[crickets chirping]
[indistinct cackling]
[Phil] That is the creepiest [bleep] thing!
I just heard what sounded like human laughter over there.
Oh, right there, right there! We are not alone out here.
[Josh] On this episode of "Expedition X"...
Wait till you see this.
[Josh] Stephen King is the undisputed master of horror.
But is his fiction actually frightening fact?
[woman screaming]
Who here has experienced something strange
in the town of Bangor? -[Phil] It's a lot of hands.
[Josh] We travel to King's hometown of Bangor, Maine,
investigating a dark and deadly history
that is the foundation for his greatest works.
Down in Devil's Half Acre, they're getting away
with basically murder.
There's lots of accounts of bodies
being found down there.
[whispering] Oh my God!
Their faces are scratched off.
[Josh] The team discovers long-hidden secret tunnels
that inspired the lair of Pennywise in "It."
[glass shattering]
[Phil] What the [bleep] was that?
That's when I realized something is down here with me.
-[loud clanging] -[Luke] Oh!
[Josh] As Phil and Heather find out the truth behind Stephen King's
most iconic horror stories.
-[Heather screams] -[Phil] Oh, [bleep]!
[theme music playing]
OK, guys, I've got some childhood trauma to share.
Makes sense.
I'm just saying it checks out, Phil.
[Phil] Bear with me.
So when I was a kid, I spent my childhood
crawling through storm drains, catching salamanders.
-Naturally. -[Josh] Of course.
It was a blast until one day I encountered something
so terrifying, it scared the life out of me.
What? Like some monster salamander cryptid?
No, that would have been amazing to find.
Well, he would have loved that.
Absolutely. No, the "it" I'm talking about
wasn't in the storm drains.
-It was the book "It." -Oh, Stephen King classic.
Creepy clown, Pennywise, luring children to their doom.
-In the storm drains! -In the storm drains, I see.
Wait a second now.
You conquered the Amazon,
but you're scared of a little sewer?
I'll admit it's a work-in-progress for me,
but it stuck with me so much so that the other day
I went down a rabbit hole to see if there was
any truth behind it.
That there's a killer clown in the sewer?
No, that there's any truth behind the novel.
And it turns out, surprisingly, there may be,
because when Stephen King was writing "It,"
he was inspired by real strange stories
from his longtime home of Bangor, Maine.
And to this day, people in that town
regularly report paranormal activity.
Bangor is a really interesting place.
So on its surface, it is this beautiful, idyllic Maine city,
but it does have this very dark history, actually.
There are a lot of paranormal sightings there,
and it did inspire a lot of King's novels.
So I think you and the master of horror may be
onto something here, Phil, because behind It's
terrifying fiction, there might be something even scarier,
which is terrifying fact.
[camera shutter clicking]
[Josh] In Stephen King's novel, "It,"
an ancient evil lurks in the sewers
beneath the town of Derry, Maine,
feeding on children's fears by taking the form
of their darkest nightmares, most often a bloodthirsty clown
named Pennywise.
-[thunder rumbling] -[evil laughter]
[Josh] The fictional Derry has a long, dark history
of freak accidents and grisly murders.
-[distorted grunt] -[woman screaming]
[Josh] But it pales in comparison to the real darkness
of the town that inspired it.
Welcome, not to Derry, but to Bangor.
Founded in 1769 on the Penobscot River,
the new settlement is quickly decimated
in the Revolutionary War.
The British then reclaimed the city in a bloody battle
in 1814.
But these tragedies are only the beginning.
-[distant screaming] -[gun shots]
[Josh] By the mid-1800s, Bangor is known
as the lumber capital of the world.
Millions of logs float down the river,
along with the occasional battered bodies of loggers
killed in brutal accidents,
drunken brawls, and foul play.
Because with the city's wealth comes serious wickedness.
Downtown Bangor becomes such an illicit den
of brothels and saloons, it earns the nickname
the Devil's Half Acre... -[gunshot blasts]
...where murder is a weekly headline.
In response, Maine becomes the first state
to outlaw alcohol in 1851, and Bangor's sins
go underground, carving out miles of hidden tunnels
for speakeasies and unspeakable acts.
By the time National Prohibition arrives in 1920,
Bangor is already a stronghold for bootleggers,
smugglers, and organized crime.
[gunshots blasting repeatedly]
The violence peaks in 1937,
when FBI agents gun down gangster Al Brady
in the middle of downtown,
where some say his ghost still roams the streets today.
