Hey, Dad. It's Cathy.
Their prodigal daughter returns home.
I didn't want to be there, but I had to be.
To the place that haunted her youth.
I could feel the dread start to come in the room.
I couldn't scream. I couldn't do anything.
Only to find the house won't give up its ghosts.
Something dark is definitely up there.
I had no control.
In this world there is real evil.
Someone's in my room.
It lurks in the darkest shadows.
Between what we see and the things we fear...
there are doors.
When they are opened...
nightmares become reality.
The town of Bergen in upstate New York
was founded in 1812,
a community of farmers and lumber workers
carved their future out of the region's
dense woods and fertile soil.
But they were not the first to inhabit this ancient land.
Bergen sits on the edge of a vast primordial swamp.
For over 10,000 years,
its black creeks still pulse through the wetlands,
bringing new life to age-old darkness.
You have to pick the right kind of plants to put in this soil.
They all can't survive here.
It is here, at the edge of the swamp,
where Cathy Heglund grew up.
My parents moved to Bergen in the late fifties...
and they found this old farmhouse out in the country
that they could afford.
My father thought he would fix it up
and he'd have a little land and a bigger home.
My father was in the backyard
tilling up a garden space for my mother
to have a vegetable garden.
INTENSE MUSIC PLAYS
What is it, Dad?
And he uncovered part of a woman's body.
There was tufts of hair that were still curled.
You could tell that this woman had red hair.
There were seven or eight vertebrae from like a spine.
That looks like a piece of a lady's dress.
Do you think? Don't. It's nothing for you to worry about, Cathy.
I want you to go inside now.
Go inside. Now.
I have no idea if the authorities were ever called.
We didn't really talk about that incident after that.
Cathy sensed that there was something unusual about her home
and the land it sat upon.
JINGLING
One night I noticed a shadow in the corner.
I could feel the dread start to come in the room,
that creepy feeling that makes you just want to run and hide.
And I remember the room got very, very, very cold.
And I couldn't move. The only thing I could move was my eyes.
It was like I was paralysed.
I couldn't scream. I couldn't do anything.
MUSIC INTENSIFIES
Cathy. Cathy. Are you OK?
Are you OK? Shh. What happened?
I don't know. I, I don't... God, come here.
It took me a few minutes to gather myself
so I could even think to tell my dad what my side of the story was.
You all right? Tell me you're OK.
I'm OK.
Cathy tells her father what she remembers.
He would listen to me and he would be afraid for me
but he didn't know what to do.
Cathy, we can't let our fears get the best of us, OK?
You understand?
We have to be careful who we talk to about this stuff
because most people don't believe in ghosts.
But, Dad. Put it out of your mind.
OK?
My father wasn't as open
to acknowledging some of the things that were going on in the house,
I think, because he didn't know how to handle those things.
He didn't know how to protect us from those things.
Nothing here can hurt you. OK?
I think in his mind, if he ignored it
and he didn't give it any attention, it would go away.
But it didn't go away.
As soon as she could leave Bergen,
Cathy started a new life in Rochester, New York.
When I was old enough to get married and I moved out of the house,
it was a great relief to me.
She starts her own family, builds her own home...
And tries to forget about the nightmare in Bergen.
I actually tried to convince my father
to sell that house more than once...
to get my mother out of there. Hey, Dad.
He was very firm that he would never sell that house.
Hey, Dad, it's Cathy.
Dad?
What do you got here? Oh, Dad.
MELLOW MUSIC PLAYING
You're OK.
He actually became sick and had to go into a nursing home.
We were gone for eight years.
Eight years that house stood like that.
Like the day we just shut the door.
By 2018, Cathy's children are grown and her marriage has ended.
Health problems have forced her into early retirement
and taken a toll on her finances,
leaving her only one place to go.
She returns to the Bergen house with her new boyfriend.
Could be worse. Could it?
Only one way to find out.
During that time period,
people had been breaking into the house,
because they realized it was empty and it's off the road.
Stealing antiques, dropping garbage off.
I don't know where to start. Come on now.
We're in this together.
I just can't believe I had to move back here.
I promised myself I'd never move back.
It'll be OK.
It'll be great. We'll make the best of it.
I'm glad you're here with me.
I didn't want to be there.
I didn't want to be there, but I had to be there.
The idea was that we would fix up the house,
try to get it cleared, sell it, move on with our lives.
The very first night, my boyfriend, he fell asleep rather quickly.
I was very nervous. I got that old familiar feeling.
-JINGLING -INTENSE MUSIC PLAYING
Hey, wake up. Wake up!
What's wrong? What happened?
Look.
It brought back all of those fears I had as a kid.
MUSIC INTENSIFIES
It was like it got to the end of the bed
and it would just disappeared. It was just gone.
