WILLIAM SHATNER: A lake where a shockingly
high number of people have drowned.
An ancient tomb
that is guarded by the soul of an evil warlord.
And objects with the power to harm anyone
who touches them.
All over the world, there are places and objects
that are thought to be cursed.
But are curses simply the product of our need to find
reasons for tragedies that we can't explain?
Or could they actually be real?
Well, that is what we'll try and find out.
♪ ♪
SHATNER: Deep within this mountain range lies Lake Lanier.
Millions of people venture to this popular vacation spot
to relax and unwind
despite the fact that every year
a shocking number of people drown
within its placid waters...
...and many of their bodies are never seen again.
LISA RUSSELL: If you live anywhere
near Lake Lanier in North Georgia,
you're gonna hear, every summer, all of the deaths.
There are bad boating accidents.
And when somebody goes overboard,
it's almost impossible to find them before they drown.
BUCK BUCHANAN: Lake Lanier, from the surface, looks clear.
But we hear time and time again
when we respond to these drownings,
people would say that, "He didn't go into the water,
"come up, struggle, and drown.
He went in and never came back up."
And this happens time and time again.
This lake seems to take people
in one gulp.
MITCH HOROWITZ: Lake Lanier is 26 miles long,
it has 700 miles of shorefront.
And it's tempting to attribute the inordinate
number of fatalities to the size of the lake.
The fact is,
there are lakes of commensurate size in Northern Georgia...
...that don't have half that number
of fatalities or accidents.
So, clearly, there is something about Lake Lanier
that is cause for alarm.
SHATNER: Since the 1950s,
it is estimated that more than 600 people
have lost their lives in Lake Lanier.
It is such a staggering number of fatalities that,
for decades, many have come to believe
that these waters may be cursed.
RUSSELL: Even though there's a lot of people around,
there's just some strange vibe about the lake.
I feel it's a majestic body of water,
but you can't deny that there's something odd about Lake Lanier.
BUCHANAN: When you actually get into Lanier...
...you get a feeling that you're not alone,
when you should be alone.
I don't feel like someone's reaching out to grab me,
but the water feels thicker than it should.
And what I mean by that is,
a lady fell out of a boat, and we actually witnessed it.
And we ran over there and pulled her out of the water
and she was very upset, and she said,
"I'm so embarrassed," and I said,
"Don't worry, we see people do this all the time."
And she said, "No, you don't understand.
I'm a lifeguard."
And she said just when she found herself in that water,
it was just like molasses.
So all the things that we see in this lake,
it finally got so bad and scared the locals so much,
that we think
maybe we're just stuck with a curse we have to live with.
SHATNER: Could the numerous fatalities
that have taken place at Lake Lanier
be the result of a curse?
It may sound far-fetched to some.
But for decades, researchers have been examining
the possibility that Lake Lanier
could be harboring the power to inflict harm.
And according to their investigations,
it may have something to do with the history of Lake Lanier.
JASON OCKER: Lake Lanier is the largest lake in Georgia.
It's a man-made lake
meant to provide water and power to the surrounding communities.
They actually made it by flooding a valley
that had a town in it, Oscarville.
So, they had to relocate the people that lived there
and then they just drowned the entire town under water.
SHATNER: Oscarville wasn't the only town
that was affected by the building of Lake Lanier.
In the 1940s and 50s, the U.S. government acquired
the rights to more than 56,000 acres of land in Forsyth,
Hall and Dawson counties
to make room for the 38,000-acre lake
and more than 700 miles of shoreline.
This included several small towns,
and the remains of these communities
are still submerged beneath the surface of Lake Lanier.
BUCHANAN: When they built the lake,
they left tons of structure in the water.
We've got concrete, roads, bridges.
We've got a racetrack under there.
We've got standing timber
that stands as high as 40, 60, 70 feet from the bottom.
HOROWITZ: There seems to be a great deal of debris in the water,
so it's not an ideal place for people
to be swimming or boating, or jet skiing, or partying.