But he's not the only specter haunting Bangor.
At the old water tower, people hear
disembodied laughter...
[childish laugh echoing]
[Josh]...and report strange temperature drops.
While at the 136-year-old theater, witnesses claim
they've been grabbed by an icy, invisible hand.
And in the historic downtown area, there's been
an uptick in shadow-figure sightings
ever since sinkholes opened and exposed
the forgotten tunnels beneath the city.
The very tunnels that inspired the sinister lair
of King's ultimate evil...
-[sinister laughter] -[ominous tones playing]
...Pennywise.
Do Stephen King's stories of supernatural terror
echo a real and ancient evil that, until recently,
was sealed away beneath the city?
Are the horrors of "It" slithering off the pages
and into Bangor?
This is fascinating. The history of this town
coupled with all the experiences people are
having, could very well be authentic paranormal activity.
And I do think that that activity could have helped
shape the novel "It."
Or it could be the other way around.
Maybe King's killer imagination has started to seep
into the minds of the people of Bangor.
But either way, there are too many reports to ignore.
We have to get to this town, if only to conquer
my childhood trauma. -Sure.
Some people go to therapy. Phil wants to go to Bangor.
I think it's really, really interesting,
especially the discovery of these tunnels, right?
I mean, who knows what secrets are lurking down there?
So that's your mission.
Get to Bangor, investigate these
paranormal encounters, and discover whether
the book "It" had one hell of a ghost writer,
the ghosts of Bangor.
It's only a 90-minute flight from New York to Bangor.
And once they leave the airport, Phil lines up
an It-appropriate way to get around the city...
by bicycle.
No jeep in these hills? Really?
I mean, if the kids in "It" use their bikes to adventure
around town and take on Pennywise,
I figure it's gotta be a great way for us
to get a lay of the land.
I don't have a kid's energy.
Oh! Look at that! Wait till you see this!
Check this out, Heather!
This is Stephen King's home.
This is where he wrote "It" and so many
of his other classics. -Now, this is my kind of house!
Look at those bats!
-[Phil] Would you move in here? -Absolutely!
Keep up the good work, Stephen!
[Phil] Here it is, the old firehouse.
[Heather] Let's hear some stories of haunted Bangor.
Hello, hello.
[indistinct chattering]
[Phil] We asked a group of locals to meet up
and share their stories of eerie encounters
from all over the city.
All right, why don't you guys take a seat
and we'll get this started.
So who here has experienced something strange
in the town of Bangor?
-[Phil] A lot of hands. -That's why we're here.
All right, let's hear some stories.
Who's got a story to share?
I'm an actress at Penobscot Theater.
One night during a show, I was backstage with a good
friend of mine, Christie, who's here.
She goes, "Do you see... behind me?"
And I go, "The man?"
But it was through a scrim. And I went, "Why?"
She goes, "That person isn't there."
So what exactly did you see?
There was a face right against the scrim.
And so, Christie, you were there?
I was there.
It was a head, or did you see an entire body there?
[Christie] It was a head just staring.
I walked right up to that scrim and literally put my hand out,
and there was nothing there.
So you're convinced that this was a ghost?
Yes. Mm-hmm.
Anyone else got something they wanna share?
-Yeah, go ahead. -So this happened
fairly recently at the Bangor Opera House late at night.
We were doing a production of "A Christmas Carol."
I was Tiny Tim.
I was backstage waiting to go on.
And then I feel like the sensation of somebody,
like, grabbing my shoulder, like a tight press
of my shoulder.
-And there's nobody there. -What do you think it was?
I think that it's a ghost named Sammy.
She was a little girl trying to get my attention.
OK, thanks for sharing this.
I've lived next to the Standpipe for 73 years,
and there was a boy that was killed in it
in an accident in 1940.
Howard was sliding down the banister,
and he slipped and fell between the banister and the tank.
-[boy screaming] -[thud]
-Oh, wow! -And by the time
they got to him, he was still alive,
but didn't make it to the hospital.
So what strange things are reported there today?
There's people that say they get a chill when they go
in the building, and they hear children playing in it.
[childish voices]
One of the most interesting things about the history
of Bangor is there's a whole series of tunnels underground.
There's a lot of talk about them having been haunted,
and they run throughout underneath the city.
Mm. All right.
Anybody else got a story they wanna share?
Yes?