Sorry, Cath. I'm not sleeping in this bed.
Air mattress. Living room. I'm not sleeping in this house.
What?
Come with me, Cath.
Or don't. I, I just can't.
JINGLING CONTINUES
I did feel like this might be a mistake
moving back into this house.
But yet that was my family home.
When I thought about home as a kid, that's what I thought of.
So even though I was terrified, that was also my comfort.
SERENE MUSIC PLAYING
Give your mum a hug.
00:23:39.880 -- 00:23:41.880 INTENSE MUSIC PLAYS
Thanks for coming, sweetheart. Hey, Mum.
You remember Justin. Justin, so good to see you.
I'd say pardon the mess, but it is way too far gone for that.
I saw someone behind her.
So, what do you think? Can we salvage this wreck?
It was like their face was coming through her face.
Justin is a good, good family friend.
It was almost like they were pushing through her from the back.
Out of the kindness of his heart he volunteered to help us
try to clean it up a little bit.
It's gonna take a lot of work but, yeah, it's under there somewhere.
Janet. Are you OK?
Can you hear me?
Let me show you around before you get too optimistic.
Janet? Janet?
I called to her and she wasn't responding.
You OK?
Can you hear me now?
Yeah, I just feel like someone walked across my grave or something.
I was like, "Janet!" You know, a little bit louder.
Yeah, what was that?
It was definitely a warm day when I walked in.
I just remember kind of feeling dazed,
like sort of out of it.
And I walked in and I felt, definitely felt a chill.
I got something here.
Just kinda sent hairs up my spine a little bit.
Look at this.
It's a strange old house. What do you mean?
Come to find out, after reviewing the video and the pictures...
Make yourself useful.
there was a spirit that had stepped inside of my body.
You could actually see another face over the top of hers.
After a full day of sifting through years of debris,
It's a very creepy photo because,
Justin and Mack settle in for the night.
in the photo, the face that's turned to look at you,
I'm done, man. Yeah, me too.
the eyes are completely black.
Hey, you crash upstairs. I'll take the couch. Cool.
The woman who died here. She needs our help.
OK.
Cathy reaches out to a local historian,
in hopes of identifying the woman who died in her barn.
The town historian is the one that told us about the woman
who hung herself in the barn. Katherine.
I am with child.
It was like someone put their hand on me...
With your child.
and just fully extended their arm.
Come to find out that this young girl
Are you OK? Yeah, I think so.
actually had an affair
with one of the married Justices of the Peace at the time.
I felt the initial fall of when my butt hit the stairs.
I remember my head hitting,
And when he found out she was pregnant,
but I don't, I didn't... there was no pain.
he broke off the relationship.
You want my counsel?
My head didn't hurt.
Did you see anybody? No.
End it.
It was like bouncing your head off of a mattress.
Be rid of it.
To be an unmarried young woman pregnant...
I can't explain it other than,
no, her whole life was over with.
whatever it was didn't want me to get hurt.
They just didn't want me there. They didn't want me upstairs.
Something dark is definitely up there.
DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYING
We slept in the living room.
In the morning, Justin tells Cathy about his experience in the house.
Hey, boys. Here you go.
Thanks, Mum. Thank you.
Miss Cathy?
You know how you said to give this house a chance?
Yeah. I think I know what you meant.
Something happen?
Yeah.
Her family wouldn't help or anything.
They would turn their back on you back in those days, you know?
I let him tell me his story.
So, she became very despondent and, and took her life.
I let him know that I believed him.
Yeah, I was like, "So I'm not..."
She's like, "No, you're not, you're not crazy. No."
Because of the aggressive nature of the hauntings,
Have you ever seen anything?
Cathy invites investigator and psychic Tim Shaw
Yes.
to help get answers to the questions
I mean as a kid, I saw a lot. There was crazy stuff that happened.
that have plagued her since childhood.
Oh, come in.
Dad told me not to talk about it ever so...
You must be Cathy. Mr. Shaw.
Janet knew Reverend Tim Shaw and she mentioned the house to him.
yes, a lot.
I asked, "What are they?" She goes, "I'm not really sure who they are."
And he wanted to come see it for himself
Do you know what they want?
and experience it for himself.
No.
Let me see. What can I tell you?
I haven't even really thought about what they want.
If you don't mind. I'd like to take a walk
around the house first myself.
Whenever I go to a "haunted house",
Cathy decides it is time to seek definite answers
about who or what is haunting her house.
I'll do a cold walk,
which means I want to go, and I want to read the energy in the house.
We had a neighbour, he suggested, you know, you meet this woman,
I want to get impressions. I want to go in every single room.
she could enlighten you on some of the other things
I want the house to tell me what's going on.
that are going on there because Janet is a psychic medium.
