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00:04that is the creepy thing i just heard what sounded like human laughter
00:13oh right there right there we are not alone out here on this episode of expedition x wait
00:20you see this stephen king is the undisputed master of horror but is his fiction actually
00:27frightening fact who here has experienced something strange in the town of bangor
00:32it's a lot of hands we travel to king's hometown of bangor maine investigating a dark and deadly
00:39history that is the foundation for his greatest works down in devil's half acre they're getting
00:44away with basically murder there's lots of accounts of bodies being found down there
00:49oh my god their faces are scratched off the team discovers long hidden secret tunnels that inspired
00:56the lair of pennywise in it
01:00what the was that that's when i realized something is down here with me
01:07as phil and heather find out the truth behind stephen king's most iconic horror stories
01:22okay guys i've got some childhood trauma to share makes sense i'm just saying it checks out phil
01:30bear with me so when i was a kid i spent my childhood crawling through storm drains catching
01:35salamanders naturally of course it was a blast until one day i encountered something so terrifying
01:42it scared the life out of me what like some monster salamander cryptid no that would have been
01:46amazing to find he would have loved that absolutely no the it i'm talking about wasn't in the storm
01:51drains it was the book it oh stephen king classic creepy clown pennywise luring children to their doom
01:59in the storm drains storm drains i see wait a second now you conquer the amazon but you're scared of
02:05a
02:05little sir i'll admit it's a work in progress for me but it stuck with me so much so that
02:09the other
02:09day i went down a rabbit hole to see if there was any truth behind it that there's a killer
02:13clown in
02:14the sewer no that there's any truth behind the novel and it turns out surprisingly there may be
02:20because when stephen king was writing it he was inspired by real strange stories from his longtime home
02:27of bangor maine and to this day people in that town regularly report paranormal activity bangor is a
02:34really interesting place so on its surface it is this beautiful idyllic maine city but it does have
02:40this very dark history actually there are a lot of paranormal sightings there and it did inspire a lot
02:46of king's novels so i think you and the master of horror may be onto something here phil because
02:50behind its terrifying fiction there might be something even scarier which is terrifying fact
03:00in stephen king's novel it an ancient evil lurks in the sewers beneath the town of dairy maine
03:08feeding on children's fears by taking the form of their darkest nightmares most often a bloodthirsty clown
03:16named pennywise
03:20the fictional dairy has a long dark history of freak accidents and grisly murders
03:28but it pales in comparison to the real darkness of the town that inspired it
03:34welcome not to dairy but to bangor founded in 1769 on the penobscot river the new settlement is
03:44quickly decimated in the revolutionary war the british then reclaimed the city in a bloody battle
03:50in 1814 but these tragedies are only the beginning
03:56by the mid-1800s bangor is known as the lumber capital of the world millions of logs float down the
04:02river along with the occasional battered bodies of loggers killed in brutal accidents
04:09drunken brawls and foul play because with the city's wealth comes serious wickedness downtown bangor becomes
04:19such an illicit den of brothels and saloons it earns the nickname the devil's half acre
04:26where murder where murder is a weekly headline in response maine becomes the first state to outlaw
04:32alcohol in 1851 and bangor's sins go underground carving out miles of hidden tunnels for speakeasies
04:40and unspeakable acts by the time national prohibition arrives in 1920 bangor is already a stronghold for
04:49bootleggers smugglers and organized crime the violence peaks in 1937
04:59when fbi agents gunned down gangster al brady in the middle of downtown
05:05where some say his ghost still roams the streets today but he's not the only specter haunting bangor
05:12at the old water tower people hear disembodied laughter and report strange temperature drops
05:20while at the 136 year old theater witnesses claim they've been grabbed by an icy invisible hand
05:29and in the historic downtown area there's been an uptick in shadow figure sightings
05:34ever since sinkholes opened and exposed the forgotten tunnels beneath the city
05:40the very tunnels that inspired the sinister layer of king's ultimate evil
05:47pennywise do stephen king's stories of supernatural terror echo a real and ancient evil that until
05:55recently was sealed away beneath the city are the horrors of it slithering off the pages and into bangor
06:11this is fascinating the history of this town coupled with all the experiences people are having
