Are you trying to scare me?
"Yes."
On this episode of "Expedition X"...
There's a building.
This is so weird!
My team continues their investigation
into the terrors of Trinidad.
Is Obeah capable of manifesting
something like a soucouyant?
A group of high school girls
report being possessed by demons...
...leading Heather and Phil to investigate
the island's secretive and mysterious religion.
Oh, my God! Look at this.
- Jawbone. - Are you serious?
- And a candle. - Oh, my God!
As they confront the curses of the Caribbean.
So far, my team's trip to Trinidad has revealed
a very bright culture...
...with a very dark past.
Phil and Heather investigated stunning claims
of unique evil entities,
like the sinister childlike "douens."
Look at that.
That looks like a child's footprint.
And the soul-sucking soucouyants.
Are you a soucouyant?
The activity led them to one of the deadliest islands
in all of the Caribbean...
That's not creepy at all.
Oh, my gosh.
...Chacachacare, an abandoned leper colony where
the flora and fauna are even more frightening
than the ghosts.
Wait, wait.
This is the manchineel tree, the death tree.
Everything about this thing is toxic.
If you eat that fruit, you die.
If you burn its wood, the smoke will blind you.
Heather believes something deliberately lured Phil
into danger in the decaying dormitory.
Look at the ground.
Whatever that noise is,
it literally took you to very dangerous ground.
That was under the house. We gotta get down there.
Let's go.
And it may not be finished with him yet.
You are literally underneath a crumbling building.
All right, I'm moving.
You need some water?
Are you OK?
Yeah, water, water.
Here.
You good?
Yeah, I think so.
- What just happened? - I don't know.
It just felt like my throat was closing.
I've had reactions like that before to something like
peanuts that I'm allergic to, but I've never had a wave
hit me so strong,
and now it's just dissipating.
Oh, no.
I mean, we were under the manchineel trees
for a long time.
Maybe there's a delayed reaction to that.
Yeah, but I feel like
they would be affecting me as well.
I mean, everybody's gonna react differently
to those things.
You were literally underneath the building where those
soldiers felt like they were being choked, and now
you're telling me you couldn't breathe.
Oh, my God.
I mean, they all claimed they felt physical hands
on them.
I can't necessarily say I felt that.
But you felt the sensation of choking?
Yeah. Pretty damn close.
But not seeing any
dark cloaked figure around.
I did see a lot of poisonous trees.
So by my money,
that's what it is. - Agree to disagree.
- You feeling better? - Feeling better now.
I think I'm going to be OK.
Convinced it was the environment affecting me,
I want to investigate the old hospital,
the place where countless lepers tragically died.
Inexplicable choking has been reported there, too,
and I wonder if the same toxic trees could be the real cause.
Meanwhile, Heather is heading to the chapel, another location
of so-called "paranormal attacks."
First thing I'm going to do is look down, because this island
is full of very venomous scorpions.
It is time to shine.
They glow under UV light.
Oh, my God, look at that, right away.
Scorpion one.
So that is the Trinidad thick-tailed scorpion.
They're one of the most venomous in all of Central
and South America.
About one in 50 people die when they get stung by this.
Finding one right away? They're probably everywhere.
This is definitely creepy.
Oh, this must be the chapel.
OK. It's all just crumbling.
Look at those floorboards.
Literally falling in.
I mean, there's open sky there.
Let's be careful where we walk under.
This is where a young girl saw a hooded shadow figure,
where she was physically choked.
And whatever just choked Phil,
I wonder if it's all the same thing.
Witnesses have repeatedly described
a dark-hooded woman during their choking fits,
strong evidence that
a soucouyant may be behind the attacks.
If that's the case, I need to protect myself
before trying to communicate with it.
I say a prayer to St. Michael, who defends believers from
the devil and his minions.
St. Michael, the archangel, defend us in battle.
And, following Neigeme's advice, I also lay out salt
to distract any evil spirits.
I'll choose a pendulum.
I invite those spirits,
those creatures, those entities
to communicate with me through this pendulum.
This pendulum will move in this direction for "yes,"
this direction for "no."
If there's anyone here with me, can you say yes?
"Yes."
Thank you.
Are you a jumbee?
Are you a douen?
Big no.
Is it a soucouyant I need to be worried about?
"Yes."
Big yes.
Did you hear that?
There is nothing above me,
and I swear I just heard a sound above me.
It sounded like footsteps.
