The Skeptic Page #3
- Year:
- 2009
- 89 min
- 43 Views
It's your entire operation.
- Really?
- Representing to a dying old woman
that you have answers
to questions you don't have?
Giving supernatural significance
to noises in her house?
- No, not supernatural.
Natural.
- We told her we could give natural,
scientific explanations
to whatever she heard.
- Scientific, paranormal, ESP,
psychic...
- Yes, they're as scientific as gravity.
They're just not yet fully understood.
Go look up
the US military Star gate Project,
their Sony Zapper lab.
Don't get me wrong.
We're not looking for ghosts here.
What we do is science.
- I know a little bit
about accepted science, Doctor.
Who is officially behind
your mind reading lab here at DIT?
- Oh, I get it.
You're contesting the will.
That's what this is really about.
You didn't get the money.
- No, what this is about
is you taking advantage
of an old woman whose faculties
were failing.
- Faculties?
She was more lucid than you.
- Tell you what.
Wear a blue suit when you
sell that to the jury.
- You're a close-minded man, Mr. Becket.
- And why is that, Doctor?
Because I don't happen to think
your fringe lab is the real deal?
- No, because you don't think.
You know.
And that's where
you give yourself away.
[metallic clink]
[door creaking]
"Though I walk through the valley
of the shadow of death"...
[scoffs]
[door creaking]
Hey, hey!
Hey!
Hey!
[laughs]
- Why is he sent?
[indistinct whispering]
[clicking noises]
Do you believe it's him?
Please.
What does he want?
- What does he want here?
- That's...
[crashing]
[phone beeping]
- 911.
What's your emergency?
- There's someone in my house.
- What did you say, sir?
Someone in the house?
- Yes.
[phone beeps]
- [whispering]
In the trunk.
Look in the trunk.
Old trunk.
Old trunk.
- Hey!
Hey!
[horn honks]
- Get rid of the flake factor.
- Oh.
- May I talk to you for a minute?
- Give me the room, would you, guys?
- First of all, I'd like to apologize
for last night.
I came on too strong.
And for that I'm sorry.
- Hmm.
Did something happen?
- Let's just say
that I now understand how my aunt
could have become confused
and thought her place was haunted.
[laughs]
there myself last night.
I'm staying there
until the estate is settled.
- What did you hear?
- Whispering outside my door.
I do not believe in ghosts.
And I got the sense
that you don't either.
- I don't.
I don't believe
in anything supernatural.
- Then we're kindred spirits.
short of an answer.
- Mehh.
Sit.
The human voice
is not real complex.
It's a sound that nature
has very little difficulty mimicking.
Now, what I'm going to play for you is real.
It was recorded in a farmhouse
in the Berkshires, 1976.
It was heard by multiple witnesses,
caught on tape,
sworn to in an affidavit.
Okay?
It's the real McCoy.
Please.
[indistinct screeching]
Isn't that amazing?
This is an authentic aural event.
And it's probably what we call
a chi cluster.
It's a build-up of chi field energy,
then released
into the sonic spectrum.
- But it's not words.
- What do you mean?
- How does it come out as words,
you know,
in an intelligent sentence structure?
- Well, it doesn't.
I mean, maybe it does
once in a million,
like those monkeys
typing sonnets, but...
- No, but it did for me.
It did not just say,
"Ooh, aah, aah. "
It said something like
"an old trunk. "
And it kept repeating it
over and over.
"An old trunk" or "in an old trunk"
as if to suggest that I...
- Bryan, is it?
- Yeah.
- How well can you hear
through a door?
- Pretty well, I guess.
Okay, now, what was the volume like?
- Like I'm talking now?
- You know,
I'm going to tell you what you did,
and I don't want you to get embarrassed,
because you're not the first.
But you heard whispering sounds.
And presuming that they must be human,
your brain strove
to put speech to them.
So "old trunk," or "in the old trunk"
was the best it could come up with.
It's called psychoacoustics.
Excuse me.
- Really.
I respect the concept.
I really do.
But I don't know.
- What I heard was so...
- What'd I say?
- What?
- Oh, did you catch that?
- Yeah.
You said, "What'd I say?"
- No, I didn't.
I said, "Rudd lie stay. "
[whispers]
Rudd lie stay.
You made it into
"what'd I say. "
- Huh.
Sh*t.
- Your aunt did the same thing.
She took a garden variety
acoustical sub-event
and made it into a haunting.
- [chuckles]
I'll be damned.
- You're surprised, huh?
hearing voices
as an everyday thing, didn't you?
- No, I thought it was an
everyday thing for you people.
Don't they have nuns
for that kind of work?
- [laughs]
Careful.
You'll get me in trouble.
- I'm late for our meeting, Father.
My apologies.
- You know, some people would say
being late for a meeting
with a priest
shows a subconscious hostility
towards the church.
- You think it's subconscious?
What'd you want to see me about?
- Your aunt's place.
and I saw some lights on,
and I was very curious about
who you were letting stay there.
- I'm staying' there.
- You are?
- Yeah.
Robin and I are taking
a little breather.
Why, is something' wrong?
- Oh, you're going to think
I'm silly for even saying this.
- Oh, I think half what you say
is silly anyway.
It's part of your charm.
So what is it?
- Be careful in that house.
- What does that mean?
- It means
there's something not quite
right there.
- Are you trying' to tell me you
think the house is haunted?
- You don't believe
in haunted houses, do you?
- No, I do not.
- Do you believe in evil?
- No, I do not.
- Your aunt believed
that the place was haunted.
- Would you like to know how I see
this whole haunted house business?
- Yes, I would.
- My aunt in her younger, stronger days
to superstition.
But at 81, in failing health,
living all alone in a great big house
with lots of memories,
some regrets, no doubt,
when she heard something,
whatever it was,
she was ripe to run with it.
Now, you mix that in
with hardening of the arteries,
you have yourself a ghost story.
- You're a good lawyer, Becket.
- I'm a doubting Thomas, Father.
No offense.
It's just in my nature.
- None taken.
- Still, it's always good to see you.
- And you, my friend.
Just remember one thing, Becket.
Thomas was wrong.
[wooden creaking]
- Ah!
- Jeez.
You are such a dick.
- You shouldn't leave
the front door unlocked.
- [sighs]
You scared the sh*t out of me.
- Ah.
Where were you this morning?
- Huh?
Oh, God!
Damn it.
God damn it!
I missed the conference
with Judge Alkali.
Oh, sh*t.
Aw, I'm sorry.
- Screw sorry.
What's going' on with you?
- Nothings going' on with me, Sully.
I missed a meeting.
I can't miss one meeting?
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