Of course. Let me know if you need anything.
Thank you.
I'm so glad you could join me, Janet.
Thank you so much for calling me.
How did you, um, find out about me?
I'm standing in the home of Cathy Heglund.
Scott told me that you might be willing to talk to me.
Because I had never spoken to a psychic medium before,
I'm kind of looking around and I got like a sick feeling
in my solar plexus.
I, I was fascinated and intrigued but I was also a little sceptical.
And the first thing that you learn about if you work with exorcists
or demonologists...
if you get a little butterfly in your solar plexus,
How did you figure out that you're a, oh, what's the right word?
that usually means there's something that's not
real happy that you're there.
Psychic? Right.
Well, I guess I always knew,
but it took me a long time to call it what it is.
I was walking up the stairs
I realised that I was a psychic medium when I was a child
and I got about halfway, and I got a gentle push.
and I'd be in my bedroom at night
and I would see and feel things that would scare me.
Felt it like right in my chest,
centralized, like somebody had just put their hand out.
I would see figures come in and out of the room.
Said, "Stop."
There's definitely something here.
At first, I was afraid.
It's stronger on the second floor.
I, I tried to block them out, just to pretend they weren't there.
The same thing happened to me.
INTENSE MUSIC PLAYS
When I was much older, I told my mother finally
TIM GASPS
that I had these abilities and, uh, she started to believe it.
And I was like, what the hell did I hit? What did I...
Erm, my father I never really could tell.
It was one of those things that you didn't really talk about
Was there something here?
because you were told you were crazy, or it wasn't real.
EERIE MUSIC PLAYING
Eventually I started helping other people
who were having those same experiences.
How do you help them?
Well, I visit people's homes and I tell them what I sense there.
I'm in the upstairs bedroom.
Sometimes I see things that happened a long time ago.
Whatever attacked me on the stairs seems to have backed off.
It, in my mind's eye.
I feel things that people felt there.
If the house is truly haunted,
I went to the back window
and I looked out. And I'm looking into the swamp.
I try to communicate with the spirits that remain.
We definitely had a lot in common
and she had asked me
if I would like to come over and visit the haunted Bergen house.
Would you be willing to come
to my house to see what you sense there?
I'm not afraid of you. And you can't hide from me.
I would love to. Thank you.
INTENSE MUSIC GROWS
I kinda gave her a tour. I walked her around.
I told her what I knew.
The original house was built in 1858
but most of the rooms were added in the 1880s and 1930s.
Mr. Shaw. Is everything OK? Yes.
But I thought I saw someone out there.
I said how do I get out to, in the middle of that swamp
SERENE MUSIC PLAYING
so I can look at the house? There's not really a way to get out there.
What do you mean?
I just saw a guy standing in the middle of that damn swamp.
There's no path. It's just swamp.
It's full of copperheads and God knows what else.
What is it, Dad?
00:31:14.840 -- 00:31:17.400 Tim Shaw's experience gives him an idea
I didn't tell her anything about the garden and she just stopped.
She stopped in the exact spot
about the cause of the haunting.
my father dug up that body.
We know that water plays an important part
Something happened here.
in amplifying psychic phenomena.
I had a feeling of... death.
That primordial swamp predates European occupation of the area.
I had felt there was a woman back there
that had been killed on the property and had been buried.
That tells you that that swamp has a lot of energy to it.
INTENSE MUSIC PLAYING
So, I believe that, that is what's powering whatever's in the house.
I immediately thought to myself,
this would be a great location to attempt a séance,
And she goes, "There's people buried on this property."
if it was done correctly, done safely...
And I said "Yes, I think so."
that we could go and we could contact something,
get some kind of two-way communication going.
Because it just felt that the house was alive.
Can we go in there? Of course.
EERIE MUSIC PLAYING
Cathy recruits a team of paranormal investigators
including researcher and psychic medium Rob Thompson
and his assistant, Renata, to help with the séance.
From the moment we arrived, I felt that we were being observed.
When I entered the barn, I got a feeling,
And immediately I felt that there were multiple spirits
overwhelming feeling of fear and dread and sadness.
there who needed our help.
Let's get started. Right.
INTENSE MUSIC PLAYING
MELLOW MUSIC PLAYING
Being a mother, I could feel that feeling of being pregnant.
Everybody ready? Yes.
There's several ways of doing a séance
And that's when I saw the woman hanging
but every séance is almost the same.
from the rafters in the barn.
You start off with a prayer.
We ask your protection for all those within this circle tonight.
I know what happened here.
Help us to raise our energy to communicate with the spirits here.
A woman took her own life.
You can really raise the vibration enough to give them enough energy,
INTENSE MUSIC PLAYS
to be able to move things, do things.
It can get pretty intense during a séance.
