An ordinary day the most dangerous of the year.
A lake that swallows people...
(muffled yelling)
...into a bottomless abyss.
And a priceless diamond
that brings death
to every man that touches it.
Can places, things,
or even people
actually be cursed?
There are those who insist
that not only do curses exist, but
that these dark forces are actually lurking all around us.
So, how do we get rid of them?
Well...
that is what we'll try and find out.
♪ ♪
SHATNER: Hunterdon County, New Jersey.
Nestled beside the sleepy suburbs of Clinton Township
lies Round Valley Reservoir.
First formed in 1960 as a primary water source,
this man‐made lake is beloved by locals
for its great fishing and scenic views.
But many believe
this idyllic watering hole
conceals a deadly secret.
For more than 40 years,
people have been disappearing in Round Valley Reservoir.
And not just a few.
More than two dozen men have been lost
beneath these placid waters,
never to be seen again.
Locals do believe that this lake is cursed,
and it's easy to understand why, with so many tragic deaths
surrounding it in just about 40 years.
And while I can't be sure if it's cursed,
there's always one thing that's given me the chills.
I heard someone say that when one body is found
at Round Valley Reservoir,
another quickly replaces it.
We don't even know for sure how many bodies there really are.
(indistinct radio chatter)
When I worked in news,
I would hear the police scanner crackle to life
with "Round Valley,"
"fishermen," "trouble," "boat," or
‐"Somebody has gone under the water." ‐(muffled yelling)
It's a creepy, horrible feeling when you hear this,
because you know that
90% of the time, this is not going to end well.
I can't explain
why these people at the bottom of the lake haven't been found,
especially after searching for them
with such a degree of intensity.
Even after bringing in cadaver‐sniffing dogs,
using sonar technology
and submarines to crawl the lake, there was no sign.
It's almost as if some of these people disappeared
without a trace.
And an interesting thing,
if you're looking for bones in Round Valley,
is that you aren't necessarily going to find a fisherman
who disappeared 13 years ago.
You may find a bone that was in the ground
long before Round Valley became a reservoir.
SHATNER: Bones from a time before Round Valley became a reservoir?
There are some who believe
that these bones may have been the very reason
the bodies of those who have disappeared here
have never been found,
and that the lake's refusal to give up its victims
is actually an act of revenge.
There was a town here once.
For centuries, people put down roots in this valley.
It was very fertile and rich farmland.
There were thousands of acres.
And people grew their own food.
They raised their animals.
Then, in the 1950s, there was a drought in New Jersey.
And they needed a source of water for, predominantly, Newark
but the surrounding area as well.
And so, they had to fill in somewhere,
and Round Valley, they believed, was the best choice.
People were opposed to the reservoir being built.
It was a small farming community, very close‐knit,
and no one wanted to leave their homes.
Most of the homes were eventually erased or moved.
KIRILUK‐HILL: Their homes were either torn down
or they were put on flatbeds and taken out of the valley.
And that construction started on the reservoir.
In the 1960s, they started filling it.
There was a lot of bad feeling here when,
when the‐the landowners were pushed out of their valley.
Did these ill feelings carry over?
There are people who will say, "Yes, they did."
There are people who come here
who think the town is still here.
They still think they see that church steeple
and that barn silo underneath the water.
Are they seeing it?
Not really.
They were torn down.
But the foundations were left in place.
Of course, there were fence posts.
There were some things left below.
When you're at Round Valley, you feel
the spirit of the people who came before you.
There is a presence here
that can make you feel a little disconcerting.
Some local people call Round Valley
"the Bermuda Triangle of New Jersey,"
because as much as this is a place
of great beauty and great enjoyment,
it‐it's also a place
where death happens
really more than it should.
SHATNER: The idea that any body of water,
let alone a man‐made one less than a century old,
could somehow be imbued with a deadly curse
seems far‐fetched, to say the least.
And yet outlandish
and presumably irrational notions such as these
have been held by nearly every culture throughout history.
But why?
We all are afraid of things,
and we would like to be able to understand them,
if only to give a little mental illusion of control
over things that go bump in the night.
