When I started this job, I'd never really experienced
anything supernatural.
[woman 1] We loved this house.
But I didn't feel alone.
[woman 2] I'm alone in the dark.
[footsteps approaching]
And I can see a shadow figure pacing in front of me.
[breathing heavily]
[shouting]
- [screaming] - [man] It became
a nightmare almost overnight.
- [ghost] Die. - [choking]
[woman 1] There was something on my chest.
I could not breathe.
[woman 2] It was a ghost in my room.
- [crying] - Please don't harm me.
[man] This can't be real. There's no face.
Oh, my God, there's no face.
[woman 2] I saw a ghost.
And then I became a ghost.
I honestly have never been that scared in my life.
Die!
[theme music playing]
[yelping]
[screaming]
- [growling] - [screaming]
[narrator] It's early 2020,
and a worldwide health crisis has hit Central Florida,
flooding its hospitals with patients.
[indistinct chatter over PA]
You're gonna be okay, sir.
We're gonna take care of you. Okay? You're gonna be fine.
[narrator] Among the many first responders fighting the crisis
is firefighter and EMT Ting Rappa.
[Rappa] I love my job
because it is a challenge every day.
And I get to meet different people,
and be able to help them out at the same time.
[Rappa] It's gonna be okay. Gonna be okay.
We're at the front of the pandemic here.
We're gonna be dealing with people from all over the world
because we're in Central Florida.
They vacation here.
[groans in pain]
[narrator] Halfway through her shift...
[groans]
...Ting suddenly starts to feel unwell.
I'm not feeling right.
I got an extreme headache.
Are you okay?
I think I'm just overheated or something.
Let's just take care of him. Let's just admit him, okay?
Yeah, all right.
I thought maybe I was dehydrated from working
and it would go away.
[groaning]
[narrator] But it doesn't go away.
[Rappa] I went to the emergency room.
My headache is worse.
My head feels like it's hemorrhaging.
[groaning in pain]
The nurse goes, "Well, have you been exposed
to anybody, any patients with COVID-19?"
Well, I work at the fire department.
I... I don't know.
Well, I'm gonna take your temperature.
You have a fever.
[Rappa] She goes, "You have a fever.
We're gonna admit you to the hospital."
[narrator] Ting is placed in a negative pressure room
designed for COVID-19 patients.
[Rappa] It felt like I weighed 1,000 pounds.
I couldn't even form complete sentences.
I was crashing. I was going down.
[footsteps approaching]
I am just resting and all of a sudden
I started hearing footsteps in my room.
But I couldn't see anybody.
[footsteps continue]
I know when somebody enters the room.
I can hear a whoosh.
The air pressure makes a distinctive noise.
But the whooshing sound of the door did not happen.
It was definitely heavy boots. Boom-boom-boom.
I'm alone in the dark.
I'm scared. And I can see
a shadow figure pacing in front of me.
Hello? Is anyone there?
I actually said out loud, "Hello?
Hello?"
Hello?
[breathing heavily]
All of a sudden, I could see a man sitting there.
And he was just staring out.
At first, I didn't understand.
I was like, "Oh, how did that person get in here?"
But then I realized
it was a ghost in my room.
I'm not able to move.
I'm not able to scream for help.
I'm not able to move my body
or defend myself if he was to cause me harm.
Just... Just let me rest!
I just said out loud, ,
"Just please let me rest.
Please don't harm me. Please let me rest."
[breathing heavily]
[ghost muttering]
[crying]
He was nervous. He was stressed.
And just anticipating something to happen.
[muttering continues]
[breathing heavily]
[door opens]
Ms. Rappa, I've got some good news for you.
[imperceptible]
The nurse goes, "You're not positive.
So you don't have COVID."
So, we're gonna move you to another room, and start you
on some antibiotics right away. Okay?
In my opinion, Ting saw
something called residual energy.
And what that is is a replaying of sounds, sights, smells,
which was at one point in the space itself,
but at the end of the day is just repeating itself,
like a needle on a phonograph.
The lack of communication, ultimately,
and the lack of interaction ultimately tells me
that at the end of the day,
this entity probably wasn't
trying to communicate anything.
It was an image that was repeating within the space
over and over again.
[Rappa] So, now that I'm out of quarantine,
I'm in a different room.