06:17could very well be authentic paranormal activity and i do think that that activity could have helped
06:22shape the novel it or it could be the other way around maybe king's killer imagination has started to
06:28seep into the minds of the people of bangor but either way there are too many reports to ignore
06:34we have to get to this town if only to conquer my childhood trauma sure some people go to therapy
06:39phil wants to go to bangor i think it's really really interesting especially the discovery of
06:43these tunnels right i mean who knows what secrets are lurking down there so that's your mission get to
06:48bangor investigate these paranormal encounters and discover whether the book it had one hell of a
06:55ghostwriter the ghosts of bangor it's only a 90 minute flight from new york to bangor and once they
07:02leave the airport phil lines up an it appropriate way to get around the city by bicycle no jeep in
07:10these
07:10hills really i mean if the kids in it use their bikes to adventure around town and take on pennywise
07:17i figure it's got to be a great way for us to get a lay of the land i don't
07:20have a kid's energy
07:24oh look at that wait you see this check this out heather this is stephen king's home
07:33this is where he wrote it and so many of his other classics now this is my kind of house
07:38look at those
07:38bats would you move in here absolutely keep up the good work stephen
07:48here it is the old firehouse let's hear some stories of haunted bangor hello hello
07:58we asked a group of locals to meet up and share their stories of eerie encounters from all over the
08:03city all right why don't you guys take a seat and we'll get this started so who here has experienced
08:10something strange in the town of bangor a lot of hands that's why we're here all right let's hear
08:15some stories who's got a story to share i'm an actress at penobscot theater one night during a show
08:21i was backstage with a good friend of mine christy who's here she goes do you see behind me and
08:29i go
08:29the man but it was through a scrim and i went why she goes that person isn't there so what
08:35exactly
08:35did you see there was a face right against the scrim and so christy you were there i was there
08:42it was a
08:43head or did you see an entire body there it was a head just staring i walked right up to
08:49that scrim and
08:50literally put my hand out and there was nothing there so you're convinced that this was a ghost yes
08:56mm-hmm anyone else got something you want to share yeah go ahead so this happened fairly
09:02recently at the bangor opera house late at night we were doing a production of a christmas carol i was
09:09tiny tim i was backstage waiting to go on and then i feel like the sensation of somebody like grabbing
09:15my
09:16shoulder like a tight press of my shoulder and there's nobody there what do you think it was i think
09:24that it's a ghost named sammy she was a little girl trying to get my attention okay thanks for
09:31sharing this i've lived next to the standpipe for 73 years and there was a boy that was killed in
09:39it
09:40in an accident in 1940 howard was sliding down the banister and he slipped and fell between the
09:45banister and the tank oh wow and by the time they got to him he was still alive but didn't
09:53make it to the
09:53hospital so what strange things are reported there today there's people that say they get a chill when
10:00they go in the building and they hear children playing in it one of the most interesting things
10:08about the history of bangor is there's a whole series of tunnels underground there's a lot of talk
10:12about them having been haunted and they run throughout underneath the city all right anybody else got a
10:19story they want to share yes there's a lot of stories of the kineska stream stephen king called
10:26it the barons and that name kind of stuck goes right through bangor it's a real eerie place there's a
10:32lot
10:32of satanic rituals witchcraft not anything you want to mess with and this is common knowledge that this
10:38is going on down there yeah i also work at penobscot theater company of the bangor opera house which is
10:46the building that the theater is in i do have a piece of evidence that we've collected if you'd like
10:50to
10:51see it yeah wow whoa they wanted to take a picture of the progress of the building of the set
11:01but no one
11:02was down there and that's what we saw afterwards it looks like you can see his whole face
11:09so there's no way that someone was standing in front of that set that's right any guesses who that
11:15might be the bangor opera house burnt down in 1914 rebuilt in 1920 there are two firefighters who died
11:22in the fire of 1914 that could be one of them i mean that's an amazing piece of evidence you've
11:29gotten
11:29a fair amount of activity over there it seems like such a beautiful town it's like you guys are
11:33trying to scare us out of here we have a lot of leads to look into but with so much