There's a lot of stories of the Kenduskeag Stream.
Stephen King called it the Barrens, and that name
kind of stuck. It goes right through Bangor.
It's a real eerie place.
There's a lot of Satanic rituals, witchcraft,
not anything you wanna mess with.
And this is common knowledge that this is going on
down there? -Yeah.
[Heather] Mm.
I also work at Penobscot Theatre Company
of the Bangor Opera House, which is the building
that the theater is in.
I do have a piece of evidence that we've collected,
if you'd like to see it. -[Heather] Yes!
-[Phil] Wow! -[Heather] Whoa!
They wanted to take a picture of the progress
of the building of the set, but no one was down there,
and that's what we saw afterwards.
It looks like you can see his whole face!
So there's no way that someone was standing
in front of that set? -That's right.
Any guesses who that might be?
[Jen] The Bangor Opera House burnt down in 1914, rebuilt in 1920.
There are two firefighters who died in the fire of 1914.
That could be one of them.
I mean, that's an amazing piece of evidence.
You've gotten a fair amount of activity over there.
It seems like such a beautiful town.
Feels like you guys are trying to scare us out of here.
[Heather] We have a lot of leads to look into.
But with so much activity reported
at the Bangor Opera House, Phil and I decide to make that
our first stop of the night.
We split up to cover more ground.
Phil goes on stage to look into Christie's
mysterious floating head.
Meanwhile, I make my way to the dressing room,
where some witnesses claim to have seen the spirit
they call "Sammy" behind them in the mirror.
I'm gonna set myself up in the exact same situation
to see if I can get some more activity.
I'm gonna have a recorder going.
This is Heather.
Is there someone here with me?
Sammy, can you show yourself to me?
[soft scraping]
What the [bleep] is that?
That sounded like a growl.
Sammy, did you just make that noise?
Can you make it again?
[soft single knock]
Did you [bleep] hear that?
That sounded like someone knocking
on the other side of the [bleep] wall!
[eerie tones playing]
[Heather] There's nothing here!
What's on the other side of this wall?
So you clearly just made a knock.
Can you make a noise?
[metallic tapping]
Bro.
Bro, did you hear that one? That was a tap-tap.
[Heather] I think Sammy is messing with me.
I'm just gonna take a peek, see back here
to the other side of that wall.
Oh!
And these must be the stairs that that young boy
Miles had the experience of a cold hand
grasping his shoulder.
Ooh, temperature change.
It's definitely colder over here.
[Phil] Wow. A floating disembodied head.
Look, look, look.
OK, so I guess they just have floating heads around here.
Let's see if we can recreate that floating head
that the witnesses saw.
[Heather] I've heard about the ghost, Sammy.
I've got a couple of different objects
that I wanna see if she'll interact with.
OK.
I have an EMF tripwire because when I was a little girl,
I loved colorful things.
All she has to do is get near it or touch it
and the sensors will go off. How about some ghost balls?
Sammy, let's play.
Sammy, are you there?
Can you show yourself to me now?
Ooh! So you're right beside me right now.
You are right beside me right now.
OK, OK. [inhales sharply] So you're letting your...
your presence be known.
You're just sitting on that step.
If you're Sammy, can you light up the whole string
of EMF lights?
Ooh!
That whole thing just lit up. Did you see that?
Ooh!
[Phil] They said the head was next the scrim.
Scrim is this. It's this lightweight material
that is used in theaters all over the world
because of the way it interacts with light.
Imagine you're in a scenario where there's a light
behind you and you're casting a shadow,
you would be able to see this face behind the scrim,
but the second you move and your shadow is gone,
boom, the face is gone too.
Now you see it,
[whispering] now you don't.
Can you touch one of these balls?
Or can you move one of 'em? They'll roll really easily.
Sammy, are you the one that gripped Miles's shoulder?
Ooh!
Yes!
Are you trapped here?
Ooh.
Did you grab Miles's shoulder because you were lonely?
Or because you were afraid?
Did you leave?
'Cause it feels like you may have left.
I'm gonna leave my audio recorder running
in case you have anything else to say.
I'm gonna press on.
[Phil] There's a lot more Bangor to investigate tonight,
so Heather and I decide to divide and conquer.
I head over to the Kenduskeag Stream,
the inspiration for the Barrens in Stephen King's "It,"
and, according to our witnesses, the site
of alleged Satanic rituals.
First thing I'm gonna do is get on my Flir.
