♪♪
She had been in a coma-like state for days.
Ah! Ah!
And bam, she was awake again.
I saw shadowy figures.
I was in trouble.
I felt that I had experienced the worst.
They have no eyes.
But I was wrong.
The worst was yet to come.
They were trying to take my life.
Get away from me!
[ screams ]
[ speaks indistinctly ]
This truly felt to me
Like a possession.
I'm a doctor. I use logic.
None of this makes any sense.
But something from another realm entered ours.
Leave us alone!
Now it's in my home.
♪♪
[ gasps, screams ]
♪♪
[ siren wailing ]
♪♪
Narrator: In a busy hospital
Three hours east of new york city,
Carmine crispino steals a few minutes
Of silent contemplation in the chapel.
I grew up in new york city, came from a catholic background.
We'd go to church every Sunday.
♪♪
We didn't talk about the spirit world per se,
But we did speak about heaven and hell.
Woman over p.A.: Dr. Roberts.
Narrator: But to his patients, he is above all a well-respected
Man of science.
Crispino: I am a physician.
I am board-certified in internal medicine.
I take care of acutely ill patients,
And I also provide care to the elderly
And the geriatrics population at several different facilities.
Narrator: But today, his belief system and his profession
Are on a collision course.
The day everything changed for me
Started out a very typical, routine morning.
♪♪
This man was dying from terminal cancer.
♪♪
Oh, hey, vince.
Narrator: There was no treatment that would prolong his life
Or no treatment that would even improve the quality of his life.
♪♪
After a long discussion with the patient and the family,
We transitioned him to comfort measures,
Which means you give the patient morphine,
A sedative medication,
To help transition from life to death.
I perform a physical exam which revealed
That he only had moments left to live.
During this process normally, one just fades away.
They're quiet.
They're peaceful, and they pass on.
♪♪
As I performed the physical exam,
When I expected him just to peacefully pass away...
♪♪
...A feeling of dread came over me.
♪♪
It was like heaviness. I couldn't explain it.
I felt the hair on the back of my neck stand up,
And I don't know why.
♪♪
[ gasps ]
As soon as I felt this,
The man who should have peacefully
Expired sat straight up.
They have no eyes!
He screamed.
Crispino: God, they have no eyes.
"they have no eyes. My god."
They have no eyes!
♪♪
I didn't see anything.
They have no eyes!
[ monitor flatlining ]
♪♪
Crispino: He was clinically deceased.
♪♪
I felt quite shaken after the event.
♪♪
I've never seen that before.
I've never seen a dying patient who is on sedative medication
Sit straight up and scream with pure terror in his voice,
And I don't know what he saw,
But whatever it was, it was horrifying to him.
[ siren wailing ]
Narrator: Over the next few days,
Dr. Crispino turns his attention back
To what he knows best -- his job.
After my patient had passed,
I decided to put the entire event behind me.
I felt it best just to move on with my practice
And care for other patients.
♪♪
Well, good news is that things aren't any worse
Than the last we spoke.
I was with a patient who was dying.
The patient was terminal, not near death but terminal.
The patient still was awake and alert
And can have a conversation.
[ laughs ] is it too early to sign up for the olympics?
I think you should.
[ laughs, coughs ]
Jeez, doc, I guess I spoke too soon.
♪♪
At that moment,
My stethoscope was thrown off my neck.
- Oh. - [ coughs ]
At the same time,
The patient stated that he didn't feel well.
[ coughs ]
He felt a heaviness.
At the same time, so did I.
[ coughing ]
♪♪
That's when I noticed this being.
I don't know what else to call it.
It was a humanoid shape, about 6 feet tall.
♪♪
It only lasted maybe one or two seconds.
Did you see what I saw?
Yeah, I-I did.
♪♪
My heart was racing.
I had a cold sweat.
I feel responsible for this patient.
Their life is in my hands,
And here I have something that I can't control
And I can't identify.
I'm terrified.
This entire event is terrifying.
His rational mind can't explain.
I'm a doctor. I use logic.
None of this makes any sense.
This was not something that I would normally experience
In a hospital or anywhere, for that matter.
Narrator: Mystified by his experience
With two dying patients,
The doctor decides to look for answers.
Crispino: So I call my friend who is a paranormal expert
To share my experiences and get some insight
Into what potentially may be going on.
My question was, why me?
Carmine.
So tell me what's been going on
With your experiences with your patients.
