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Alaska, a vast remote wilderness twice the size of Texas.

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There are dangerous, unpredictable forces at work here.

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In one of the most mysterious corners of the globe.

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A lot of things can kill you out here without even trying.

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This is a place hundreds of times more deadly than the Bermuda Triangle.

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Oh my God.

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Stories of alien abductions.

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I believe it was a UFO.

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The paranormal, vanishing airplanes and strange beasts.

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The Alaskan Bigfoot.

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He can rip you in half.

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These accounts are a really wide spread.

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It peeked out of the tree right there.

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Have hunted those who dare set foot here.

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In the last 30 years, 16,000 people have disappeared without a trace.

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More people have disappeared than the Bermuda Triangle.

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Two to three times the amount.

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Witnesses tell us their shocking stories.

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I was petrified.

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And we've gathered some of the world's leading experts in their field.

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I'm always after scientific evidence that can be independently corroborated.

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To try and unlock the mystery of the Alaska Triangle.

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The coast of Alaska includes some of the most treacherous waterways in the world.

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It's no surprise that ships go down.

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But some of these wrecks are shrouded in mystery.

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Extraordinary terrifying events seem to plague the seas of the Alaska Triangle.

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It's as though some mysterious forces alluring ships to their doom.

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And that includes the biggest of all, the Princess Sophia.

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The sinking of the SS Princess Sophia is without doubt the worst maritime tragedy in Alaskan history.

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It's a huge tragedy in the Pacific Northwest.

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It took rich and poor. It took everybody.

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It's a long forgotten maritime disaster, unknown and unexplained.

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This is one of the big mysteries of the Alaska Triangle.

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The sinking of the SS Princess Sophia in 1918 was the greatest loss of life in a single event in Alaskan history.

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Yet to this day, the reason why it went down in the southern corner of the Triangle remains an enigma.

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And there are stories even today of ghosts and paranormal activity linked with the Sophia,

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including right in the very center of the Alaskan capital, Juno.

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As an investigator, we hear these stories and what it's all about really is trying to establish if there's credibility,

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if there's truth to those stories. You know, there's paranormal events that have been said to have happened there,

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but what is actually going on?

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The story of the Princess Sophia is bound up with the story of Alaska at the turn of the 20th century.

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The gold rush was over, but the remote interior was still peppered with small mining communities and lone prospectors.

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But it was seasonal work, impossible over the Alaskan winter.

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Bjorn Dila is an Alaskan rider who's researched the history of the miners during that era.

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Alaskan 1918, there's still people making a living mining, many of who spend spring and summer in Alaska,

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and then in the winter time come and travel by steamer down south.

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And one of these steamers was the Princess Sophia.

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The embarkation point for the steamers was Skagway, a small gold rush port on the south coast.

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It's late October in Skagway. It's the last run of the year to get prospectors, miners, other folks out of the interior of Alaska.

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There's no road in or out. So the Princess Sophia is the last chance.

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You're stuck if you don't. You're in Alaska until May, June.

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So you have all these people that are just kind of fleeing to Skagway.

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One man who knows these waters well is British author Anthony Dalton.

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He's written extensively about the maritime history of this area, and in particular, the Princess Sophia.

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It was a Canadian Pacific steam ship. She was a passenger and cargo ship sailing between Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, and Skagway, Alaska.

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In October 1918, Princess Sophia was at the dock in Skagway.

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There was a flurry of activity getting her loaded.

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353 people were legally on board, plus 24 horses, one dog, and there were some storeways.

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Mostly the passengers would have been men heading south for the winter back to Vancouver.

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They left Skagway and headed down the Lynn Canal.

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At over 2,000 feet deep, the 90-mile Lynn Canal is the deepest fjord in North America and one of the deepest and longest in the world.

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It's renowned for its treacherous and unpredictable weather.

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From having spent a lot of time in that waterway, Lynn Canal, even on days where it is plastic calm,

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it has gone in a matter of a couple minutes to all of a sudden you're in 2-meter high seas, 5-meter chop, no visibility, snow all over the deck, icy spray.

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And you're fighting for your life to get out of there.

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As it made its way down the fjord, the Princess Sophia was hit by an unusually fierce storm with winds of 80 to 90 miles per hour.

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80 mile per hour winds in Northern Lynn Canal is essentially hell on Earth.

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The men who had been digging for gold in Alaska were now under attack by Alaska's forces of nature.

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But none of this should have been a problem for the Princess Sophia.

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Her maiden voyage had been just six years before and she had sailed the Atlantic, rounding the hazardous Cape Horn.

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This is a big boat we're talking about. This boat's designed to take terrible weather.

