Original title
Fact or Faked: Paranormal Files
Released
7/15/2010
Origin country
US
Genre
Documentary, Mystery, Reality
Production companies
BASE Productions, Base Productions
Status
Ended
Number of seasons
3
Number of episodes
48
Fact or Faked: Paranormal Files is a paranormal investigation series produced by Base Productions that began airing July 15, 2010, on SyFy. The show follows a team of investigators, led by former FBI agent Ben Hansen, who review various photographs and viral videos of alleged paranormal activity. If a particular piece of evidence is deemed intriguing enough to warrant further investigation, they set out to recreate and explain the sighting. Beginning episode #207 in first-half of season two, the show began to feature a "You Decide" segment in the middle of the program where a video is shown of something strange and then asks the viewing audience if they think the footage is fact or faked. After a commercial break the truth behind the video is revealed.
The team investigates stories of a ghost car which was seen by a policeman driving through a chainlink fence, and apparent UFOs that were filmed flying through the Arizona desert skies.
The team splits up to investigate yet another group of Arizona UFO sightings (this time, near Lake Havasu); in addition to a pair of Tall Skinny Things caught on night-vision video by a Fresno, California, homeowner.
Ben, Jael and Austin investigate Pennsylvania's version of the Loch Ness Monster, while Bill, Chi-Lan and Larry travel to California, where a man claims that a ghost communicates with him through messages which mysteriously appear on Polaroid photographs taken within his home.
A predator is caught on video in Dartmoor, U.K.; sightings of a large triangular aircraft over El Cajon, Cal., pique the interest of the UFO community.
Bill, Austin and Jael travel to Michigan to look into the mysterious "Paulding Lights", while Ben, Larry and Chi-Lan head to San Antonio, Texas, where ghostly children are said to push cars over the railroad tracks where they themselves met their fatal end.
The team splits up, with Ben, Jael and Austin investigating an alleged ghost of a Civil War deserter videoed in an Indiana cemetery, while Bill, Chi-Lan and Larry head to Colorado where livestock are being mutilated by an unknown predator, while strange lights appear in the night sky.
Ben, Chi-Lan and Austin travel to Alton, Illinois to investigate the McPike Mansion, a well known haunted house where some local ghost hunters caught what appears to be an apparition on their cameras. Meanwhile, Jael, Bill and Larry go to Fremont, California to attempt to debunk an alleged UFO.
Bill, Chi-Lan and Larry head to the Valentown Museum to investigate an alleged haunting, while Ben, Jael and Austin travel to McKinney, Texas to investigate a what appears to be a humanoid figure flying through the air.
The one half of the team travels to Washington to track down Bigfoot and while the other half dissects what appears to be a classic alien encounter.
Ben, Jael and Austin undertake an underwater investigation of alleged mermaids at the Great Barrier Reef, while Bill, Chi-Lan and Larry go hunting for a family ghost who seems to appear as a mist in the family photos.
The Fact or Faked crew have two out of this world assignments this week. One team attempts to determine from video evidence whether or not the Apollo moon landings were really a spectacular hoax, as some would say. The other team investigates an alleged UFO caught on camera in Gulf Breeze, Florida.
A swamp monster is investigated by one team in a Louisiana Bayou. Meanwhile, the other team heads to Oregon's Willamette River to look into a strange light that has been witnessed by many.
After reviewing the week's finds, Devin goes with Ben and Jael to attempt to unearth the truth behind a famous photo taken by an LA Times photographer in 1942, just after the Pearl Harbor attack and five years before the Roswell incident, of an object flying through the night sky. Chi-Lan, Bill and Austin, meanwhile, investigate the Queen Mary Ghost in Long Beach, where the famous ship has been moored since the '60s.
One of the hottest cases this week comes from Jacksonville, Florida, from the historic Florida Theatre. Bill, Austin and Chi-Lan head to this reported hotbed of paranormal activity to get to the bottom of an amazing video: A local expert, Steve Christian, was conducting a paranormal investigation in the theater when he caught, on camera, a figure seated in the balcony - waving. Ben, Devin and Jael, meanwhile, have also been down south, searching for the truth behind a reported UFO sighting. What's special about this one is that there's video of a flare descending toward Earth, splitting into three lights, and then hovering for a period.
