On this episode of Expedition X,
the team journeys deep into the Brazilian Amazon
to investigate a mysterious abandoned city.
The locals down river, they're afraid of it.
People here claim the land itself is haunted.
Everything that people told us about this place, is coming true.
And that the spirits of those who died here,
have driven out the living.
That sounds like somebody's getting murdered.
So loud. It must be so close.
This is a town that shouldn't be here.
Are we getting hunted?
(STRANGE SCREAM)
(GASPS)
Holy *bleep*
(BOTH GASPS)
My name is Josh Gates.
In my travels,
I've experienced strange things that defy logic
and made me question everything.
Oh, my God.
Now, I've put together a team
to investigate the stranger side of the unknown.
Let's go.
Is a scientist, who hunts for rational explanations.
Paranormal research has made her a true believer.
There is a monster living in this forest.
-Phil, Phil, Phil. -I just saw something run across.
Together...
What is that?
To the world's most extraordinary mysteries.
This is...
Today's case involves one of the strangest stories
I've ever heard.
This is a story that begins centuries ago,
a thousand miles up the Rio Negro,
deep in the heart of the Brazilian Amazon.
-This is your territory. -Oh, yes.
This involves an area that locals say is cursed.
It's a land, they say, is so cursed,
that it actually infects its inhabitants.
People turn violent there, they say.
Animals are more dangerous and more aggressive than usual.
It's a place that has literally been settled
and abandoned, over and over again,
with people continuously being driven away.
I mean, there's tons about the rainforest
that we still don't understand.
Who's to say what's living out there?
Yeah, the Brazilian navy even sailed, at one point,
a thousand miles up this river, just to bomb this place.
I wanna show you a video.
The story begins millennia ago, deep in the Amazon.
Indigenous tribes along the Rio Negro,
passed down legends of powerful spirits that control the land.
When the Portuguese arrive in the 16th Century,
they dispatch slaving expeditions to the region,
violently murdering many of the inhabitants.
Despite rumours that the site has become cursed,
the Portuguese build a missionary outpost here in 1694,
forcibly converting the natives to Christianity.
Incidents of murder, torture, and deadly disease are common.
But by the late 1800s, the settlement,
now known as Airao Velho, finds a new lease on life.
A rubber boom draws hundreds of people,
and the outpost is transformed into a wealthy town.
But the rubber plantations demand for labour, results in genocide.
Ninety percent of the regions indigenous people are wiped out.
After the rubber industry collapses in the early 20th century,
the city is eventually abandoned.
At least by the living.
Today, travellers passing on the river,
claim to see ghostly apparitions
and hear human screams from those who suffered here.
Many believe malevolent forces, even afflict the local wildlife,
causing animals to be unnaturally aggressive.
In the 1980s, the Brazilian navy sends warships
to use the jungle settlement to target practice,
and to erase all memory of this eerie frontier.
But the ruins remain
and according to legend, so does something else.
-Jess, what do you think? -Yeah, well, I mean,
-it sounds like it's a cursed place. -Yeah.
I mean, I definitely think that people can be affected
by their surroundings, both positive and negative.
So when you come to a place like this,
that has so much negative history, so much death, it kind of like,
seeps into the air and the ground and the area
and affects those that are there.
So I think that these stories could be real
And what about you, Phil? You've lived and worked,
in the Amazon. This is your stomping ground.
-Have you heard of this place? -I've not heard of this place.
But listen, it is a forest full of the most bizarre creatures.
There's carnivorous plants. There's ever changing geology.
So when I hear a story like this,
I just think it has to do with the fact that
the Amazon rainforest is really dangerous.
And this is their way of interpreting it.
For example, I went to one area that
the locals said was inhabited by a devil.
And what did I find there?
Quick sand that was pulling people down.
-Right. -So, I think we're gonna be able
to find a logical explanation for it.
So, then what makes this place so particularly dangerous?
It's a good point. All of the Amazon is dangerous.
And yet, all of these stories and legends
are focused on this very specific place.
What is it, that makes this spot unique?
I don't know. And that's what we gotta find out.
That's right. That's the mission.
Step one, you've gotta get there.
Right? Airao Velho is not an easy place to reach.
Once your there, investigate.
Experience the sights and sounds
and see if you can collect evidence of what these people say,
-is a cursed place. -Yeah. I'm in.