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But for some unknown reason, the Princess Sophia strayed off course.

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Around two o'clock in the morning, traveling at 12 knots, which was full speed.

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Princess Sophia was one mile away from where she should be and she ran straight up on Vanderbilt Reef.

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The Vanderbilt Reef.

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Explorer Hugh Newman has been looking into the Princess Sophia story.

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The Vanderbilt Reef was well known to the captain.

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It was like a rocky outcrop just slightly sticking out of the water.

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There were gale force winds, but still the ship should have handled this.

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It had a double steel hull, unlike the previous wooden ships that were around at that time.

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It's why the ship ended up on the reef.

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A mile off course is a big mystery.

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It's almost like the elements were conspiring to bring down this ship.

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It's a really strange story.

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The ship was stuck, but it was low tide. There was still no need to panic.

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The captain decided there was nothing they could do to wait for the tide to come up more.

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He really felt the ship would float off.

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So after the Sophia kind of grounded on the reef and got trapped there,

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emergency ships and other boats were called to go and help remove the people from the ship onto other ships and back onto land.

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But the weather was so bad, it was so choppy, it was still snowing.

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They couldn't move anyone off.

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And so the captain made a decision to have them come back around 5am the next morning

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when the weather would have calmed down and it would have been safe for them to leave the ship.

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Support boats come and they're kind of hanging in the lee of the storm, watching, asking if they want,

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if the captain Locke wants them to approach and try to take passengers.

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The captain recognizes that if he starts trying to offload people,

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there's a really good chance that a number of people will die just in the offloading process.

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Theoretically, you refloat and you're able to limp into port and not go down.

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So they wait and they wait, they wait 40 hours and the storm never lessens.

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In fact, the storm worsened.

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But still, the ship should have been safe.

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But later that night, the unthinkable happened.

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The ship suddenly turned on the reef.

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When the ship started to pirouette, I believe terror would have been a very large part of the emotion on board,

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not just for the passengers but also for the crew, because the sound alone would have been really frightening.

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The steel hull tore open and water came rushing in.

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It's recorded that the boiler exploded, the oil went everywhere.

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And then the boat properly then sank.

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The last message from the radio operator is a good indication.

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He called for help and said, we are moving, we are moving, and then it was gone. There's nothing.

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One of the big questions about this whole story is the fact that it appears,

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even though it took half an hour for the ship to actually sink, people stayed in their cabins in pitch blackness of white and earth. Would they do that?

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Others entered the freezing oil-covered water, some putting their trust in the life preservers.

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Those who didn't have life jackets on would have gone down with the ship.

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It sucked in. When a ship goes down, it tends to create almost a vacuum, and if you're within that area, you're pulled down into it.

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Those who weren't sucked in by the ship would have drowned in the waves and, of course, from the effects of the viscous bunker oil.

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So all in all, 353 people died, potentially more that weren't accounted for, all hands except for a dog.

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One dog, the lone survivor, an English setter, found exhausted and covered in oil, washed ashore two days after the sinking.

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180 bodies were also washed ashore, the rest up to 200 bodies unaccounted for.

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The SS Princess Sophia had become a mass grave. It's the greatest maritime disaster of the Pacific Northwest.

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But the end of the Princess Sophia was just the beginning of the strange events surrounding the Alaska Triangle's most tragic incident.

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Just how did this sturdy state-of-the-art steamer hit a well-known reef and end up at the bottom of the Lynn Canal?

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The SS Princess Sophia really should have handled moving down through the Lynn Canal.

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It should not have hit the reef, it shouldn't have gone anywhere near it.

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And so the fact that this happened does suggest it was human error.

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If it was human error, maybe the captain was at fault.

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And since the disaster, he's borne much of the blame.

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Captain Locke of the Princess Sophia has long been villainized just because he was the easiest scapegoat for this massive tragedy, but he was super experienced.

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There's no proof that he was anything but a very accomplished and responsible captain.

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The captain had been on her for two years running that route between Skagway and Vancouver, back and forth for the whole summer.

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He knew the route, he knew the dangers. All skippers on that route knew the dangers of Vanderbilt Reef.

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As this remarkable photo shows, it's simply astonishing that Captain Locke would have made such a mistake.

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So much so that Hugh Newman has been drawn towards an interesting new theory.

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In Southern Alaska, around the point where this disaster happened, there are reported major magnetic anomalies.

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We have strange geology, shifts in the magnetic field, that up to 20% different to the standard reading.

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And these can have an effect on navigation, on compasses, and even on the mind.

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So perhaps this was one of the causes of this disaster.

