Original subtitles

SHATNER: A winged beast

born with a demonic curse.

A beautiful race car

whose parts

are said to be possessed.

And a disturbing premonition

that changed the course of history.

Mysterious illness.

Irreparable harm.

Deadly misfortune.

All of these calamities

can be the harrowing result of a strange evil

whose very name conjures a feeling of dread.

We call it a curse.

Are curses real?

Or could simply believing in them make them so?

Can dark energy live inside an object

and cause suffering to anyone who touches it?

Could changing the name of a ship

wreak unimaginable havoc on the high seas?

And can the number 27

carry a mathematical jinx?

Well, that is what we'll try and find out.

♪ ♪

In southern New Jersey, a vast sea of trees

stretches as far as the eye can see.

Below the dense canopy of these woods lies a primeval world

filled with ominous sights and sounds

that are shrouded by dark undergrowth.

This foreboding wilderness is known

as the Pine Barrens.

JEFF HEIMBUCH: The Pine Barrens

is basically a million acres

of woodland in the southern tip of New Jersey.

You can essentially get lost in the Pine Barrens

and never be seen again

because they are just so vast.

At nighttime,

you can hear animals crunching all around.

But the problem is you can't see where these things are.

It's a terrifying place,

and it's very, very scary,

especially if you're lost there by yourself.

(owl hooting)

SHATNER: The Pine Barrens is home

to over 500 animal species.

But according to locals, there is one creature

said to dwell here that has yet to be

officially identified.

It's a grotesque winged monster

that is known as the Jersey Devil.

HEIMBUCH: The New Jersey Devil legend

is ingrained into the state of New Jersey so much.

It's something that every kid hears when they're growing up.

The Jersey Devil is gonna come and get you.

One of the most famous aspects of the Jersey Devil

is its horrific screech or roar.

(high-pitched screech)

If you hear something like that in the Pine Barrens, you run.

(high-pitched screech)

CHAD LEWIS: The Jersey Devil looks like it should have come out of

Dr. Frankenstein's lab.

It's a hodgepodge of animal parts.

It has a horse's head with horns growing out of it,

a long dragon or kangaroo body,

ending in thin, long bird legs and hooves...

...a forked tail on its back.

It has giant leather bat-like wings on its back.

If you were to describe something out of a nightmare,

the Jersey Devil would be that description.

SHATNER: Could a winged abomination

really lurk somewhere in the Pine Barrens?

Perhaps clues can be found by examining the origin story

of this fearsome monster

that has been spoken of in local lore for more than 250 years.

(high-pitched screech)

As the story goes, in 1735,

inside a small house in Leeds Point, New Jersey,

a woman gave birth to her unlucky 13th child.

And when it was born, it became a monster.

(high-pitched screech)

LYNNE McNEILL: According to tradition,

the Jersey Devil is actually the 13th child

of a woman known as Mother Leeds.

And she is on record as having 12 children.

So, the story that we get

is that when Mother Leeds

was giving birth to this purported 13th child,

she apparently, legend says,

cried out, "The devil can take this one."

Then she initially gave birth to a healthy, happy baby boy,

who almost immediately transformed into

this demon-like creature.

(high-pitched screech)

Some stories say that Mother Leeds

was killed after the baby was born, by the baby.

Other stories just say he flew up the chimney

and into the Pine Barrens.

SHATNER: Skeptics are quick to dismiss the story of a devil

born of human flesh,

but after this alleged event,

entirely new tales

of the monster started to surface in South Jersey.

In the early 1800s, a military officer of great distinction

was said to have had a first-hand encounter

with the Jersey Devil.

HEIMBUCH: The Jersey Devil has

had run-ins with many

famous people over the years,

such as Commodore Stephen Decatur.

He was a famous naval war hero,

and he came across the Jersey Devil

flying overhead.

He fired a cannon at the Jersey Devil.

And according to some eyewitnesses,

he shot a hole through one of its wings,

but it just flew away like nothing had happened.

McNEILL: Naval Commodore Stephen Decatur

spoke openly about this.