Ben, Jael and Austin head to Long Beach, CA, where the video of an unidentified object flying over the harbor, seeming to drop glowing seeds into the water, was recorded. Chi-Lan, Bill and Devin, meanwhile, have been digging into a decades-old mystery of a Winnipeg man who claimed to have captured ectoplasm - a ghostly substance said to be produced by a medium during a séance - on camera at the turn of the last century.
To get the truth, sometimes you have to travel halfway around the world. That's why this week, Jael, Austin and Bill fly to the small town of Firmat, Argentina to uncover the explanation of a swing that, for four years, has appeared to be moving on its own. Ben, Chi-Lan and Devin, meanwhile, have been speaking with a Florida man, David Eckhart, and his wife, Jean, about their frequent experiences with unknowable forces. The couple say they've been visited by aliens for years, citing loss of time and mass migrations of worms in their driveway. They have two videos to back up their claims, and Ben and his team intend to discover their authenticity.
Ben, Chi-Lan and Devin head to Texas on a hunt for the blood-sucking cryptid known as the chupacabra. The local sherrif saw a strange, unidentifiable animal running down a country road, and murmurs of the chupacabra swelled up around the video she shot from her vehicle. Jael, Austin and Bill, meanwhile, are looking into what seems to be an alien walking plainly through a shot from a local news segment in Patagonia, Argentina, where UFO and alien sightings are frequent.
One team travels to San Diego to investigate claims of paranormal activity in the Whaley House, which some say is the most haunted home in the US. Meanwhile, the other team looks into footage captured by a local family of an unknown creature which is said to inhabit Florida's Loxahatchee River.
A purported UFO crash is investigated in New Mexico; a graveyard ghost sighting in Nevada is probed.
The allegedly haunted Myrtles Plantation in Louisiana is visited; UFO footage linked to Area 51 is scrutinized.
A flying saucer case from Santa Ana, Cal., is investigated; claims attributed to "flying rods" in Joplin, Mo., are probed.
Visiting Waverly Hills Sanatorium in Louisville to investigate a video of a purported ghost sighting; UFO sightings over Mexico are probed.
Footage from the Bird Cage Theater in Tombstone, Ariz., is scrutinized; a UFO sighting over a Los Angeles freeway is probed.
Purported poltergeist activity in a Texas bar is probed; footage of a flying witch is scrutinized in Mexico.
Among the cases brought in by the team this week are two Fact or Faked firsts: A video of a paranormal force causing a woman to levitate from her bed, and a case of a human performing paranormal feats.
A mystery over California's Bodega Bay is probed. Also: a purported ghost encounter captured on a thermal camera at New Jersey's Paramount Theatre is scrutinized.
The team visits England to examine footage of an alleged alien abduction and a flaming, serpentine object in the sky.
Photographic evidence of paranormal activity at the Pride House in Jefferson, Texas, is scrutinized. Also: Tests are conducted in Kentucky concerning the state's purported Bigfoot sightings.
Evidence of a ghost lurking on the USS North Carolina is examined, also A purported UFO sighting in Michigan is investigated.
Evidence to support sightings of a reptilian creature in South Carolina is sought. Also: Footage of alleged paranormal activity captured at a gas station in Ohio is scrutinized.
Josh Gates helps the team examine evidence of a gargoyle sighting in the U.K. Also: Claims concerning a spectral cat are investigated in Kentucky.
A purported UFO sighting in Florida is investigated. Also: Evidence of a haunting in Colorado is scrutinized.
Evidence of purported paranormal activity documented at a Mississippi graveyard and an abandoned Missouri truck stop is scrutinized.
The Oregon Vortex is probed. Also: An English pub is visited after a security camera captures the image of what may be a ghost.
Probes in England and Kentucky unfold. (First episode of a two episode season finale, with a special 8 pm start time.)