Oh, I guess it all started a couple weeks ago,
A few weeks ago.
Narrator: Doctor crispino recounts in great detail...
They have no eyes!
"they have no eyes."
Narrator:...His confrontations with the strange being.
♪♪
Just this incredible chill came through the room.
This is sounding to me like you've opened a portal,
And something came through that portal.
He felt that some door, some portal, was opened
When I first experienced my patient passing.
They have no eyes!
Crispino: That's when something came through.
Woman: What do you mean came through?
Came through another dimension, another place,
I'm not sure, but something from another realm entered ours.
That doesn't make any sense. I'm just a normal doctor.
I just -- I work hard.
I live my life. This doesn't make any sense.
Yes, but you were the one present
When the portal was opened with your initial patient.
♪♪
What's wrong, doc?
Crispino: The room got noticeably colder.
You okay?
Yeah, just I'm just getting that same kind of, like, chill.
Is it cold?
No.
♪♪
Crispino: My phone was thrown across the room.
It almost hit the wall on the other side.
That's beyond my comprehension or my learning as a scientist.
Narrator: The paranormal expert arrives
At a terrifying conclusion.
Something came through that portal,
And it's trying to attach itself to you.
♪♪
Crispino: The expert felt that some entity was following me.
This attachment is trying to communicate with you.
The question is, what was it trying to say?
There is nothing as close to an angel on earth
As somebody who works in palliative care,
Taking care of the dying,
And so, spirits are drawn to people such as that.
[ cellphone ringing ] - oh.
What is it, doctor?
It's my wife. I just have to get this.
Norma.
Is everything okay?
Carmine, I don't know what's going on.
I was out with my friends,
And my phone went flying out of my bag.
At the same time, my wife's phone
Was actually thrown out of her pocketbook onto the floor.
♪♪
Okay, sweetie. Just stay right there, okay?
I'm gonna come straight home.
Woman: It seems to me like when you discuss this entity,
It makes itself known.
Yes, that's why I'm afraid even to discuss now. That's the pattern.
I'm afraid to even think about it.
Even doing this interview makes me nervous.
I'm really sorry. I- I have to go.
♪♪
Narrator: The doctor races home.
I am scared. I'm scared more for my loved ones.
My question was, is this thing
Now attaching to my family as well as myself?
Norma.
What happened? What happened?
Carm, there's something weird going on here.
My wife had noticed a scent of heaviness.
We both felt this heaviness.
I was at the café talking to the --
♪♪
At this point, I had felt that I had experienced
The worst of this attachment, but I was wrong.
The worst was yet to come.
Norma, stay here.
♪♪
- [ growling ] - hello?
♪♪
Now it's in my home. It's in my daughter's room.
Narrator: After a series of encounters
With a sinister shadow figure,
Dr. Carmine crispino is shocked to discover
That it's followed him home.
To say I'm afraid would be an understatement.
I'm terrified.
At first, it was only happening at the hospital, my workplace.
Then it moved to outside the hospital,
But now it's in my home.
What do you want?
Leave us alone!
Norma: What's going on up there?
Just stay there. Stay there. Don't come up here.
This thing is definitely malevolent.
It's certainly aggressive, and I fear for my family.
♪♪
I turn quickly and it was gone.
But I knew exactly what it was.
This was no shadow.
This was no trick of light.
This was the entity that is now in my home.
♪♪
What's going on? Are you all right?
It's fine. I just need to call someone.
Narrator: Dr. Crispino reaches out to the friend
He met with earlier.
Crispino: At this point, this is the last straw.
I didn't know what this being is capable of.
I'm trained for scientific method.
This is not my wheelhouse.
Man: The fifth angel sounded his trumpet,
And I saw a star that had...
Narrator: The paranormal expert advises the doctor
To tap into his strong christian upbringing
And undertake a cleansing ritual
To chase the entity from his home.
I started turning to christian podcasts.
I played them as loud as I could
And walked through the house with them.
Man: When he opened the abyss, smoke emerged from it
Like the smoke from a gigantic furnace.
The sun and sky were darkened by the smoke from the abyss.
Crispino: Believe me. I felt foolish doing this.
Here I am blasting a podcast to get rid of something,
So I look at myself in the mirror and say,
"are you going crazy?"
They were told not to harm the grass of the earth
Or any plant or tree.
♪♪
Narrator: For a few precious weeks,
There is no sign of the malevolent shadow.