Anything living and breathing down here,
it will show up bright white.
Basically, I just wanna make sure we are
truly alone down here.
[water flowing]
[Phil] Check it out!
Look at this! Look, we got bones!
[ominous tones playing]
[Phil] Sometimes this means this is some sort of altar,
some sort of offering. Other times, it's just bones.
So I'll take a look around, see if I find anything else
that hints at what happened here.
-[ominous tones continue] -[crickets chirping]
Right here.
No way!
This is candle wax! Look at this.
One, two, three, four,
four candles.
This looks like someone, at least with the intent
of some sort of witchcraft, some sort of ritual,
so at least it seems like that part of the story
of what happens down here in the Barrens may be true.
OK, I'm gonna keep moving.
[Heather] While Phil explores the Barrens,
I'm looking into the Thomas Hill Standpipe.
Oh, wow!
The setting for an iconic scene in King's novel, "It,"
and the site of a tragic accident in 1940.
The Bangor Water Department granted us exclusive access
for our investigation.
[door creaks]
Oh, my!
Oh, OK.
This is where Howard was playing, right here,
and then he fell over... -[distant scream echoes]
...and passed away.
I'm just gonna do a call-and-response
session here.
I've got this audio recorder.
I came here to figure out
what all of this activity is.
Howard, are you here?
[device] Ravine.
Ravine.
Howard, is that you?
What you want me to do?
[device speaks]
The center.
The center of the structure?
Above.
You want me to go above the standpipe right now?
I'm listening.
I'll leave my audio recorder running.
Let's go up.
[Phil] Wow.
[indistinct cackling]
That is the creepiest [bleep] thing.
I just heard...
...what sounded like -- like human laughter!
Over there. Is there anyone over there?
Oh, right there! Right there!
Come here! They're right there.
Right back there.
I just saw a head peek out from behind that tree.
We are not alone out here.
[Phil] Hello? Anyone here?
I'm certain I saw someone show up right here.
I'll put my Flir away
so I can be ready for anything.
Hello?
Oh [bleep], look at those! Look, look!
Oh, my gosh!
This is -- that is wet.
That is where someone just stepped.
And it leads
all the way up to here,
to these culverts.
[distant laughter-like sound]
Oh, my God!
Oh my God!
I just heard laughter inside here.
Hello?
There's no way in. This is weird.
I mean, this is where, according to the story,
Pennywise lives.
This is where my childhood nightmares began.
Feels like everything I've experienced down here
in the Barrens led me to this, to the tunnels that run
underneath and throughout Bangor.
[Heather] Looks like we're getting close to the top.
Ovilus told me to go above. I am above.
[exhaling] OK.
Oh my god! Look at that!
This is amazing!
You can see the whole city of Bangor.
A door. All right.
What the hell is this?
I gotta say, it feels incredibly creepy
to be standing over the entire water tank.
Now that I'm here in the center of the standpipe
and I see all this metal,
I'm gonna turn this structure
into a giant antenna for my spirit box.
Let's see if one of the biggest buildings in Bangor
can tap into all of the town's activity.
[distorted sounds coming through device]
You can use this device to communicate with me.
I'm trying to understand the activity in Bangor.
[distorted sounds continue]
Tell me what I need to know.
[distorted sounds continue]
[device speaks]
I heard the word down.
So I need to go down?
Yes. Yes.
Where do I need to go down?
Below?
Deep underground.
Are you in the tunnels?
"All of us," yes.
Evil?!
[sinister tones playing]
-[Heather] Phil, do you copy? -Hey, Heather.
-How's it going? -I got intense activity.
I felt like I was led to the top of the standpipe,
and I got the words, "Down," "Below," "Tunnels."
Well, guess who just found down below tunnels
in the Barrens? -[Heather] You're [bleep] me!
Could you get in there? Could you find
a way into the tunnels?
No. Let's regroup and form a plan.
[Heather] Copy that.
[Phil] After an eventful night, Heather and I split up
to dig deeper into what's really happening in Bangor.
I'm meeting up with Tia Wilson, a local historian
who's an expert on the city's dark past.
We're here investigating the origin of the inspiration
behind Stephen King's "It." -Yes.
As everybody knows, a lot of that evil comes
from what's down below. -Yes.
We've heard about these tunnels, but I'm just wondering
how much of this is just urban legend
and how much of it is true?
Yeah, well, there are tunnels under the city.