Josh Gates joins the team in Iceland to examine footage of what may be an aquatic creature. Also: Pro wrestler Kofi Kingston helps with a Stonehenge investigation in the Season 2 finale.
Among the cases brought in by the team this week are two Fact or Faked firsts: A video of a paranormal force causing a woman to levitate from her bed, and a case of a human performing paranormal feats. To investigate the levitating woman, Bill, Devin, and Lanisha head to Atlanta, GA to the home of JoMarie, with whom the woman in the video, Diane, was staying at the time. The bedroom has since been converted to an office, but JoMarie arranges the space so that Bill, Devin, and Lanisha can build a model bed and run some experiments with the original camera used. The first experiment is a simple lever that will lift Lanisha up from underneath, making it look like a force is suspending her by her torso. The movement is wrong, however, and Lanisha has to strain and use her muscles in order to make it look smooth. Next, they try a cantilever arm, which is the mechanism magicians use to make it look like people are levitating. The movement still looks choppy, and the direction of the force is wrong. The only choice is to build a multiple anchor point pulley system. After hours of work, Lanisha lies down in the rig as Devin and Bill work the pulleys and lift her off the bed. It's an excellent match – the movement, the positioning - the only problem is the visibility of the wires, but with a little video manipulation, they're able to make the wires disappear. Additionally, voice analysis of Diane reveals high stress levels, indicating a hoax. The next case regards superhuman abilities. Wim Hof, a Dutch man known as The Ice Man, has been setting records for years for his ability to endure extreme cold, including submerging himself in a tub of ice on a crowded New York City street, and running a half marathon near the arctic circle. Ben, Jael, and Austin all find it difficult to believe, so they set up a tank filled halfway with a material called polysorb II, a powder which, when mixed with water, looks like ice but is nowhere near as cold. But when they fill the rest of the tank with ice, it's clear that any passerby would have noted the difference. Next, Ben and Austin run, shirtless and barefoot, around an ice rink in an attempt to recreate Wim's arctic run. But, they only last a few minutes before frostbite and mild hypothermia set in. The Ice Man has bested them on two tests so far - it's time to meet him in person. Wim tells them that, over years of training, he's been able to condition the muscles that control his blood vessels to relax in extreme situations, making him impervious to cold. He and Austin go head-to-head in their own tanks of ice, with a medic close by to monitor their temperature and heart rates. After about five minutes, Austin's vital signs start to fluctuate, while Wim's hold steady. Austin manages to stick it out to the twenty-minute mark, but they leave the experiment with the clear understanding that The Ice Man is not a hoax, but a paranormal human being.
A mystery over California's Bodega Bay is probed. Also: a purported ghost encounter captured on a thermal camera at New Jersey's Paramount Theatre is scrutinized.
The team visits England to examine footage of an alleged alien abduction and a flaming, serpentine object in the sky.
Photographic evidence of paranormal activity at the Pride House in Jefferson, Texas, is scrutinized. Also: Tests are conducted in Kentucky concerning the state's purported Bigfoot sightings.
Evidence of a ghost lurking on the USS North Carolina is examined, also A purported UFO sighting in Michigan is investigated.
Evidence to support sightings of a reptilian creature in South Carolina is sought. Also: Footage of alleged paranormal activity captured at a gas station in Ohio is scrutinized.
Josh Gates helps the team examine evidence of a gargoyle sighting in the U.K. Also: Claims concerning a spectral cat are investigated in Kentucky.
A purported UFO sighting in Florida is investigated. Also: Evidence of a haunting in Colorado is scrutinized.
Evidence of purported paranormal activity documented at a Mississippi graveyard and an abandoned Missouri truck stop is scrutinized.
The Oregon Vortex is probed. Also: An English pub is visited after a security camera captures the image of what may be a ghost.
Probes in England and Kentucky unfold. (First episode of a two episode season finale, with a special 8 pm start time.)
Josh Gates joins the team in Iceland to examine footage of what may be an aquatic creature. Also: Pro wrestler Kofi Kingston helps with a Stonehenge investigation in the Season 2 finale.
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