So, when a prominent person

comes forward to say, "Oh, no, absolutely,

"I saw this, you know, strange horse-faced,

"winged dragon-like creature,

and I shot a cannonball at it,"

that impresses itself upon us in a way

that kind of says, "Wait a minute, okay.

The pattern of belief here is so consistent."

SHATNER: By the turn of the 20th century,

belief in the existence of the Jersey Devil

had long been part of local culture.

But then, during the week of January 16, 1909,

an unprecedented avalanche of Jersey Devil sightings

surfaced in the numerous communities

bordering the Pine Barrens.

And for the first time, this demonic creature

terrified not just the residents of New Jersey

but also newspaper readers across the United States.

When accounts of these Jersey Devil sightings

and attacks surfaced in local newspapers,

it actually caused mass hysteria.

Local businesses and schools were shut down.

The Philadelphia Zoo offered a reward of $10,000

for the creature's capture,

and vigilance committees and posses were formed

to hunt the creature.

SHATNER: The panic of 1909

immortalized the Jersey Devil

in both national and local history.

But curiously, Native American lore suggests

that the origins of this Pine Barrens monster

may actually go back much further into the distant past.

McNEILL: In this part of the world,

before the arrival of colonists,

the tribes that lived here were the Lenape.

And they referred to this part of the world,

the Pine Barrens of what is now New Jersey,

as the "place of the dragon."

So, the presence of a creature in this "place of the dragon"

has been recorded long into the past.

HEIMBUCH: Whether or not you believe

the Jersey Devil theories or legends,

he existed well before any of that stuff existed,

and it's a big part of the state's identity.

The Pine Barrens is such a huge, vast place

that absolutely, a creature can live there

and not ever be seen by

anyone for the rest of their entire lives.

Which kind of leads credence to the theory

that this creature does exist.

(high-pitched screech)

SHATNER: Could a mother's curse have caused her 13th baby

to become a horse-faced, winged, dragon-like creature?

It's a tale that's lasted for centuries...

...just like the story of dark energy

that some believe is held in a dazzling object

that dooms those who possess it.

SHATNER: It is arguably one of the most beguiling

and infamous diamonds in existence.

Set in a pendant surrounded by 16 white diamonds,

this dazzling gray-blue stone weighs

a colossal 45.54 carats.

Although throughout its history, the massive diamond

has been known variously as "The Tavernier Blue"

and "Le Bleu de France,"

today, it is simply known as the Hope Diamond.

GREGORY: What makes the Hope Diamond so mesmerizing

is the whole presentation of the diamond itself, and

I think that's what brings out the beauty of the diamond.

It highlights the blue stone.

KURIN: This is a piece of rock that's the size of a walnut.

It almost looks sapphire-like,

and yet, because people feel it has this amazing story

about curse and misfortune,

they regard it specially, so when you go

to the Smithsonian and you go in that Winston Gallery,

you can't get close to it.

There's always mobs of people around it.

Everybody's taking pictures around it.

Everybody's whispering and trying to figure out things,

and they feel it's almost like they're around a celebrity.

SHATNER: Although renowned for its breathtaking beauty,

the Hope Diamond has also become known

for a far different type of facet,

one that many regard to be deadly.

In 1908,

The Washington Post did a story noting

all the people that owned this diamond and suffered misfortune.

Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette

faced the guillotine.

The Hope family went bankrupt.

All sorts of peoples whose throats were slit

and people went off cliffs and

everybody who was associated with it died.

And so that became kind of a theme story about it

and-and really led to the diamond's notoriety.

SHATNER: Could it be that one of the most recognizable

gemstones in existence,

admired by thousands of people on a daily basis

from afar is also cursed?

But if so, how?

Putting together the story of the Hope Diamond

is like a detective story.

It really is a puzzle.

It started out in India.

The diamond, a big blue diamond,

is basically acquired by this guy Jean-Baptiste Tavernier.

He is a Belgian-French diamond trader.

He's fascinated by diamonds.