The fact is, it's a dangerous place.
SHATNER: Authorities claim that many people drown in Lake Lanier
because they get caught in the debris
lurking beneath its surface.
But researchers studying the lake
believe this is only part of the story.
And that the source of the dark force
drawing people down into its murky depths
is a Native American burial ground
that was submerged by the lake's construction.
Back in 2007 there was a drought and the water went way low.
And because of that, they found an area
called the Summerour Mound, Indian Mounds.
It's considered a sacred area
that belonged to the Native Americans,
the Creeks and the Cherokees.
Lake Lanier was built by the Army Corps of Engineers,
and according to the Army Corps of Engineers,
they removed all the bodies
while they were creating Lake Lanier.
But back when they were building these lakes,
they didn't have ground-penetrating equipment.
So there's a great likelihood that there are bodies
of the Native Americans under the waters of Lake Lanier.
SHATNER: Could the presence of Native American remains
beneath Lake Lanier have a connection
to the unusual number of accidental deaths there?
Has the Native American belief in the power
of ancestral spirits cursed Lake Lanier?
TOK THOMPSON: Certainly among Native American
traditions, we have a widespread
belief in curses, particularly land-based curses.
And this connects to an overall sort of belief in animism,
that the material world is infused with spiritual aspects.
Now, many Native American traditions have long-standing,
very deep beliefs about how to treat dead bodies
and how not to disturb them and how not to disturb burial sites.
The desecration of those is held in Native communities
to bring on a lot of bad spiritual energy.
SHATNER: Is it possible that Lake Lanier
is home to dark spiritual energy?
Perhaps.
But what's most surprising
is that even though this lake may be cursed,
people continue to enter its waters every day.
BUCHANAN: There's world-class divers that will not dive Lake Lanier.
We have 11 to 14 million people a year
that are coming here and taking their chances
in spite of the fact that there has been somewhere
between 600 and 700 drownings on this lake.
I'm not saying that there's a curse,
but I'm saying there's definitely some bad energy.
And if it's not cursed, maybe it should be.
Can disturbing the sanctity of human remains
actually unleash a deadly curse?
Well, there are those who believe that
when archaeologists tampered
with the tomb of an ancient warlord,
they triggered one that was so strong,
it changed the course of human history.
SHATNER: Near the center of this ancient city in Central Asia,
is a mausoleum known as Gur-e Amir.
It is also known as the Tomb of the King...
...because inside its magnificent dome
lie the remains of one of the most feared
rulers in history.
Tamerlane the Great.
RICHARD SPENCE: Tamerlane was often credited as being the last of the great
Asiatic conquerors in the mold of Genghis Khan.
He started off basically as a minor tribal leader
and then he embarked upon a 35-year career
of constant war and conquest...
-(clamoring) -...during which
he's often credited with exterminating five percent
of the world's population.
Tamerlane was very adept at psychological warfare
and putting his adversary on the wrong foot.
His most chilling battlefield signature was the erection of
large numbers of towers around the city he'd just conquered.
And these towers were made up from the decapitated heads...
...of the victims of the latest conquest.
A really awful warning
to anyone else who might think about rebelling.
"This is the fate that awaits you
"if you even think about any opposition.
I will destroy you and destroy your city."
SHATNER: In 1405, Tamerlane died of a fever at the age of 69.
By that time, his empire stretched from Siberia
to the Mediterranean Sea.
But some claim that even in death,
Tamerlane wasn't finished exerting his power on the world
because his tomb is believed to be protected
by a deadly curse.
Certain people attain that level of, you know,
absolutely terrifying, vicious person.
Something is evil in them, so when they die,
whatever it is that makes them evil,
a lot of people think it still exists.
And where would it be?
It would be wherever the body is,
so in the tomb of Tamerlane...
...would be this evil presence
that's now still terrifying in his death.