And so, we come up with stories, and they help.
They're entertaining and maybe they're true.
And then they get passed down to children and grandchildren,
and they gain authority through time.
A curse has to be believed in order for it to have power.
It's kind of like hypnosis.
You have to be willing to go under hypnosis
in order for it to actually be effective.
So maybe these curses are created by us,
by our imagination,
by us trying to deal with the mystery of nature.
It's just a game that we're playing,
but we ascribe meaning to it.
So, if we ascribe meaning to a curse,
could that actually make the curse real?
SHATNER: Although it may be human nature
to blame inexplicable tragedies on some sort of dark force,
according to skeptics, there's nothing supernatural
about the disappearances at Round Valley Reservoir.
They claim that these strange occurrences
must have a perfectly rational explanation.
KIRILUK‐HILL: Some people
who live around here think it's more a matter
of respecting your environment.
And when the wind swirls,
you can get waves up to three feet tall on this reservoir.
And that's where people get in trouble.
They're not expecting it.
In my career I've handled anything from, um,
plane crashes, homicides, suicides,
um, you know, lost children.
But, uh, when you're out there in a small boat
and there's fog coming across the lake,
it can be very eerie at times.
You have these 40‐mile‐per‐hour winds
that come up out of no place.
They only allow small boats.
You have excessively cold water,
which leads to hypothermia.
I can guarantee, probably nine out of ten people
that are out on this lake don't wear their life preservers.
I think it's because of those factors.
And you know what? Just plain bad luck. Period.
SHATNER: So, where did the bodies of the lost men
of Round Valley Reservoir go?
Could it be that they're merely trapped
somewhere deep beneath the lake's surface,
in a place searchers haven't yet looked?
Or are they really victims of a deadly curse?
Either way, the very notion that such a malevolent force
could corrupt an entire lake is a chilling proposition.
Not unlike the notion that a curse
could be contained in something so small
that it could fit in the palm of your hand.
JOSEPH McLEAN GREGORY: The Hope Diamond makes people want to "ah"
of the most beguiling and infamous diamonds in existence.
Set in a pendant surrounded by 16 white diamonds,
this dazzling gray‐blue stone
weighs a colossal 45.54 carats.
Although throughout its history
the massive diamond has been known variously
as the Tavernier Blue and Le Bleu de France,
today it is simply known as the Hope Diamond.
GREGORY: What makes the Hope Diamond
so mesmerizing is the whole presentation
of the diamond itself, and
I think that's what brings out the beauty of the diamond.
It highlights the blue stone.
KURIN: This is a piece of rock that's the size of a walnut!
It almost looks sapphire‐like.
And yet, because people feel it has this amazing story
about curse and misfortune,
they regard it specially, so when you go to the Smithsonian
and you go in that Winston Gallery,
you can't get close to it.
There's always mobs of people around it.
Everybody's taking pictures around it.
Everybody's whispering and trying to figure out things,
and they feel it's almost like they're around a celebrity.
SHATNER: Although renowned for its breathtaking beauty,
the Hope Diamond has also become known
for a far different type of facet,
one that many regard to be deadly.
In 1908,
The Washington Post did a story noting all the people
that owned this diamond and suffered misfortune.
Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette faced the guillotine.
The Hope family went bankrupt.
All sorts of peoples whose throat were slit,
and people who went off cliffs,
and everybody who was associated with it died.
And so that became kind of a theme story about it
and‐and really led to the diamond's notoriety.
SHATNER: Could it be that one
of the most recognizable gemstones in existence,
admired by thousands of people on a daily basis from afar,
is also cursed?
But if so, how?
Putting together the story of the Hope Diamond
is like a detective story.
It really is a puzzle.
It started out in India.
The diamond, a big blue diamond, is basically acquired
by this guy Jean‐Baptiste Tavernier.
He is a, uh, Belgian‐French diamond trader.
He's fascinated by diamonds.
And he's really the first one that goes to India
to find out where diamonds really come from.
The rumor about the Hope Diamond is that it was actually stolen
from the statue of a Hindu god.
KURIN: Tavernier does report on a story from India.