Is there someone out there who'd like to communicate with us?
Janet decides to conduct an investigation,
Damn it.
to see if she can calm the restless spirit lurking in Cathy's barn.
Our equipment was starting to drain.
She has her friend, DJ, a paranormal investigator, join her.
Brand new batteries that just been fully charged.
Even the disposable ones, boom.
Is there someone here who wishes to communicate?
It's a sign that spirit
We were actually out there one night,
is willing to come forward and is using energy.
and we were actually going to try to cross over
the spirit of the woman that hung herself.
I'm reaching out to the woman who died here.
OK. Good to go.
We are here to help you. Make your presence known to us.
I know what happened to you.
Can you help me understand why?
The energy is building.
All of a sudden, the table... you could feel the vibrations
I glanced over at her
coming up through the table. Right through the table itself.
and I instantly knew something was wrong with her.
You could just feel 'em.
MUSIC INTENSIFIES
I can't believe I'm seeing this.
It was the first séance I had ever experienced first-hand.
The table was actually off the ground.
The table had levitated off the floor
and was shaking back and forth and it was just incredible.
It went up and stayed there for, I don't, 3, 4, 5 seconds.
I felt something behind me.
It was nasty.
And then you could feel just the energy just drop.
GASPS
And it was over. It was done.
Dammit. Again?
I think I need some air.
OK.
Let's give it a few minutes and we'll try again.
When the investigators regroup, Janet Toal leads the séance.
I am reaching out to the young woman who died on this property.
Katherine, can you hear me?
As the séance was going on,
one of the participants started crying uncontrollably.
She just was wailing, and we couldn't get her to stop.
Are you there?
For me, a séance is giving a spirit like a giant antenna.
Sometimes things can go awry.
Sometimes people can break the circle out of fear.
Everyone, keep holding hands.
I looked over and I saw in my mind's eye that Katherine,
the woman who had hung herself in the barn,
had stepped in too close to her and was making her cry.
Katherine, listen to my voice.
I need you to step away from the circle.
I had to ask her if she could please step back from her,
you know, that she wasn't allowed to be that close,
that you could communicate with us
but she wasn't allowed to be that close to the woman.
As soon as she stepped back,
the woman just completely stopped crying.
That was it. She was done.
And she didn't know what was happening.
I was sitting in the front room
and I felt the dark presence come into the room.
I could feel the anger.
There is something in here with us.
What is it?
It's him.
We could feel this rush of negative energy come in.
INTENSE MUSIC PLAYING
GROWLING
ROB YELLS
At some point, I blacked out.
I have no connection with what is going on.
I had no control.
It was very aggressive energy from that spirit.
And he definitely was trying to intimidate.
Who are you? Tell me your name.
GROWLS
Who are you?
I'm not afraid of you at all.
I never will be either.
SINISTER LAUGHTER
Now I know who you are.
That was me showing the confidence that I can't be intimidated by him.
CONTINUES LAUGHING
MUSIC INTENSIFIES
GASPING FOR AIR
Rob? Are you back with us?
You could tell that, that this man who was in the séance with us,
he just came out of it.
Is he gone? Yes. For now.
His whole purpose was to make us afraid.
And when somebody stood up to him, he lost that power and he left.
The séance is over.
Thank you.
With the séance concluded,
the investigators give Cathy what she has long awaited. Answers.
Tim, thank you.
You have a very active house.
Hopefully it'll quiet down but with the swamp, I doubt it.
I believe there's a young woman here from another time,
demure, quiet.
Seems like she was in an abusive relationship.
I hope she's found peace.
Me too.
You told me that you loved me.
I see now that you are incapable of loving anyone.
You are a monster and I hope that you are damned in hell.
And you have a male spirit who feels dark, putative, cruel.
The darker guy, the darker spirit personality...
I believe that he is someone who has lived in the house.
He feels as if he's part of that house.
And I believe that he was somebody that was just unbelievably stern.
He ruled by having an iron fist.
Uh, women had no rights.
I don't like you sharing a space with him.
Be careful, Cathy.
Cathy, uh, good luck with this place.
I'm afraid you might need it.
I feel we did good work while we were there.
I feel that the energy changed. It shifted.
But honestly, I wouldn't go back there for all the tea in China.
I started to talk to my father a little bit
about the spirit activity in that house.
And about why he would never let us tell anybody
about things when we were kids.
And I told him I want to know why this place is so haunted
and why we had to grow up the way we grew up,
experiencing those things.
And he agreed with me, that we needed to find out why.
I've kind told myself
that the spirits in the house, they're people.
They're part of my family, whether I like it or not.
I talk out loud to my ghosts sometimes
and I said, you know, like me or not
we, we are in this together...
and we can either get along or we don't have to get along.