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Strange magnetic forces have been cited as being behind other mysteries of the triangle, such as the 1950 disappearance of a Douglas C-54, lost without a trace near the Canadian border.

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Mike Ricksecker is a paranormal investigator with a particular interest in the effects of electromagnetism.

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The Alaska Triangle has a lot of potency with it. You have the proximity to the North Pole, magnetic North.

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All this swelling of the electromagnetic activity can disorient, can affect people's mood swings.

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These releases of energy could certainly drastically affect people.

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So perhaps the crew of the Sophia were disoriented and confused.

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There's even a theory that extreme electromagnetism can lead to the distortion of space and the creation of vortices, blamed by some for the mysteries of the Bermuda Triangle.

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Our bodies are our greatest asset in picking up and sensing supernatural phenomena.

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But these vortices can affect objects that are even larger, like ships.

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You hear about these disappearances in the Bermuda Triangle, same thing in Alaska, around the Alaska Triangle.

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Ships have gone down from these vortices. Ships have gone completely missing from these vortices without a trace.

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So is this all connected and is this all part of the mystery of the Alaska Triangle?

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Alternatively, could it even be the case that the Triangle is somehow striking back against those taking away its valuable minerals?

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So there are traditions all around the world of when you take things from certain places, especially, you know, reserves of gold and diamonds and riches,

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that are really part of the sacred landscape to the indigenous people of these areas.

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The often great thunder and lightning and bad weather can sometimes be manifested.

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Will you disturb just the spirit of the land? These kind of things can happen.

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And wrecks of steamships associated with the gold rush litter this corner of the Triangle.

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Annette Smith is a local diver who knows these waters as well as anyone.

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This area around Juno, we have many shipwrecks here. We are lined with shipwrecks.

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You can start down at Gambier Bay, which is just south of Juno.

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Here's the wreck of the state of California. You come up behind Douglas Island as the wreck of the islander.

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These waters are not waters to be tripled with. This is a dangerous area.

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In 1910, the Princess May ran aground on rocks in the Lynn Canal, within sight of Vanderbilt Reef.

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She was laden with Alaskan gold.

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But it's the sinking of the Princess Sophia that was the region's greatest tragedy.

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After the Sophia went down, a huge search and rescue party went out and we were recovering all the bodies that they could.

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Even the governor is out there collecting bodies. They're all looking for people.

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And of course, no one besides the dog has ever found a life.

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Despite extensive searches by divers at the time, over 200 bodies were still unaccounted for.

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The owners of the ship, Canadian Pacific, said that they were not found on the ship and they were never washed up.

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So what happened to these bodies? We really don't know.

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Now, local diver Annette Smith is going to dive down to investigate the wreck itself.

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So where we are sitting right now is the wreck itself.

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So where we are sitting right now, the wreck of the Princess Sophia is directly underneath us.

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And where she lived the last 40 hours of her life is right over there, on that reef.

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And she's laid out facing that reef and coming out this way at an angle.

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So she, at some point, came across the reef. It was very fast and she went down.

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This isn't a dive for the faint-hearted. The currents can be treacherous.

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And if you become separated from your own life, you can't go back to the wreck.

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So what happens when you're stranded? The currents can be treacherous.

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And if you become separated from your boat, it's seven miles to shore.

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When you're down, cloaked in white, bulbous sea enemies, the lost ship comes into view.

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Inevitably, thoughts are with the victims in their last moments.

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Nobody knows what really happened or what the final minutes were.

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We do know there was a radio transmission that said, for God's sakes, come waters coming into the cabin.

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We do know that it was quick.

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But what really happened that night, we don't know.

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But you can imagine the terror of sitting here all alone, hearing the ship you're on being ripped apart, and going down.

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It must have been horrible.

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It must have been horrible.

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It must have been horrible.

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It must have been horrible.

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Why much of the reason is because of the timing.

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The story of the Princess of Fy is a story that has been lost in time in history.

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It was lost because it happened at the same time that the end of World War I occurred.

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We were in the middle of the Spanish flu, so these were big events that overshadowed this wreck.

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The ship was destroyed.

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The ship was destroyed.

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The ship was destroyed.

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The ship was destroyed.

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The ship was destroyed.

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So I went down and just swam up the bow.

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And the bow sits like this, the rails, and it's covered in these white plumascent enemies, and they're huge in enemies.

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Tall white ghostly figures moving in the current.

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And for me, it was like the ghost of the Sophia said it was okay for me to be there.

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It really brought home to me what really happened there.

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You know, you know what you're diving. You're diving a graveyard.

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The wreck is corroded and overgrown, but Annette was able to make out the boilers of the ship, and they're intact.