SHATNER: For centuries, Tamerlane's tomb was untouched
by archaeologists, for fear of unleashing
the dark forces inside.
But 80 years ago, his tomb was finally disturbed,
and there are those who believe that it set off
a chain of events that changed the course of history.
Under the orders of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin,
Russian archaeologists enter Tamerlane's mausoleum
and open his tomb.
MAROZZI: Stalin was interested in the clues
behind Tamerlane's greatness.
Tamerlane was such an incredibly powerful man...
...whose career had been one of bloodshed and savagery.
And Stalin wanted to send a very strong message
that he was a 20th-century equivalent.
STEAVU: When the expedition
arrived on-site, they were told,
"Tamerlane's tomb has remained undisturbed for centuries."
And not to open the tomb,
that if they did, something terrible would happen.
Of course, the expedition proceeded to open the tomb...
...and this very powerful smell of frankincense,
of rose oil and camphor suddenly
burst forth and envelops the expedition.
Some of the members of the expedition believe that it was
the smell of a curse.
MAROZZI: There are, supposedly,
two inscriptions on the tomb of Tamerlane.
The first inscription reads:
The second inscription read:
And that's an indication
this is a sacred resting place.
This is not somewhere to be trifled with.
It was not something that-that should even be entertained.
SPENCE: The body was removed
and it was taken back to Leningrad
where the remains were being studied
at that point in time.
One of the things that was in the paper
was a picture of a Soviet archaeologist
holding the skull of Tamerlane.
And in the article accompanying this,
there is a reference that
there were locals who were disturbed about this.
SHATNER: On June 22, 1941,
two days after Tamerlane's tomb was opened,
Russia was hit with a surprise attack
by Germany, its supposed ally.
Over three million Nazi troops marched into Russia
in the most massive invasion in history.
Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union
without any warning.
Up until then, there had been a pact of nonaggression,
so this came as quite a surprise to the Soviet Union.
The Nazis called this surprise attack Operation Barbarossa.
And they were very swift and overwhelming in their attacks,
and they managed to get very far into the Soviet Union,
rather quickly, causing great devastation
and loss of life to the Soviets.
Tamerlane's body is removed from its tomb on the 20th,
and the Eastern Front erupts in flames two days later.
Remember, there was a curse.
"Whosoever will disturb my tomb will unleash
an invader worse than I."
So a lot of people would say the synchronicity
between the removal of Tamerlane's body from his tomb
and the launching of Operation Barbarossa
isn't an accident.
SHATNER: As German troops continued to overpower Russian forces,
Stalin's advisors began to question
if the curse of Tamerlane's tomb had been unleashed.
They urged him to return Tamerlane's remains
to Uzbekistan in the desperate hope
that it would turn the tide of battle.
And to their astonishment...
it worked.
Tamerlane's remains are put back in,
in December of 1942.
But the whole course of the war
at the Eastern Front changes
and from that point on, it's just one long
nightmare retreat for the Germans
back to Berlin in April 1945.
SHATNER: Is it possible that returning Tamerlane's remains to his tomb
broke the curse that triggered
Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union?
For many, the evidence is hard to ignore.
MAROZZI: I think for those who subscribe
to what we call the Curse of Tamerlane,
there are these two great coincidences.
Coincidence one,
the tomb is opened against all the objections of the Uzbeks,
Hitler invades the Soviet Union.
Coincidence number two,
Tamerlane is reinterred with full burial rights,
Hitler is defeated.
So it comes full circle.
Two coincidences, or two proofs
that the curse was absolutely for real.
Take your pick.
The idea that the curse of Tamerlane's tomb
somehow brought about the Nazi invasion of Russia
is unsettling, to say the least.
But curses that don't have such far-reaching implications
are no less alarming.
Consider the case of a hotel in Los Angeles
where, for decades, there were dozens of guests who checked in,
but never checked out.
SHATNER: Numerous guests staying at the Cecil Hotel
file complaints about low water pressure.
