It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s…Jesus Christ? Such a phrase is not uncommon to hear on the Travel Channel’s unique reality series, “Paranormal: Caught on Camera.” The show recently aired a marathon countdown of top 100 encounters, which was broken down into 10 segments per episode. This show covers not only paranormal activities, but “Bigfoot” and UFO sightings, urban legends, and anything else that is absurd and unexplainable (even with visual evidence). Every segment is sent in by viewers across the world, which experts then view, dissect, and try to, if possible, explain. Experts commenting are from diverse fields, from archeology to folklore. Due to society’s fascination with all things paranormal, this show gets high ratings on The Travel Channel. It will leave you shaking your head and wondering what you have just witnessed. Here are the Top 10 greatest, most terrifying moments “Caught on Camera,” counting down to number one.Â
#10: “Intensive Scare Unit.” Set in Yorktown, Texas, a small town in the southeast area of the large state, is the Yorktown Memorial Hospital, which was built in 1951. Once run by nuns, who were rumored to “not believe in pain medication,” the hospital closed in the 1980s, became a rehabilitation center in the 1990s, and is now privately owned and open for tours. It is considered to be one of the most haunted places in Texas. Colin Browen and Payton McWhorter, of Austin, Texas, are paranormal investigators who were able to gain access to the abandoned hospital for a night and they filmed their exploration of the dank, cluttered building. Colin claimed he kept getting goosebumps and ringing in his ears, his own visceral response to the paranormal activity around him. The group captured footage of a door swinging shut on its own, which they rushed to inspect, but could find no cause for the movement. Colin was then severely scratched by something on his back, a red welt appearing for no reason. The investigators took that as a hint that they were unwelcome by the entities there, and left with physical proof and visual evidence that the hospital is, indeed, haunted.
#9: “Unidentified and Multiplied.” There are multiple clips of UFOs caught on camera in the number nine spot. In the New England area, where some of the first sightings of UFOs ever occurred (one Massachusetts town even displays a monument to honor a group of pioneer UFO witnesses) UFO sightings are a common occurrence. The first UFO featured takes place in broad daylight: a giant bright object pulsates in the sky, then suddenly splits into two separate entities. The experts throw out many suggestions such as military testing, lightning balls, or drones as explanations. More clips show other random lights in the sky, moving around at unusual angles, darting about at high speeds, and are arguably “unidentifiable.” One expert says it’s common for a UFO to split apart and then re-form into one entity, but no one knows where these lights/objects come from. The public is curious for answers. “It is definitely something way out of the ordinary, ” says expert Mark Moran, editor and co-founder of “Weird NJ.” If you ever see something strange in the sky, make sure to grab your camera for video proof!
#8: “Dead End Streets.” The number 8 spot goes to all the unexplained, chilling apparitions which seemingly appear out of nowhere. The first clip, caught by CC surveillance in 2016 in Mexico City, NM, is of a car approaching an intersection when the image of a woman, or possibly a young girl, flashes for a moment in the crosswalk. The driver doesn’t see anything and drives right through it. In another clip, also recorded on CC TV, a black mist-like spector is caught forming in front of a car, which the driver does see, then stops and gets out to look but nothing is there. The next instance of an apparition coming out of nowhere is from Hong Kong, China when footage is captured of a car driving and being hit by a blinding apparition of white, which knocked the car off the road and caused an accident. Most experts agree that areas like this usually have a bloody history or some reason to cause ghosts to haunt there. Since the paranormal is so unknown, definitive answers are impossible.
#7: “Divine or Demonic?” Pablo Morales and his wife and some friends were hanging out in his backyard at his home in Burbank. CA, when this footage was captured. Pablo states that for a moment, they thought they were seeing Jesus Christ floating in the air. However, experts agree this isn’t Jesus, and think instead that it may be a witch using something called “transvection.”Transvection. is flying, or levitating; something commonly attributed to witches, or people “possessed by the devil,” (according to lore, those considered unclean are thus possible to practice “transvection.”) Pablo, the man who recorded this clip, wanted so badly for this to be Jesus Christ floating up there, but now doesn’t know what to believe, saying “I’ve never seen anything like it!” The clip is chilling, and Pablo no longer believes it was Jesus. He won’t say definitively what he thinks it was that he saw on that day with his wife and friends, but he knows it wasn’t a balloon. Maybe it’s better than the entity remains a mystery.
#6: “Mountain Yikes.” A mountain bike rider from the Hungarian countryside is riding peacefully along the countryside with a Go-Pro attached to his helmet, through a beautiful little lane that was walled in on both sides with lush green shrubbery when a creature that looked grey, smooth, and very much like a human jumped right at the cyclist, causing the person to swerve and immediately whip the camera around to see what the creature was. However, nothing was there, not a thing, just the pretty meadow lane spread behind; no entity lingered in the villa. The biker turned the camera very quickly, so unless this was a supernatural entity, it had to have had super-heightened moves of speed to have disappeared so quickly. What was this humanoid that jumped so viciously at the cyclist on that green lane of walls? It’s anyone’s guess, and the answer will probably never be known. Maybe it’s better to not know? One expert says, “Whatever it was, he’s lucky he didn’t get his face ripped off!”
#5: “Fear the Forest.” Drones taking pictures while flying high above the land are quite common nowadays. In Cannock Chase Forest, the UK, the land is soaked in bloody history with murders happening, and is famous in England for its “weird hauntings.” Perhaps the history of the land explains the drone footage captured by James Cooper and David Whitehouse in April 2015, as they took pictures of the beautiful forest with their drone camera. However, what they caught on camera was a strange figure in white standing among the green trees and foliage. It was all in white yet very dirty, what looks like a woman or a child just inside the treeline. They told friends about it and found out about “The Black-Eyed Girl of Cannock Chase”, and the legend of an apparition with missing eyes that people reportedly see in the forest on a very frequent basis. In fact, sightings of “The Black-Eyed Girl,” are from all over the world. This clip chills, as it most definitely shows a strange apparition standing there, with no one else around, acting strangely and causing fear at a glance. Cooper and Whitehouse believe they did in fact capture footage of this extremely creepy ghost., agreeing, “Hundred percent, that was the Black-Eyed Girl.”