Somebody climbed up on the statue,
stole that large diamond,
secreted it, and then tried to get it out.
The next morning, they opened the temple,
and they found him dead, holding the diamond.
And so, from that day forward, apparently, the legend goes
that the god cursed anyone who would bear this stone.
It seems to be that we have many cases where people
have had heart attacks after putting on the stone.
Uh, you know, people have committed suicide.
There's been tragedy that has surrounded this stone
from day one.
SHATNER: Is it possible that the fantastic stories
about a Hope Diamond curse
are based on nothing more than morbid fantasies?
According to Evalyn Walsh McLean,
a wealthy mining heiress who died in 1947,
the curse is, in fact, very real.
And she would have known,
because she owned the Hope Diamond for 36 years.
Evalyn Walsh McLean was my great‐grandmother,
and she was the last and longest owner
of the infamous Hope Diamond.
KURIN: Evalyn Walsh McLean
was definitely iconoclastic and rebellious.
And I think when she bought the diamond
from the jeweler Pierre Cartier, she liked the idea of the curse
because‐‐ she actually wrote about it‐‐
she said, "I'm not a queen. I wasn't born rich.
"So maybe I'm not subject to the same kind of forces
"that these other people have been
that came from a different station in life."
But the Hope Diamond had tragic consequences for her family.
GREGORY: Her mother‐in‐law did not want her to buy the diamond,
because it had a curse that she had heard about.
So, Evalyn went down to a local church,
met with a priest to get the diamond blessed.
The priest placed it on a velvet pouch.
That night, there was no storm in the air,
but lightning and thunder came in.
Lightning hit a tree across the street.
So, Evalyn got a little scared of it.
Evalyn's mother‐in‐law and her friend
passed away within a year.
And next, Evalyn's youngest son Vinson,
was hit by an automobile.
On top of that, my grandmother Evie McLean,
she commits suicide.
And then Evalyn's husband Ned McLean
commits suicide in a, in a mental hospital.
So, then she started thinking that, yes, it could be cursed,
but she still wanted to keep the diamond.
It was just a piece of her life.
It was a soul to her.
SHATNER: But was the Hope Diamond really cursed?
As far as Evalyn Walsh McLean was concerned,
the priceless stone's beauty was so great
that she was willing to ignore the risk.
But there are others,
including some in the scientific community,
who believe that the Hope Diamond curse is not only real
but that, under certain conditions,
its evil properties can actually be seen with the naked eye.
So, with the Hope Diamond, uh, it does have
this amazing property, and that is, if you, um,
expose it to, uh, ultraviolet light
and then turn off the lights in the room,
the diamond will glow a deep, dark red.
Intense. And that may last for several minutes.
We've done a number of experiments
with other blue diamonds, and many blue diamonds
will glow blue, blue‐green,
but nothing glows as intensely and as sharply
and for the length of time as the Hope Diamond.
Physicists that have explained this have talked about, "Well,
"the exposure to ultraviolet energy
excites the electrons in the gem."
Other people think there's something else afoot.
(laughs)
They think about other forces
that are locked inside the diamond
that have this mysterious power that can affect them.
It's very much of a majestic diamond.
And what we do know
is that it attracts people who want to touch it.
It makes people want to "ah" and "ooh" over it.
It's beautiful.
It's a color of its own, it's a piece of its own,
and my true feeling is, everyone has tragic events in their life.
So, with my great‐grandmother having tragic events,
I feel like, with or without the diamond,
they were gonna occur anyway.
What's harder to believe?
That the Hope Diamond is actually cursed?
Or that virtually everyone who came into contact with it
over the years suffered a horrific tragedy
by coincidence?
Perhaps the answer can be found by examining
another supposedly cursed object,
one that was once found in thousands of homes
all over the world.
The Sun DAVE SPINKS: There were so many fires that these paintingsThe Bd
publishes an article by journalist John Murphy
about the aftermath of a local house fire.
But according to John Murphy,
this is not your typical human interest story.
Because, although the blaze burned the home
and nearly everything in it to the ground,
one object did manage to survive: a copy of a painting
depicting the Crying Boy.