A maintenance worker
is dispatched to check the water tanks
located on the hotel's roof
where he makes a shocking discovery.
Floating facedown in one of the water tanks
is the decomposing body
of 21-year-old hotel guest, Elisa Lam.
On the last day of 2012,
New Year's Eve,
was the last time she was seen alive.
Elisa Lam was caught by the camera in the elevator.
And then she disappears.
The LAPD, they released
a video of Elisa Lam
and it's a really bizarre, bizarre video.
She's seen going in and out of an elevator,
she seems to be interacting
or playing hide-and-seek with someone.
She's frantically, erratically,
pushing all the buttons in the elevator.
And then, she was found facedown...
...inside a sealed water tank
at the roof of the hotel.
SHATNER: After conducting an investigation,
the Los Angeles County Coroner ruled
that Elisa Lam's death was an accident.
But the bizarre circumstances
surrounding her case led some researchers to believe
that something more insidious had taken place.
And that Elisa Lam was actually
the latest victim of a deadly curse
that plagues the Cecil Hotel.
Since it first opened in 1924,
an alarming number of people have taken their lives
while staying there, earning it the nickname
"the Suicide Hotel."
HOROWITZ: The Cecil Hotel
is a Beaux Arts structure.
It was built in the style of grand American hotels.
Back in its day, it was quite beautiful,
with columns, marble floors, an expansive lobby,
and it was intended to be a very high-class hotel
for an upwardly mobile clientele.
BARTLETT: All hotels have deaths in them,
but for some reason, the Cecil Hotel
seems to have far much more than the average number.
When I was doing my research, I found 17 suicides
within the newspaper archives that linked to the hotel.
And those are just reported ones.
Now, it doesn't sound like a lot,
but compared to all the other hotels,
I would find maybe one or two, almost without exception.
So it makes this particular hotel stand out.
EBNER: The Cecil Hotel had only been open a few short years...
...and the sheer number of suicides
was already coming to a peak.
W.K. Norton, he poisoned himself in his room.
And Army medic Sergeant Louis D. Borden,
he surgically slit his own throat in the hotel room.
The list of unexplained deaths
goes on and on and on.
And people were like, thinking, "Wow,
"could it be something about the Cecil Hotel
that triggered this kind of insane behavior?"
There are certain places that seem to attract
an inordinate amount of violent activity.
It's very easy for us to talk in terms of coincidence
when we're discussing curses.
But if people hear that there was an act of violence,
suicide at a certain place,
that seems to spark something in the human imagination
including in the most negative sense.
Hence, we have the phenomena of
people being attracted to certain spots.
You might use the expression, "I don't like the energy
coming off of that place."
We use it metaphorically,
although there may be something actual to it.
SHATNER: What is it about certain places such as the Cecil Hotel
that causes people to harm themselves or others?
Could they really be cursed?
Some researchers claim that if there is a dark energy
at the Cecil Hotel,
it may have already existed at this site
long before the hotel was built.
Another interesting aspect of curses and cursed places
particularly is that there's always a reason
of why this became cursed.
So for example, in L.A.,
this has been a very contentious area
for a long time, ever since the initial colonization.
So the local tribe, the Tongva tribe, suffered greatly.
(shouting)
They were pretty much massacred at the hands
of the Spanish colonists who arrived in this area.
Or later, in 1871, where they have the Chinatown massacre
where this was an ethnic-driven violence
perpetrated against the Chinese community in L.A.
that had been established here, and it was horrific.
The idea is that there's a curse on this area
that reflects these atrocities and that
the curse is not gonna be lifted
as long as those atrocities are not accounted for.
SHATNER: Is it possible that the dark history of the Cecil Hotel
was caused by a violent energy permeating the area?
True or not,
the Cecil Hotel nevertheless closed its doors in 2017
as a result of its sinister reputation.
A lot of people, of course,
roll their eyes at the idea of a curse.