-Let's do it. -To the Amazon.
After traveling over 4500 miles,
the team touches down in Manaus, Brazil.
Despite being located deep in the rainforest,
Manaus is actually the largest city in the Amazon.
It's here for one reason.
Nearly a 150 year's ago,
the trees in this region produced 90 percent of the rubber on earth.
Wealthy and cruel, barons controlled the trade,
hiring European architects to construct lavish buildings,
including a stunning Opera House in the middle of the jungle.
At the edge of town, the Rio Negro joins the mighty Amazon.
To reach the purportedly cursed ruins,
Phil and Jess will drive dirt roads, along the river,
112 miles to the tiny town of Novo Airao.
That's where they'll meet their guide, who will take them
by boat the rest of the way to the abandoned city.
So we're gonna go and meet our guide, Sandro.
Yeah.
You can just see, I mean the forest is getting
-so much deeper. -Yeah. I agree.
Oh, stop. Hey, hey, hey, Stop, stop, stop.
(PANTING)
You are lucky that I saw that.
-At least we didn't hit it. -Yeah.
Just move it out of the way?
-You want me to go on this end? -Let me just see what happens.
-I'll start here. -All right.
(GASPING AND CHUCKLES)
-Thanks for the help. (LAUGHS) -Yeah, no, you're welcome.
-I just-- You know. -High five?
-Oh, yeah, I'm cool. -High five?
No, I'm cool, I'm cool.
(GASPS)
Concentrate on the road this time.
You got it.
After clearing what is the closest thing to a traffic jam in
the Amazon, it's only a short drive to the docks at Novo Airao.
The team is meeting indigenous guide, Sandro Pedroso.
He's been guiding travellers through this region for most of his life.
And for generations, his relatives have told stories
of the haunted ruins.
-Walk the plank. -Walking the plank.
Despite the warnings,
Sandro has agreed to take Phil and Jess
to this supposedly cursed place.
-Hey, Sandro. -Hi.
Good. It was great.
Sandro assures us that the Captain knows this river like
the back of his hand
but that doesn't mean he's eager to make the journey.
Why's that?
Honestly, it's a strange place.
And many people have had bad experiences there.
Recently, I was traveling up river to visit my family.
Just as we passed by the ruins,
I heard screaming coming from the forest.
Horrific screams.
They sounded like nothing I've ever heard before in the Amazon.
He doesn't think that could have been animals,
-or indigenous peoples there? -No one lives there.
The closest people are a small village several miles away.
They stay far away from this place.
Sound like our perfect kinda place.
Well, it sounds like my perfect kinda place.
-Yeah. For sure. -But, you'll come with us? Yes?
-Okay. -All right, as long... Okay.
Good. As long as we're not alone, I'll take that.
-Are we ready to go? -We ready to go.
The abandoned city is about 60 miles away.
To reach it we will have to sail upriver
and through the night, into the darkest reaches of the Amazon.
Sandro, you've been to the abandoned city.
What's it like being there?
When the rubber boom took off in Brazil,
wealthy barons re-established
the abandoned settlement at Airao Velho.
And used forced labour to work the rubber plantations.
Anyone who didn't fall in line, suffered.
And even died horrible deaths.
Their spirits are said to roam the ruins.
And their energy is said to afflict the surrounding jungle.
So I've heard some reports
of strange animal behaviour at Airao Velho.
Have you heard anything about this?
At the end of a long day,
Phil and I set up hammocks to catch up on some much needed sleep,
before the investigation of the abandoned city.
The more that I learn about this place, the weirder it gets.
Yeah.
I mean, the fact that the Captain won't even go on--
He won't go on land. Yeah.
I mean the people here are definitely afraid of it.
-Yeah. -Honestly. And I mean,
when they talk about hearing weird screams,
and that kinda thing, I do know there's so many animals.
There are birds that sound like they're screaming.
They're mammals that sound like they're screaming.
These people have been around the jungle all their lives.
They know the difference between a human scream
and a, and an animal from the jungle making a noise.
Like, I've heard of other towns in the Amazon that will have,
like, a huge amount of deadly spiders coming in.
Or a lot of ants coming in.
But to have all of these things in one place?
I mean, this place has everything going wrong with it.
-Yeah. -What was that?
What do you see?
-All I see are her eyes. -Yeah. Wow.