I was told to go out and have a look at the fire,
speak to the homeowners, and see what had happened.
I got there and it was a conventional chip pan fire,
and no one, fortunately, was hurt,
but the house had been completely gutted.
But the extraordinary thing
was that the print had actually survived the blaze.
SHATNER: Initially, John thought that the painting's survival
was a mildly interesting tidbit
but not especially newsworthy on its own.
That is, until a firefighter on the scene informed him
that this wasn't the only time that a copy
of a similar painting had survived such a massive fire.
MURPHY: When I was speaking to the fire officer
outside the home on that Monday morning,
he told me about his brother‐in‐law
whose house had also been destroyed by fire and who also
had a print of the Crying Boy in the house which survived.
We had an interesting conversation,
and he said, "This is really, really strange.
"I have been on so many house fires recently
where there has been this print in the house."
CLARKE: The houses where there'd been these fires
were completely gutted, so hot, in fact,
that, say, on the ground floor of one particular house,
the plaster was stripped from the walls.
And yet the‐‐ this particular print was hanging on the wall,
absolutely unscathed.
I contacted my news desk, phoned through the story.
So hence the story of the curse of the Crying Boy print
was born.
SHATNER: Dozens of homes ravaged by fire,
and in every single case,
a Crying Boy print had survived unscathed?
But how could such a thing be possible?
MURPHY: And the story went viral after The Sun got hold of the story,
and next thing, they ran telephone, uh, campaigns asking
if their readers had got a print of the Crying Boy,
and if so, had they experienced any disasters like house fires?
CLARKE: So, that's where the rumor became a legend.
But at that stage, there was no story to explain
who the child was and why was he crying?
SHATNER: The Crying Boy portraits are among a series
of mass‐produced artworks that belong to a genre
known as big‐eyed art,
sold in British department stores in the 1960s and '70s.
But in this case, who was the artist?
And why was he or she so obsessed
with painting the Crying Boy?
CLARKE: In the 1950s, there was a Californian artist,
Margaret Keane, who painted a whole range of, um, children,
and this became big‐eyed art,
and it was something that was very popular
in the '50s and '60s.
Lots of European painters copied Margaret Keane's art style.
Probably the best known was a series of 27 paintings
by an Italian artist called Bruno Amadio,
who was born in 1911, died in the early 1980s.
And he was, um, classically trained,
but he didn't make much in the way of money.
So, in order to make money,
he painted, in the style of Margaret Keane,
lots of pictures of small children,
uh, sort of street urchins,
crying girls, crying boys,
and these sold to tourists
in post‐war Italy.
He didn't want to be associated with these paintings
because he just didn't think
they were very good quality paintings,
so he came up with a, with a name, his nom de guerre,
as Giovanni Bragolin,
which was actually, apparently, his uncle's name.
No one knew who this Bragolin was.
He didn't have, um, a biography
in the way that many other well‐known artists did.
So, it's a... There's that element of mystery.
And one of the, um, stories
about the Crying Boy Curse is
that the child in the painting is trapped inside the painting,
and that the only way that the child
or the spirit of that child can free itself is
by setting fire to its surroundings,
and that's the way it escapes from the painting.
SHATNER: Cursed paintings,
and mass‐produced ones at that.
Why would anyone believe such an outlandish notion?
In Gothic literature, there are examples
from the early 19th century of paintings that come to life.
There is Oscar Wilde's famous story
The Picture of Dorian Gray,
which is a painting that was kept in the attic
that does the aging for the character in the story.
M.R. James, the famous writer of ghost stories‐‐
he had a story called "The Mezzotint,"
which is about an eerie painting
that changes every time you look at it.
It's amazing to think, uh,
when I think back to that day in Rotherham,
that a story from a small town
in the north of England has evolved to such a degree
with so many column inches dedicated to it,
and it's become a global story,
with instances of fires happening across the world.
Instances of fires
where these prints have been in existence.
SHATNER: Recently,
forensic investigators studying the so‐called
"Curse of The Crying Boy," have raised a new possibility
as to how the painting has come to survive so many housefires.