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There's a lot of questions about the wreck.

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There's questions of what really happened, what history says happened, didn't happen.

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This history said the boilers exploded and they did not. All three of them were down there.

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They're still down there. We saw them today, and they're still whole.

211
00:26:15,000 --> 00:26:21,000
There's mysteries of what happened to the other hundred people. Where are they?

212
00:26:21,000 --> 00:26:25,000
So there's a lot of questions.

213
00:26:25,000 --> 00:26:32,000
The bodies that were recovered were still enough to overwhelm the local resources.

214
00:26:32,000 --> 00:26:36,000
They were brought back to Juno, which you got to remember, they were a tiny little town at the time.

215
00:26:36,000 --> 00:26:48,000
They didn't have the resources. They didn't have a morgue that was designed to carry more than 10 bodies.

216
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They were to be stored temporarily wherever was possible.

217
00:26:53,000 --> 00:26:59,000
The bodies that were recovered, many of them were placed inside the Juno drugstore in the center of town.

218
00:26:59,000 --> 00:27:05,000
Others were placed in various other buildings all over the area.

219
00:27:05,000 --> 00:27:10,000
Paranormal activity was then widely reported.

220
00:27:10,000 --> 00:27:19,000
Ghosts were seen, strange noises and voices were heard, and even possible poltergeist activity.

221
00:27:23,000 --> 00:27:32,000
The focus of this activity was the basement of the drugstore, and it's said to continue to this day.

222
00:27:32,000 --> 00:27:44,000
In 2017, nearly 100 years after the tragedy, an employee of the drugstore went down to the basement, which is used for storage.

223
00:27:44,000 --> 00:27:49,000
A distressed ghostly figure appeared.

224
00:27:49,000 --> 00:28:05,000
The store worker watched in terror as the figure looked at her and then vanished.

225
00:28:05,000 --> 00:28:12,000
Jeff Richards is a leading paranormal investigator from Saskatchewan in Canada.

226
00:28:12,000 --> 00:28:19,000
In his experience, ghostly activity is common at a scene of great tragedy.

227
00:28:19,000 --> 00:28:32,000
That amount of loss and death combined with the outpouring of grief that the community would have felt, that would have torn a pretty big hole energy-wise in the area.

228
00:28:32,000 --> 00:28:46,000
And I think that sometimes when those pockets are created, or when we have these massive moments of great pain and strife and suffering and death, those places become sort of like beacons for spirit.

229
00:28:46,000 --> 00:28:55,000
As an investigator, we hear these stories, and what it's all about really is trying to establish if there's credibility, if there's truth to those stories.

230
00:28:55,000 --> 00:29:02,000
There's paranormal events that have been said to have happened there, but what is actually going on?

231
00:29:02,000 --> 00:29:13,000
So I'm heading to Juno Drug to the basement to have a look for myself to see if there's a way that I can potentially communicate and interact with the energies that are there and really verify the supernatural events.

232
00:29:14,000 --> 00:29:32,000
Going into a place that housed those bodies, the final resting spot of a lot of those individuals, it's definitely going to be a challenge.

233
00:29:32,000 --> 00:29:37,000
It's going to be a place that's going to have a heavy energy all its own.

234
00:29:38,000 --> 00:29:44,000
Jeff has now come to Juno to visit the infamous drugstore.

235
00:29:44,000 --> 00:29:51,000
It's exciting because it gives us an opportunity to find out the truth behind the tales that were being told.

236
00:29:54,000 --> 00:29:57,000
The manager of the drugstore is Brenda Lamasse.

237
00:30:00,000 --> 00:30:01,000
Hello, hi.

238
00:30:01,000 --> 00:30:02,000
Hi.

239
00:30:02,000 --> 00:30:03,000
Brenda?

240
00:30:03,000 --> 00:30:04,000
Yes.

241
00:30:04,000 --> 00:30:05,000
Jeff.

242
00:30:05,000 --> 00:30:06,000
Brenda, nice to meet you.

243
00:30:06,000 --> 00:30:08,000
Hello, Juno Drug.

244
00:30:08,000 --> 00:30:15,000
I understand that the Princess Sophia goes down and a lot of the bodies are brought here to Juno Drug.

245
00:30:15,000 --> 00:30:16,000
Yes, right in the basement.

246
00:30:16,000 --> 00:30:17,000
We're stored in the basement.

247
00:30:17,000 --> 00:30:18,000
Yes.

248
00:30:18,000 --> 00:30:20,000
Have you had any experiences personally?

249
00:30:20,000 --> 00:30:25,000
I've been pushed or touched on my shoulder.