11:41activity reported
11:42at the bangor opera house phil and i decide to make that our first stop of the night
11:49we split up to cover more ground phil goes on stage to look into christie's mysterious floating head
11:56meanwhile i make my way to the dressing room where some witnesses claim to have seen the spirit they
12:00call sammy behind them in the mirror i'm gonna set myself up in the exact same situation to see if
12:06i
12:06can get some more activity i'm gonna have a recorder going this is heather is there someone here with me
12:20sammy can you show yourself to me
12:30what the is that and that sounded like a growl
12:36sammy did you just make that noise
12:42can you make it again
12:48did you hear that that sounded like someone knocking on the other side of the wall
12:59there's nothing here what's on the other side of this wall
13:06so you clearly just made a knock can you make a noise
13:15bro bro did you hear that one that was a tap tap yeah
13:18i think sammy is messing with me i'm just gonna take a peeksy back here to the other side of
13:22that wall
13:26oh and these must be the stairs that that young boy miles had the experience of a cold hand grasping
13:34his shoulder
13:37oh temperature change it's definitely colder over here
13:49wow a floating disembodied head look look
13:53okay so i guess they just have floating heads around here let's see if we can recreate
13:58that floating head that the witnesses saw
14:03i've heard about the ghost sammy i've got a couple of different objects that i want to see if
14:07she'll interact with
14:11okay
14:14i have an emf tripwire because when i was a little girl i loved colorful things all she has to
14:20do is get
14:20near it or touch it and the sensors will go off how about some ghost balls
14:30sammy let's play
14:34sammy are you there can you show yourself to me now
14:39oh so you're right beside me right now you are right beside me right now okay okay
14:43so you you're letting your your presence be known you're just sitting on that step
14:47if you're sammy can you light up the whole string of emf lights
14:58that whole thing just lit up did you see that
15:06i said the head was next to scrim scrim is this it's this lightweight material that is used in theaters
15:13all over the world because of the way it interacts with light imagine you're in a scenario where
15:19there's a light behind you and you're casting a shadow you would be able to see this face behind the
15:26screen but the second you move and your shadow is gone boom the face is gone too now you see
15:33it now you don't
15:39can you touch one of these balls or can you move one of them they'll roll really easily
15:47sammy are you the one that gripped miles's shoulder
15:54oh yes yes are you trapped here
16:02oh did you grab miles shoulder because you were lonely
16:08or because you're afraid
16:12did you leave because it feels like you may have left
16:17i'm gonna leave my audio recorder running in case you have anything else to say i'm gonna press on
16:24there's a lot more bangor to investigate tonight so heather and i decide to divide and conquer
16:30i head over to the kandusky extreme the inspiration for the barons and stephen king's
16:35it and according to our witnesses the site of alleged satanic rituals
16:42first thing i'm gonna do is get on my flare anything living and breathing down here it will show up
16:47right white basically i just want to make sure we are truly alone down here
16:59check it out look at this look we got bones
17:05sometimes this means this is some sort of altar some sort of offering other times it's just bones so
17:12take a look around see if i find anything else that hints at what happened here
17:24right here no way this is candle wax look at this one two three four four candles this looks like
17:38someone at least with the intent of some sort of witchcraft some sort of ritual so at least it seems
17:44like that part of the story of what happens down here in the barons may be true okay i'm gonna
17:51keep
17:51moving
17:56while phil explores the barons i'm looking into the thomas hill standpipe
18:01oh wow the setting for an iconic scene in king's novel it and the site of a tragic accident in
18:071940
18:09the bangor water department granted us exclusive access for our investigation
18:20oh my
18:25oh okay this is where howard was playing right here and then he fell over and passed away
18:34i'm just gonna do a call and response session here
18:38i've got this audio recorder
18:46i came here to figure out what all this activity is howard are you here
19:00howard is that you
19:04what do you want me to do
19:06the center
19:07the center the center of this structure
19:12above
19:14above you want me to go above the standpipe right now
19:17i'm listening i'll leave my audio recorder running let's go up
19:35that is the creepiest thing i just heard
19:40what sounded like like human laughter over there is there anyone over there
19:56oh right there right there come here they're right there right back there