And he's really the first one that goes to India

to find out where diamonds really come from.

The rumor about the Hope Diamond is that

it was actually stolen from the statue of a Hindu god.

KURIN: Tavernier does report on a story from India.

Somebody climbed up on the statue,

stole that large diamond,

secreted it and then tried to get out.

The next morning, they opened the temple,

and they found him dead,

holding the diamond.

And so, from that day forward, apparently the legend goes

that the god cursed anyone who would bear this stone.

It seems to be that we have many cases

where people have had heart attacks

after putting on the stone.

Uh, you know, people have committed suicide.

There's been tragedy

that has surrounded this stone from day one.

SHATNER: Is it possible that the fantastic stories

about a Hope Diamond curse

are based on nothing more than morbid fantasies?

According to Evalyn Walsh McLean,

a wealthy mining heiress who died in 1947,

the curse is, in fact, very real.

And she would have known

because she owned the Hope Diamond for 36 years.

Evalyn Walsh McLean was my great-grandmother,

and she was the last and longest owner

of the infamous Hope Diamond.

KURIN: Evalyn Walsh McLean was

definitely iconoclastic and rebellious.

And I think when she bought

the diamond from the jeweler Pierre Cartier,

she liked the idea of the curse

because she actually wrote about it.

She said, "I'm not a queen. I wasn't born rich,

"so maybe I'm not subject to the same kind of forces

"that these other people have been

that came from a different station in life."

But the Hope Diamond had tragic consequences

for her family.

GREGORY: Her mother-in-law did not want her to buy the diamond,

'cause it had a curse that she had heard about.

So, Evalyn went down to a local church

met with a priest to get the diamond blessed.

The priest placed it on a velvet pouch.

That night, there was no storm in the air,

but lightning and thunder came in.

Lightning hit a tree across the street.

So, Evalyn got a little scared of it.

Evalyn's mother-in-law and her friend

passed away within a year.

And next, Evalyn's youngest son Vinson

was hit by an automobile.

On top of that, my grandmother,

Evie McLean, she commits suicide.

And then Evalyn's husband, Ned McLean,

commits suicide in a mental hospital.

So then she started thinking that,

yes, it could be cursed,

but she still wanted to keep the diamond.

It was just a piece of her life.

It was a soul to her.

SHATNER: But was the Hope Diamond really cursed?

As far as Evalyn Walsh McLean was concerned,

the priceless stone's beauty was so great

that she was willing to ignore the risk.

But there are others, including

some in the scientific community,

who believe that the Hope Diamond curse

is not only real,

but that, under certain conditions,

its evil properties can actually be seen

with the naked eye.

So, with the Hope Diamond,

it does have this amazing property,

and that is, if you, um,

expose it to ultraviolet light,

and then turn off the lights in the room,

the diamond will glow a deep,

dark red. Intense.

And that may last for several minutes.

We've done a number of experiments

with other blue diamonds, and many blue diamonds will glow

blue, blue-green.

But nothing glows as intensely and as sharply

and for the length of time as the Hope Diamond.

Physicists that have explained this

have talked about, well, the exposure

to ultraviolet energy excites the electrons in the gem.

Other people think there's something else afoot.

They think about other forces

that are locked inside the diamond

that have this mysterious power that can affect them.

It's very much of a majestic diamond.

And what we do know

is that it attracts people who want to touch it.

It makes people want to "aah" and "ooh" over it.

It's beautiful.

It's a color of its own.

It's a piece of its own, and my true feeling is

everyone has tragic events in their life, so,

with my great grandmother having tragic events,

I feel like, with or without the diamond,

they were gonna occur anyway.

SHATNER: It's interesting to consider the personal cost

each guardian of the Hope Diamond paid

to possess such a unique and beautiful object.

You have to wonder if dismissing the notion

that the stone is cursed

was worth the price they paid.

The same could be said

for a seafaring family and their crew,

whose ill-fated journey

may have been cursed by simply

ignoring superstition.