250
00:30:25,000 --> 00:30:27,000
It was kind of like a heavy push.

251
00:30:27,000 --> 00:30:29,000
I turned back and nothing was there.

252
00:30:29,000 --> 00:30:31,000
Something physically pushed your shoulder?

253
00:30:31,000 --> 00:30:32,000
Yeah.

254
00:30:32,000 --> 00:30:33,000
Something that you could not see?

255
00:30:33,000 --> 00:30:34,000
No.

256
00:30:34,000 --> 00:30:35,000
Now, do you mind if I have a look down there?

257
00:30:35,000 --> 00:30:36,000
Let's go.

258
00:30:36,000 --> 00:30:37,000
Yeah, I'll show you where it is.

259
00:30:45,000 --> 00:30:47,000
All right, and the basement's just right down there.

260
00:30:47,000 --> 00:30:48,000
Okay.

261
00:30:50,000 --> 00:30:52,000
Now, do you feel comfortable going down there?

262
00:30:52,000 --> 00:30:53,000
I'd rather not.

263
00:30:53,000 --> 00:30:54,000
Okay.

264
00:30:54,000 --> 00:30:55,000
I'll get started.

265
00:30:55,000 --> 00:30:56,000
Okay.

266
00:30:56,000 --> 00:30:57,000
Thanks.

267
00:31:06,000 --> 00:31:21,000
If I was trying to hide away from people, I would probably, I would want to go hide away in here.

268
00:31:23,000 --> 00:31:32,000
As a paranormal investigator, Jeff's first step is to use his intuition to try to pick up sensations caused by the spirits.

269
00:31:33,000 --> 00:31:36,000
There's a sensation that I'm picking up right now.

270
00:31:38,000 --> 00:31:39,000
It's in this back corner here.

271
00:31:39,000 --> 00:31:42,000
There's, this feels like masculine.

272
00:31:42,000 --> 00:31:44,000
This feels like father to me.

273
00:31:44,000 --> 00:31:47,000
Sort of this masculine, this male sort of energy there.

274
00:31:47,000 --> 00:31:52,000
And he's sort of holding his arms like this.

275
00:31:53,000 --> 00:31:58,000
And he's sort of protecting.

276
00:32:01,000 --> 00:32:03,000
Oh my God, I feel like his son.

277
00:32:03,000 --> 00:32:07,000
He's got his arms wrapped around his son right here, like this.

278
00:32:09,000 --> 00:32:13,000
From what I'm seeing, it's almost like silhouette.

279
00:32:23,000 --> 00:32:27,000
So sketching what I'm seeing here, because it's not, I mean, it's not detailed.

280
00:32:27,000 --> 00:32:35,000
It's not in a lot of detail, but it is this sort of boy is facing in, into, like this, into dad.

281
00:32:40,000 --> 00:32:41,000
Hands clasped.

282
00:32:42,000 --> 00:32:49,000
There's Matt, Matthew, Matthias.

283
00:32:52,000 --> 00:32:55,000
I don't know if this is first or last name, right?

284
00:32:55,000 --> 00:32:59,000
I felt short of breath coming down the stairs and walking into that room.

285
00:32:59,000 --> 00:33:00,000
I felt leapt.

286
00:33:00,000 --> 00:33:03,000
Like it felt like my clothing had this sort of dampness to it.

287
00:33:03,000 --> 00:33:04,000
My neck hurt.

288
00:33:04,000 --> 00:33:06,000
I had a hard time sort of pulling up my head.

289
00:33:06,000 --> 00:33:08,000
There was this pain right at the back of my neck.

290
00:33:08,000 --> 00:33:13,000
And all these feelings were things that I was picking up from that energy.

291
00:33:13,000 --> 00:33:16,000
But definitely a presence that you could feel in the room.

292
00:33:16,000 --> 00:33:17,000
It was palpable.

293
00:33:17,000 --> 00:33:19,000
It's cold. It's really cold.

294
00:33:21,000 --> 00:33:24,000
I can feel myself physically cold.

295
00:33:24,000 --> 00:33:29,000
Also, there's a sort of this feeling in the back of my neck right back here.

296
00:33:32,000 --> 00:33:35,000
There's these two hands.

297
00:33:39,000 --> 00:33:40,000
I should get a judge of size.

298
00:33:40,000 --> 00:33:42,000
I'd be able to have a size hand.

299
00:33:44,000 --> 00:33:54,000
Believing that there's a spirit present, Jeff's principle method is to will it to make contact by its use of electromagnetic forces.

300
00:33:56,000 --> 00:33:59,000
I'm going to ask you to come forward.