Are you above me right now?
"Yes."
We're definitely not alone.
Are you trying to scare me?
"Yes."
What was that?
I think that was the shutter.
This shutter was in the window
when we first entered the chapel.
That is heavy.
That's...
so heavy.
That did not take some light force.
That's insane.
I was asking, "is something trying to scare me?"
And then that happened.
It's wild.
Oh!
What is this?
There's a building here.
This must be the leper hospital.
There could be some animal living in here.
Oh, boy.
Look, we are underneath another manchineel tree right now.
The most poisonous tree in the natural world.
That is a manchineel tree.
This is a manchineel tree.
This one is.
They're everywhere above us.
You can smell the fruit.
I don't know if it's just my imagination.
My eyes are...
starting to burn a little bit, and I'm wondering
if it's from the tree.
I'm not leaving.
I'm trying to understand this activity.
I'm trying to understand what's going on.
Was that you that ripped the shutter off its hinges?
"Yes."
Are we welcome on this island?
"No."
Is that why something tried to harm Phil earlier?
"Yes."
Is Phil in danger?
"Yes."
Whoa!
Look at this place.
I found very often that structures made by humans
can sometimes end up being perfect homes for things
that could surprise you.
Whoa.
I just got goosebumps.
Look.
When I was laying on the ground in the Coast Guard dormitory,
Heather told me to say out loud what I was seeing in my head,
It was this.
I keep getting this image of a square hole in the wall.
I don't know why that keeps popping in my head.
I assumed it was in a wall across from me,
but it could just as easily have been on the ground.
This is so weird.
Why did I see that?
Maybe I'm supposed to go in here.
I don't even know what this room was used for.
Is there anything in this hole?
Oh!
Oh, my God.
Oh, my God!
I think so.
All right.
Whoo!
That was rough.
OK.
Wow!
I just fell through the floorboard.
Like, what the hell?
This place kind of has it out for me.
You know what Heather's going to say?
"It was a trap."
In this case, that sure felt like a trap.
Phil, you OK?
A little sore.
I can explain that later. What's going on with you?
Look, I've definitely been communicating with something,
and it told me you were in danger.
No way!
Heather,
I just fell through a damn floorboard.
Are you kidding me?
And now you were calling me to say you got a message
that I was in danger? - Yes.
I think we're safer together.
In this case, I think I'm starting to agree with you.
Are you still in the chapel?
Yeah, I think you should head my way.
OK, I'll meet you there.
Copy that.
Hey.
- You OK? - Yeah.
You fell through a floorboard?
I mean, you're not gonna believe it.
Remember what I told you I saw when I was laying down
and you told me to clear my mind?
Yeah, something through the wall.
I thought it was a wall.
I came across a building back there,
and I realized it was
the exact same square cut out into a floor.
No way.
I walk in there, try to figure what's in that hole,
and boom, foot falls right through a floorboard.
I'm down.
That's the third time you were lured into danger.
I knew she was gonna say that.
Yeah, according to whoever I was communicating with,
we're not welcome here.
Well, I admit most of time
I feel pretty welcome in the jungle.
Right now, I'm not so sure about this place.
Well, clearly, there is a lot going on here.
And if Obeah is at the heart of it all, we need to regroup
and learn as much as we possibly can about it.
- Let's go. - OK.
With Heather certain that Obeah
is somehow shaping the activity here,
we head back to the mainland to learn more
about this secretive religion.
But first, it's time to update Josh on our findings.
There are my castaways.
So how's the most haunted island
of the most haunted island in the Caribbean?
Well, something almost choked Phil to death.
Yes, I was choking, but to be fair to me and my larynx,
I was at the time surrounded by toxic trees
known to cause swelling of the throat.
And these trees are also known to cause visions
and communicate threats.
Well, that part wasn't in my botany guide.
Wait, what?
Are you saying you think the island was trying
to communicate with you guys?
Yeah, something identified itself as a soucouyant,
which is an Obeah woman that made a deal with the devil.
Honestly, I feel like
I have to find an Obeah practitioner to really
understand the activity going on here.
Well, if that's the case, I have just the place for you.
There is a remote village there called Moruga,
that is considered the capital of Obeah.
And there are reports of
some very disturbing paranormal activity,
including, get this, a mass demonic possession
at the local high school.
That is a seriously shocking claim.
Are there any witnesses to this?
Witnesses? Oh, yeah.