Those are black caiman.
It's basically a giant alligator underneath those eyes.
The black caiman is one of the largest predators of the Amazon.
Measuring up to 16 feet in length.
And boasting a mouth full of razor sharp teeth.
Along with the anaconda,
the jaguar and even the electric eel,
the caiman is just one of the regions deadly residents
that Phil and Jess will need to keep an eye out for.
That's a big animal.
And a lot of teeth attached to him.
Having met the neighbours,
we retired to bed for an uneasy nights sleep.
As our boat steams on into the unknown.
A new days breaks over the rainforest, and we awake
to find that we're approaching Airao Velho.
We quickly grab our gear.
Transfer to a skiff and head to shore.
Wow. Look at this place.
Ahead, the dense jungles obscure the ruins of a forgotten city.
A place reported to be haunted, by those who perished here.
We approach prepared for anything.
And take our first steps on cursed ground.
That is some deep jungle right there.
Look at that.
The team has been steaming overnight, along the Rio Negro,
toward an abandoned and reportedly, cursed city.
Having arrived at the location,
Phil and Jess are making their way ashore,
with their local guide, Sandro.
The site is notoriously haunted and has a sinister reputation.
Once teaming with indigenous people,
Portuguese slavers conducted acts of genocide here.
And it was later turned into a violent rubber boom town,
that relied on forced labour.
In fact, the Brazilian navy once used war ships
to conduct target practice on the abandoned city,
in an effort to wipe it off the face of the earth.
That is some deep jungle right there.
Before hiking into the ruins, we strap on some snake gaiters.
After all, the two square miles of this abandoned city are home
to a number of deadly snakes
and some of the most venomous spiders in the world.
Look at this.
-There it is. -Oh, my God.
Look at that.
Jess and Phil have arrived at the abandoned ruins of Airao Velho.
All around them are the crumbling remnants of
a once opulent frontier boom town, from the late 1800s.
That is imposing.
Check this out. You can still the old tile.
-Yeah. -Right over here.
Look at that old tile. That's gorgeous.
People used to work and live in this area
and they've completely abandoned it.
-Yeah -It's obvious that
this place has a really dark past.
At its height, hundreds of people strolled these streets.
There would have been ornate colonial buildings.
Busy store fronts.
And of course, very rich rubber barons.
Locals who were forced to work here,
called the barons Tigres Negros, or black tigers,
for their quick and deadly tempers.
So, this is like a courthouse?
According to Sandro, a local was once accused of murder here.
And was hanged in this very spot.
Later, Sandro's Grandfather claimed to see the spirit
of the condemned man, walking amongst the ruins.
So he was convicted of murder. Hung.
And then your grandparents saw him walking out of here?
-Yes. -It just feels very repressed.
It's not a comfortable spot.
I mean, the jungle's completely taken over this place.
There's no roof.
There's vines growing everywhere.
Kinda like the jungle wants to reclaim the area.
Absolutely.
Phil and Jess push on into the ruins.
Everywhere they look, the past is being eaten alive.
This is incredible.
I mean, look, there's termites up here...
-I was gonna say, what is that? -That are taking down this wall.
-That's a termite's nest? -Yeah.
Termite nest up there.
-This place is creepy. -It's really creepy.
(THUNDER LIGHTNING)
-You hear that? -Do you hear that thunder?
-There's not a cloud in the sky. -Blue sky.
Yeah.
Or maybe a storm's coming.
-So let's keep moving. -Yes.
Sandro leads us to another paranormal hot spot.
Where people say you can hear screams echoing through the jungle.
The ruins of an abandoned school.
-We gotta check it out in here. -Yeah.
Oh, God.
Be careful with this wood.
Let's take this a little bit at a time.
All right.
Stay left. Stay left.
Okay. Just walk along that seam.
Be real careful here.
-Okay. -These are--
Do you see it? It's real loose so.
-Yeah, you got it. -Kinda favour your left.
Okay.
-All right -All right.
Wow
-*Bleep* -Be careful, guys.
Yeah, not gonna step there.
Wow, I mean, there's old newspaper in here.
-Yeah. -Engine part.
There's a termite nest up in the corner.
That probably explains why all the wood's breaking apart.
It looks like they just literally up and left, just like that.
There's still evidence of people.
I mean, no one cleared this out.