-OK. -[Tia] Prohibition started
in Maine in 1850, so we were the first state
in the nation to start prohibition.
-Wow! -So 70 years
before it actually became a law for the rest of the states.
So these tunnels were then building an infrastructure
of illicit activities during that extended
prohibition period? -Absolutely.
There's like a whole underground city that we don't know about.
[Phil] Are there maps of the tunnels?
There are no maps of the tunnels.
OK.
They didn't want people to know about the tunnels
because the tunnels were used for shady business.
So was this just people who wanted to have a drink?
No, no, no. I think the people
that were going down here may have had
a little bit more of a dark passion.
So we had gang members, we had the prostitutes.
Of course, we had maybe dirty politicians,
but they were going deep down into these tunnels
where they wouldn't necessarily be seen or found.
So was this a dangerous place to be?
Absolutely -- you wouldn't wanna be down there at night.
You wouldn't wanna be a woman walking down there alone.
-[Phil] OK. -[Tia] A lot of fist fights.
Sailors would get beaten to a bloody pulp.
And they're getting away with basically murder.
Down in Devil's Half Acre, there's lots of accounts
of bodies being found down there.
They found a body of an infant in a puddle.
-Oof. -Yeah. Yeah, terrible.
So there is a lot of history literally beneath our feet.
Yeah, and there's no record of it.
There could still be bodies down there.
-Mm-hmm. -They've barricaded up walls.
Do you have any advice, anything we should look out
for when we're down there?
collapsing walls, closed off tunnels.
To me, that's the biggest danger.
You don't wanna go down there and not be able to find
your way out.
[Heather] Intrigued by the hits that directed me to look
deep underground, I found a witness
who says he's been there.
-Luke, hi. -[Luke] Hi!
Heather, nice to meet you.
[Heather] Luke Warren claims to have explored
miles of tunnels beneath the city
and had a terrifying experience deep inside.
What's it like down there?
I'm not typically a guy who gets nervous very easy.
I was nervous. I was scared.
It's just massive.
It's easy to get lost down there.
It's a labyrinth of rooms, corridors.
You get turned around easy.
Once you get into one room, it seems like it opens up
to another room.
You come back to go out of that room,
and it looks totally different.
I can only imagine that not only would that feel
terrifying, but in some ways it would feel like something was
messing with you. -It did.
It was like you're in a house of mirrors, almost.
Further in I went, it changed. The air changed.
I started feeling that I wasn't alone.
I noticed I was starting to breathe a little heavier.
My heart was beating heavier. My palms were sweating.
I've been to a lot of places that I consider creepy,
maybe even haunted. Never had that feeling before.
Wow! So I understand
that you filmed entering these tunnels?
Yeah, whenever I explore any old location,
I always film, this particular time,
I caught some stuff that I can't explain.
Let's see it
[Luke] Here, I'm inside one of the bathrooms there,
two stories underground.
I was just looking around, seeing if I could see
any writing for dates or anything on the wall,
and that's when I realized that something is down here with me.
-[loud banging] -[Luke] Oh!
[Luke] That door just closed by itself.
-[Heather] Slammed shut? -[Luke] Mm-hmm.
Wow.
How does it feel watching this video back?
It still gives me goosebumps.
It's something that haunts me to this day, this feeling
of, "You're not alone." You'll feel it.
I felt it the whole time, and I wasn't prepared for it.
You think these tunnels are dangerous?
Without a doubt.
The tunnels just have a life of their own.
[eerie tones playing]
[Heather] Using the detailed directions Luke gave me,
Phil and I are able to find the only known entrance
to the maze of tunnels, hidden in the basement
of an old building downtown.
There should be one more door down here.
[Phil] OK.
[Heather] Over here.
-You got it? -[Heather] Yeah.
Luke said the entrance to the tunnels would be
through a reinforced door. -OK.
[creaking]
Let's see what's down here.
It's stuck.
Ugh!
Oh, my God, Heather! Look!
[Heather] This is it. These are the tunnels.
-Wow! -Look at that!
[Phil] The historian I talked to said that there's basically
no records for any of these tunnels
because they were all built for illegal activity.
But what is known about these locations is that the worst of
the worst happened down here, including murder.
[Heather] Yeah, and my guy told me he felt like these tunnels
were messing with him.
-[Phil] Just keeps going back. -[Heather] Oh, barber chair.
[Phil] Barber chair.
[Heather] It was just left here!
