Kindred Spirits - Seventh Season

The Edmund Fitzgerald went down with all 29 men on board.

Right there. Is there somebody standing in that door?

No.

Yeah, there is.

There's something moving in there.

Do you hear that?

Is there someone here...

What was that?

Someone just got thrown.

Why are you here?

Stuck.

The dead want a voice.

I just want to help this family.

The living need our help.

Have you always been here?

He was watching already.

Adam and I travelled to northern Michigan

to investigate a unique location,

the Valley Camp.

This decommissioned freighter is now a floating museum.

We finally made it.

I have been wanting to do the Valley Camp

the way you and I investigate... Yes.

...for so long.

Something here lurks among the artefacts

from the many ships claimed by the Great Lakes,

and recently, it's been getting more aggressive.

Now they have activity that seems more, you know,

like it's reaching out more often, it's louder,

things that they're not used to.

Visitors even flood social media with their experiences.

Paranormal investigator Brad Blair runs tours here

and keeps tabs on the activity.

Our friend Brad, who we've known for many years,

he works very closely with the Valley Camp.

He's conducted a number of investigations here.

He actually reached out.

So I mean, we've investigated ships before.

This is a very different bird.

Yeah. You know, it's going to be kind of creepy

just the two of us all by ourselves on this hunk of metal.

Hey, Brad. Good to see you.

Back to the Valley Camp. Yeah.

I know. Right?

It's, it's been a little less than a year.

I know. I mean, we've investigated here.

But every time we've done it,

it's been kind of like a group setting.

Right.

And there's also locations that we can't,

couldn't bring the public to before.

So we get to explore those.

Yeah. You want to take a look around here?

Yeah. What we'll do,

we'll follow you, and then we'll like stop in the spots

and chat a little bit.

This place gives me the creeps. It's so big.

This is one of the old cargo holds that they would've carried

taconites or grain,

different things that transported up and down the Lakes.

And this space feels really creepy.

I can't tell because it's dark and huge behind me.

But what kind of activity are people experiencing back here?

Some of the employees on the ship

have had really weird feelings down in this area.

When we've investigated before,

we've found shadows moving across there, where nobody should be.

It's just a lot of empty space with that, that echo to it.

Yeah. Yeah.

There's a creep effect to it, definitely.

OK.

Let's head back around and go down into the engine room.

OK. We'll follow you.

This is an area that's usually closed off to the general public.

Tourists are not allowed down here.

We don't bring people down.

Well, you can't... It's very dirty.

It's very dangerous, so watch your step here more than anywhere.

Were there ever any accidents or tragedies on board here?

There's one legend that there was a man working

down in the coal area that died in an accident.

OK. OK.

I've never been able to find a name.

I've never been able to...

And records weren't kept as well back in the early days

when this was sailing... Yeah.

...as they would've been, say, into the '50s and '60s.

Right, yeah.

And a lot of these people that were working on the ships back then,

they were transients. Would they have had anybody to contact?

Right. True.

I mean, if you only have one legend tragedy, right,

and there's no actual list of deaths or disasters on the ship,

it's like, where is that activity coming from?

Yeah. I mean, that makes our job a lot more difficult.

Yeah, for sure.

So. I feel like we're not done yet.

My God, don't look down.

So if there is a most paranormally active spot on the ship,

it would be in here. We're in the engine room,

the coal room.

The ship would've held hundreds of tons of coal.

Right.

And this was the engines that they had

to continuously shovel the coal into in order to keep the ship moving.

There's still coal.

There is still coal.

Like, the coal is still there.

One of the reports we had gotten in here

from one of the workers

was that they'd been hit with a piece of coal.

We were down here and one of our guys got hit with something,

turned around, and there was a piece of coal laying behind him.

I mean, I, it's just amazing to me

that there aren't any reported fatalities in this job.

This is the area that the legend spurs from,

was this part of the ship. OK.

OK. The supposed accident happened.

Alright.

Alright. Where are we going next?

We're up here at the pilot house now.

This is where the ship actually would've been steered from.

There's a lot of activity reported up this way.

Some of the female customers on the ship

have reported being touched in this area.

Employees have reported coming to close up

after everybody had been taken off the ship

and seeing a person up in here... Weird.

...right by the wheel. Anything that we've captured, it's been masculine.

OK. Alright. Where are we going next?

Let's head back around and go down

into where the Edmund Fitzgerald display is.

OK.

This theatre is where I got a crazy EVP

that was like a man yelling.

One of our teammates that I was here with

was using a spirit box in here, and they were getting no results.

And then towards the end of it,

it said, "Well, thank you for letting us be here.

"You know, we want to say good night now.

"We're leaving." And it came across, "Goodbye."

Wow. Yeah.

So something interacting and like answering intelligently.

Yes.

And what's on the other side of this wall?

The other side of this wall would be the Edmund Fitzgerald tribute room.

Yes.

If you're not familiar with the story of the Edmund Fitzgerald,

it was one of the biggest vessels on the Lakes at the time.

It went down with all 29 men on board.

None were ever seen again.

Similar to the Titanic, the Fitz was thought to be unsinkable.

And this is one of the lifeboats.

I mean, this thing is ripped in half.

Yeah. Metal lifeboat ripped in two.

When storms get moving and the weather turns,

it'll rip a steel freighter in half as happened with the Fitz.

That's insane. I mean, they didn't stand a chance.

Well, this is, I feel like this is the most important part

of the tour you've given us today, obviously, because we have to be

super-respectful of the fact that this is basically a memorial.

You know, I, I'd hate to think

that any of them are here, reaching out.

But if they are, maybe we can provide some sort of closure.

Yeah. Thank you, Brad, for taking us around.

It's lovely to see you, as always. Always.

Thank you. If we need anything... Give us a call.

Yeah. Yeah, for sure.

Yeah, we'll definitely call you.

Our job here is going to be very delicate.

This museum houses a lot of important historical artefacts.

There is an entire section for the Edmund Fitzgerald

which is one of the worst shipping disasters ever.

We're going to have to be very careful

about the questions we ask

and we're going to need more information.

We're meeting with Bruce, the executive director

of the Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society

to see if he can give us anything to use in our investigation tonight.

Well, thank you, Bruce, for taking the time to meet with us.

We're trying to kind of get a feel for what exactly happened

with the Edmund Fitzgerald

but also, how many shipwrecks are out there?

So there's 6,000 on the Great Lakes.

But along this shoreline, we have approximately 200.

My goodness. Wow.

When was the last shipwreck?

So a major, tragic, massive-loss-of-life shipwreck

would be the Fitzgerald. OK.

That ship, a 729-foot freighter,

was making its way across Lake Superior.

And by the time they were coming across the lake,

the weather started getting nastier

and, and the waves were getting higher,

the winds were getting stronger.

There were a number of ships that were out there that night,

including one called the Arthur M. Anderson

which had them on radar screens,

had, had a visible, they could see it.

And then when they got to a point 17 miles northwest