But if you gave a person the option of spending
a night alone in a place that was rumored to be cursed,
like the Cecil,
most of the people who roll their eyes would probably pause,
given such a macabre history.
Is it possible for a place to be imbued with dark energy?
In the case of the Cecil Hotel, it certainly seems possible.
But there are also many who believe
that objects can carry curses, too.
For instance, there's a sports car
that has a reputation for killing its drivers,
including one of the most iconic movie stars of all time.
SHATNER: At 5:45 in the afternoon,
a brand-new 1955 Porsche 550 Spyder
traveling west on US 466
collides with an oncoming sedan.
The impact instantly kills the driver of the Porsche.
News of the ill-fated accident
sends shockwaves around the world because...
...the driver was none other
than the iconic American actor James Dean.
At the time of his death,
James Dean was definitely the one to watch.
He had his debut movie star performance
in East of Eden,
and he had two other movies in the can,
and he was launched into becoming the face
of rebellious Hollywood.
But all that came to a crashing end
on September 30, 1955.
SHATNER: James Dean's death behind the wheel
shocked friends and fans alike.
Not only because the actor
was such a rising star at the time...
...but also because even at his relatively young age,
24-year-old Dean had already proven himself to be
an accomplished race car driver.
When James Dean came to Southern California in 1954,
he entered the Palm Springs Road Races
as a novice driver.
He won his race
as a novice and qualified for the Sunday main event
against veteran drivers.
He was a very serious and aggressive competitor
with a lot of skill as a novice driver.
SHATNER: James Dean's reputation as a competent driver
was so well known,
that many found it difficult to believe his death
could have been the result of poor driving.
Over the years, some people have claimed
that there is only one possible explanation for the crash.
They believe that James Dean's car
was cursed.
And as evidence of the curse,
they point to a fateful encounter that Dean had
with a fellow actor shortly before his untimely death.
Two days after James Dean purchased his Porsche Spyder,
he was having dinner with Alec Guinness.
During the course of the dinner, James Dean told Alec Guinness
he had just purchased a new Porsche Spyder.
It was outside in the parking lot
and he wanted to show him the new car.
Alec Guinness, upon setting eyes on that vehicle,
he had a very strange reaction.
Some strange thing came over me, some almost different voice.
And I said, "If you get into that car,
by 10:00 at night next Thursday, you'll be dead."
EBNER: Five days after Alec gave that warning to James Dean,
James Dean died in a head-on collision
with the only other vehicle on the road.
Sir Alec Guinness recounted
that as soon as he laid eyes on the car,
he felt a sense of evil
emanating out of the vehicle itself.
SHATNER: Is it possible that James Dean's car was possessed by evil?
Well, if that's true, the curse was apparently
strong enough to survive even after his tragic death.
Because in the years following James Dean's accident,
several strange incidents involving his car took place.
The exterior of the car was pretty much obliterated...
...but the chassis and the engine block remained intact.
Another race car enthusiast
by the name of Dr. William Eschrich
took the engine block from James Dean's car
and put it into his own car.
And then he parceled out some of the parts
to a good friend of his and colleague,
Dr. Troy McHenry.
So Eschrich and McHenry
are now driving their Porsches
with James Dean parts in the same race.
Guess what happens next?
McHenry loses control of his Porsche
and drives head-on into a tree and dies at the scene.
And Eschrich,
he flips his car and winds up severely injured
in the same race.
RASKIN: George Barris was a legendary
car customizer in California.
He got hold of the carcass
of James Dean's Porsche Spyder
and put it on display,
and loaned it to the Los Angeles Safety Council
with the theme that "Speed kills, drive safely."
He told stories about how individuals touched this car
and injured themselves.
JOJI BARRIS-PASTER: The stories that are from my father are really interesting.
When the car was dropped off
at the Barris Custom Shop
in North Hollywood and first came to the shop,
his mechanic came out to help him,
you know, unload the car.
It rolls and breaks his legs.
Rolls over his legs and breaks his legs.
