stress,

think of it as an unconscious temper tantrum.

NARRATOR: Was Jackie's unconscious mind throwing

a temper tantrum?

And if so, why?

It could be due to the fact she was experiencing

emotional issues at the time, following a

difficult divorce.

LOYD AUERBACH: There was enough going on in her

life and frankly enough psychological issues that

would indicate that she was responsible for most

of the phenomena that was happening.

In most poltergeist cases, people rarely ever think

of themselves as the agent.

NARRATOR: According to Auerbach, the most

compelling argument that Jackie was both the victim

and the problem is what happened when she moved

six hundred kilometers away.

Incredibly, the vicious paranormal attacks

on her continued.

LOYD AUERBACH: In poltergeist cases when

people move, the phenomena follows them because it's

coming from them and that also happened in that

particular case.

NARRATOR: But if Jackie was her own poltergeist,

how is it that the new tenants also reported

paranormal attacks?

LOYD AUERBACH: We've had cases where people have

heard about the case and have gone home and because

they're so freaked out by the situation they start

witnessing things.

That has happened.

So you can think of it almost like a contagious idea.

It is possible that it was a haunted house.

It is possible there was an entity there.

We can't completely exclude that, but it best

fit the poltergeist model.

NARRATOR: Could it be that Jackie herself was

responsible for the weird goings on?

Or were they the result of an altogether different

kind of bad vibe?

Professor John Huntington believes the Jackie

Hernandez case can be explained by undetectable

audio waves known as infrasound.

JOHN HUNTINGTON: Sound is just the vibration in air pressure.

That's how we perceive it, and that's how it gets

into your ear.

Infrasound is below the range that we can hear as

an audible sound.

NARRATOR: Human ears can't detect ultra low

frequencies.

If it's below twenty hertz, you can't hear it.

JOHN HUNTINGTON: Your body makes lots of sounds down

at very low frequencies such as your heartbeat,

the movement of your blood, breath noise coming

in and out of your body.

If we could hear all that it would drive us crazy

but we're still being affected by it.

The sound wave is still impinging on our bodies.

NARRATOR: But other than our own bodies, what might

cause these low frequencies?

JOHN HUNTINGTON: Manmade sources of infrasound

could be anything from a piece of air handling

equipment in a building, anything like a train, a truck.

Anything that's big stuff that's moving could

generate these very low, low frequency sounds.

NARRATOR: Incredibly, Huntington believes low

frequency sound waves could have caused

Jackie Hernandez's unpleasant experiences.

JOHN HUNTINGTON: So in addition to things like

headaches and nausea being caused by exposure to

infrasound, there have been some reports of

feeling a presence or some sort of hallucination or

feeling like strange things are going on in the room.

NARRATOR: Can infrasound exposure mimic the

experience of a haunting?

JOHN HUNTINGTON: In-infrasound could

possibly cause something like a hallucination or an

apparition or some other things like that based on

the vibration of the sound wave actually affecting the eye.

The eye itself could resonate or get a very

strong sort of vibration and that could cause

blurring of vision or possible issues around the

periphery of the vision.

Those things coupled with already being in sort of

a, a spooky location, being on edge by the

infrasound, could certainly cause some sort

of ghostly experiences.

NARRATOR: Could Huntington's theory be correct?

Does the paranormal activity witnessed in

San Pedro have a rational explanation?

And does it explain human plasma oozing from the wall?

Was Jackie's home haunted?

Or was she her own poltergeist?

Whatever the answer, this story is certainly Weird or What.

[♪]

NARRATOR: A Connecticut housewife is tortured,

from within.

Has she been possessed by an evil spirit?

JOHN KOERNER: Demons like to attack good people.

WILLIAM SHATNER: Many of us have experienced events

that we would call paranormal but in fact are

just things that are harmless and easily

explained, but what is the paranormal?

And does it exist?

Even the name is a little, well, weird and scary.

Here's the way it's described in the dictionary.

Paranormal: the claimed occurrence of an event

without scientific explanation...

[sighs]

as psychokinesis...

[sighs]

...extrasensory

perception of other purportedly

supernatural phenomena.

All right, come on, that's it. Out.

You can fool some - oh boy oh boy.

But some people experience paranormal events that are real

- so real in fact they're deadly.

Weird - or what?

NARRATOR: History professor John Koerner

studies reports of paranormal activity.

None have haunted him more than the story of Patricia Reading.

JOHN KOERNER: By all accounts she was a good person.