I could actually open my eyes for a longer period of time.
Now I'm able to hold full sentences.
I'm a little bit more alert
because the medications have kicked in.
And I'm getting to know my nurses.
Can I ask you a question?
Yeah. What's your question?
I said, "Did anybody ever mention
anything weird about that room?"
She kinda had this stunned look on her face.
I don't know if I should tell you this.
What did they see?
And she goes, "Well, I don't know if I should tell you this,
but the patient I had last week
said there were ghosts in that room."
There's a lot we can't explain in this hospital.
Somebody else had had the same encounter I had,
that they heard the footsteps,
they saw somebody in the room.
It just made me feel a little bit better.
You know that you're not going crazy.
[Knudsen] During the COVID-19 pandemic,
there has definitely been an increase in reports
of paranormal activity.
There's been a lot of fear.
There's been a lot of fear of the unknown, specifically.
And whenever we have a combination
of a lack of control and a fear state of mind,
often we end up with an increase,
especially at hospital wards,
of paranormal activity and things like that.
A few minutes later, I fell into a deep sleep.
There is something wrong.
I was actually panicking on the inside.
[growling]
I was able to free myself from my body
that wasn't functioning very well at that time.
[thumping]
My head is pounding.
[groaning]
[thumping continues]
[jackhammer pounding]
I walk out of the hospital.
- [truck reversing] - [jackhammer pounding]
I walk to a construction site...
and I see this guy carrying a long metal pole.
He's one of the construction workers.
Sir, excuse me.
Excuse me, sir.
And I go, "Excuse me.
You guys are making too much noise.
Do you mind being a little quieter?"
Excuse me.
I saw a ghost.
And then I became a ghost.
[growling]
[woman] Ting?
Ting? Ting?
And then the next thing I know I'm being woken up
by the nurse going,
"Oh, you were really out on that one."
Did... Did you just get on shift?
Yeah, I did. Why?
I said, "Did you come in"
through the front entrance?
Is there construction down there?
Are they putting up tents?
Yeah. They're for the extra COVID patients,
but... how do you know about that?
She's telling me that I can't hear that from here
because I'm on the seventh floor
in the back of the hospital.
I was there. I don't know how, but I was there.
I don't know how I got there,
but I just felt like I was there.
I really don't know how to explain it.
Who gets to become a ghost?
Who doesn't get to become a ghost?
But it is absolutely fascinating
that I know there's definitely life after death, for sure.
[growling] Die.
[choking]
[narrator] It's 2016, in a small New England town.
At the local hospital,
Nurse Patty Casey devotes
her time to helping local residents
after a career in the military.
I started out as a combat medic.
I did two tours of deployments.
And then I became an RN with my bachelor's.
And I've been a nurse ever since.
Love every bit of it.
My husband is a nurse as well.
He loves his job.
We share the same passion for nursing.
I can see any bit of 20 people in a day
and everybody is fascinating.
Everybody comes with a story.
Usually by the time we're done, we're laughing.
And that to me is... Is a great accomplishment,
because we take something that's usually very traumatic
and very hurtful
and turn it around to a conversation
of "Hey, how are you doing?" and "Let's get this done."
[narrator] Patty has just moved into a new house
with her family.
[Casey] We found this beautiful,
absolutely beautiful house.
We put an offer in and it was accepted.
It was just the dream house.
Hey. It's homework time.
Mom!
I said it's homework time, not screen time.
Come on. Get it done before dinner.
[narrator] Shortly after moving in...
Sleep tight.
Don't let the bed bugs bite.
[narrator] ...Patty starts to question
if the house is as perfect as they first thought.
[Casey] We loved this house.
But there was something...
It was like a cloud hanging over me.
There was just a presence. I could not explain it.
It was a heaviness on your shoulders.
I didn't feel alone.
The house needed some work.
We were painting walls,
fixing floors, doing just general repairs,
making it our own.
It was a Tuesday afternoon,
and I was painting some heat registers.
I was alone.
[footsteps approaching]
I heard footsteps come up the steps.
[Casey] Jason?
I look up, expecting to see my husband.
There was nobody there.
I felt so scared because I thought for sure
I heard them walk all the way up the stairs.
Hello?