20:02i just saw a head peek out from behind that tree we are not alone out here
20:16i'm certain i saw someone show up right here
20:21i'm gonna pull my clear away so i could be ready for anything
20:24i could be ready for anything
20:31hello
20:33oh look at those look look
20:41oh my gosh
20:43heathes that is wet that is where someone just stepped
20:50in the leads all the way up to here to these culverts
20:57oh my god
21:01oh my god i just heard laughter inside here hello
21:10there's no way in this is weird i mean this is where according to the story pennywise lives
21:18this is where my childhood nightmares began feels like everything i've experienced down here in the
21:23barrens led me to this to the tunnels that run underneath and throughout bangor
21:34looks like we're getting close to the top
21:37august told me to go above i am above
21:41okay
21:44oh my god look at that this is amazing you can see the whole city of bangor
21:51a door all right
21:55what the hell is this
21:59i gotta say it feels incredibly creepy to be standing over the entire water tank
22:07now that i'm here in the center of the standpipe and i see all this metal
22:13i'm going to turn this structure into a giant antenna for my spirit box let's see if one of the
22:18biggest buildings in bangor can tap into all of the town's activity
22:24you can use this device to communicate with me
22:27i'm trying to understand the activity in bangor
22:35tell me what i need to know
22:43i heard the word down
22:45and so i need to go down
22:52yes yes where do i need to go down
22:59below
23:01deep underground
23:09are you in the tunnels
23:12all of us yes
23:20evil
23:27phil do you copy hey how's it going i got intense activity i felt like i was led to the
23:34top of the
23:34standpipe and i got the words down below tunnels well guess who just found down below tunnels in the
23:43barrens
23:44could you get in there could you find a way into the tunnels
23:47no let's regroup and uh form the plan
23:50copy that
23:52after an eventful night heather and i split up to dig deeper into what's really happening
23:57in bangor i'm meeting up with teal wilson a local historian who's an expert on the city's dark past
24:05we're here investigating the origin of the inspiration behind stephen king's
24:10it yes and as everybody knows a lot of that evil comes from what's down below yes we've heard about
24:16these tunnels but i'm just wondering how much of this is just urban legend and and how much of it
24:21is true yeah well there are tunnels under the city okay prohibition started in maine in 1850 so
24:27we were the first state in the nation to start prohibition wow so 70 years before it actually became
24:32a law for the rest of the state so these tunnels were then building an infrastructure of
24:37illicit activities during that extended prohibition period absolutely there's like a whole underground
24:41city that we don't know about are there maps of the tunnels there are no maps of the tunnels
24:46okay they didn't want people to know about the tunnels because the tunnels were used for shady
24:53business so was this just people who wanted to have a drink no no no i think the people that
24:58were
24:58going down here may have had a little bit more of a dark passion so we had gang members we
25:04had the
25:04prostitutes of course we had maybe dirty politicians but they were going deep down
25:09into these tunnels where they wouldn't necessarily be seen or found so was this a dangerous place to
25:16be absolutely you wouldn't want to be down there at night you wouldn't want to be a woman walking
25:21down there alone okay a lot of fist fights sailors would get beaten to a bloody pulp and they're getting
25:26away with basically murder down in devil's half acre there's lots of accounts of bodies being
25:31found down there they found a body of an infant in a puddle yeah yeah terrible so there is a
25:38lot of
25:39history literally beneath our feet yeah and there's no record of it there could still be bodies down
25:44there they've barricaded up walls do you have any advice anything we should look out for when we're down
25:49there collapsing walls closed off tunnels to me that's the biggest danger you don't want to go down
25:55there and not be able to find your way out intrigued by the hits that directed me to look
26:04deep underground i found a witness who says he's been there luke hi hi heather nice to meet you luke
26:11warring claims to have explored miles of tunnels beneath the city and had a terrifying experience deep
26:17inside what's it like down there i'm not typically a guy gets nervous very easy i was nervous i was
26:23scared it's just massive it's easy to get lost down there it's a labyrinth of rooms corridors you get
26:30turned around easy once you get into one room it seems like it opens up to another room you come
26:35back
26:36to go out of that room and it looks totally different i can only imagine that not only would