This was all over the news. Check this out.
Wow. That is next level serious.
Are there any witnesses
willing to actually talk about this?
Look, Obeah is considered very, very dangerous by a lot
of people in Moruga, so much so that getting anyone to agree
to go on camera to talk about it has been a huge challenge.
But I have managed to lock down one of the students that was
actually hospitalized in this reported attack,
as well as a current school teacher.
That's huge. Let's head to Moruga now.
And, Josh, while we're heading down there,
can you try and lock down some people who know
more about the Obeah faith itself?
For sure, I will look into it.
But listen, guys, be really careful out there.
There are really strong beliefs around Obeah.
Folks think that it is extremely powerful.
So tread carefully.
You are headed into the eye of the tropical storm.
OK. We'll be careful.
It's a three hour drive from Port of Spain to the remote
village of Moruga, a route
that cuts through miles of rugged jungle roads.
That's the school.
Let's see what they have to say.
Yeah.
We're meeting teacher Lee-Anna Boyce
and former student Whitney Khan,
who lived through a truly terrifying experience
at the village's high school.
The reports say this was some kind of, what, demonic attack?
- Mm-hmm. - Do you agree with that?
Yeah.
Can you tell us what you remember of what happened
that day?
What happened?
And you saw that, what, in your mind or walking around?
Oh, no.
And you don't have any memory after that?
No, I can't remember anything else.
So what's the next thing you remember?
When did you come to?
You could have been seriously hurt.
Do you think that Obeah played a role in what happened?
- Yeah. - Yes.
- Mother Cornhusk. - Yeah.
Mm.
With Mother Cornhusk as a potential suspect behind
the activity reported in Moruga, Phil and I split up
to speak with two Obeah practitioners that Josh found.
Mama Akilah.
Mm.
Thank you for meeting with me.
Iya Akilah Jaramogi practices Obeah as "Mama Akilah,"
offering healing and protection to those who seek her counsel.
Before we speak, she pours
a libation for her ancestors...
a ritual offering in their honor.
And places a white cloth over me so that I'm in harmony
with the spirits.
I wanted to meet with you today to learn
the Obeah ways.
Mm-hmm.
Can you tell me about the origin?
Ye-ye-oh, mama.
So, for you, it is connection to your ancestors.
It's connection to the earth, to the elements.
Yeah.
But if someone wanted revenge,
could they use it in that way as well?
Mm.
What is the process of communicating with your
ancestors, with your spirits, through Obeah?
While Heather speaks with her expert, I'm meeting
with Morgan Forgini, who practices
Obeah as "Papa Dogood."
He trained with the infamous Mother Cornhusk,
the Obeah practitioner who some say
is behind the negative activity reported all over Moruga,
even though she's been dead for years.
What is Obeah capable of?
Is Obeah capable of manifesting something like a soucouyant
or douen?
You would feed the spirit goat's blood?
So what kind of signs would let me know
that a spirit is present?
I just had an incident where I had difficulty breathing
in an area where people had said there is a strong
female spirit. Why do you think it did that?
In seconds?
Where in this village do you think is the heart of Obeah?
What kind of rituals?
Do you think that some of the activity that is here
in Moruga could come from that property?
Why?
Multiple people have died on her property?
Mm-hmm.
Papa Dogood claims that the paranormal activity
Trinidad is suffering from, can be traced back to one place,
Mother Cornhusk's abandoned sanctuary.
We need to find the ruins of her church, where she performed
Obeah rituals for over 50 years, hidden deep in the jungle.
We'll have to bushwhack our way
through dangerous terrain to get there.
But if Papa Dogood's claims are right, it'll be nothing
compared to the spiritual danger we'll supposedly face
if we find it.
The Obeah man I spoke with warned me that this area
is incredibly dangerous.
He said that these spirits could manifest
in many different ways.
They can make one of us want to kill another person.
And he said, in fact, people have died back here.
So if any of us start to feel off, we need to call it out.
- Yeah. - Which one?
Yeah. Let's try this way.
Watch where you step.
The good news is all the regional hospitals are
the best at dealing with snake bites.
The bad news is that's because there's lots of snake bites
around here. - Great.
There's a building!
Oh, yeah.
Wow.
Look at this.
Whoa.
Definitely seems like no one has been here
in a very long time.
No.
This is crumbling.
This does not look like a church.
Maybe this is where she would have lived.
This is where she would have lived.