And I saw that there was no husband,
and there was nobody there.
Hello, is somebody there?
I kept saying to myself,
"Well, you did two deployments.
You went overseas."
[wind howling]
"This shouldn't scare you."
So, it felt odd, but I was still scared.
If someone's in here,
there's gonna be hell to pay.
I looked around for a little bit
and I thought,
"There's not even a spider in here." [chuckles]
[wind blowing]
And I feel this cool breeze coming from upstairs.
It was coming almost like a jet.
From up above, down over me.
And it was cold.
It was almost like you opened
the window on an October day.
And that cool breeze comes in your window.
That's exactly how it felt.
What the hell?
[wind stops]
I stepped to the side and there was no breeze.
[wind blowing]
I really thought that windows were open upstairs.
So I go all the way up the steps.
[wind stops]
But when I got up there
and found all the windows were closed,
I thought, "Wow."
I had no idea what this was.
I went back downstairs, the cool breeze was gone.
I truly didn't know what was going on.
[sighs]
Am I going a little crazy?
I cried.
I couldn't share it with my husband
'cause I thought he'd think I was crazy.
[narrator] Later that day,
Patty retreats to the safety of her bedroom to rest.
[Casey] I was in the master bedroom.
[choking]
I laid down and looked up.
And all of a sudden, I couldn't move.
[gagging]
There was something on my chest.
That I could not breathe.
I was terrified.
Die!
[Casey] Felt like I couldn't move
and somebody was sitting on my chest.
[choking]
[panting]
Then all of a sudden, it let go.
Hey, sweetie. I'm gonna go watch a little TV, okay?
Okay.
- You good? - Yeah.
Yeah, I'm fine.
I felt really... I felt kind of lost.
I knew I was not alone,
and all I wanted to do was get out of this house.
Just... I just wanted out.
I did not wanna be there.
Just finish it, paint it and then be done.
And I knew my husband wanted to live there.
The kids wanted to live there. They loved it.
But I was so scared.
[Richard Estep] Many of the symptoms of this haunting
appear to be residual at first glance.
But then we get down
to the physical symptom of chest pressure.
That's more an indication of an intelligent haunting.
That a spirit was trying to interact
on a physical level
with the new tenant of the house.
Whatever the nature of the entity that's haunting Patty's home,
one thing's for sure.
We have a lady who is scared
to be within her own four walls.
Something has to be done.
[narrator] The next day, the family's handyman
is at the house to continue with repair work.
- Hey, Kenny. - Hey, how's it going?
[Casey] And one of the workers,
he was a big guy.
You enjoying the place?
The kind of guy that doesn't scare easy.
The kind of guy that you wanna take with you
and you know you were gonna be protected.
Is something here bothering you?
And I said, "What are you talking about?"
He said, "Patty, I hear footsteps all the time around here."
Creeps me the hell out.
I said, "Why didn't you tell me, Kenny?"
And that's when I really knew.
I felt vindicated
with him telling me that I was not, in fact, crazy.
Thanks, Kenny.
[Kenny] Sure.
I felt so validated.
So validated.
It was like a silent burden I had been carrying around.
[narrator] As work on the house continues,
Patty takes photos of the areas
that need to be repaired by the handyman.
[Casey] So one day, I said, "I'm gonna take some pictures."
[crow cawing]
[Casey] And I hear this bird
and he is just screaming, screaming.
And it was a big crow.
And I don't know why, but he is screeching.
I have to wonder.
Those crows were telling me to get out of there
because maybe something bad was coming.
[camera shutter clicks]
The hair on the back of my neck stood up again.
Somebody was there...
and I saw them.
[panting]
What the hell?
What the hell is going on, Patty?
Just look.
I've never actually seen anything.
This time I had actually saw
what was in the house
and it scared me.
I did not know what to do.
Now, I'm really uncomfortable.
[narrator] Despite their unease,
Patty and her husband try to regain a sense of normalcy.
[horn honks]
[narrator] As her husband waits,
Patty grabs her coat to run errands.
[female voice whispers] Get out.
[Casey] I felt as if there was somebody
within ten feet of me.
[female voice whispers] Get out.
[Casey] I feel the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.
[breathing heavily]
I saw it.
I don't know how to describe it.
It was like a bubble cloud.