(Shatner reads on-screen text)

SHATNER: An American brigantine ship, known as the Mary Celeste,

sets sail from this bustling port

transporting goods to Genoa, Italy.

On board is American Captain Benjamin S. Briggs,

his wife Sarah, their two-year-old daughter Sophia

and a crew of seven sailors

from the U.S., Denmark and Germany.

But on December 4, 1872,

just under a month after these ten people set sail

on the Mary Celeste,

the vessel is discovered aimless and adrift

in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.

BRIAN HICKS: On December 4,

David Reed Morehouse, captain of the Dei Gratia,

a Canadian cargo ship,

spies this ship in the distance

about halfway between the Azores and Portugal,

400 miles from each.

It's bucking.

It doesn't look right.

And so they sail over, and they find the Mary Celeste.

They go aboard and everything's kind of creepy.

The ship's wheel is spinning uncontrollably, so

he doesn't understand what's going on.

The Mary Celeste was sailing without its crew.

SHATNER: According to the crew of the Dei Gratia,

finding this abandoned vessel along a major trade route

defied explanation.

The Mary Celeste had become a ghost ship.

HICKS: A ghost ship was

a mariner's term for any ship

found sailing without its crew.

In the 19th century, dozens of ships were found

sailing without their crews every year.

But usually, there was a very plausible

and obvious reason for that.

And it's possible they could have been

swept overboard in a storm.

They could have abandoned ship

because they thought it was sinking.

Those are usually things that you can tell.

The difference was nothing

seemed to fit the Mary Celeste story.

The Mary Celeste is just

the quintessential story of people being lost,

of vanishing without a trace.

It was the strangest thing.

Everything on this ship was intact,

including the cargo.

And that's when you have to ask what happened?

If there was everything stolen, you'd say,

well, pirates. Pirates must have done this.

If there was mutiny, there'd be blood,

and the mutineers would've taken the ship.

There's no bodies.

Why would ten people abandon

a perfectly good seaworthy ship?

People wanted to know what happened?

What could've happened?

HICKS: This was a story that went viral,

and every week there was a story

and newspaper reporters found something.

And one week, it's insurance fraud.

This week, it's murder.

Next week, it's mutiny.

And it just gave this story a life of its own.

MARSTERS: Some people have put forward the theory a giant squid

somehow dragged them into the watery depths as well.

There have also been

explanations based on psychic phenomena

in ways analogous to the Bermuda Triangle.

There have also been people who have attributed

the abandonment of the Mary Celeste to alien abduction.

But there is

no way of, uh, conclusively demonstrating

any one theory.

SHATNER: This famous maritime disappearance

has puzzled researchers for over 150 years.

In addition to the passengers, the only thing that appeared

to be missing from the Mary Celeste

was a single lifeboat.

Even Captain Briggs' logbook provides no clues

as to what may have happened.

But some believe that the answer may be found

in a letter written by the captain's wife Sarah

two days before the Mary Celeste

departed New York Harbor.

Sarah wrote a letter to her mother-in-law,

who was watching their son.

And she had mentioned that the ship

is making all kinds of popping

and hissing sounds. Now, that would be

the alcohol down below deck.

They had left with 1,701 barrels

of alcohol in their cargo.

It made her nervous.

HICKS: The U.S. routinely sold solvents and fuel

and that kind of alcohol.

If you had 450 gallons

of methanol or formaldehyde that had been

bottled up inside a ship's hold for three weeks,

the effects could be serious for the crew.

Nausea, dizziness.

It could even cause hallucinations.

This is serious physiological effects from

exposure to these kind of fumes.

And I think that's what's at the heart of what happened.

SHATNER: Could hallucinations explain why the crew

abandoned ship without any supplies

to survive the open ocean?

While that's possible, others believe

the ship itself was cursed.

The Mary Celeste had long been associated

with curious superstition,

ever since it was built in Nova Scotia in 1861.

Back then the ship went

by a different name, the Amazon.

HICKS: The Amazon

had more than its share of misfortune.

We do know that the first captain of the ship

died within a day of setting foot onboard her.

