[Vanessa] That was Halloween night.
Little did I know...
[gasps]
...it was gonna be a horrifying night.
[woman] No, get off me!
Whatever was in there, it was trying to attack.
[screams] No, get off me! No, get off me!
I thought it was all behind me. It was starting again.
- [low growl] - [Vanessa] We decided to go investigate.
Bonnie, what's wrong?
What did I get myself into?
[low growling]
[Dr. Carmine] Clearly, a door has been opened.
And I just need to find a way to close that door.
Get out of here!
When you show an interest in the paranormal...
[demon snarls]
...there's a real danger that it will show an interest in you.
The Archangel, prince of the heavenly armies,
defend us.
I just want it stopped.
There are shadow figures down this hallway.
[snarling]
[gasps, screams]
I was terrified.
- [growls] - [screaming]
[theme music playing]
[gasps, screams]
[screams]
[narrator] Ten years ago, at this Los Angeles, California hospital,
registered nurse Vanessa Palacios is finishing her shift.
[Vanessa] What I love about being a nurse is that I get to help people
that are in need, that can't help themselves.
So if there's any way that I can help them health wise
and they can revise their lives in a healthy matter,
I love to be a part of that.
[narrator] Tonight, it is Halloween.
[dog barking in the distance]
Vanessa and her friends are in search of excitement.
The night begins. It was a nice night, full moon.
And my friends and I arrived at the hospital.
[narrator] The abandoned hospital has been closed for decades.
And it is infamous for its hauntings.
It's a popular spot for thrill seekers.
I had gone several prior times to the hospital.
I wasn't in no fear of anything.
I was just very excited.
Can you believe this place exists?
It was Halloween night. "Yeah, let's go."
- I think we should go. - Okay.
Yeah, let's do this.
[gasps]
Hey, Mel.
I became friends with the security guard who was there.
Can you let us into the building?
Other people that would show up, he would charge them.
He will let me in for free.
[laughs] So I was very lucky.
As long as you know I gotta lock you in there while I make my rounds.
We will be locked inside,
until four o'clock in the morning till he returns.
- Let's do it. - All right.
- Hey, can we go... - Okay.
[Vanessa] Two of my other friends said they were gonna make out,
they didn't wanna go in the hospital with us
because they were gonna be busy doing something else.
I felt fine, and all of us did.
We all felt the same way.
We did not have any fear in us.
Little did I know, it was gonna be a horrifying night.
You do not get any cell phone reception.
There is nothing you can do if you run into danger in there.
[metal clacking]
Inside, there is no electricity.
It's dark. You cannot see anything.
And it's a disaster.
It looks like people just ran out of there.
- This way. - [Bonnie] What's up there?
Room 203.
It's known that there is a child girl
that's in there, that talks,
and she also scratches and pulls hair.
So we decided to go to the second floor to go investigative that room.
Go to the second floor, and we start walking down the hallway.
My other friend, she was behind me and she was the last one.
The lights were flickering off and on.
Once again, the hospital does not have electricity.
[gasps]
Bonnie?
I turned around and I see her standing stiff
with her arms down.
Bonnie. Bonnie.
What's wrong with her?
Her eyes were rolled back. All you could see was the white of her eyes.
It looked like she was having a seizure.
Bonnie.
Bonnie, wake up.
I was shaking her and I was calling her name, screaming her name.
"Bonnie, wake up. Wake up." And she did not wake up.
Call 911.
There's no reception.
We cannot get in contact with anybody outside of the hospital.
So my friend started screaming, "Vanessa, just slap her."
[grunts]
[gasps]
She looked possessed.
[breathing heavily]
[snarls]
Bonnie?
- [Bonnie screams] - [gasps]
She just threw my hands off of her. She took them off like that.
I just stood there looking at her run off.
And stunned. Just stunned. I was stunned.
[screaming]
- What's wrong with her? - We have to get her, now!
I grab my other friend and we started walking
down the hallway to where she ran.
[hissing, rattling]
- What is happening? - [snarls]
All of a sudden, we see these black-shaped heads
coming out of the patient's room.
I was in shock. I had to rub my eyes and I'm...
"Is this what I am seeing?"
They don't have eyes. It's just all pitch black.
[snarling]
[Vanessa gasping]
There are shadow figures down this hallway and we need to get through this.
