Fact or Faked: Paranormal Files Episode 2.14 Bay Area Hysteria/jersey Shore Haunting

In Bodega Bay, California, a man named Joel Varain captured a mysterious light hovering above the water, brighter than any light he had ever seen at night. Ben, Jael and Austin head there to interview the man, and learn that the night was silent, and the light seemed to be coming from the middle of the bay.

Austin sees an immediate solution in a searchlight coming from a helicopter, so as soon as night falls, Ben and Jael man the vantage point while Austin heads to the skies. The result is impressive, but not only is the light far too high above the water, but the sound of the helicopter is deafening.

They find a jetty on which they can rig a powerful lamp - the kind that movies use to simulate daylight - and send it into the air in a large balloon. They're able to match the height and luminosity, but the jetty and the lights from the town are clearly visible. It seems they'll have to head to the water, so Jael makes use of the town's prolific resource - fishing boats - and the investigators head out into the inky water with a specialized, high-powered boat light for one more try.

The results are remarkable. By running this final experiment, they realize that what Varain saw was simply a light on a commercial fishing boat, but the addition of the fog made the sight so eerie and mysterious that the shape seemed extraterrestrial.

Bill, Lanisha, and Devin meanwhile, speak to two ghost hunters in Asbury Park, New Jersey, who, while exploring the historic Paramount Theater, believe they caught an image of a full-bodied apparition on their FLIR camera. The Fact or Faked team starts at the obvious question: could the FLIR have been picking up a cold draft that took on a humanoid shape?

To test this theory, they vent some CO2 into the hallway and achieve a similar shape as seen in the original, but it lacks some characteristics. Next, they hypothesize that a person draped in a cooling blanket could have sneaked into the investigation. But, when Devin dons such a blanket, his form still doesn't match that captured by the paranormal investigators.

Lanisha then relies on her technical knowledge to deduce that the FLIR camera in question is built to focus on a much shorter distance - six to twenty feet - than the hallway, which is 130 feet long. Because the camera doesn't have the strength to read information that far away, it gave erroneous feedback.

Even though they've cracked this particular mystery, it would be an oversight to leave the Paramount without doing a nighttime investigation, so they set up a laser field, some IR cameras, and go green. Not only does an unknown force disturb the laser field, but Bill gets a direct response to his question when he performs an EVP in a room where several dancers once died in a fire. The video was a misinterpretation, but the theater is definitely haunted.