And it has nothing to do
with a supposed curse.
There was some investigation done on these paintings,
and they were actually
coated with fire retardant material.
And that could just be the reason that they didn't burn
and the other aspects of the locations did burn.
You plant an idea, whether it's in a newspaper, in a book,
or via Twitter or Facebook,
suggesting that there's something eerie
or there's some‐‐ there's bad luck
that's circulating around a particular object or painting,
and you're almost guaranteed to get people saying,
"Yes, I've had bad luck."
And that's exactly what happened in the 1980s
with the Curse of the Crying Boy.
SHATNER: But even if we accept the wild notion
that the Crying Boy paintings are fireproof,
that would only mean that it can survive a fire, not cause one.
In any case, perhaps in future,
when buying art for your home,
it would be best to choose something a bit less emotional.
Unlike another deadly curse
that, taste aside,
is truly unavoidable.
SANFORD HOLST: Friday the 13th‐‐ the fear, the dread.
all around the world, it happens.
From the moment the new day dawns...
...to the 12th chime of midnight...
(clock chimes)
...it is utterly unavoidable.
No continent is safe.
No country is spared.
No city is immune.
No matter where you are or what you're doing,
there's no escaping
Friday the 13th.
HOLST: It's actually very interesting,
the whole idea about Friday the 13th,
the mysteriousness, the‐the fear, the dread.
There's a natural human desire to understand things,
to know why something happened.
And sometimes, if the unexplainable happened
but there was a curse involved, you say,
"Aha, I have the reason."
We never know when they're gonna turn out to be real,
but we have to give all of them a fair shot and say, "Maybe."
SHATNER: Believe it or not,
there is some statistical evidence which suggests
that more bad things happen
on Friday the 13th than any other day of the year.
But is it really cursed?
And if so, how?
13 is an unstable number.
In numerology, 12 is a perfect circle.
We think of the heavens as
divided into the 12 houses of the zodiac.
The 12 months of the year, the 12 apostles.
12 is a very rounded and total number.
13 is an odd number, an unbalanced number.
WHITEHEAD: There was a lot of superstition that surrounded it
to the point where many buildings were built
without a 13th floor
simply because they were worried that there was somehow
gonna be a cursed floor if they installed it into a building.
SHATNER: Although it would seem
that the public's awareness of Friday the 13th
really came of age in modern times,
‐as it turns out... ‐(clock bell tolls)
the origin of this curse
actually dates back to the 14th century.
It goes back, in my opinion,
to what happened to the Knights Templar.
(horse neighing)
So, the Knights Templar were founded in the 12th century,
and they were the world's first combination of warrior and monk.
They were the guardians of a lot of the treasures
of various kings and popes and monarchs,
and because of their amazing reputation,
they became known as the world's first international bankers.
Friday the 13th was such a pivotal day
in the life of the Knights Templar
that it ended one chapter and began another.
It literally was the day of the destruction of the order.
And the Friday the 13th that was so critical
to the Knights Templar happened on the 13th of October in 1307.
The king of France needed money,
but he owed money to everybody, including the Templars,
and he decided the Knights Templar had money,
he wanted it, so he attacked them.
(bell clangs)
(distant shouting)
Everyone was arrested, people were thrown in jail.
They were tortured, they were being killed.
Then there were long trials.
These trials were conducted by the Catholic Church,
and it basically ended
with the death of Jacques de Molay,
the grand master.
WHITEHEAD: Jacques de Molay was a powerful, enigmatic figure,
and so it was important for the Church and the Crown
to execute him publicly to show as an example.
And when they were burning Jacques de Molay,
the fire was being lit,
he cursed Pope Clement
and also King Philip and said,
"Within this year,
you will die."
And, lo and behold, they did.
(church bell rings)
HOLST: What happened was, within 33 days,
the pope died of a terrible illness.
And all of a sudden, it just seized him and killed him,
just like that, suddenly.