301
00:34:01,000 --> 00:34:03,000
Talk to us if you can.

302
00:34:08,000 --> 00:34:19,000
I'm going to try to pull the energy out of the batteries.

303
00:34:24,000 --> 00:34:26,000
That's what I'm trying to do.

304
00:34:33,000 --> 00:34:36,000
Can you make the flashlight go completely off?

305
00:34:38,000 --> 00:34:45,000
Can you make that flashlight go off?

306
00:34:54,000 --> 00:35:00,000
One of Jeff's major tools is his EMF meter, which detects electromagnetic energy.

307
00:35:01,000 --> 00:35:03,000
Can you touch this meter right here?

308
00:35:04,000 --> 00:35:05,000
Good.

309
00:35:05,000 --> 00:35:06,000
Touch this light.

310
00:35:06,000 --> 00:35:07,000
A green light.

311
00:35:07,000 --> 00:35:09,000
Can you touch that?

312
00:35:09,000 --> 00:35:11,000
A little bit of power there.

313
00:35:11,000 --> 00:35:12,000
I don't know your name.

314
00:35:12,000 --> 00:35:14,000
I don't know who you are.

315
00:35:15,000 --> 00:35:16,000
Touch that meter.

316
00:35:16,000 --> 00:35:17,000
Touch that light.

317
00:35:18,000 --> 00:35:20,000
This green light right here.

318
00:35:20,000 --> 00:35:22,000
It's killed my flashlight.

319
00:35:22,000 --> 00:35:23,000
I'll touch that green light.

320
00:35:30,000 --> 00:35:32,000
I'm going to count to three.

321
00:35:33,000 --> 00:35:38,000
And on three, what I want you to do is I want you to touch this meter.

322
00:35:39,000 --> 00:35:41,000
Touch it just your whole hand.

323
00:35:42,000 --> 00:35:43,000
Okay.

324
00:35:47,000 --> 00:35:48,000
One.

325
00:35:50,000 --> 00:35:51,000
Two.

326
00:35:53,000 --> 00:35:54,000
Three.

327
00:35:54,000 --> 00:35:55,000
Touch the lights.

328
00:35:55,000 --> 00:35:56,000
Three.

329
00:35:56,000 --> 00:35:57,000
Oh, good.

330
00:35:57,000 --> 00:35:58,000
Good, good, good, good.

331
00:35:58,000 --> 00:35:59,000
Amazing.

332
00:36:00,000 --> 00:36:01,000
One more time.

333
00:36:02,000 --> 00:36:04,000
Can you do that again with the lights there?

334
00:36:06,000 --> 00:36:07,000
Okay.

335
00:36:07,000 --> 00:36:08,000
Good, good.

336
00:36:08,000 --> 00:36:09,000
See, you touched that.

337
00:36:09,000 --> 00:36:10,000
It's fine.

338
00:36:10,000 --> 00:36:11,000
It doesn't hurt you.

339
00:36:11,000 --> 00:36:13,000
It does not hurt you.

340
00:36:16,000 --> 00:36:18,000
I'm going to count to three.

341
00:36:18,000 --> 00:36:21,000
And when I hit three, I want you to touch the green light for me.

342
00:36:21,000 --> 00:36:22,000
Just grab it.

343
00:36:24,000 --> 00:36:25,000
One.

344
00:36:26,000 --> 00:36:27,000
Two.

345
00:36:28,000 --> 00:36:29,000
Three.

346
00:36:30,000 --> 00:36:31,000
Very good.

347
00:36:33,000 --> 00:36:38,000
Having established contact, Jeff wants to try to get information out of the spirit

348
00:36:38,000 --> 00:36:41,000
using other specially developed technology.

349
00:36:50,000 --> 00:36:55,000
Paranormal investigator Jeff Richards is in the basement of the Juno drugstore

350
00:36:55,000 --> 00:37:00,000
trying to communicate with restless spirits believed to be present here.

351
00:37:02,000 --> 00:37:07,000
The ghosts are said to be of the dead of the SS Princess Sophia,

352
00:37:07,000 --> 00:37:10,000
Alaska's greatest maritime tragedy.

353
00:37:11,000 --> 00:37:15,000
Many bodies from the wreck were stored here before burial.

354
00:37:19,000 --> 00:37:23,000
Jeff has with him an electronic device called a spirit box,

355
00:37:24,000 --> 00:37:30,000
which scans the airwaves, amalgamating the frequency sounds into what's known as white noise.

356
00:37:31,000 --> 00:37:38,000
So the idea here is that this device actually gives a way for the spirit to communicate vocally.