There were no distinct arms or legs.
You could not see a face.
I felt like whatever it was was looking right at me.
[grunting]
[female voice] Get out!
[screaming]
I honestly have never been that scared in my life.
[female voice] Get out!
[panting]
[Casey] I honestly have never been that scared in my life.
What the hell happened?
She wants us out.
Who's "she"?
I needed to fix this.
We went back in, turned the lights on.
But still, there was just a presence.
I could not explain it.
[narrator] In a search for answers,
Patty and her husband look for clues
to explain the dark presence.
There were some items left behind
by the previous owner.
And the family had asked that we donate them.
The woman had died from cancer.
Little by little, piece by piece,
this was all starting to make sense.
I think she passed away here,
in the master bedroom.
Can't believe this is happening.
[Casey] Maybe she couldn't let go.
We can't deal with this alone.
[Casey] I needed to get some help.
[Estep] There seem to be three types of haunting.
Haunted places,
haunted objects and haunted people.
And in this particular case,
it seems as if the spirit
is attached to the place itself.
This would be the location in which the lady died.
She passed away within these four walls.
And it seems as if some part of her has either remained behind
or returns periodically in visitation.
This was their home,
that they loved being here and really don't wanna leave.
[narrator] Desperate for peace,
Patty and Jason enlist the help
of a spiritual cleanser.
Bless this house.
Make it pure.
[Casey] We go over into the master bedroom now
and the room is ice cold.
I've got the chills.
Talk to her.
Let her know that it's okay to go.
[Casey] I know this was your house once...
but it's time to move on.
We'll take good care of this place.
[growling]
[screaming]
[silence]
I'm grateful that that woman finally has peace.
Now we're gonna stay put right where we were at
and be a family
and be loving
and have good times.
I am so much more at peace.
I am so much more happy.
This experience has really changed me
and opened my eyes,
because I've never experienced somebody from the afterlife
trying to connect.
[grunting]
[Casey] I knew that what had happened was real.
And I know that people have to pass.
And I know we have an afterlife to go to.
And we... Sometimes, being a nurse,
our job is to help them find that afterlife
and find the right place to go
and feel comfortable going.
[screaming]
[narrator] In the land of the midnight sun,
security guard Nigel Gauthier
starts the first of three consecutive night shifts
at an old hospital.
[Gauthier] A hundred or some years ago,
it had been a hospital for the sick
and the infirm, as far as I know.
[raspy breathing]
I don't like hospitals.
I've never really got a good vibe in hospitals.
You know, you always sort of would look up and expect to see
somebody looking out of a window or something.
You kind of felt watched.
[raspy breathing]
[Gauthier] When I started this job,
I did sort of believe
that maybe there was something on the other side,
or supernatural.
But I'd never really experienced
anything auditory or visually, or anything like that.
Like anything that would make me believe
that there was something out there.
As a security guard,
I had to make sure that at night,
that nobody could gain entrance to the building,
it was pretty much locked down.
This job that I was doing,
that was so simple and so easy,
it turned out to be anything but.
[unearthly rasping]
It became a nightmare almost overnight.
On any given shift,
I had to do anywhere between three and five rounds
of the entire building.
I had to check every door.
The first night,
I had made it about halfway through my rounds
and I was on the second floor...
where I stopped,
and it was sort of this weird feeling.
I was supposed to make sure that the door
at the end of the hallway was locked.
Then I see something I can't really explain.
It's this black, long, slender humanoid...
I don't know. Human shape.
[gasps]
[Gauthier] There was this, like, malevolence to it.
[gasps]
[Gauthier] I couldn't even move.
[breath trembling]
I was petrified.
I had never seen anything that scary in my entire life.
With it came this feeling of
"Don't come near. This is my territory.
You don't belong here."
And this feeling of
"If I went down there,
you know, something could happen to me."
Your training kicks in and you go,
"Okay, I've gotta open this door."
There's nothing there, there's nothing to see.
I was looking around, going, "What could this be?"
You know, I'm looking here, I'm looking there.
Like, it has to be on camera, so there's gotta be evidence.
[computer powering on]
[Gauthier] Here you can see it,
nothing on the camera,
me reacting, me freaking out, me...
You can see that I'm agitated.
There was nothing.