Seven months later,
the king of France was on a hunting expedition,
had a massive stroke,
‐fell down dead on the ground, right there. ‐(horse neighs)
SHATNER: In the years since the Templars'
eventual exile from Europe,
there were many who began to believe
that Jacques de Molay's death curse applied
not only to his enemies
but also to the very day
that spelled the beginning of the end
for the Knights Templar, the day they were arrested‐‐
Friday the 13th.
But is it really possible
that a centuries‐old curse still has the power
to cause bad luck after 700 years?
There is this legend around Jacques de Molay
that he possessed some kind of extraordinary power.
When it comes to the Knights Templar,
one of the things that stand out is, of course,
they were the guardians of the Temple of Jerusalem.
And some people believe that they may have found
some ancient artifacts there,
possibly the Ark of the Covenant,
or came across some ancient knowledge
that was sort of confiscated
and held sacred from the general public.
And so, some people look at Jacques de Molay
as some kind of a sorcerer in a way, where he had this ability
to put a curse that actually really did come into fruition.
HOLST: When something happens
such as De Molay's curse, the Templar curse,
it's entirely possible that this actually has reality behind it.
It's entirely possible
that just simply saying the words
and putting it in everyone's mind was like a common prayer
between so many people.
And the power of so many people desiring it and wanting it
might have influenced events as they happened.
Did Jacques de Molay channel some type of dark force
when he cursed Friday the 13th?
Perhaps.
But what if that theory is missing the target?
Because there are those who believe
that it isn't the day that's cursed,
but the number 13 itself.
And if that's the case,
could there be other numbers
that hold dark and deadly powers?
Numbers that should be avoided
at all costs?
Jimi Hendrix dies of a drug overdose.
Kurt Cobain, lead singer and songwriter
of the trailblazing grunge rock band Nirvana,
dies of a self‐inflicted gunshot wound.
Internationally famed vocalist Amy Winehouse
is found dead of alcohol poisoning.
Aside from their remarkable musical talents
and the fact that they all tragically passed away
well before their time,
they all have something else in common:
at the time of their deaths, each of them was 27 years old.
There is sort of a weirdly persistent pop culture
legend that talks about
the strange number of pop cultural figures,
especially musicians, who have died at the age of 27.
I think it's attracted a lot of interest because
it's obviously a young age.
Also, a lot of the people involved‐‐ the circumstances
of their death have been sort of mysterious or unclear.
So I think that really grabbed people's attention
and imagination.
The 27 Club has definitely given a lot of these rock stars‐‐
up and coming‐‐ the fear.
Their families, their parents have all been scared,
warning their, their siblings and their children,
"We know that this‐‐
"you're‐you're getting success now,
"but be careful because
no one wants to be part of the 27 Club."
SHATNER: The 27 Club?
While it may sound like something the tabloids invented
to sell newspapers,
there is evidence to suggest that such a club
not only exists but has far more members
than you might think.
WOOD: You have Brian Jones from the Rolling Stones,
Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison from the Doors.
Clearly, this is a club that not everybody
wants to be a member of.
ERIC SEGALSTAD: There was a study
that just came out from Liverpool,
where the researchers looked at the average age of death
for people who had played on charting records
over the last, whatever, 30 or 40 years,
uh, and compared that to the general population
in the same countries, in the UK and the U. S.
So I reached out and asked,
do you see a statistical spike at the age of 27?
And they did, and they couldn't explain it.
There must be something greater at play,
and, uh, it keeps happening.
SHATNER: While it would certainly appear
that celebrities are more prone to accidental deaths
at the age of 27 than the normal population,
according to some experts,
it's not fame that's behind the curse of the 27 Club,
but the number 27 itself.
In horoscopic astrology, Saturn return is this phenomenon
where the planet Saturn returns to the exact same spot
in the sky as the day you were born.
That takes about 29 and a half years.
Astrologers say that you enter this phase of Saturn return
starting in your 27th year,
and astrologers say that this particular time
is really a time when you, as a person,
are on the threshold between the face of youth
entering to the face of maturity.
I think that for a lot of the 27s,
they might have faced their own troubles
around this time trying to enter adulthood
after having a successful
or an artistically very intense period of youth.
SHATNER: Is it possible the number 27
actually carries a mathematical,
or even celestial, jinx?