Yeah, it seems like...
as the city started to modernize in the mid-1900s,
they must have just closed off entrances to the tunnels.
Just completely forgot about them.
-[Heather] That's a stretcher. -[Phil] Yeah?
I mean, you wanna talk about a bajillion
different trigger objects that are just lost to time.
[Phil] Really old books in here.
Storage areas back here.
[Heather] This is just too creepy!
Did this take us back around?
Are we walking in circles?
[Phil] Maybe this place is a maze.
[Heather] Before we explore any further, I get out the XLS camera
to search for any paranormal activity.
Let's see if we can find anything.
There's something I wanna try.
-What are you thinking? -Lemme show ya.
There definitely would have been multiple entrances
and exits to the tunnels.
So you told me that Luke had a door slammed on him,
so I'm wondering, what if there's a draft
that moves through here sometimes?
OK, so how are we gonna test that?
A red balloon?
Yeah, when in Stephen King's underworld,
you bring a red balloon. -[Heather] OK.
[Phil] Tie it to a string, put a little tiny weight on it
so it's neutrally buoyant, and any breeze will make
this thing move around.
So, got this recording.
If this balloon moves, we'll have it documented.
-[Heather] OK. -[Phil] Roll.
[Heather] OK.
-[bump, glass shattering] -[Heather] Oh!
[Phil] What the [bleep] was that?
I see glass. I don't see any broken glass.
[Phil] Here. Here. Look.
It's like a jar or something just fell.
Look at all that glass down there.
[Heather] Oh my goodness. Where was it?
[Phil] I have no idea.
Check these out.
-Oh. -What?
That's creepy.
[Heather] Oh my god! Their faces are scratched off.
[Phil] Look at those kids' faces!
Oh my god. They're all scratched out.
It's like they're trying to erase whoever that was.
Something wants our attention here.
Do not feel friendly.
I have to do a call and response here.
All right. This is Heather and Phil.
We're recording in the tunnels.
We know something is down here with us.
So who are you?
Do you enjoy scaring us?
[device speaks]
Pursuit?
Something is pursuing us right now?
Whoa!
[device speaks]
-[whispering] Danger from what? -I don't know.
[Phil] Let's see what's back here.
-Stick together. -[Heather] OK.
Well, I recognize this.
-[Phil] Is this in this video? -[Heather] Yeah.
[Phil] What happened to him in here?
So he was staring in this mirror,
and that stall...
slammed shut.
[loud bang]
I just don't get it.
It does kind of close on its own.
He didn't push it open and let it close.
OK.
Door lock here to keep it open?
No?
[Heather] I think we should just stare into the mirror
and see if anything happens.
-You just want me to stare into a mirror? -Yeah.
If there's anything in here,
we came all this way
because Luke saw a door slam shut in here.
Can you make it slam shut again?
[soft whispering sound]
What was that?
[indistinct whispering]
What the [bleep] are we hearing?
It was like whispering.
[whispering sound continues]
[bang]
That sounded like it came from right out the hallway,
right? -[Phil] Yeah.
Another door.
Whoa!
-[nearby metallic dinging] -[screaming, bleep]
Just outside Bangor, a patch of woods hides
the origin of what Stephen King has called
his most disturbing work.
In the late 1970s, King's young family rented a home
next to a busy road where animals were
constantly struck by speeding trucks.
-[horn honks] -[screeching]
Stephen noticed neighborhood children
gathering the corpses and burying them
in the nearby woods, marking the graveyard
with a misspelled cemetery sign.
King's own cat would go on to be interred there
when it, too, was mowed down by a truck.
Even more shocking, King's toddler son was
almost a victim, too, running into the road
before being saved just in time.
And all of this gave King a terrifying idea,
wondering what would happen if whatever was buried
in that cemetery came back to life,
whether that was an animal or a boy.
Thus began the nightmarish novel "Pet Sematary."
-[Heather screams] -[Phil] Oh, [bleep]!
[Phil] What the [bleep] Heather!
[Heather] Did you not hear that?
[Phil] No!
It was right behind me! Something just fell!
[steady, rolling noise]
[Phil] The hell is that noise?
[Heather] It sounded like a train.
There's no trains above us.
[rolling continues]
That sounds like a barrel being rolled.
I think you're right.
It literally does sound like something being rolled.
I don't know what is happening here --
[loud pop]
-[Heather] What was that? -[Phil] The balloon!
The balloon is gone!