♪♪
But there's no happy ending for this beleaguered doctor.
♪♪
Crispino: One day, I'm home.
It's the daytime. No one is home.
I was just doing day-to-day activities.
♪♪
I walk by my daughter's room...
♪♪
...And I saw the shadow.
♪♪
Narrator: But this time,
The entity will not so easily be driven away.
♪♪
Crispino: Seems to be an increase
In the activity once again.
It's still happening right now.
Woman: What are you gonna do about this?
I don't know. [ chuckles ]
I don't know what to do about this.
I feel like I have to do something.
I have to reach out to clergy, to the paranormal experts,
To potentially cleanse the house or somehow detach it from me.
I don't know what to do.
♪♪
Narrator: Until this interview, dr. Crispino has felt forced
To keep his dark secret hidden away.
I don't want to say it out loud for fear of ridicule.
In the hospital, I have a reputation
Of being a good physician,
And that kind of talk will have people
Questioning your sanity,
Your capability as a physician.
♪♪
If it could hear me, which I believe it can,
I would say to it, "leave me alone.
Leave my family alone."
♪♪
What do you want from me?
Leave me alone!
♪♪
Narrator: In a hospital 30 minutes outside of toronto,
Medical administrator carole figeat has spent decades
In and out of hospital fighting for her life.
Figeat: I have a chronic condition.
It's called polycystic kidney disease.
I have multiple cysts on my kidneys and on my liver.
And a cyst burst, and then I was in kidney failure.
♪♪
I was pretty much at death's door.
As a result of having this, I ended up in the hospital
Five times within a short period of time.
I inherited it from my mother,
And my sister also has it.
I don't have any children, and neither does my sister,
And we both made a conscious choice
Not to have children to end
This disease in my family.
So we've lost out
On that part of life because of it.
Narrator: After her condition stabilized,
Carole was transferred to general care.
♪♪
Mm.
♪♪
I woke up at one point, and it just felt like somebody
Was standing very, very close to me.
Hey, carole.
Just gonna do a little blood pressure, okay?
A little blood pressure.
I'm just gonna raise your sleeve up here.
Let's roll that up.
♪♪
It's looking pretty good. It's looking pretty good.
Thank you.
Bye.
♪♪
Figeat: I was starting to feel better by then,
But I'm a very light sleeper,
And it's very difficult to fall asleep
When you're in the hospital.
♪♪
I had the strangest feeling like when somebody is in your space.
♪♪
It was very unnerving.
♪♪
[ breathing heavily ]
♪♪
I saw these shadowy figures.
I couldn't see any facial features.
They were all leaning towards me.
[ screams ]
[ gasps, breathing heavily ]
♪♪
I opened my eyes, and they were gone.
[ electricity crackling ]
♪♪
Why aren't you in the bed? Why aren't you in the bed?
I saw something.
I wasn't feverish.
I knew exactly what was going on.
I didn't feel well, but my mental capacity was fine.
♪♪
Narrator: Everything remains quiet until morning.
♪♪
I felt them there again.
No! [ crying ]
They didn't seem to be human at all.
♪♪
I need help in here.
[ crying ] I need help in here.
I felt this intense fear.
I need help in here.
They wanted something from me, but I didn't know what it was.
What? What do you want from me?
Leave me alone!
Get away from me!
Narrator: While recovering in hospital
From a potentially dangerous kidney disease,
Carole figeat finds herself tormented
By a group of faceless shadow figures.
I need help in here.
What do you want from me?
Leave me alone!
They just totally surrounded the three sides of my bed.
Get away from me!
Hey. Hey. Who are you talking to?
They were here just a minute ago.
There's no one here. There's no one here.
There was -- there were so many of them. Look.
There's no one here. It's okay.
It's just us. Okay? You okay?
I was quite aware of what was going on around me.
I couldn't attribute this to my being so ill
And just being delusional.
I swear I saw something.
But there's nobody here. You're probably just tired.
Okay? I'm gonna go.
♪♪
[ closes door ]
I was afraid that they were
Gonna come back again that night.
Narrator: Later that day, carole asks her close friend
Dianne to drop in for a visit.
So lovely.
Thank you for coming, dianne.
How are you?
I just thought these things are there.
They want something from me.
There's something I have to tell you.
She knew what they were because of her background
In health care.
She said they are in hospitals and nursing homes
Because what they want from you is your life force.