It's possible.
But if so, why does it only seem to affect famous people?
Many believe the answer
as to why the curse of the 27 Club
is limited to celebrities is the same reason
some people are seduced by fame in the first place.
Rock and roll has always romanticized extreme behavior.
If you're growing up as a young artist,
the concept of it retains a kind of dark glamour.
Therefore, people orient their lives
around that kind of stuff.
It becomes sort of a part of what rock and roll's all about.
You think that that is what it is to be a musician.
YOUNG: Whether this is conscious or unconscious,
what you have, if you die at 27,
is eternal youth.
You never have to be an older person.
You never have to get the wrinkles.
You never have to go into the full disillusionment.
So those who left young get to stay young.
WHITEHEAD: It's become a myth in our culture now.
And so, could it be a self‐perpetuating prophecy
where, because people start to believe it,
they actually manifest it into reality?
SHATNER: Is the story of the 27 Club a cautionary tale?
One that tells us that we need to accept the fact that curses,
like fate, are simply
inescapable?
And if we can't avoid deadly curses,
perhaps we should ask whether there's anything we can do
to protect ourselves once they come for us.
Contractors begin uncovering a series of strange artifacts
while renovating a string of 18th century houses
in the area:
mummified animals,
dismembered dolls, broken knife blades,
strange bottles filled with human hair,
bent nails,
and silver pins.
And all concealed within hidden nooks and voids
throughout the old homes.
The artifacts are so unnerving that many began to wonder
who had placed them throughout the homes.
And perhaps more importantly, why?
After looking at a, a number of
instances of, of these either intentional deposits
or objects that were located in strange places‐‐
uh, shoes, um, animal parts,
bottles with, um, unusual contents in them‐‐
certain patterns that seemed to be prevalent
throughout the area, uh, became apparent.
We see them in England and in the Netherlands
and in Germany, where a lot of the people
who settled in New York State originally came from.
And so it's clear that people brought their folk beliefs
and folk religion with them
when they moved across the Atlantic Ocean.
Evidently, in all these cases,
there was a very strong belief in, uh, the agency of evil
to affect people's everyday lives.
Particularly in a number of stories that related
to fears of illness
or of the potential for curses
to access houses through openings,
particularly, uh, through fireplaces,
uh, doors, windows, that kind of thing.
The more you look, the more you find of these objects,
and it becomes increasingly clear
that the numbers of objects that we have found,
which go into the thousands,
is really just the tip of the iceberg.
SHATNER: But were these strange objects carefully collected and hidden
in order to invoke a deadly curse
or as a means of preventing one?
I think what people were really focused on
was finding ways of turning that harmful magic around
and either repelling it or trapping it or thwarting it
in some way from getting into their houses.
So, the local sort of white witch or wizard
could be paid to produce a charm for you,
and the charm would eventually be concealed on your property
as a trap, essentially, to impale any negative energies
coming into the house looking to attack you
and stop it from going further into the house,
where it might do you harm.
SHATNER: While such arcane practices may seem like the stuff
of fairy tales and fantasy,
is it possible that mystical talismen
and other charms can actually protect people
from the deadly effects of curses?
YOUNG: Things that are mysterious,
if we put it in the right narrative,
then we have a semblance of control or understanding,
even though we made up the story.
The explanations may not be very sound,
but they still give us some comfort.
WHITEHEAD: Maybe these curses
are created by us, by our imagination,
by us trying to deal with the mystery of nature...
(thunder crashing)
...and then it actually comes to life,
because we bring the curse to life,
by attaching our mind to it collectively.
Relics that can guard us against evil?
Perhaps you believe such ideas are as nonsensical
as the notion of curses themselves.
Well, then, maybe you'd be comfortable taking a dip
in Round Valley Reservoir, huh?
Or hanging a picture of the Crying Boy
over your fireplace.
Or perhaps you're eager to tempt fate
by placing the Hope Diamond around your neck
in celebration of your 27th birthday.
Well, until then, I think the rest of us
will choose to play it safe
and let those things remain,
at least for now, unexplained.
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