Looks like they left in a hurry.
Wow.
A lot of termites right here.
-They're everywhere. -What is this?
Oh, it's an old picture.
-It's an old woman. -An old woman.
-Yes. -Maybe it's the teacher?
Could be.
I think we should look around.
So, Phil, do you wanna take that corner?
Sandro, do you wanna take that corner?
Just be careful where you step.
I'm gonna look around over here, where the stuff is.
Try to stay on the crossbeams,
because that's where the floor is the strongest.
-All right. -Yes.
-Oh, wait. -See these.
-Hey, Phil? -Yeah?
I think I found somebody's ID.
Maybe you could
-translate it for us? -Yeah.
Sandro, can you read what this says?
Can I see it?
This is a service identification.
For what?
-For this person. -What's this? Fingerprints?
I think it's a person.
-Like, it's an ID for someone. -It got he's face.
Someone's ID.
-Well, we got some evidence. -Yeah.
Yeah, I mean, we got a name. And we've got a picture.
So I think we should use this for our investigation.
All right. I'm gonna still look around...
-Get a gauge.... -over here. See what I can find?
Okay.
All right.
*Bleep*
Yeah, I'm not getting anything.
Phil?
Your name is up here.
What?
-No way. -Yes, it is.
Torres.
Right at the top.
There's a bunch of other cuttings.
What?
Incredible.
Sandro, can you tell us what this says?
It seems like somebody is taking names on this piece of paper here.
Lot of different names. Like, "Torres" above here.
-Are those all last names? -Yeah.
All right. I'm gonna scan this.
Just see. "Terror."
Strange meanings, It is.
-Jess, I found more names over here. -Oh, yeah.
This area's completely torn apart and as we know,
-full of tarantulas, -Yeah.
but you should try scanning over here.
Okay. I'm coming.
-There's a lot of-- -You know, what--
-Termites on the ground. -I'm gonna, can I circle
around over this way? -Yeah, you should do that.
Just because I figure where the termites are, probably soft wood.
-Sandro, what's this writing? -Wow. These are--
It could be the students that used to, to be, like,
with the teacher that got murdered here.
-The girl. -Oh, The students names?
Yeah.
And these are the names of the students?
Oh, yeah.
"Fabio, Adriane, Angelo, Anderson, Janderson."
And here, you can still see a, like, a sketch from a kid here.
-A drawing. -All right. Well, I've got--
-Oh, I've got a bit of a hit here. -Oh, yeah.
Yeah. See.
Right, right here.
I mean, from my perspective,
this place is getting taken over by the jungle.
I mean, we have the crazy wasp's nest outside.
-Giant termite nests everywhere. -It's dangerous.
-Yeah. -All right, well,
I think I've got everything here.
-So, Sandro, can we keep moving? -Yes.
-Can we go? -Right. Yeah.
Just be careful on the way out too.
We continue on and Sandro leads us beyond the ruins.
Finally, we reach the settlements north-eastern edge,
at a bend in the Rio Negro.
It's here that Sandro shows us
some strange symbols carved into the rocks.
Wow. Look at that.
These eerie images were carved
by the ancestors of those who settled this land, millennia ago.
Many of the glyphs depict strange scenes,
of what appear to be people in distress.
Some believe they're intended as a warning.
Yeah, there's definitely more over here.
Oh, yeah.
-It looks like somebody screaming. -Yeah.
To me that is the locals, maybe, crying out in fear
for the place that their in.
Maybe that's what all of these carvings of people and faces are,
is that they're crying out about the evil that's in the area,
which is why they moved.
It's like, people have left in modern times,
but they also left here in ancient times.
(STRANGE SCREAM)
Did you hear that?
Sounds like a human scream.
Come on. Let's track it down.
As we head off towards the sound we all just heard,
we come across our producer.
The abandoned city seems to have claimed another victim.
Whether the expedition can continue, is now in question.
My team is deep in the Brazilian Amazon,
pursuing the source of a strange sound they've heard amidst
these supposedly cursed ruins.
When the come across one of their field producers doubled over.
Though he was fine just a moment ago,
he is suddenly unable to remain standing.
Sit down. Sit down. Sit down.
-Do you have some ice? -Get him some ice.
Sit down.
He complains of dizziness and feeling disoriented.
His pulse is erratic and blood pressure is elevated.