I don't know how I got the courage, but I did.
[gasps, grunts]
- [snarls] - [screams]
It scratched me.
Three huge claw marks.
[man] Oh, my God.
[Vanessa] And it was bleeding.
[growling]
I was terrified. How are you going to fight demons?
[demon speaks indistinctly]
My mind was going 1,000 miles an hour.
I was in fear. I was in fear of dying.
In the case of an aggressive haunting,
it is not unheard of
for victims to sustain scratches from unseen hands.
Trying to hold back my tears.
And, um, I just think of the fear...
that I was going through at that moment.
- Are you okay? - No.
What did I get myself into?
I thought this was a good idea coming here on Halloween night.
This is the most horrible thing that I could ever experience.
But we had to go get my friend.
There was no way we could've left her there after what happened to her.
I'm afraid because she went down the hall
where the room 203, where the girl is known to be at.
Bonnie?
And I see her standing stiff with her arms down...
and her eyes rolled back.
Bonnie, wake up.
And she would not respond.
Bonnie.
Bonnie's extreme reaction
to the activity taking place in the hospital
may suggest that she is being influenced,
if not outright assaulted
by some of the entities which walk its hallways.
Wake up.
And I got her from her shoulders,
I go, "Bonnie, wake up. Wake up, Bonnie."
- [man] Bonnie, come on. - And she didn't.
She seemed like she was just not there.
Like she was not in the same world we were in.
[grunts]
[breathing heavily]
And she snapped out of it.
Where am I?
I was like, " Bonnie, Bonnie."
And she said, "Where am I? Where am I?"
I go, "We're in the hospital right now."
And she's all, "I have, I have no recollection of anything that what just happened."
And I go, "We just need to get out of here now."
[snarling]
- Oh, God! - [Vanessa] Oh, my God!
[screeching]
We have to go, now!
[breathing heavily]
We were so terrified. We gotta get out of here.
[man] Oh. Go ahead. Go ahead.
[snarling]
And now, these creatures are not popping their heads out of the doorways.
Now, they're crawling on the walls.
I felt like I swallowed my tongue at that moment...
I was such in fear.
What am I gonna do, sit there and wait for daylight to come or somebody to save me?
- [distorted speech] - [gasps]
I closed my eyes as I was running,
'cause I didn't want to see the shadows that were crawling on the wall.
[groans] I got scratched again.
I got scratched on my calf.
And I felt another burning sensation there as I was running.
I did not want to stop.
[Vanessa crying]
I didn't even have the courage to turn around
and see if these demons were following us,
or these shadow figures were following us.
I just wanted to get out.
[grunts] It's locked.
The security guard is not coming for us till 4:00 in the morning,
and it's only three o'clock in the morning at this time.
What are we going to do?
We'll try and get her attention through the window.
- Louisa! - [man] Help! Help!
[Vanessa] Help!
We were trying to yell at my friend to help us.
- Louisa! Louisa! - Help!
[muffled screams]
- Louisa! - Louisa!
And she couldn't hear us. The windows were rolled up from her car.
- Help! Louisa! - [man] Help!
- Help! Louisa! - Louisa!
[breathing heavily]
[low growl]
Do you hear that?
[low growl]
[footsteps approaching]
We heard footsteps.
[low growl]
I saw the shadow of a man
standing at the end of the hallway, standing there...
staring at us.
[low growl]
It's like you're waking up from a dream and you can't wake up,
and you're trying to scream.
But nobody can hear you, nobody can help you.
[growls]
It was about seven feet tall,
man-shaped...
And just standing there looking at us.
All of a sudden, you see these creatures
once again, coming out from the dark hallway,
crawling on the walls.
And they were coming towards us...
to the room where we were stuck in.
They're shadows. There is no face. Nothing. It's just pitch black.
Darkness in the shadow. Blacker than black.
[growls]
[growling stops]
[all breathing heavily]
We thought that was it.
[Vanessa and man] Louisa!
[breathing heavily]
- I realized the man scared away the shadow figures. - [footsteps approaching]
He wanted us.
It felt exactly like I was in the Poltergeist movie.
Like, why is this happening? Why is this going on?
- [breathing heavily] - [growling]
Initially, Vanessa and her friends go into the old hospital
because they're looking for a bit of fun.
It sounds like a great idea.