Someone had renamed it Mary Celeste

which is a no-no for ships.

It was maritime folklore that renaming a ship

would anger Poseidon or King Neptune.

And if he had to relearn the name,

the punishment for that was shipwreck or death.

Whether you want to believe that that is supernatural,

paranormal, bad luck or what...

...people died around it, cargo went bad,

nobody ever made money with it.

It was just a horrible, bad luck ship.

Can giving a ship a new name

really conjure the wrath of the gods?

It's a distinct possibility when you consider the tragic fate

of the Mary Celeste's crew.

But there's another frightening story,

one about a certain sports car

with a reputation for killing

those who dare to drive it.

(Shatner reads on-screen text)

SHATNER: At 5:45 in the afternoon,

a brand-new 1955 Porsche 550 Spyder

traveling west on U.S. 466

collides with an oncoming sedan.

The impact instantly kills the driver of the Porsche.

News of the ill-fated accident sends shockwaves

around the world, because

the driver was none other

than the iconic American actor James Dean.

At the time of his death,

James Dean was definitely the one to watch.

He had his debut movie star performance

in East of Eden,

and he had two other movies

in the can, and he was

launched into becoming the face

of rebellious Hollywood.

But all that came to a crashing end

on September 30, 1955.

SHATNER: James Dean's death behind the wheel

shocked friends and fans alike.

Not only because the actor was such a rising star at the time

but also because, even at his relatively young age,

24-year-old Dean had already proven himself

to be an accomplished racecar driver.

When James Dean came to southern California in 1954,

he entered the Palm Springs Road Races

as a novice driver.

He won his race

as a novice and qualified for the Sunday main event

against veteran drivers.

He was a very serious and aggressive competitor

with a lot of skill as a novice driver.

SHATNER: James Dean's reputation

as a competent driver was so well known

that many found it difficult to believe his death

could have been the result of poor driving.

Over the years, some people have claimed that there is

only one possible explanation for the crash.

They believe that James Dean's car was cursed.

And as evidence of the curse,

they point to a fateful encounter that Dean had

with a fellow actor shortly before his untimely death.

Two days after James Dean purchased his Porsche Spyder,

he was having dinner with Alec Guinness.

During the course of the dinner, James Dean told Alec Guinness

he had just purchased a new Porsche Spyder.

It was outside in the parking lot,

and he wanted to show him the new car.

Alec Guinness, upon setting eyes on that vehicle,

he had a very strange reaction.

Some strange thing came over me,

some almost different voice.

And I said, "If you get into that car,

by 10:00 o'clock at night next Thursday, you'll be dead."

EBNER: Five days after Alec gave that warning

to James Dean, James Dean died.

SHATNER: Is it possible that James Dean's car

was possessed by evil?

Well, if that's true,

the curse was apparently strong enough

to survive even after his tragic death.

Because in the years following James Dean's accident,

several strange incidents involving his car took place.

The exterior of the car was pretty much obliterated,

but the chassis

and the engine block remained intact.

Another race car enthusiast

by the name of Dr. William Eschrich

took the engine block from James Dean's car,

and put it into his own car.

And then he parceled out some of the parts

to a good friend of his-- and colleague--

Dr. Troy McHenry.

So Eschrich and McHenry

are now driving their Porsches

with James Dean parts in the same race.

Guess what happens next?

McHenry loses control of his Porsche

and drives head-on into a tree

and dies at the scene.

And Eschrich,

he flips his car,

and winds up severely injured

in the same race.

RASKIN: George Barris was a legendary

car customizer in California.

He got hold of the carcass

of James Dean's Porsche Spyder

and put it on display

and loaned it to the Los Angeles Safety Council

with the theme that speed kills, drive safely.

He told stories about how

individuals touched this car and injured themselves.

JOJI BARRIS-PASTER: The stories that are from my father are really interesting.

When the car was dropped off at the Barris Kustom Shop

in North Hollywood, when it first came to the shop,

his mechanic came out to help him, you know, unload the car.