26:41that feel terrifying but in some ways it would feel like something was messing with you it did it was
26:46like you're in a house of mirrors almost further in i went it changed the air changed i started feeling
26:52that i wasn't alone i noticed i was you know starting to breathe a little heavier my heart was
26:56beating heavier my palms were sweating i've been to a lot of places that i consider creepy maybe even
27:02haunted never had that feeling before wow so i understand that you filmed entering these tunnels
27:07yeah whenever i explore any old location i always film this particular time i caught some stuff that
27:13that i can't explain let's see it here i'm inside one of the bathrooms there two stories underground
27:25i was just looking around seeing if i could see any writing for dates or anything on the wall
27:29and that's when i realized that something is down here with me
27:45that door just closed by itself slam shut wow how does it feel watching this video back it still
27:53gives me goosebumps it's something that haunts me to this day this feeling of you're not alone
28:00you'll feel it i felt it the whole time and i wasn't prepared for it you think these tunnels are
28:07dangerous without a doubt the tunnels just have a life of their own
28:13using the detailed directions luke gave me phil and i are able to find the only known entrance to
28:19the maze of tunnels hidden in the basement of an old building downtown there should be one more door
28:26down here okay over here you got it yeah luke said the entrance to the tunnels will be through a
28:35reinforced door okay let's see what's still here
28:45it's stuck oh my god heather look
28:55this is it these are the tunnels wow look at that the historian i talked to said that there's
29:04basically no records for any of these tunnels because they were all built for illegal activity
29:11but what is known about these locations is that the worst the worst happened down here including murder
29:17yeah and my guy told me you felt like these tunnels were messing with him just keeps going back
29:24oh barber chair barber chair it was just left here yeah it seems like as the city started to
29:34modernize in the mid-1900s they must have just closed off entrances to the tunnels we just completely
29:40forgot about them that's a stretcher yeah i mean you want to talk about a bajillion different trigger
29:47objects that are just lost to time really old books in here storage areas back here
29:59this is just too creepy
30:07did this take us back around are we walking in circles maybe this place is a maze
30:16before we explore any further i get out the xls camera to search for any paranormal activity
30:24see
30:25we can find anything
30:30there's something i want to try what are you thinking let me show you
30:36there definitely would have been multiple entrances and exits to the tunnels so you told me that luke had
30:42a door slam on him so i'm wondering what if there's a draft that moves through here sometimes okay so
30:48how are we
31:00going to wait on it so it's neutrally buoyant and any breeze will make this thing move around
31:10so i've got this recording if this balloon moves we'll have it documented okay
31:25okay
31:26okay
31:26okay
31:31what the
31:32is that i see glass i don't see any broken glass here here look it's like a jar or something
31:39just fell
31:42look at all that glass down there oh my goodness where was it i had no idea
31:54oh what that's creepy oh my god their faces are scratched off look at those kids faces
32:04oh my god they're all scratched out it's like they're trying to race whoever that was something
32:11wants our attention here and it does not feel friendly i have to do a call and response here
32:27all right this is heather and phil we're recording in the tunnels we know something is down here with us
32:36so who are you
32:40do you enjoy scaring us
32:45pursuit something is pursuing us right now whoa
32:52danger for what i don't know
33:00seal us back here we'll stick together okay
33:09well i recognize this is this in this video yeah what happened to him in here so he was staring
33:16in this mirror and that stall slammed shut
33:27i just don't get it it does kind of close on its own he didn't push it open and let
33:32it close
33:34okay okay do we lock you to keep it open no i think we should just stare into the mirror
33:40and see
33:40if anything happens you just want me to stare into a mirror yeah
33:50there's anything in here
33:53we came all this way because luke saw a door slam shut in here can you make it slam shut
34:00again
34:06what was that
34:13what are you hearing
34:18it was like whispering
34:26that sounded like it came from right out in the hallway right yeah
34:37the door
34:42whoa
34:52just outside bangor a patch of woods hides the origin of what stephen king has called his most disturbing
34:59work in the late 1970s king's young family rented a home next to a busy road where animals were
35:06constantly struck by speeding trucks