What they're not aware of is the fact that
when you show an interest in the paranormal,
there's a real danger that it will show an interest in you.
Sometimes, you can get a lot more than you bargained for.
[Vanessa panting]
It was terrifying because I was thinking if these demons
can hurt me and can cause abrasions on me, I'm bleeding,
I thought that I was probably gonna be scratched again,
or something worse.
Oh, my God!
[distorted speech]
[man screams]
We're crouching down behind the desk, trying to hide from it.
[distorted speech]
Welcome!
[demon speaks indistinctly]
No, no, no!
[all breathing heavily]
What I said in my prayer was, "Please, God, give us the strength
to get out of this alive, safely,
and without getting harmed anymore."
[roars]
[all screaming]
There is chairs flying all around, papers flying.
[all screaming]
Help me!
[muffled screams]
[Louisa] What is that? Do you hear something?
[man speaks indistinctly]
My God!
And finally, Louisa came out of the car
that she was in in front of the hospital,
and she heard us.
She finally heard us.
[all screaming]
[demon growling]
And she found the security guard, told him that we were in danger.
[all breathing heavily]
When he opened the door, everything stopped.
There were no flying papers.
There were no chairs flying around.
The lights stopped flickering.
There were no demons crawling.
There was no man standing in front of us.
Everything just stopped.
[all panting]
The paranormal activity seems to stop
the moment the security guard opens the door.
It's possible that the message the spirits intended to convey
was for their eyes, and their eyes alone.
I felt what happened that night,
we did anger...
whatever was there.
It changed my life and my mentality,
the way people pass away,
what happens to them after they pass away,
Or where do these demons come from?
It's nothing to be messing around with.
- [all screaming] - [objects clattering]
If you are just gonna be conjuring up spirits just for the fun of it,
that's wrong. That's very wrong.
And we should just leave these... the dead alone.
[snarls]
[narrator] Dr. Carmine Crispino works in a local hospital
in a wing dedicated to long-term care.
I specialize in internal medicine.
I take care of nursing home patients.
I've been doing it for about 20 years.
I'm a man of science.
As a medical professional,
my job is to evaluate objective data.
The blood work came back and it's looking pretty good.
One last thing for me to complain about around here.
[Dr. Carmine] I never thought the paranormal happened in the hospital.
My focus is on the objective data
that I can use as a physician.
Uh, for example, blood work. It's objective.
Chest x-ray, it's objective.
My focus is on the rational.
And provide best care for my patients.
[narrator] Which becomes more difficult
when a new crisis strikes.
[Dr. Carmine] Life as we know it has changed.
I've been taking care of patients with COVID.
These patients can't see their loved ones.
No one's allowed in the hospital.
People are dying.
[narrator] With the pandemic reaching a peak,
Carmine's life is about to be turned upside down.
[Dr. Carmine] I was taking care of a patient
who had all the risk factors
to experience the worst of COVID.
She was elderly. She had some mild dementia.
And she is dying of respiratory failure from COVID.
And then I feel a change in temperature.
The room gets ice cold.
Hair on the back of my neck stands up.
I knew right away what was going on.
I was like, "Here we go."
I thought it was all behind me.
[narrator] Two years ago,
something inexplicable invaded Carmine's life.
When I first start encountering the paranormal,
I didn't know what to do.
I started to experience phenomenon
that I couldn't explain rationally.
[growling]
- They have no eyes! - My skillset could not
help me determine what I was dealing with,
to explain what I was experiencing,
what patients had seen with me.
[narrator] He saw objects move on their own.
They have no eyes!
Patients terrified by an unseen presence
and shadow figures that followed him to his home.
[door creaking]
[low growling]
What do you want?
Leave us alone!
[narrator] No longer able to handle the strain
on his professional and personal life,
Carmine consulted a paranormal investigator
who confirmed that spirits had targeted him at his home
and at the hospital.
[Dr. Carmine] I'm the source for whatever reason.
The attachment is...
is directly related to me.
[breathing unsteadily]
[narrator] Carmine turned to his faith
in an attempt to rid himself of the demons.
Through different prayers,
through different modes of cleansing
to really lean on...
on God and lean on higher powers
that have dominion over the negative spirits
that may be haunting me.
'Cause you can't do it all yourself.
Being in the medical community
taking care of patients in a hospital setting,
I've taken a lot of personal criticism
for reaching out
to share my story with others.