Incidents keep happening and at that time,
these stories that he's telling us, it's concerning.
And you could tell he's realizing,
"Hey, there's a curse tied to this car.
This is serious now."
SHATNER: Is it possible that the curse on James Dean's car lived on,
even after it had been wrecked and salvaged for parts?
It's an unsettling notion.
So disturbing in fact, that some people believe
George Barris took matters into his own hands.
RASKIN: In 1960, George Barris sent the car
to a safety exhibit in Miami, Florida.
He said that when the transporter
came back to L.A., the car was missing.
In all my research,
we cannot find any trace of the missing car.
And looking at all the speculation...
...revolving around the curse,
I believe that George Barris disposed of the car
and it disappeared forever.
The question of the curse and the death of James Dean
has been going on for 65 years.
And looking at those strange incidents,
they may have been coincidences,
or there may have been an actual curse.
Unfortunately, we'll never know.
Was it merely a coincidence that several people
who came into contact with James Dean's car
were harmed, and two even died?
Or is it possible that this vehicle
was actually a cursed object?
Perhaps the answer can be found by examining
a collection of artifacts
believed to contain such dangerous energies
that they are kept under lock and key.
SHATNER: Just outside the city,
on a normal suburban street in an ordinary neighborhood
is the home of Greg and Dana Newkirk.
From the outside, their home is not much different
from any other house on the block.
-Get some fork action going on. -Yeah.
SHATNER: But inside,
it contains something quite extraordinary.
Because there is a room in the basement that is filled
with a collection of strange objects
sent by people from all over the world
that are believed to be...
...cursed.
Greg and I lead normal lives, and we go about our life
the same way that everyone else does.
We just happen to be caretakers for very strange objects.
The way that we got started collecting cursed objects
was complete accident.
It wasn't something that we had set out to do.
Never would have imagined myself doing this.
We were just interested in-in general weirdness.
My wife and I investigate all manner of high strangeness.
And we were both very interested in the idea of cursed objects.
We slowly gained a reputation as being
particularly good people for this.
And so anytime anyone had a problem with an artifact,
they would come to us and say,
"I don't know what to do with this.
"This thing is affecting my life.
"Will you just take it off my hands?
"It'd be easier to just give it to you
and let you deal with it."
And so we built up this collection
of very bizarre things.
SHATNER: Visitors to the Newkirks' home are given ample warning
that the basement is filled with objects that are cursed.
We have a lot of haunted robes...
SHATNER: But curiously, every day,
the Newkirks receive requests
from people who are eager to view their cursed collection.
OCKER: You'd think with cursed objects, you want to avoid them.
But there is a draw to them.
When an object is said to be cursed,
another word you can use is "special."
It's special. If this chair is cursed,
it's different from every other chair in the world.
And that makes it unique, that makes it interesting,
and that draws our attention every single time.
And the fact that that specialness
is that it hurts people,
that appeals to a certain macabre,
a streak that we all have as human beings.
DANA NEWKIRK: People think of cursed objects as being kind of fun and spooky.
But working with them,
it feels a lot less about that and a lot more about
that kind of heavy responsibility
to keep some of these objects with us
under lock and key and maybe out of the wrong hands.
And maybe in a place that's safer
not only for everyone else but for them.
SHATNER: The Newkirks' collection
includes several objects that are considered to have
the power to inflict harm on anyone who comes near them.
This is the cursed deer skull.
We drove down to Nashville to pick up from a woman
who saw this in an antique store
and took it back to her office,
and almost immediately, her employees
started getting sick.
One of her employees was hit by a car.
And then, the wall that this was hanging on,
actually fell down and took half of the building with it.
DANA NEWKIRK: There are certain objects specifically in our museum that,
without people knowing
why they feel the way that they feel...
...they will definitely have heart palpitations, anxiety.
We've had people almost faint,
we've had people throw up,
we've had people dry heave.
People have very visceral physical reactions
to being around some of the objects.