I mean, look at this.
She could have sat right there.
Yeah.
To think that such a powerful woman, her life was right here
in this home.
True, but she didn't do rituals for people in here.
That was done in her church somewhere else
on this property.
True.
But before we find that, we have to do something
for her here. - OK.
My Obeah woman said we need to pour a libation out
to show our willingness to communicate.
Mother Cornhusk, I offer you this libation
as a sign of our respect.
Whoa, whoa, whoa.
- What was that? - I don't know.
- It almost sounded like a voice. - Yeah, like a yell.
Whoa, whoa, whoa.
Let's go find out.
- You see anything? - Nothing.
It opens up over here.
Look, another building.
Wow.
Shh, wait, wait, wait.
- Whoa! - Eyeshine.
What is that?
Oh, my God.
Are those goats?
That must be what we heard.
Why would someone keep goats here?
Do you know what the Obeah man I spoke to said?
What?
If you are to do an evil curse on someone,
you need goat's blood. - No!
Look at these guys.
Hey, little goat.
What are you doing out here?
Oh, my God, look at these.
- See that wound right there? - Yeah.
This one has one, too. I recognize this.
These are marks from vampire bats visiting these goats
probably on a nightly basis, latching onto them
and drinking their blood.
You just said people use goat's blood for evil curses.
True.
So how do you know that's not this?
I guess I don't technically know.
But if these goats get visited tonight, I want to know
if it's a bat
or a person.
So maybe we should set up a camera trap.
- OK. - Right on here.
Got a good angle on that?
Yeah, I think so.
What was that?
Did you hear that?
That sounded like someone yelling.
Yes.
It was not a goat.
No.
- Let's go this way. - OK.
Ooh! There it is again.
Up there.
Oh, my gosh!
Got a building.
Not a whole lot of them left.
The jungle's completely taken over.
Gotta figure out what this is.
Oh!
Heather, this is for sure the church.
I got a cross.
I think I have something better.
- What do you mean better? - Look at this.
I think this potentially could have been her altar.
Wow.
- Heather, you seeing this? - What?
- Some feathers here. - Oh, God.
Is that a bad thing?
I mean, to me, that's evidence of another ritual.
- Oh! - What?
Oh, my God. Look at this.
Jawbone.
- Are you serious? - And a candle...
right here. - Oh, my God.
100% people are doing rituals here inside the ruins
of this church.
This was Mother Cornhusk's altar.
And to come in here and try and harness that to control it?
You couldn't ask for something more dangerous.
And based on what I've learned...
some people trying to do that
met a pretty awful fate here.
Right.
But we have to try and communicate here.
You going to sit up on the altar?
Oh I'm definitely not touching that.
I'm gonna set up over here, but keep it in sight line.
OK.
Clear line of sight for me.
OK.
I want to try to communicate with Mother Cornhusk by calling
on the four elements, the way Mama Akilah taught me.
Soil.
I lay out soil to root myself in the earth.
Pour water for the Obeah ancestors.
For wind, I will use my voice to ask questions.
And fire.
And fire will provide the answers.
If the flame leans towards me or Phil,
or flares up suddenly, I'll take it as a "yes."
I ask to be one with nature
and to communicate with whatever entities,
spirits, or creatures may be here.
- Recording. - OK.
Mother Cornhusk,
are you here with us?
You can twist this flame, move this flame,
grow this flame.
- That's a lot of movement. - It's dancing.
There's no...
no breeze.
Mother Cornhusk,
is the activity here on Trinidad
because of Obeah?
Now it's leaning towards me.
OK, I'll take that as a yes.
Did it all come from here?
Wow, it's pointing right at me.
So, based on your system, that means what I just said
is true? - Yeah.
Have you been with us this whole time?
Are you the same one that we spoke to at Lopinot...
at Chacachacare Island...
here tonight?
It's definitely leaning towards you, Phil.
Those students of that school,
were they possessed
by something evil?
"Yes."
Are you the one that possessed those students?
"No."
Have there been curses done here
to harm others?
"Yes."
Altar's right there.
What if I move the flame a little closer?
Just put it right here.
That was a big noise.
You hear that?
It sounded like footsteps--
Ooh!
One of the first great practitioners of Obeah was
a woman known as "Queen Nanny."
Born in Africa, brought to the Caribbean in chains,
she would become one of the region's most extraordinary
freedom fighters.