Uh, friends and colleagues have shunned me,
have grown distant,
or disrupted my home life
and led to a divorce.
So I bought and moved in to a brand-new condominium.
I was hoping that
leaving my home, starting somewhere new
would detach whatever this was from me.
The kids moved in, everything was great.
I thought it was over.
Uh, unfortunately, I was wrong.
It was starting again.
[growling]
I felt sickened. I felt afraid.
[low growling]
I was terrified.
I see multiple
two-dimensional shadow beings.
I couldn't count how many.
They were across the entire room.
The entire wall was filled.
It just raised the level of fear.
I've never experienced that before.
[growling]
Much taller than I've ever seen them,
much wider than I've ever see them,
much more menacing than I've ever seen them.
It's terrible. It's horrifying.
It was incredibly scary for me.
[low growling continues]
Get out of here!
As a physician,
this is an extremely heavy burden to carry.
I have no one to turn to.
I have no co-workers that I can reach out and say,
"Hey, I need your help. I'm seeing a shadow person."
There's no one that'll help me.
After his first encounter with the paranormal,
Carmine's professional and personal life
have both become significantly more chaotic.
As things get worse professionally
and as things get worse personally,
he becomes increasingly vulnerable
to interactions with these negative entities.
And that in turn leads to the entities taking advantage,
and so, things get worse for him.
So he becomes more vulnerable.
And before he knows it,
he's stuck in a vicious cycle
that he cannot break out of.
[Dr. Carmine] Paranormal activity, it's starting again.
I don't know what to do with this.
[distorted voice] Carmine!
Carmine!
What I heard was my name being called
by a distant-bodied voice.
It didn't sound like a human.
I looked around, and right away I was like,
"Oh, boy, what's happening now?"
[distorted voice] Debra!
[narrator] Carmine isn't the only one
who hears the voice.
[distorted voice] Debra!
Debra!
Are you okay?
- Yeah, sorry. Um... - I'm sorry.
I just thought I heard someone calling my name.
There's no one around, though, so...
-[Dr. Carmine] She was really nervous... -I don't know.
...because there's no one else in the area.
[distorted voice] Debra!
[distorted voice] Carmine!
We can't pinpoint where it's coming from.
We just look at each other,
like, "What are we hearing?"
Okay, I'm not crazy, right?
Believe me, I know.
I felt validated.
I was glad that someone else,
another health care provider,
actually came to me with a real experience.
[woman screaming] No, get off me!
Get off me, please! Get off me!
No, get off me, please!
- Get off me, please! - [Dr. Carmine] Patient said,
"There is something pressing on my chest.
"I feel like he's trying to choke me," she freaked out.
Get off me, please!
Please! Please! No!
They feel like they're being oppressed.
No! No!
- Get off me, please! - [nurse] What's wrong?
Get off!
- No! No! - [Dr. Carmine] We just saw nothing.
- Please, get off! - Whatever was in there
was negative to them.
It was trying to attack them.
Get off me, please!
Get off! Get off me, please!
No, no! [inhales deeply]
[breathing heavily]
We're here now. It's okay.
Clearly, there's something going on,
something trying to feed off of our patients,
menacing them in that room.
We all have a certain amount of power in our lives.
And sometimes, we give it away without knowing it.
And Carmine is now in a place
where he has given his personal power
to these entities.
He doesn't mean to, it's not his fault,
but he is stuck between a rock and a hard place.
And if he's to escape, the first thing he needs to do
is set some boundaries and start taking it back.
[Dr. Carmine] The next day,
the patient was removed from the room.
And I said, "Let's put a video recorder, overnight,
to see what we catch."
Something to help validate what we were experiencing.
Physicians love data. They love hard evidence.
Let me try to get some evidence
and show it to others and let them decide.
The next morning, I come back into the hospital
eager but yet really nervous about what I may find.
[sighs]
The video doesn't show anything
out of the ordinary. It's just a...
A bed in the middle of the night.
I'm not sure if there's anything.
But when I started listening to the audio...
[loud growling]
...what I heard was terrifying.
[loud growling]
We hear these inhuman growls.
[doctor] What the hell was that?
[Dr. Carmine] It was heard not only by myself
but from the nurse and a colleague
who is a pulmonologist.
It was... scary.