It rolls and breaks his legs,

rolls over his legs and breaks his legs.

Incidents keep happening, and, at that time,

these stories that he's telling us, it's concerning.

And you could tell he's realizing, "Hey,

"there's a curse tied to this car.

This is serious now."

SHATNER: Is it possible that the curse on James Dean's car lived on,

even after it had been wrecked and salvaged for parts?

It's an unsettling notion.

So disturbing, in fact, that some people believe

George Barris took matters into his own hands.

RASKIN: In 1960, George Barris

sent the car to a safety exhibit in Miami, Florida.

He said that when the transporter

came back to L.A., the car was missing.

In all my research, we cannot find

any trace of the missing car.

And looking at all the speculation...

...revolving around the curse,

I believe that George Barris disposed of the car

and it disappeared forever.

The question of the curse and the death of James Dean

has been going on for 65 years.

And looking at those strange incidents,

they may have been coincidences,

or there may have been

an actual curse.

Unfortunately, we'll never know.

(Shatner reads on-screen text)

Pioneering electric guitarist Jimi Hendrix

dies of a drug overdose.

(Shatner reads on-screen text)

Kurt Cobain, lead singer and songwriter

of the trailblazing grunge rock band Nirvana

dies of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

(Shatner reads on-screen text)

Internationally-famed vocalist Amy Winehouse

is found dead of alcohol poisoning.

Aside from their remarkable musical talents,

and the fact that they all

tragically passed away well before their time,

they all have something else in common.

At the time of their deaths, each of them

was 27 years old.

WOOD: There is

sort of a weirdly persistent

pop culture legend

that talks about

the strange number of pop cultural figures,

especially musicians, who've died

at the age of 27.

I think it's attracted a lot of interest because

it's obviously a young age.

Also, a lot of the people involved,

the circumstances of their death have been,

sort of mysterious or unclear.

So I think that really grabbed people's

attention and imagination.

The 27 club has definitely

given a lot of these rock stars, up and coming, the fear.

Their families, their parents

have all been scared, warning their-their siblings

and their children,

"We know that this, you're, you're getting success now,

"but be careful because

no one wants to be part of the 27 Club."

SHATNER: The 27 Club?

While it may sound like something the tabloids invented

to sell newspapers,

there is evidence to suggest that such a club

not only exists,

but has far more members than you might think.

WOOD: You have Brian Jones from the Rolling Stones,

Janis Joplin,

Jim Morrison from The Doors.

Clearly, this is a club that not everybody

wants to be a member of.

ERIC SEGALSTAD: There was a study

that just came out from Liverpool,

where the researchers looked at the average age of death

for people who had played on charting records

over the last, whatever, 30 or 40 years

and compare that to the general population

in the same countries-- in the U.K. and the U.S.

So I reached out and I asked,

"Do you see a statistical spike at the age of 27?"

And they did and they couldn't explain it.

There must be something greater at play,

and, uh, it keeps happening.

SHATNER: While it would certainly appear

that celebrities are more prone

to accidental deaths at the age of 27

than the normal population,

according to some experts,

it's not fame that's behind the curse of the 27 Club...

...but the number 27 itself.

In horoscopic astrology, "Saturn return"

is this phenomenon where

the planet Saturn returns to the exact same spot

in the sky as the day you were born.

That takes about 29 and a half years.

Astrologers say that you enter this phase

of Saturn return starting in your 27th year,

and astrologers say that this particular time

is really a time when

you, as a person, are on the threshold

between the phase of youth

entering to the phase of maturity.

I think that, for a lot of the 27s,

they might have faced their own troubles around this time,

trying to enter adulthood

after having a successful or an artistically

very intense period of youth.

SHATNER: Is it possible the number 27

actually carries a mathematical,

or even celestial, jinx?

It's possible.

But if so, why does it only seem to affect famous people?

Many believe the answer

as to why the curse of the 27 Club

is limited to celebrities

is the same reason some people

are seduced by fame in the first place.