#4: “Creepy Cave Cryptid.” Caves are hard to explore, so it is easy to think that undiscovered species may come out up and out of them. Jim Frisina and his wife (of Tarpon Springs, FL) were visiting Hallstrom, Austria, and went sightseeing in the local caves in nearby Dachstein Mountain. What they caught on camera can only be described as an apparition of a human being, scaling the walls of the cave above them; yet it’s an apparition, see-through at times, and appears to be spelunking with cat-like precision and is seemingly naked, without gear. The footage is as hard to process as it is to describe with words. “What is that?” the couple wonders aloud, not knowing for sure to believe what their eyes are seeing or not. Thankfully, it was caught on camera. Experts for the show believe that this is a ghost, considering the past of the land. The caves were commonplace for early civilizations, so perhaps the entity is a ghost. Since no one knows, things such as a frog, or something living, were offered an explanation for what was seen scaling the walls. Experts have never seen anything like it. Knowledge is requested! If you happen to know anything, “please share!” says Frisina.
#3:Â “Orang You Glad to See Me.” In the deep, vast jungles of Indonesia, it is said that a race of mystical beings called the “Orang Bunyan,” or, the hidden people, that live on the outskirts of humanity. A group of interdimensional, ghostly entities said to live on the edge of humanity; only visible to those with second sight, these beings are said to be beautiful and powerful. Known for being vengeful; the legend goes, if you go looking for them, they can make you vanish without a trace. In 2019, a man embarks on a trek to find the mythical species. He takes his camera and is filming the green trees, illuminated by his flashlight, and taunts the creatures- trying to draw them out. What he records, could be considered absolutely terrifying. In the distance, in the light, someone seems to be crouching and facing away. Almost directly underneath, suddenly a face and two arms crawl towards the person holding the camera. He screamed, “It’s chasing me!” He fled. back to his friends. Brian Cano, a paranormal investigator, says “This is really terrifying!” However, none of this seems to mesh with the legends of the Orang, who one expert says are “benevolent beings.” So, were the two creatures caught in this Indonesian forest actually The Orang mythical creatures- or are they something darker? Like spirits from beyond? The video suggests that there was no benevolence intended from this sort of action from people in the dark, but instead the opposite. The answers lay deep within the Indonesian countryside and the stories told of phantom beings- truth or fiction?
#2: “Face your Faceless Fear. “ Can an entity be willed into existence? There is something called “Tulpa,” which is a phenomenon claiming that if something is believed in, and/or thought about, by enough people, then it can become real. If “Tulpa” is true, then we can thank the internet for manifesting the cryptid encounter that comes in at number two. “Slenderman,” an entity that originated from an internet meme in 2009, was created by a man named Eric Knudsen for a contest in which people were asked for new ideas for myths to terrify people with. Designed as an abnormally tall, very thin man in a dark suit without a face, who stalks in the night, “Slenderman” became a phenomenon that people believed was actually real; many people claimed to see him or encountered him in some way. The internet was alive with reports of him and a movie was even made about him. This number two clip on the list, in which two paranormal investigators, Mo Sargi and his friend Renny, venture into the Canadian woods on a hunt to find the “Slenderman.” During their snowy trip, the investigators stumbled upon a strange piece of garbage high up in a tree, which they retrieve. Opening it, they found the bag held a bloody doll, which then freaked the men out. They then decided that it was time to leave, fast, and while leaving, when the camera swung around, a tall, willowy, darkly foreboding creature is caught on camera, barely visible and certainly strange, towering above the investigators. “Slenderman,” without a face, stick-thin, tall and dark, ominously stood in the woods near the investigators, as they go wild and run away, screaming about what they had just seen. Although no one knows for sure whether “Slenderman,” is real, this clip will certainly make you wonder if he is.
Finally, we have reached the number one spot. Not everyone will agree with this choice, but this is the one picked as the creepiest, scariest moment of “Paranormal: Caught on Camera.”
#1: “Growing up Bigfoot.” The number one “Paranormal: Caught on Camera,” clip belongs to a man named Paul Freeman, who in 1982 filmed a very convincing piece of footage that showed a large, hairy cryptid out in the woods. Ever since that sighting, Freeman was hooked. He went out daily to see if he could find more evidence. Although Paul Freeman died in 2003, his son Michael Freeman, of Spokane, Washington (and this writer’s hometown!) avidly keeps his father’s quest to find the truth of “Bigfoot.” On August 20, 1992, Paul Freeman came across some footprints that he thought had to come from “Bigfoot,” (and in fact made molds of these that he donated to science, which experts say have been very detailed and helpful in their research.) Paul films and in the clip, he captures about 10 seconds of footage of the brown, giant creature. Experts feel that the impact this footage has had on “cryptozoology” and new generations of “Bigfoot” hunters is some of the most prolific evidence out there, with experts agreeing that it hasn’t been tampered with and is authentic. His son Michael says he only wishes that his father could be alive to see how much of an impact the footage and evidence have had in the world, saying, “That was the only day I ever saw my dad scared of anything.” Another expert says, “This is the apex of Bigfoot footage.” No wonder it ended up in the top spot!
Are you interested in sharing your paranormal encounter? Email your video to submitparanormal@gmail.com and your encounter could be featured!
Written by Mandie Stevens
Hi, I’m Lynn, and I Make.
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