[loud growling continues]
What we heard didn't feel like it came from this world.
I know that's a bold statement.
I'm a physician. I'm not some theologian or expert in religion,
but it just, at my core, felt evil.
[nurse] Oh, my God, I don't believe this.
What is this?
And now, on actual audio,
we have evidence of something
which felt quite validating.
Clearly, there is something I'm dealing with that
I have no training for.
Growls don't generally come from human spirits.
So we are, again, looking at something
that is non-human in nature.
And almost certainly something aggressive.
[loud growling continues]
Now there is definite objective evidence
that he is not crazy,
that he's not making this up or imagining it.
He can prove to people.
Empty rooms don't growl.
And whatever's in this room is definitely not friendly.
And that's when I decided to reach out
to the Catholic priest.
[man speaking indistinctly over telephone]
It's gonna sound a little crazy. I just got off the phone...
I wanna pitch in an idea
that I'll be getting in touch with a priest who's...
I know what we're...
It might sound a little far-fetched,
but I think it's something that we need to do.
I think that we can all agree that this has gone too far
and that our patients are experiencing these things.
The administration had given permission
to seal off the room
until the Catholic priest can come in
and perform the blessing.
[ominous music playing]
This is demonic. This room needs to be cleansed.
I had this epiphany.
There are things, there are entities,
there are beings that are beyond our perception
that have somehow made their way into this world
and are, are preying on us.
I'm feeling extremely nervous.
I don't know what's gonna happen.
I'm expecting a potential interaction... with a being.
Can I ask you a question?
I just said, "How often do you deal with this type of thing?"
[priest] More often than you think.
After everything I've been through,
uh, I felt that maybe I could win one small battle.
I'm not saying that I'm gonna win the war,
but at least, feel empowered.
Maybe I can push back a little bit.
Clearly, a door has been opened.
And I just need to find a way to close that door
to seal that shut,
so that moving forward, I can have a normal life
and provide best care for my patients.
O most glorious Prince of the Heavenly Armies,
Saint Michael the Archangel,
defend us.
Prayer for Saint Michael the Archangel.
In the Name of the Father, and the Son,
and the Holy Ghost.
Amen.
[Dr. Carmine] The ritual entails, uh, reading from the Bible, incantations.
The clergy, he's distributing holy water
throughout the room.
[priest] In the name of Saint Michael, I cast you out.
I just want it to stop.
The Archangel, Prince of the Heavenly Armies,
defend us.
Cast you out.
I want a normal life rid of these beings.
In this world of darkness...
There's an uptick in energy.
Defend us
against the rulers of darkness.
In Saint Michael's name, I cast you out.
I cast you out!
[crackling]
[low growling]
[growling]
In His name, I cast you out.
[growling]
I see something that's not
like the other shadow beings I've seen.
[growling]
I was terrified.
[growling]
[low growling]
[growling]
It's small, it's diminutive. It's maybe
two-and-a-half, three-feet tall.
[growling]
It was not human.
It was creepy.
In the name of Saint Michael, I cast you out.
[growling]
[priest speaking indistinctly]
I cast you out.
The Archangel...
defend us...
against this demon.
Defend us from this world,
from the dark demons.
[snarling]
And then it was gone.
The room was, was totally calm.
The priest engaged in a type of exorcism
and this is never a benign ceremony.
Exorcisms are usually violent, aggressive ceremonies.
Great forces can be unleashed.
It's something akin to a battle,
rather than a ritual.
After the cleansing, the room is quiet.
We have patients in there all the time.
There has been no patient complaints.
There has been a lot less paranormal activity
that I have been experiencing in the hospital.
How are we feeling today?
Sleeping through the nights?
Yeah, there's been nothing. Nothing at all.
I felt a small victory.
I felt empowered by the fact that
colleagues have listened to me.
These experiences of the past several years
have really worn me down.
[growling]
I'm actually afraid to go to sleep at night.
[growling]
I'm afraid of what might be
watching me or lurking around the corner.
I feel this is just a never-ending battle.
I'm always on guard. I'm always defending myself.
[shouting] Get out of here!
There's not a moment of peace.
I'm always looking over my shoulder
wondering what's the next thing
that's gonna happen to me.
It's exhausting.
My hope for the future is to find some peace,
to find some closure,
but I'm just trying to live day by day
and just trying to take my life back.