There was absolutely nothing to indicate
that what I had just witnessed
was real or physical or anything.
I sort of questioned my sanity a little bit.
[keyboard clacking]
[Gauthier] They're gonna think I'm nuts,
that I'm seeing things now, and they're gonna say,
"Oh, you're gonna need time off."
And I need this job. I need the money.
So, you know, you start to rationalize.
You go, "Well, maybe I just saw things."
[narrator] Nigel's shift is finally over.
But his replacement can't arrive soon enough.
Come on.
When I finally saw my colleague's car
pulling into the drive,
that's when I could breathe a sigh of relief.
And went home.
I had a very sort of restless sleep.
And then I had to report back the next day.
[exhales]
[heavy breathing]
[Gauthier] As I'm pulling into the building,
the feeling returns.
That, you know, I'm being watched.
Not by my colleagues, but by something in there.
[heavy, raspy breathing]
[narrator] The next night,
Nigel musters the courage to do his rounds.
[exhales]
[Gauthier] I got to that section
that I'd had the incident at,
and I looked down the hallway and there was nothing.
I was creeped out.
I couldn't bring myself to walk back down that hallway.
I froze up again.
I couldn't physically walk down that hallway again.
I was that scared.
I was on my last round of the second night.
I was in a different section of the building.
I had to go in.
I had to make sure that all the doors were secure.
It was this feeling of dread.
Hello?
It's the same feeling.
It's the sparks going up your back.
You're tingly, your hair is standing up on end.
I was in a cold sweat.
You always wanna pay attention to your intuition.
It's there to protect you.
You have these Spidey-Senses
that are there for your survival.
Is there anyone in there?
I turn around
and there's a gentleman sitting there in a chair.
He was wearing an old hospital gown.
[screaming]
[screams]
Everything in my body seized up.
"Am I crazy, am I... What's happening here?"
[breathing heavily]
I go to the cameras and I play back
the last, you know, ten minutes.
There's nothing in the chair.
I'm thinking to myself,
"Okay, no, this has gotta stop.
I'm gonna end up, you know,
sounding like some crazy person."
So I'm writing all the paperwork for the evening.
[exhales]
I had to write "Nothing to report"
because there was nothing physical.
I was contemplating calling in sick
for the final night.
But, you know, as a security guard,
you're supposed to be tough
so that you can protect other people.
So I talked myself back into going in
that third and final night.
[Gauthier] I was raised Catholic.
I called my mom, I just sort of said,
"Can you just say a prayer for me?
To be protected and watched over."
I'm already on high alert, the adrenaline's pumping.
[narrator] Nigel is filled with dread
as he enters the basement to do his rounds.
[Gauthier] I'm walking down and the morgue door is open.
It's supposed to be locked.
This is really, really bad.
[wheels squeaking]
The feeling of dread comes back.
There was electricity in the air.
There was something
very different about that night
that made the other two nights
feel like nothing had happened.
I'm freaking out.
"This can't be real."
[footsteps approaching]
"There's no face. There's no face.
Oh, my God. There's no face."
I had never seen anything that scary in my entire life.
I hear "squeak, squeak, squeak,"
and I'm hearing two sets of footsteps.
As they're coming out of this mist,
there was a nurse and there was a doctor.
I could see that there was a cloth over this body.
[heels clicking]
[Gauthier] Her heels were clicking on the floor.
I wasn't there to them. They were not reacting to me.
And I'm looking at them with my mouth open.
I'm horrified
that there's no features, that there's no face.
Full shock, full stop.
I sort of closed my eyes and held my breath.
[Gauthier retching]
[Gauthier] They passed through me.
They went completely through my body out the other side.
[breathing heavily]
It felt horrifying and disgusting.
Like I'd been violated.
I'm looking down at myself,
"Is there anything on me?" There's nothing.
I gotta get the hell out of here.
I left my job, my home, my career.
This was something
that completely changed my life, my beliefs.
Fundamentally changed who I am as a person.
[groaning]
[screaming]
I definitely believe that there's an afterlife
and that there's something on that other side
that can interact with us.
[Gauthier retching]
[Gauthier] Perhaps that there was some reason
that I was in the right place, the right time
to have that experience.
It was something
that kind of shook me to my core,
and I didn't want to experience that again.