I mean there's nothing you can see in her past that

would indicate why this happens to her.

NARRATOR: In 1992, Patricia's life took a

terrifying turn.

Doing chores around her home in Litchfield,

Connecticut, she suddenly hears a terrifying voice.

[distorted voice]

JOHN KOERNER: She felt what she thought was an

evil presence that was around her.

There was nothing that could explain this.

NARRATOR: Patricia tries to brush it off, but the

eerie voice won't stop.

Ever.

[distorted voice]

It's the beginning of a horrifying ordeal.

[distorted voice]

PATRICIA: Stop!

JOHN KOERNER: The situation got much, much worse.

Pat had a number of things that were happening to her

that were very unusual.

There were bite marks on the back of her neck,

bruises on the back of her body, things she could not

do by herself.

NARRATOR: What could be inflicting Patricia's

vicious bruises and other injuries?

It's a frightening and bizarre mystery.

Devastated and disturbed, she seeks help.

JOHN KOERNER: The family took Patricia Reading to

the hospital to local doctors.

They ruled out all of the conditions that could

possibly be affecting her.

NARRATOR: With no medical explanation, Patricia

resorts to hoping her problems will simply go away.

JOHN KOERNER: But then things started getting

much worse after that.

[maniacal laughter]

JOHN KOERNER: She was knocked over horribly.

She did not know what is happening.

NARRATOR: Again and again, a seemingly evil presence

hurls her into the wall.

JOHN KOERNER: These are things that never could

happen to Pat Reading in a normal situation.

She is not herself.

She's becoming someone else.

NARRATOR: Fearing for her safety, Patricia has only

one place to turn.

JOHN KOERNER: At that point the Catholic church

got involved.

NARRATOR: Patricia's bishop takes her claims seriously.

After an examination, he reaches an incredible

conclusion.

JOHN KOERNER: He did make the diagnosis, yes, she is

possessed.

Demons like to attack good people.

NARRATOR: There's only one solution, an ancient

ritual as old as the church itself.

The bishop decides he will perform an exorcism.

JOHN KOERNER: He called upon a demon to reveal

himself and say who you are, reveal yourself in

the name Jesus Christ.

NARRATOR: At first, the demon stays hidden.

But not for long.

[moans, speaking in tongues]

JOHN KOERNER: She was speaking in a language

that she could not speak in normally, trying to

insult the priest, insult his family, things that

she never would have done on her own.

These are pretty clear signs you're dealing with

a, an evil entity inside the person's body.

NARRATOR: Having forced the demon into the open,

the real battle begins.

JOHN KOERNER: Things like holy objects, this often

can anger the demon.

These are tools in a war that can cause them to be

so upset.

The words of Christ makes them so angry, so it has

to be said over and over again.

It's a war of attrition.

NARRATOR: The battle rages for hours.

At long last, something breaks.

JOHN KOERNER: The demons, they'll get so upset they

just can't take this any longer and they'll go

somewhere else.

They'll go bother somebody else.

NARRATOR: The exhausting battle ends with the

demons on the run, but before long they're back.

JOHN KOERNER: Evil is real.

It can affect someone in some horrible ways.

NARRATOR: Sadly, Patricia runs out of time.

After sixteen exorcisms, in 2005 she dies of cancer

believed to be caused by her demons.

[distorted voice]

Incredibly, Patricia's story is far from the only one.

An estimated 15,000 exorcisms are performed each year.

Can evil really live inside us?

Or is there some other way to explain demonic possession?

Christopher Rosik is a psychologist.

He says he knows exactly what happened to Patricia Reading.

CHRISTOPHER ROSIK: Coming from a religious

perspective you might assume that this must be

a, a demonic presence but as a psychologist my

diagnosis would be dissociative identity disorder.

NARRATOR: Better known as a split personality,

Disassociative Identity Disorder is when two or

more personalities inhabit one mind.

An abusive childhood can sometimes cause such a

psychological break.

One personality becomes the happy face, the person

the world sees.

The other deals with all the hidden pain, shame

and suffering.

CHRISTOPHER ROSIK: The primary personality is

unaware of the other personality.

They might hear voices and these sort of signs but

they don't know what it's about.

NARRATOR: Were the demonic voices Patricia heard

really the screams of a tortured second

personality?

PATRICIA: Stop.

NARRATOR: Could it have even tried to hurt her?

CHRISTOPHER ROSIK: I had a patient who would end up

in a graveyard with a blade in her hand and

having cut her arm.