35:10steven noticed neighborhood children gathering the corpses and burying them in the nearby woods
35:15marking the graveyard with a misspelled cemetery sign
35:19king's own cat would go on to be interred there when it too was mowed down by a truck
35:25even more shocking king's toddler son was almost a victim too running into the road before being saved
35:32just in time and all of this gave king a terrifying idea wondering what would happen if whatever was
35:39buried in that cemetery came back to life whether that was an animal
35:43or a boy
35:44or a boy thus began the nightmarish novel pet cemetery
35:55what the heather
35:59did you not hear that no it was right behind me something just fell
36:09what the hell is that noise it sounded like a train there's no trains above us
36:18that sounds like a barrel being rolled
36:21i think you're right it literally does sound like something being rolled
36:25i don't know what is happening here what was that the balloon
36:35the balloon is gone where is it where is it oh my god no it's here on the ground
36:47holy how did this thing pop
36:50what do you feel that there's a slight breeze which must push the balloon in this direction
36:55but that means there might be another passage someone could have come through here might be best
36:59with us or could it have been something trying to get us to go down there let's find out
37:05things are further down
37:08Luke said once you started seeing the old stone you knew the tunnels were getting older as i progressed
37:14further in it did get into like an older brick and some rock walls in there too that looked like
37:19something from way back
37:23look at this place wow it looks so old hey keeps going back here
37:30i think i could fit
37:33be careful
37:38okay man phil what are you doing
37:43wow wait this has got to be the oldest section of the tunnels we've seen
37:48this is unreal what's on the other side
37:52have it there might be something on the other side here
37:55are you willing to die for it phil look what you're standing on
37:59it looks like a caved in it does look like a cave in
38:05and what was the last word i got on the tempest
38:08danger exactly something wants to hurt us and you're playing right into its hands you need
38:12to get the hell out of there i'm hearing things fall around me i don't want to be
38:17inspiration for another stephen king book in stephen king's novel it an evil force
38:24pennywise lurks in the tunnels beneath dairy luring people to their doom heather is convinced that
38:31truth is stranger than fiction believing she and phil experienced something very similar beneath bangor
38:40considering the evidence gathered during their time in stephen king's hometown
38:44there's a disturbing amount that could horrifically prove her right
38:49while heather was doing her spirit box session at the top of the town's water tower
38:54i heard the word down she had left an audio recorder running two stories below
39:00right by the banister where young howard goodell fell to his death
39:06it's faint but heather believes she can hear a child laughing
39:13a residual echo perhaps from the 12 year old victim before tragedy struck
39:19and remember that phil heard what sounded like child's laughter too
39:23oh my god right after he captured this fleer footage in the barons we are not alone out here
39:31we analyzed it and the shape stands a little over four and a half feet tall
39:35the average size of a 10 year old boy he thinks it may have been kids playing a prank
39:42heather disagrees wondering if it was something more malevolent playing with phil
39:48but no part of bangor was more active than the long forgotten prohibition tunnels was this a
39:54dangerous place to be absolutely there's lots of accounts of bodies being found down there while
40:00in the subterranean bathroom where witness luke heard a door slam
40:05phil and heather both heard the sound of whispering
40:15we ran an analysis on the audio and no distinct words could be detected but at that exact moment on
40:24our ir camera the balloon began moving shortly after that it popped the balloon nothing environmental
40:33could easily explain it and no one else was found to be present in the tunnels
40:39was something really pursuing phil and heather
40:43drawing them ever deeper into the maze-like basement oh my god and pushing them towards misfortune
40:51something something wants to hurt us and you're playing right into its hands you need to get the
40:54hell out of there heather has no doubt stephen king's horror is all too alive in bangor
41:01but before they left town for good phil had one more fear to face all right phil great that
41:07inspired stephen king's it time to conquer your childhood fear going in oh it goes deep
41:17oh my god heather what oh wanna play heather feel better now may smell like sewer but that was totally
41:27worth it you know what you can get your own self out looks like it's just me and you pennywise
41:31you
41:31Let's go.
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