We have to get you to the boat.
We all head back to the boat to let our producer rest.
Amazingly, the minute he leaves the ruins and sets foot on
the boat, he feels entirely better.
Relieved that he's okay, we decide to check in with Josh.
-How's the Amazon treating you? -It's good.
It's, it's--
-It's scary. -It's, it's been wild out here.
Okay, so let's talk about Airao Velho. Right?
We've, we've heard all these stories about this place.
-Does it live up to its reputation? -It's quite scary.
It's-- Looks like just a ton of ruins.
The jungle's completely retaken this area.
And it's, it's a little ominous.
Yeah, ghost town does not do it justice.
Like, there are ghost towns and then there is Airao Velho.
Are there any indigenous people around the site still?
So there's nobody living at the site itself.
But, they are further into the forest.
And they just give this place a wide berth.
They do not wanna go anywhere near it.
So, I don't know if you can reach those people or not?
But that would be my advise,
is to try to actually connect with the indigenous people there.
You can hear their actual stories.
That's gonna give you the best information possible.
-We can absolutely do that. -Okay. Well, listen, guys.
Stay safe. Stay dry.
And stay away from the creepy crawlies. Okay?
-Will do. -Yeah.
I may not do that last one but I'll try to stay safe and dry.
I'll do it.
We take Josh's advice
and ask Sandro to arrange passage to the nearest village.
He agrees.
But warns us that he doesn't have any strong contacts there,
and it's a community not used to outsiders.
They may not take kindly to strangers arriving unannounced.
Wow.
Look at this.
Sandro makes introductions and assures the men that we're only here
looking for information about Airao Velho.
Okay, guys. You can come in.
Luckily for us, he manages to negotiate a meeting
with the village shaman.
Inside, we're invited to sit down
and we receive a welcome blessing from the elder shaman.
He agrees to answer any questions he can.
What do you know about Airao Velho?
It's a ghost town.
There are dark spirits that live there.
We've been there and we've actually seen the petroglyphs of the...
Screaming people and the victims of the town.
The carvings on the rocks do not depict the people of the town.
They depict the spirits.
The ghosts of people who passed there.
But also the evil that seeped into the land itself.
So he believes that those petroglyphs aren't
the scared people.
Those are petroglyphs of the actual evil spirits?
Actually, according to what he said, the evil lives in the rocks.
Wow.
Then how does that evil manifest itself?
You will hear voices and screams of the deceased.
And even see the spirits.
It is a dangerous place to spend too much time.
If there are spirits at the abandoned city,
evil or otherwise, it's our job to try and document them.
To do that, we need to know how to bring them out into the open.
What can we do to make a connection with the spirit?
It's very dangerous to summon the spirits.
But it can be done.
You must go to the place of worship.
The church in the centre of the city.
If you build a fire and give a blood offering to the flames,
this will act as a beacon, so the spirits can come forward.
What type of blood?
Your own blood.
Okay.
After thanking the shaman, we head back down river,
towards the abandoned city.
I'm anxious to conduct a paranormal investigation of the ruins tonight.
And while the idea of a blood offering is extreme,
I'd be lying if I said I wasn't intrigued by his confidence
that this would conjure the spirits.
We come ashore and hike back into the ruins,
which seems much more imposing in the pitch black darkness
of the Amazon.
To begin our investigation,
we're arming infrared trail cameras at the city's main landmarks,
and the locations where strange phenomena have been reported.
Let me get you my camera trap.
Near the petroglyphs where we heard the strange crying sound.
Outside the ruins of the old school house.
-All right? -Yeah.
And near the courthouse,
where visitors have reported seeing ghostly apparitions.
As a scientist, I'm keen to capture evidence of some of the more
than 400 species of mammal.
Twelve hundred species of bird.
And 375 kinds of reptiles that call this jungle home.
I believe people passing by here may be misidentifying the presence
of these creatures as paranormal activity.
With our camera all set, we get to work.
Since this is the location where people were executed,
some of the towns most evil people walked through these halls.
The fact that Sandro even said that his grandparents saw somebody
that had been executed here, two years prior
-Yeah. -And then walked out.
-I want to see what we can get. -Okay.
So I'm gonna bust out the audio recorder.
-Do you wanna do the thermal? -Yeah.
-I can do thermal. -Okay.