JONATHAN YOUNG: Whether this is conscious or unconscious,

what you have if you die at 27

is eternal youth.

You never have to be an older person.

You never have to get the wrinkles.

You never have to go into the full disillusionment,

so those who left young get to stay young.

WHITEHEAD: It's become a myth in our culture now.

And so, could it be a self-perpetuating prophecy,

where, because people start to believe it,

where, because people start to believe it,

they actually manifest it into reality?

(Shatner reads on-screen text)

After five years of harrowing conflict,

Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrenders

to Union General Ulysses S. Grant,

finally ending the Civil War.

Just five days later, in Washington D.C.,

President Abraham Lincoln and his wife Mary Todd

enjoy a performance at Ford's Theatre.

Abraham Lincoln goes to Ford's Theatre

that fateful evening.

As he's engrossed in the play, there's that terrible shot

that echoes through the theater.

(gunshot)

The back of Lincoln's head is blown to pieces.

This was a horrifying,

traumatic moment for the entire nation.

The assassination of a president, really,

at his moment of greatest triumph.

SHATNER: After President Lincoln's assassination,

the country went into a period of profound mourning

that lasted for several months.

And, in a surreal twist,

some even claimed that Lincoln's murder

cast a dark, supernatural shadow

on the White House.

EDWARD LENGEL: After his assassination,

it's really only a short step from there

to people seeing Abraham Lincoln's ghost

in the White House.

Apparently, Lincoln's ghost

scared the dickens out of the entire White House staff.

And then,

Mary Todd Lincoln, like...

like many people at the time, in the mid-19th century,

was very interested in spiritualism.

And there is a photograph of her showing

a figure that appears to be Abraham Lincoln.

President Lincoln just kind of emerges out of

the background in this photograph.

It's really quite creepy.

Now, where the Lincoln ghost came from, we don't know,

but there's such an elemental power

to the Lincoln apparition.

SHATNER: Were these incredible reports

merely hallucinations, fueled by grief?

Perhaps. But, curiously...

...over the years, the apparitions

of not just Abraham Lincoln

but numerous former presidents

have been seen roaming the halls

of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Witnesses have claimed to see Thomas Jefferson

playing the violin in the Yellow Oval Room.

Andrew Jackson, laughing in the Rose Room.

And William Henry Harrison, fumbling around the attic.

So, as crazy as it may sound,

is it possible that the White House is the final

resting place for the souls of American presidents?

(Shatner reads on-screen text)

President Harry Truman lies fast asleep in his bed.

BELANGER: In a letter to his wife, Bess, President Truman writes,

"At 4:00 o'clock, I was awakened by

three distinct knocks on my bedroom door."

(knocking on door)

"I jumped up and put on my bathrobe,

"opened the door, and no one there.

"Went out and looked up and down the hall,

"looked into your room, still no one there.

The damn place is haunted, sure as shootin'."

LENGEL: Harry Truman is really unsettled by this experience.

And it was Truman who decided enough is enough

and he's gonna get rid of the entire interior

of the White House.

He tears it all out.

And maybe he imagined in some way

that he was gonna get rid of the ghosts that way,

but it didn't work.

BELANGER: During the reconstruction,

official White House photographer Abbie Rowe

clicks this picture.

And if you look way back in the lower right hand corner,

there's this figure that's almost see-through.

And you might say, "Well, come on, it's 1950.

It's an old camera, old technology."

But if you look just a little bit to the left

of that semi see-through figure,

you'll see three men standing there,

and you can make out their hat, their tie,

their clothes, and so on.

And they're just as far away.

And so, people point to this photo and suggest

this may be a documented ghost photo

inside the White House.

Could a place like the White House

really be cursed?

How about a ship or a diamond?

Are these malevolent misfortunes simply a creation

of the human imagination, fueled by stories and legends?

Or is there something real,

dark and frightening that can attach itself

to both people and objects alike?

Something that can follow you

wherever you go, infecting whatever you touch

and causing deadly consequences?

Perhaps it's best to heed all warnings

as long as the truth about curses remains