NARRATOR: Is a self-destructive alter ego

responsible for Patricia's injuries?

Can psychology explain the power of an exorcism?

CHRISTOPHER ROSIK: The prayer, the ritual has in

fact just served to rearrange these separate

identities such that they have receded from the

host's awareness.

They don't hear the voice anymore.

Then what I experience happening with some

patients is that maybe weeks or months later the

voices come back.

Everything I'm saying here is in no way meant to

malign the value of religious spiritual care

but there are some psychological ways of

understanding these experiences that really

should be taken into account.

WILLIAM SHATNER: Demonic possession.

Ordinary people suddenly possessed by nasty entities.

Ring a bell?

Ah, you know, I've seen all the movies -

Omen 1, 2, 3, the Exorcist - the lot.

And guess what?

Not only do they not scare me but I don't believe them.

[lightning, thunder]

I mean just because it gets a little stormy

doesn't mean the devil is on his way to take over

your soul, does it?

And as for all that other ridiculous stuff like

twisting heads and speaking in strange tongues

[talks backwards].

NARRATOR: Is demonic possession all in our heads?

Or is there a more frightening answer?

BOB LARSON: What Satan can do is invade human bodies.

NARRATOR: A Connecticut woman appears to have been

possessed by an evil demon.

Could she be suffering from a split personality?

Or is the explanation far more terrifying?

Reverend Bob Larson is not your average man of god.

BOB LARSON: I am, among other things, an exorcist.

NARRATOR: Larson has studied Patricia Reading's

possession and is convinced it was real.

BOB LARSON: There are those who would like to

have the public believe that demonic possession is rare.

I can tell you it's not rare.

It'll make a cold chill go up your spine.

NARRATOR: Are demons really all around us?

Are they trying to take over the bodies of

innocent humans?

BOB LARSON: The bible teaches that when Satan

was cast out of heaven, a third of the angels

involved in that insurrection were cast out with him.

NARRATOR: According to the Book of Revelation,

when Satan lost his war with God he and his followers

were banished to the spirit realm on earth.

BOB LARSON: Satan is now an invisible spirit being.

Satan can't pull the trigger of a gun but what

Satan can do is invade human bodies and those

people then become the instruments of evil.

NARRATOR: Larson believes demonic possession has a

firm basis in scripture.

He's also certain that Patricia's condition

wasn't a case of split personality.

BOB LARSON: I deal a lot with multiple personality

disorder.

I know the difference.

When you see the demon have such utter hatred for

God and religious objects such as the cross,

that aversion means it's something more than psychosis.

That's when you know they are possessed.

NARRATOR: But there's one thing Larson believes is

the ultimate proof of demonic presence.

BOB LARSON: In the Pat Reading case,

she apparently spoke in another language.

I've seen this happen thousands and thousands of times.

I had a woman speak Chinese one time.

I had a fascinating case where a strange language

was being spoken and a college professor with a

PhD in ancient Semitic languages, he said I can

come up and tell you exactly what the voice was saying.

NARRATOR: Could these foreign, even forgotten

languages prove that Satan is carrying on an age-old

war by invading the bodies of humans?

BOB LARSON: To the skeptics who may not

believe in demonic possession, I say travel

with me and meet the thousands of people who

have had exorcisms.

When you see the smile and the glow on the person's

face as they say to you, wow, I didn't know I could

feel like this, something is gone.

That's why I do exorcisms.

NARRATOR: Are exorcisms ultimate proof that

devilish spirits still roam the earth?

Could reports of demonic possession be explained by

a misunderstood mental illness?

Or is everyone simply making it up?

Whatever the truth, this mystery is most definitely

weird...

or what?

[♪]

WILLIAM SHATNER: I don't know about you but stories

of ghosts and the paranormal send shivers up my spine.

But that's kinda fun, right?

But do spirits or ghosts or whatever they are

always have to be evil?

Aren't there any friendly dead people out there?

I hope so.

But there's some people who not only enjoy having

ghosts around, they can talk to them whenever they like.

How?

They've got the gift.

NARRATOR: In just about every way, Fae Jackson is

an average teenage girl.

FAE JACKSON: I like to shop and just hang out

with my friends.

NARRATOR: While Fae's life appears to be ordinary,

in truth she and her family are dealing with something

so sensitive they've chosen to conceal their

appearance.

LYNN JACKSON: Although it has become part of

everyday life for us, it's still at times

frightening.

NARRATOR: Fae's story began three years ago when

she was ten.