From jungle predators to the potential energy of a spirit,
the thermal imager will help us see anything giving off heat.
Are you getting anything on your thermal?
Nothing hot enough that would tell me it's an animal.
I'm Jessica.
I am here with Phil and we wanna make contact with you.
-What is that? What is that? -Come on.
It sounded like it came from that direction over there.
Let's go.
(BOTH GASPS)
Phil and I are deep in the Amazon,
investigating an abandoned city, with a violent past,
that is believed to be cursed by powerful spirits.
We're in front of the old courthouse,
where locals abused by landowners, were punished
and even hanged in public.
Are you getting anything on your thermal?
A little bit of activity, but nothing
hot enough to tell me it's an animal.
-What is that? What is that? -Come on, let's go.
It sounded like it came from this direction over here.
(STRANGE SCREAM)
(BOTH GASPS)
-You all right? All right? -Oh, *Bleep*. What was it?
Yeah. I'm okay. I'm okay. What is it?
-What is it? Yeah. -Did you hear something over here?
A huge *Bleep* break.
That wasn't something you stepped on?
That's not something I stepped on. That was in the woods.
Right over here? Like, right, right, right--
Like, so close.
Like, next to me, close.
Maybe an animal.
Is that what made the sound?
Do you see anything on the thermal camera?
I don't. It's weird.
Because if it was an animal,
we'd definitely see it on the thermal.
That scream did not sound like an animal to me.
Everything that people told us about this place, is coming true.
Having already experienced
the phantom screams that have been reported here,
I wanna see if we can actually make direct contact with
the evil spirits, that the shaman said reside here.
To do that, he told us to make a blood sacrifice,
in a fire, near the church in the centre of town.
Do you know how far up the church is?
It looks like there's a couple old house ruins over here.
-So... -Yeah, you can see it up ahead.
Usually the church is in the centre of town,
so I think we just try to head that way.
Oh, look at this.
Oh, for sure, this is a church...
-Gothic style arches right here. -Oh, yeah and it keeps going.
-Yeah, it keeps going. -This church is huge.
I mean, look at the size of this thing.
This must of supported a big community at some point.
-Yeah. -It could probably fit
a few hundred people inside.
Well and that's the thing, right?
The church acted as a community centre.
-Yeah. -As a place of worship.
So it usually was the most important building in a town.
And you can see, I mean, they were here to stay.
This this is solid. This isn't a temporary church.
They thought they were gonna have a community here
for hundreds of years.
But, that didn't happen.
We decide to post up here to investigate.
First, we search the area for kindling
and begin to build a small fire.
Though we're far from medical attention, Jess is determined
to follow the shaman's advice and attempt an offering.
Shedding her blood to provoke the spirits.
I'm actually wondering if the scent of blood might summon
other jungle creatures.
-All right, the fire's looking good. -Yeah, it does look nice.
-Blood offering? -Go for it.
-All right, ready? -Yeah.
All right, we've got blood.
(EXHALES)
There you go.
No turning back now.
While I'm not convinced that this blood offering is going
to produce results,
if a shaman in the Amazon believes it will help me encounter a ghost,
I'm in.
We break out our audio recorder and thermal camera
and try to make contact.
We gave you what you wanted. A blood offering.
And now it's your turn to give us what we want.
Which is your appearance.
Why did you drive the people away from here?
What was it about this town, that bothered you so much?
-You know, what just hit me? -What?
This is a church.
Yeah. This is also where they do funerals.
Yeah, I didn't think of that.
During the years that this was a boom town,
that is when yellow fever, dang game, malaria, typhoid,
all of these tropical diseases were thriving in this area.
And that meant a lot of sick people. A lot of dying people.
A lot of people with fevers.
Yeah, they did say plagues came through here.
Yeah. When you have a fever, you have hallucinations,
and you add that to everything that this jungle is throwing at people.
Everything it's thrown at us.
I think the jungle is just so intense here,
you add in those diseases, it just defeated the town.
But that's the point, right?
The entity is using the jungle as a way to manifest and cause problems.
(STRANGE SCREAM)
Do you hear that?
That's the scream. Come on. This way.
-What is this? -Let's go. Let's go.
I want to check this out.
-Let's go. We're really close. -We're really close.
Here, we've got a trail. We've got a trail.
We've got a trail?
We've got a building over here.
What is this place?