We have such a great energy coming into our system
Every day through the top of our head,
Energy which powers our ideas, our creative thoughts.
We're making a connection with the original energy
Of the creation of the universe.
That's a very powerful energy for another spirit to draw upon.
♪♪
She had worked in hospitals and nursing homes,
But now she's a reiki master.
Reiki is a form of energy healing
Where a practitioner will channel healing energy
In order to activate the natural healing processes of the body.
Narrator: Dianne channels the energy of the room.
They're still here.
♪♪
I know.
I've seen them in hospitals before.
♪♪
Having experienced these things before,
Dianne knew what she had to do to protect me.
♪♪
She drew symbols all around me.
There are different symbols one uses in reiki --
Crosses, spirals, different protective symbols
To create a barrier that evil spirits can't cross.
It's done.
After she did her symbols
And protected me from these things,
They didn't come back again,
Not during that hospital stay.
Narrator: Carole is admitted four more times
In the next two years.
♪♪
The last time I was admitted to the hospital,
They wanted to admit me, but they had no beds.
We're just gonna leave you in here for tonight. Nice.
Figeat: So I was put into a room
That we jokingly called the storage closet.
Does that work? You like that.
Okay. Have a good night.
It wasn't a proper hospital room.
I remember lying on the stretcher
Being so uncomfortable, so sick.
I was shivering, and I had the chills so bad.
♪♪
I felt them there again.
They materialized by the bed.
It wasn't as if they walked in the room.
It was more like they just appeared.
This time I knew it was my life force that they wanted.
♪♪
I could see a space in between them
And through that space
I saw something creeping along the floor.
[ hissing ]
It looked like it might have at one time been a human
But wasn't anymore.
[ whimpering, crying ]
This thing is real, and I knew that I was in trouble this time.
[ hissing ]
And then I felt the bed move.
[ crying ]
I was terrified when I saw that.
I knew that maybe this time it was gonna be the time
That they got me.
Narrator: Following emergency surgery,
Hospital patient carole figeat is tormented by
What she believes to be evil entities
Trying to steal her soul.
It seemed like they were bringing in stronger forces
To use against me
To take my life force from me and ultimately take my life.
[ whimpering ]
They knew that if I was afraid of them,
My fear would feed them and make them stronger.
I couldn't let them take me.
♪♪
I looked away from it.
♪♪
I'm not a religious person.
I don't know a lot of prayers,
But I just tried to remember any bit of a prayer
That I could think of.
[ speaking indistinctly ]
♪♪
They were gone.
It felt like, almost like, the air had cleared.
It wasn't like a heavy feeling anymore.
Narrator: A few days later, carole is discharged
And decides to try and take control of the situation
So that it doesn't happen to her again.
Figeat: Dianne had told me that there are spirits
That are trapped in hospitals
Because you can't open a window in a hospital.
This way out.
♪♪
I started holding the door open,
And I would say,
"come on out. It's this way. This way is out." [ laughs ]
Brewer: Not only are you letting the spirit out,
But you're letting light in.
It's a release.
That opening is a release of the spirit.
Figeat: This incident has changed me.
♪♪
I had no idea that some of these things existed.
No! [ crying ]
I believe in the paranormal.
I believe that there is definitely something going on
That we are not always aware of...
[ hissing ]
...Especially somebody who's in a hospital
Who's in a weakened state and can't protect themselves,
How much fear they could incite in a person
That would feed them.
♪♪
Ah!
♪♪
[ siren wailing ]
Narrator: Ken kastler is an antiques dealer
And a professor of archaeology with strong links
To the spiritual world.
Although I'm a professor of archaeology
And professor of antiquities, I also am a spiritual guide.
I went to india, and I received spiritual training
And became an ordained priest in the hindu religion,
Which is called a swami.
[ cellphone ringing ]
Hello?
Ken.
Narrator: As a swami, ken is often called upon
To perform last rites.
I received a phone call from a friend.
I think it's time.
She asked me if I could come and help her
As her mother was breathing her last breath.
Her mother, at one point in life, had said,
"I want you there that moment
When I try to make my transition into an afterlife."
She's ready.
It's -- can you just come here as soon as you can, please?
Kastler: This mother and daughter
Did not have ever a good relationship in life.
Bye-bye.
She was not a nice person to her own daughter.
Her mother was deeply involved in the occult,
And she had some kind of strange power around her.