FAE JACKSON: I was sitting in my bedroom on my own.

I could feel a man sitting next to me.

LYNN JACKSON: She could feel like an energy,

like a presence next to her.

FAE JACKSON: And I could just feel his breath in my

ear and it was all warm.

LYNN JACKSON: And then she heard him whispering in her ear.

VOICE: Can you hear me?

FAE JACKSON: Can you hear me?

VOICE: Can you hear me?

NARRATOR: Fae races to her mom.

FAE JACKSON: Like the fear, I just, it was uncontrollable.

I just, it was unexplainable.

LYNN JACKSON: The child was absolutely terrified

and I was scared for her, to be honest.

NARRATOR: When Lynn takes her daughter back to the

room, the man is gone.

But Fae is in no doubt as to what she's experienced.

FAE JACKSON: I saw my first ghost.

NARRATOR: Terrifyingly, Fae's encounter was just

the beginning.

FAE JACKSON: The spirits started regularly visiting me.

They'd only come when I was on my own and when

they did just random spirits would walk into my bedroom.

NARRATOR: Fae is haunted by hundreds of ghosts.

Sometimes she sees as many as five a night.

LYNN JACKSON: Sometimes they just want to show her

how they died, which is a little bit grim at times

and she's only thirteen.

NARRATOR: The ghosts begin getting bolder.

LYNN JACKSON: There was an instant when her bed was shook,

which completely terrified me.

FAE JACKSON: I just felt like I was being attacked.

It was horrible.

It was, felt really dangerous and I felt like

I was on my own.

LYNN JACKSON: That was when I knew we had to do

something about it.

NARRATOR: At her wits' end, Lynn seeks

professional advice.

LYNN JACKSON: We got lots of help from local mediums

who understood what was happening.

NARRATOR: Far from seeing it as something

frightening, the mediums tell them Fae's ability to

see and connect with the dead is a gift, and a very

rare one at that.

LYNN JACKSON: They taught Fae techniques that she

could use to take more of a control over her gift

and to see it as a gift, really.

NARRATOR: With the help of psychic mediums,

the support of her mother and lots of hard work,

Fae finally mastered her gift.

FAE JACKSON: It's like I have two lives: Like I

live one life where I'm just a normal girl and

then other times I can talk to spirits.

So it's really quite exciting.

WILLIAM SHATNER: I see dead people.

That's something else I've always wanted to say,

but I can't 'cause I don't.

Well not when I'm sober anyway.

But incredibly, it may be because I'm an adult.

You see, Fae isn't alone.

Millions of other children see dead people too.

How?

Do they possess a special power, a sixth sense?

And is it a gift - or a curse?

Weird or what?

NARRATOR: Thirteen-year-old Fae Jackson

claims she can see ghosts.

Do children possess the gift?

Who better to ask about children who see ghosts

than Caron Goode, author of 'Children Who See Ghosts.'

CARON GOODE: To discover that children see ghosts

and talk with ghosts, to me it was exciting.

NARRATOR: After more than twenty-five years

researching the special abilities of young minds,

Goode has reached an incredible conclusion.

CARON GOODE: Children are more predisposed to see

ghosts than adults are primarily because of their

brain power.

The sixth sense begins to develop in children

between the ages of eighteen months all the

way up through five to six years and the reason is

because their, their brain is going through a

tremendous growth spurt.

NARRATOR: We've all heard of the sixth sense but

what is it?

What does it do that your other five can't?

CARON GOODE: When I discuss with the parent,

for example, what is the sixth sense I explain it

to a parent as being intuitive intelligence.

Some people have a heightened intuition.

NARRATOR: But where does this sixth sense come from?

Is it a gift only bestowed on some?

Remarkably, Goode believes it's an ability that's

within us all.

CARON GOODE: The pineal gland is located within

the brain which actually regulates light within our body.

I believe the pineal gland can be a doorway to the

sixth sense.

NARRATOR: But if we all have the ability to access

our sixth sense, why do so few children maintain this

power into adulthood?

CARON GOODE: As the hormones change, children

go through brain wave shifts, mood shifts and

that's the time logic develops and children may

turn away from their intuition, their feelings.

If children have not been encouraged in their

imagination, in their conversations and sixth

sense development, it can shut down when cognition

sets in.

NARRATOR: Do children's growing brains give them

a sixth sense?

Should a child's ghost sightings be encouraged?

Do kids like Fae really have the gift?

JACK ROURKE: My initial reaction to reading the article

about Fae uh was quite honestly is I wasn't impressed.