357
00:37:39,000 --> 00:37:44,000
So we'll be able to hear their words in real time as I'm asking them questions.

358
00:37:47,000 --> 00:37:49,000
So I'm going to try to give you a voice.

359
00:37:49,000 --> 00:37:51,000
If you're here, I want to hear you speak.

360
00:37:51,000 --> 00:37:56,000
So if you can please come forward and say your name.

361
00:38:00,000 --> 00:38:07,000
Jeff listens beyond the normal background sound for the words of any spirit trying to communicate.

362
00:38:11,000 --> 00:38:13,000
Say your name for me.

363
00:38:14,000 --> 00:38:16,000
I'd like your name.

364
00:38:16,000 --> 00:38:18,000
Can you tell me your name?

365
00:38:28,000 --> 00:38:29,000
Boy.

366
00:38:30,000 --> 00:38:32,000
Boy, very clearly boy.

367
00:38:35,000 --> 00:38:37,000
Jeff hears the word boy.

368
00:38:38,000 --> 00:38:40,000
Are you looking for your boy?

369
00:38:40,000 --> 00:38:42,000
Are you looking for your boy?

370
00:38:45,000 --> 00:38:54,000
If this is a father looking for his son, I just want you to touch the light in my hand or say the word yes.

371
00:39:01,000 --> 00:39:04,000
This time the answer is clearer.

372
00:39:04,000 --> 00:39:08,000
What sounds like a distant yes is shouted.

373
00:39:08,000 --> 00:39:17,000
If this is a father looking for his son, I just want you to touch the light in my hand or say the word yes.

374
00:39:19,000 --> 00:39:23,000
The sound here has not been doctored in any way.

375
00:39:23,000 --> 00:39:27,000
I just want you to touch the light in my hand or say the word yes.

376
00:39:27,000 --> 00:39:28,000
Yes.

377
00:39:36,000 --> 00:39:38,000
You're looking for your son?

378
00:39:39,000 --> 00:39:41,000
Is there a boy touching this right now?

379
00:39:41,000 --> 00:39:43,000
Oh, here we go.

380
00:39:44,000 --> 00:39:46,000
Just say your name for me please.

381
00:39:48,000 --> 00:39:49,000
No.

382
00:39:51,000 --> 00:39:53,000
Just say your name for me please.

383
00:39:55,000 --> 00:39:56,000
No.

384
00:39:58,000 --> 00:40:01,000
You don't want to tell me your name?

385
00:40:14,000 --> 00:40:15,000
Wait.

386
00:40:15,000 --> 00:40:16,000
You want us to wait?

387
00:40:16,000 --> 00:40:18,000
What do you want me to wait for?

388
00:40:23,000 --> 00:40:26,000
Your message isn't coming through very clearly.

389
00:40:27,000 --> 00:40:35,000
So I'd like for you to say the word yes or no when I ask a question.

390
00:40:35,000 --> 00:40:37,000
Just a simple yes or no.

391
00:40:39,000 --> 00:40:43,000
Are you a father looking for his son?

392
00:40:52,000 --> 00:40:53,000
Yes.

393
00:40:54,000 --> 00:40:57,000
What is your son in this building?

394
00:41:07,000 --> 00:41:08,000
Here.

395
00:41:10,000 --> 00:41:12,000
Just say your name for me please.

396
00:41:12,000 --> 00:41:13,000
Fuck.

397
00:41:13,000 --> 00:41:14,000
Scott.

398
00:41:14,000 --> 00:41:15,000
Did you hear that?

399
00:41:15,000 --> 00:41:17,000
Very clearly, Scott.

400
00:41:18,000 --> 00:41:21,000
Did you pass away on the Sophia?

401
00:41:23,000 --> 00:41:24,000
No.

402
00:41:34,000 --> 00:41:41,000
Most of the first names are absent from the records of the passenger and crew list of the Princess Sophia.

403
00:41:41,000 --> 00:41:46,000
The children and of course any stowaways aren't named at all.

404
00:41:46,000 --> 00:41:51,000
But there are three men listed with the first initial S.

405
00:41:54,000 --> 00:41:58,000
Thank you very much for communicating with us here today.

406
00:41:58,000 --> 00:42:01,000
I'm going to leave you in this space.

407
00:42:01,000 --> 00:42:04,000
I'm going to ask for you to stay in this space.

408
00:42:04,000 --> 00:42:08,000
Do not follow myself or any member of this crew.

409
00:42:08,000 --> 00:42:09,000
Do not attach yourself to any of us.

410
00:42:09,000 --> 00:42:11,000
You need to stay where you are.