SHATNER: Among the cursed objects in the Newkirks' collection
is a deadly ring that is claimed
to kill anyone who wears it,
a Bible used during a failed exorcism,
and a doll that is believed to spread illness wherever it goes.
But of all the cursed objects the Newkirks have come across,
there is one that is so harrowing,
they refused to keep it in their collection.
It is an unsettling wooden effigy known as the Crone.
DANA NEWKIRK: The Crone really is the definition
of kind of a cursed object.
It is a carved statue of a woman.
Someone at some point in time
took this object and attached the noose and the nails.
It was given to us by some hikers who found it
in the Catskills, off the beaten path in a cave.
They took it home and initially started to experience
really frightening things.
Their animals were behaving strangely,
they were finding wet footprints on the ground,
and they didn't know what to do.
Someone who we had worked with previously
put them in contact with us,
and after, you know, having some communication with them,
they-they sent the Crone to us.
GREG NEWKIRK: People who would get near the Crone,
they would be just overwhelmed with anxiety.
This guy came all the way from Canada
to come and see the Crone.
He begged us to take it out of the box.
Almost immediately...
...his eyes roll up in the back of his head
and he starts to bleed from his mouth.
And he has a violent seizure.
And he has to be taken out by the paramedics.
And that's when Dana and I looked at each other
and we said, "We have to do something about this."
SHATNER: After a string of frightening incidents,
Greg and Dana Newkirk
are convinced that a strange object in their possession,
known as the Crone, is cursed.
So they've traveled to this remote region
of Upstate New York
to free themselves of the evil object.
The Crone is one of the objects that does fall
into that very small category
of objects that we didn't feel like we could handle.
It got to a point where the Crone was just too dangerous
for even us to take care of.
And what we wanted to do was bring her back
to the Catskills, which is where she is from.
SHATNER: To remove the Crone's curse,
the Newkirks' plan was to return to the area
where it was originally found by two hikers many years before.
At which point, they would remove the nails
embedded in the Crone in a cleansing ritual.
DANA NEWKIRK: We wanted to bring her back,
and every time a nail was pulled out,
the intention was
that we were pulling that curse out of the object.
We hiked into the woods for miles...
...and I set up a circle.
The idea of setting up a circle
was basically just to create an energetic space
for containing this ritual.
And the whole time we were doing this,
we were hearing footsteps...
...and strange sounds
that weren't animals around our circle,
but...
we couldn't see anything.
GREG NEWKIRK: We were absolutely terrified,
but we start performing the ritual.
I pull the nails out.
As soon as that happens,
we feel this almost electric pop
in the air.
When we were done, every coyote on the mountain
just started howling.
-(howling) -And the ritual was finished
and what we were looking at was just a block of wood.
And we just kind of knew
that we had done what we went there to do.
Scholars of religion have long known
the power of ritual,
that when a group of people get together
and engage in the same set of actions,
believing that there's a supernatural origin behind them,
that brings people together.
And so, special movements that you need to go through,
special sayings or songs that you need to do...
(singing in unison)
...it's incredibly powerful phenomena
that can help rid us of the devil...
or whatever other force has cursed us.
SHATNER: Is it possible that ritually cleansing
the Crone removed its curse?
Perhaps.
But of course, it all depends on
whether you believe curses are real in the first place.
OCKER: Whether you believe
in cursed objects or don't believe in cursed objects,
they can still have a power over you.
What that power is,
to what extent that is, how it kind of comes out?
Who knows?
But they're still powerful objects,
no matter how you look at it.
GREG NEWKIRK: For people who don't believe in curses,
what I would say is,
keep believing they're not real.
That's the best defense you have against a curse,
is to not feed it.
So, what's your take on this?
Are curses real?
Or is it simply human nature to look for
a supernatural explanation when bad things happen?
Well, until we know for sure, it might be wise to avoid
those so-called cursed places and objects.
Let them remain...
...unexplained.
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