NARRATOR: Psychic Jack Rourke is an expert in

parapsychology.

Experience has taught him that a far more mundane

explanation may be at work or, rather, at home.

JACK ROURKE: There is a phenomena called

parentizing where in essence there's a bit of a

role reversal where a child can sometimes become

the caretaker of the parent or become the

mirror to the parent.

NARRATOR: Rourke believes that through parentizing children

can be actively encouraged to say they see ghosts.

JACK ROURKE: The more positive reinforcement a

child gets from their parent that they are special,

that they are extra-sensitive, that they

have special empathic or intuitive abilities,

the more the child then believes they're psychic

and I'll give you an example of how this is done.

A child wakes up in the middle of the night from a

horrible dream and is talking about ghosts

chasing them and things like this.

You come in as the parent and say no you're wrong.

That didn't happen.

You lose the ability to comfort the child because

they've been made wrong.

Now I go into the room, same scenario and I say

oh you saw a ghost didn't you?

Yes.

This is how it's done.

NARRATOR: But why would a child like Fae go along

with the idea of seeing ghosts?

What's in it for her?

JACK ROURKE: The specialness of the child

in these circumstances gives the child permission

to commiserate with the parent.

They become their emotional partner.

Um they go to activities together.

They may go to certain psychic functions and this

unique relationship becomes a reward to the

child and in order to maintain that closeness

with their parent, they have to maintain the

psychic identity.

GHOST: Can you hear me? Can you hear me? [echoes]

NARRATOR: Are children who see ghosts merely playing

out a fantasy with the encouragement of their parents?

Is there nothing special about them at all?

Does the gift exist in children at all?

JOSHUA WARREN: A person like Fae may be capable of

seeing ghosts because she has some physiological advantage.

NARRATOR: Thousands of children across the globe

claim they can see dead people.

Do they have an extra special sense known as the gift?

Paranormal investigator Joshua P. Warren

believes there could be a medical

explanation for this phenomena.

JOSHUA WARREN: A person like Fae may be capable of

seeing ghosts because she has some physiological

advantage in her eyeballs themselves.

Could Fae's eye have powers the rest of ours don't?

Warren believes her secret may be that she sees light

differently.

JOSHUA WARREN: Right now all the data that we have

indicates ghosts are more visible in the infrared realm.

Some of the best ghost images I've seen have been

captured using infrared technology.

NARRATOR: Could Fae be seeing ghosts that are all

around us, ghosts that most of us miss because we

can't see infrared?

JOSHUA WARREN: The average person can only see a

relatively narrow band of light from usually around

green to red.

Fae might be able to see a little bit more than the

rest of us.

NARRATOR: Scientists call the range of light the

visible spectrum, although most of us know it as the

colours of the rainbow.

But what if Fae was somehow able to literally

see what the rest of us can't?

JOSHUA WARREN: In the human eye there are two

primary types of cells.

You've got the rod cells and the cone cells.

Rod cells are used for nighttime vision but they

can't see colour.

Then you have the cone cells which respond very

quickly and they see colour.

If Fae has more of those rod or cone cells,

especially the cones, that alone might allow her to

see a broader range of colours and frequencies

than the average person.

Her eyes physiologically allow her to peer deeper

into the infrared or ultraviolet realms.

NARRATOR: Incredibly, Warren also believes the

eye might not just explain Fae's story, but also why

children on average report seeing more ghosts than adults.

JOSHUA WARREN: As a person ages, the components of

the eye become more and more dense.

In extreme cases, they can become very cloudy and

form a cataract.

So the older you get, the less you're able to,

to see when it comes to this band of frequencies.

NARRATOR: Could Fae and other children like her

really be able to see into the infrared world of ghosts?

Does she have a sixth sense?

Or is Fae just a needy kid who wanted her mother's

attention and approval?

We may never know.

Weird or What?

[♪]

NARRATOR: So there we have it, ghost stories from

around the world.

[♪]

NARRATOR: A Californian woman's home plays host to

one of the most terrifying paranormal events on record.

[♪]

In New England, a woman is possessed by an evil spirit

so strong even the Catholic Church fails to defeat it.

[♪]

And a British teenager can see and talk to ghosts.

Is she proof that some children have the gift?

Are these bizarre stories evidence that ghosts exist?

Can we seek comfort in rational explanations,

or do we ignore them at our peril? You decide.

WILLIAM SHATNER: Join me next time for more stories

that will undoubtedly be weird or what?

[♪]