Legends say Queen Nanny's powers allowed her to spy
on her enemies,
leading her troops, known as the "Windward Maroons,"
to many victories.
Eyewitnesses swore she could catch bullets in her hands,
hurling them back at her attackers.
Others said she could cloak her warriors in shadow
until they struck.
Queen Nanny was so feared that in 1740, the British signed
a treaty granting her and the Maroons freedom.
Her defiance inspired others, terrifying the colonizers
so much that they eventually outlawed Obeah itself.
Today, Queen Nanny is considered a hero
across the Caribbean.
Her picture is featured on Jamaica's $500 banknote,
a priceless reminder of her resistance and strength.
What the hell was that?
Something just flew into the flame and died.
Oh, my God.
Right when you moved it closer to the altar,
we heard those noises,
and that...
That is a sign that eyes are on us.
What you see is like a warning shot?
Yes.
It's a living sacrifice.
It doesn't matter how small it is.
That very well could have been a sign that we're intruding.
Or it's just a bug that flew into a flame.
That happens all the time.
We have been interacting with something this entire time,
something evil.
I got an affirmative at Lopinot, at Chacachacare,
that it was a soucouyant.
It is very clear to me that Obeah is a force.
It is very powerful.
And just like nature, it can be used for good or for evil.
I'll admit, Obeah and nature are undeniably intertwined.
I just think it's nature influencing Obeah beliefs
versus Obeah affecting nature.
Why did you turn off my recorder?
I didn't.
I did not turn it off.
I have no idea when this died.
We had full battery.
Are you kidding me?
The recorder dying was the last in an all-too-long
list of unsettling events that my team encountered
while investigating the terrors of Trinidad.
The digital recorder lost all power at the same moment Phil
and Heather heard noises in the brush behind them.
You hear that?
It sounded like footsteps.
And what it captured right before it died is disturbing
to the extreme.
We've never recorded anything like this before.
Heather believes this eerie audio is proof that, for good
or ill, the spiritual energy from Mother Cornhusk's Obeah
rituals still lingers
at her wilderness church
more than two decades after her death.
After all, Mother Cornhusk was renowned
for her incredible power.
What kind of rituals?
And there were many more
horrors from the team's time in Trinidad.
They traveled to the island to investigate reports
of malevolent forces.
Douens...
jumbees...
and soucouyants.
And frighteningly, they may have found evidence
of all three.
Are you a soucouyant?
Heather believes she was communicating
with a soucouyant,
the shape-shifting, soul-sucking vampiric spirit
near the Lopinot plantation
and then again on Chacachacare.
Is it a soucouyant I need to be worried about?
"Yes."
As for douens, the evil childlike entities
said to have backwards feet, we analyzed the photograph
of the footprint Phil found in the forest
behind the plantation.
It matched those of an approximately
four-year-old child.
But, curiously, there are no children of that age
in the closest village.
Phil notes that it could have been just a kid who visited
the area going for a walk.
Heather asks why a child would be walking alone that late
at night in the jungle, doing so away from civilization
and possibly backwards.
And, lastly, there were the jumbees,
supposed restless spirits of the dead.
On Chacachacare Island, the IR camera the team left
behind to monitor their boat shows hours of gentle movement.
And then it records this.
The current under the boat never changes, yet it's clearly
rocking more violently than it naturally should.
With no obvious explanation, Heather wonders if this could
be evidence of a jumbee, perhaps one desperately trying
to escape this island where so many perished.
Thankfully, there were also a few things
that could be explained.
Although our trail cam failed to catch any vampire bats
in the act, Phil showed images of the goats curiously mutilated
tissue to a veterinary expert who confirmed they are
consistent with marks left behind
by the blood-sucking bats.
Phil is also convinced his coughing fit under
the dormitory was caused by breathing in pollen
from the deadly manchineel trees,
finding dust from it on his clothing.
He's incredibly lucky he only got a minor taste
of these toxic trees.
So with some things in Trinidad settled,
but some distinctly unsettled,
there was one last thing the team needed to take
care of before they left the country, Phil's limbo loss.
All right, you won.
Just when he thought he couldn't get any lower,
it was time for him to face the music.
All right, we all know that Phil Torres lost a bet,
and it's time for him to pay up.
Phil Torres, come on down!
Anything you want to say, Torres?
You know what, everybody?
I've learned something today.
You should never make a bet with Heather Amaro.
Maybe we should get one of these for Josh.
Maybe.