I found her to be a very, very interesting person
But usually negative and pretty dark.
♪♪
Every hindu believes in eternal life,
And we believe that you get reincarnated,
So we really don't believe in death,
And a swami's purpose is to help a person
Prepare for that experience.
We consider it just a door that you pass through.
Narrator: But as he passes through the doors
Of the hospital...
[ groaning ]
...Ken hears a sound that fills him with dread.
[ groaning ]
I had kind of a foreboding chill over my body,
Sort of like a darkness that I couldn't seem to dispel.
♪♪
And then I heard unworldly noises coming from the room.
♪♪
It sounded like a wounded animal writhing in pain.
[ groaning ]
Kastler: I have gone to hospitals
Very normally to do this.
I've helped 48 people make their transition,
But this time I found it to be extraordinarily unnerving.
[ groaning ]
The daughter was completely freaked out that her mother
Was making these strange sounds.
Narrator: The patient's daughter informs ken that her mother
Has been unable to communicate for nearly a week.
She had been in a coma-like state for days,
And the last thing she had said,
"make sure that swami is here to help me."
I walked up close to the bed.
Oh! Aah! [ breathing heavily ]
And bam, she was awake again.
Stop!
What is happening?
Eyes looking around the room, she was very aware I was there,
But she did not focus on me.
Aah!
And making a sound, this horrible guttural sound like...
[ groaning ]
I took her hand and looked into her eyes, and I said...
If you're having trouble breathing in this world...
...You can breathe easier in the next.
...Breathe in the next world.
Narrator: Ken begins performing the last rites
By producing a vial of water from the sacred ganges river.
Kastler: Ganges water for us is just like holy water.
♪♪
I'm putting the holy water on her face, around her neck.
She's writhing.
Narrator: He then takes out a leaf from the tulsi tree
To be placed under the patient's tongue.
[ groaning ]
I put the tulsi leaf in her mouth and she spat it out,
And she had specifically asked me
To bring that leaf to her when she died
And to put ganges water in her mouth.
I tried to put the tulsi leaf back in,
Put the ganges water back in.
She spat it out all over the place.
[ groaning ]
[ gasps ]
At that moment, she sat up like a corpse
Coming to life and said...
You are celebrating my death.
"you are celebrating my death."
You are not my daughter.
And nobody loved you.
I turn to the daughter, and I said,
"do you want to leave because I can handle this myself,"
But she said, "no, I'm gonna stay here with you."
[ groaning ]
[ sniffles ]
Okay, mom.
Of the 48 times that I have tried to help people
Make their transitions,
This one truly felt to me like a possession.
[ groaning ]
And at that moment, she bolted upright,
And what she said to me was...
Keep them away.
Keep who away?
The people in the black clothes.
"the people in the black clothes have come for me."
Keep them away.
Up and to this point, she had been in a coma-like state
And I thought, "wow. This is going to be a very,
"very difficult process
"of helping her make this transition
"because whatever force inside her
Was clinging to life so strongly."
Hello?
Narrator: Hindu swami ken kastler
Is summoned to an la hospital
To help an ailing friend pass away in peace.
♪♪
Ah!
Narrator: But ken finds her resisting her last breath...
Keep them away.
Narrator:...Claiming to see two dark looming specters...
You're celebrating my death.
Narrator: ...And is possibly possessed
By some dark, evil force.
There was some sort of entity
Or some kind of energy inside her,
And I really felt it was the closest thing
I had come to doing an exorcism.
Narrator: Ken must free the patient of the dark force
That has possessed her.
Kastler: I gave her the chant.
Om namah shivaya.
I took her hand.
The minute I took her hand, she threw her head back
To the side, back and forth, "ah!"
Om namah shivaya. Om namah shivaya.
The very dark path occultism can take many forms.
This form was so dark,
It actually gave me a stomachache.
Om namah shivaya.
And once again, I spoke to her, and I said...
Let me take you on this journey.
"open your mind. Let me take you on this journey.
It's a beautiful journey. Don't be scared."
Don't be scared.
I will carry you right into the light.
Om namah shivaya. Om namah shivaya.
She looked up.
And then went, "ah!"
And it sounded like... [ whooshing sounds ]
Like thousands of bird wings echoing, like, out of her mouth.
♪♪
And when the mouth opened, this orb came out.
It was physically visible to me like some sort of entity.
That literally sent chills up my spine.
♪♪