[Heather] Where is it? Where is it?
-Oh, my God! -[Phil] No!
It's here on the ground.
Holy [bleep]. How did this thing pop?
Wait, you feel that?
There's a slight breeze, which must have pushed
the balloon this direction.
But that means there might be another passage.
Someone could have come through here.
Might be messing with us.
Or could it have been someone trying to get us
to go down there?
[Phil] Let's find out. This takes us further down.
[Heather] Luke said once you started seeing the old stone,
you knew the tunnels were getting older.
As I progressed further in, it did get into, like,
an older brick and some rock walls in there, too,
that looked like something from way back.
[Phil whispering] Look at this place.
-Wow! It's so old. -Hey, it keeps going back here.
Heather, I think I can fit.
[Heather] Phil!
Be careful!
[Phil] Whoa.
[Phil] OK, I'm in.
[Heather] Phil, what are you doing?
[Phil] Wow!
This has gotta be the oldest section
of the tunnels we've seen.
This is unreal! What's on the other side?
Heather, there might be something
on the other side here.
[Heather] Are you willing to die for it?
Phil, look what you're standing on!
It looks like a caved in.
It does look like a cave in.
[Heather] And what was the last word I got on the Tempest?
-[Phil] Danger. -Exactly.
Something wants to hurt us, and you're playing
right into its hands. You need to get
the hell outta there.
[Phil] I'm hearing things fall around me.
I don't wanna be inspiration for another Stephen King book.
[Josh] In Stephen King's novel "It," an evil force, Pennywise,
lurks in the tunnels beneath Derry,
luring people to their doom.
Heather is convinced that truth is stranger than fiction...
-[glass breaks] -[Phil] [bleep] was that?
[Josh]...believing she and Phil experienced something
very similar beneath Bangor.
Considering the evidence gathered during their time
in Stephen King's hometown, there's a disturbing amount
that could horrifically prove her right.
While Heather was doing her spirit box session
at the top of the town's watertower...
[device speaks]
I heard the word down.
[Josh]...she had left an audio recorder running
two stories below, right by the banister
where young Howard Goodell fell to his death.
[soft vocalization]
[Josh] It's faint, but Heather believes
she can hear a child laughing.
[soft childish laughter]
[Josh] A residual echo, perhaps, from the 12-year-old victim
before tragedy struck.
And remember that Phil heard what sounded like
child's laughter, too.
-[distant laughter echoes] -Oh, my god!
[Josh] Right after he captured this Flir footage
in the Barrens.
[Phil] We are not alone out here.
[Josh] We analyzed it, and the shape stands
a little over four and a half feet tall,
the average size of a 10-year-old boy.
He thinks it may have been kids playing a prank.
Heather disagrees, wondering if it was
something more malevolent, playing with Phil.
But no part of Bangor was more active
than the long-forgotten prohibition tunnels.
Was this a dangerous place to be?
Absolutely!
There's lots of accounts of bodies
being found down there.
[Josh] While in the subterranean bathroom where witness Luke
heard a door slam...
[loud bang]
[Josh]...Phil and Heather both heard the sound of whispering.
[very soft whispering]
[whispering continues]
What the [bleep] are we hearing?
[Josh] We ran an analysis on the audio
and no distinct words could be detected.
But at that exact moment on our IR camera,
the balloon began moving.
Shortly after that, it popped.
-[loud pop] -[Phil] The balloon!
[Josh] Nothing environmental could easily explain it,
and no one else was found to be present in the tunnels.
Was something really pursuing Phil and Heather?
-[loud dinging] -[Heather and Phil scream]
[Josh] Drawing them ever deeper into the maze-like basement...
[Heather] Oh, my god!
[Josh]...and pushing them towards misfortune?
[Heather] Something wants to hurt us, and you're playing
right into its hands. You need to get
the hell outta there.
[Josh] Heather has no doubt Stephen King's horror
is all too alive in Bangor.
But before they left town for good,
Phil had one more fear to face. -[Heather] All right, Phil.
Grate that inspired Stephen King's "It."
Time to conquer your childhood fear.
[Phil] Going in.
Ugh! Oh, it goes deep.
Let's see what's in there.
-Oh, my god, Heather! -What?
Oh!
Wanna play, Heather? [sinister laugh]
-Feel better now? -May smell like sewer,
but that was totally worth it.
You know what? You can get your own self out.
Looks like it's just me and you, Pennywise.