411
00:42:11,000 --> 00:42:12,000
Stay where you're comfortable.

412
00:42:12,000 --> 00:42:13,000
This is your home.

413
00:42:13,000 --> 00:42:15,000
This is your safe space.

414
00:42:15,000 --> 00:42:17,000
Thank you for communicating.

415
00:42:17,000 --> 00:42:19,000
We leave you with love and respect.

416
00:42:24,000 --> 00:42:30,000
In Alaska, the tragedy of the Princess Sophia is not forgotten.

417
00:42:30,000 --> 00:42:38,000
Here, in the basement of this drugstore, Jeff believes he has actually communicated with its dad.

418
00:42:40,000 --> 00:42:52,000
When the SS Princess Sophia hit the Vanderbilt Reef in October 1918, it was the beginning of a series of events that haunt Alaska to this day.

419
00:42:53,000 --> 00:43:03,000
And for paranormal investigator Jeff Richards, there's clear evidence that spirits of the deceased have remained in the area.

420
00:43:03,000 --> 00:43:04,000
It's very clear to me.

421
00:43:04,000 --> 00:43:07,000
There is definitely someone here.

422
00:43:07,000 --> 00:43:11,000
There's someone here in the lower level of the Juno drugstore.

423
00:43:11,000 --> 00:43:12,000
Three.

424
00:43:12,000 --> 00:43:13,000
Touch the lights.

425
00:43:13,000 --> 00:43:14,000
Three.

426
00:43:14,000 --> 00:43:16,000
Oh, good, good, good, good, good.

427
00:43:16,000 --> 00:43:17,000
Good.

428
00:43:17,000 --> 00:43:18,000
Amazing.

429
00:43:19,000 --> 00:43:26,000
Paranormal activity like this is unusual in the middle of a populated area.

430
00:43:26,000 --> 00:43:34,000
In Alaska, most reports come from remote areas, somewhere out in the vast wilderness.

431
00:43:34,000 --> 00:43:36,000
It's all over the Alaska Triangle.

432
00:43:36,000 --> 00:43:40,000
We have paranormal activity, ghostly sightings.

433
00:43:41,000 --> 00:43:47,000
But this time, it's actually in the capital city of Alaska, right in the center of Juno.

434
00:43:47,000 --> 00:43:53,000
I certainly think there's a possibility there's paranormal events happening underneath the Juno drugstore.

435
00:43:53,000 --> 00:44:01,000
And I certainly do believe that the people who experienced these events 100% believe they were happening.

436
00:44:02,000 --> 00:44:14,000
As big and mysterious as Alaska is, I think more incredibly, it's a place that has been marred by such upheaval, such progress.

437
00:44:14,000 --> 00:44:24,000
And in terms of that comes tragedy, heartbreak, you know, all of these huge outpourings of emotion that people feel and experience.

438
00:44:24,000 --> 00:44:32,000
You know, it's bound to have many spots that are haunted and many stories that persist.

439
00:44:33,000 --> 00:44:38,000
The stories about the Princess Sophia show no sign of going away.

440
00:44:38,000 --> 00:44:45,000
Tales from the Juno drugstore endure, as well as all the mysteries surrounding her sinking.

441
00:44:45,000 --> 00:44:49,000
This really is Alaska's Titanic.

442
00:44:50,000 --> 00:44:57,000
When Princess Sophia slid backwards off that reef and took over 300 people to their deaths,

443
00:44:57,000 --> 00:45:06,000
it was a maritime disaster reminiscent in some ways of when the Titanic hit an iceberg in the Atlantic

444
00:45:06,000 --> 00:45:10,000
and went down with huge loss of life.

445
00:45:10,000 --> 00:45:15,000
The difference is with Princess Sophia, it was total loss of life.

446
00:45:15,000 --> 00:45:18,000
No human survived that sinking.

447
00:45:20,000 --> 00:45:25,000
We have to question why did it go a mile off course? Why did it hit the reef?

448
00:45:25,000 --> 00:45:29,000
Why do people stay in their cabins? And what happened to the bodies?

449
00:45:29,000 --> 00:45:37,000
Was it some kind of elemental forces? Was it some kind of curse placed on the boat or some of the people on the boat?

450
00:45:37,000 --> 00:45:41,000
So this really is one of the big mysteries of the Alaska Triangle.

451
00:45:43,000 --> 00:45:47,000
The SS Princess Sophia is at rest.

452
00:45:49,000 --> 00:45:53,000
The spirits of its dead, however, may not be.

453
00:45:55,000 --> 00:46:02,000
It was the Alaska Triangle's greatest tragedy, and it still haunts the region to this day.