After performing a blood sacrifice to the spirits of
the abandoned city,
Jessica is conducting a call and response,
and hears something coming from the wood behind the church.
(STRANGE SCREAM)
There it is again.
It's back by the church. I'm gonna go.
Why are you here? What brought you here?
What did you do to this town?
We are not leaving.
We are staying.
(STRANGE ROAR)
What's that? Phil, get over here. Phil. Phil.
What's happening? What's happening?
I was inside the church. I was doing call and response.
And I basically said, we did the offering.
We did the blood ritual.
We're not leaving until we hear something.
And boom, right outside the church, there was this crazy noise.
It was a definite roar. It was right outside the building.
Are we getting haunted?
Listen. Listen.
I thought I heard movement over here.
Did you hear it?
We continue to chase the sound,
which seems to lead us deeper and deeper into the jungle.
Just when it seems close at hand, we hear something else.
As if on cue, the skies around the city begin to crack and rumble.
A storm is nearly upon us.
Before the rain arrives,
we trek back to base camp to assess our situation.
You know, what. We have the camera traps.
Oh, we do.
Yeah, I've had it running the whole time.
-Okay. -Okay. Let's do this.
Within minutes the skies open up.
We retreat to the safety of our boat offshore,
and hunker down as torrential rain drenches
the ruined city of Airao Velho.
A misty morning arrives in the Amazon.
And Phil, Jess and their guide
make the long trip back toward civilization.
They braved the night in the supposedly haunted jungle city,
and the location did not disappoint.
They heard the phantom noises that have been reported here.
And experienced first hand the fear that has turned so many others away.
Now, it's time to review the evidence.
-Sandro. Hey. -Hey.
Jess starts by isolating the audio of the voice they thought
they heard at the petroglyphs.
Dude, to me this sounds like a human scream.
Let me give it a listen.
Back home, bobcats make a scream like that
and it sounds like a screaming woman.
Even foxes, when they make a mating call,
so animals make weird noises.
In two different spots, like, you heard the same sound?
-Yeah. -Three different spots.
(STRANGE SCREAM)
Do you hear that?
(STRANGE SCREAM)
There it is again.
-Very strange. -Sandro, what do you think it is?
Do you recognize this at all? Let me listen to this.
What do you think?
This is, like, never have I heard this types of sounds in the forest.
You've never heard that?
It sounds very strange to me, this sound.
All right, now the trail cams. We haven't seen this yet.
To check whether an animal could be responsible for such a sound,
the team reviews the images from their trail cameras.
All right, I wanna see the next one.
They examine the memory cards one by one,
and they do see various residence of the abandoned city.
But they don't see anything
that could account for whatever made the mysterious sound.
Even stranger, nothing physical tripped the cameras in
the vicinity of the church, where they heard the noises.
Whatever it was, it seems to be invisible.
What do you think?
To me, never heard such sound.
Finally, Jessica listens to the audio from her call
and response, after performing the blood offering,
for any electronic voice phenomena,
or EVPs answering back to her questions.
We are not leaving.
We are staying.
Yes. Right there.
Dude, that totally sounds like "Va."
That's Portuguese for "Go" right?
Yeah.
Yeah, it does sound like that.
But it also sounds like it could be an animal.
In the end, the ruins remain a place of intense mystery.
Jess, Sandro and many others, believe this abandoned settlement
is indeed haunted by its violent past.
There's something weird out there, for sure.
-Absolutely. -While Phil saw enough wildlife
and rational explanations, to remain a steadfast sceptic.
People who live here, they kind of mix folklore and nature.
Whatever it was that the team encountered in the depths
of the Amazon,
there's no denying that this place is a kind of living ghost.
It's haunting architecture is obscured by
the clawing vines of the jungle, appearing like a phantom
to those who dare venture inside.
From Portuguese slavers, to greedy rubber barons,
the darkest chapters of this regions past,
seem to hang in the humid air.
Airao Velho is a mysterious place.
-I told you. Yeah. -Thanks for taking us.
-Thank you, Sandro. -Thank you.
Thanks, dude.
Our own producer was struck down here.
An event that locals would say was the direct result
of powerful spirits.
Even the stones themselves, seem to speak
with warnings from the distant past.
The message is clear.
Sail on by.
This is no place for the living.
Subtitle Caption by ZestCorp