The UnXplained Special Presentation

A man-made lake with a deadly reputation.

A remote mountaintop summit

with a chilling past.

And an eerie hotel

where evil...

is said to reside.

Did you ever have the feeling

that a dark energy is lurking close by?

Or that you were actually confronted

by an unearthly presence?

Could it be possible

that sinister entities are hiding all around us

at so-called "cursed places,"

lying in wait

to possess our very soul?

If this is true, how can we protect ourselves

when encountering evil?

Well, that is what we'll try and find out.

Deep within this mountain range lies Lake Lanier.

Millions of people venture to this popular vacation spot

to relax and unwind,

despite the fact that every year,

a shocking number of people drown

within its placid waters.

And many of their bodies

are never seen again.

If you live anywhere

near Lake Lanier in North Georgia,

you're gonna hear every summer all of the deaths.

There are bad boating accidents.

And when somebody goes overboard,

it's almost impossible to find them before they drown.

Lake Lanier, from the surface, looks clear.

But we hear time and time again

when we respond to these drownings.

People will say that, "He didn't go into the water, come up,

"struggle and drown.

He went in and never came back up."

And this happens time and time again.

This lake seems to take people

in one gulp.

Lake Lanier is 26 miles long,

it has 700 miles of shorefront.

And it's tempting

to attribute the inordinate number of fatalities

to the size of the lake.

But the fact is

there are lakes of commensurate size

in Northern Georgia

that don't have half that number of fatalities or accidents.

So, clearly, there is something about Lake Lanier

that is cause for alarm.

Since the 1950s, it is estimated

that more than 600 people have lost their lives in Lake Lanier.

It is such a staggering number of fatalities

that, for decades,

many have come to believe that these waters may be cursed.

Even though there's a lot of people around,

there is just some strange vibe about the lake.

I feel it's a majestic body of water,

but you can't deny that there's something odd about Lake Lanier.

When you actually get into Lanier,

you get a feeling that you're not alone

when you should be alone.

I don't feel like

someone's reaching out to grab me,

but the water feels thicker than it should.

And what I mean by that is

a lady fell out of a boat, and we actually witnessed it.

And we ran over there and pulled her out of the water

and she was very upset and she said, "I'm so embarrassed."

And I said, "Don't worry.

We see people do this all the time."

And she said, "No, you don't understand.

I'm a lifeguard."

And she said just when she found herself

in that water, it was just like molasses.

So all the things that we see in this lake,

it finally got so bad and scared the locals so much

that we think maybe we're just stuck with a curse

we have to live with.

Could the numerous fatalities

that have taken place at Lake Lanier

be the result of a curse?

It may sound far-fetched to some.

But for decades,

researchers have been examining the possibility

that Lake Lanier could be harboring the power

to inflict harm.

And according to their investigations,

it may have something to do with the history of Lake Lanier.

Lake Lanier is the largest lake in Georgia.

It's a man-made lake meant to provide water and power

to the surrounding communities.

They actually made it by flooding a valley

that had a town in it-- Oscarville.

So, they had to relocate the people that lived there.

Then they just drowned the entire town under water.

Oscarville wasn't the only town

that was affected by the building of Lake Lanier.

In the 1940s and '50s,

the U.S. government acquired the rights

to more than 56,000 acres of land

in Forsyth, Hall and Dawson counties

to make room for the 38,000-acre lake

and more than 700 miles of shoreline.

This included several small towns,

and the remains of these communities

are still submerged

beneath the surface of Lake Lanier.

When they built the lake,

they left tons of structure in the water.

We've got concrete, roads, bridges.

We've got a racetrack under there, we've got

standing timber that stands as high as 40, 60,

70 feet from the bottom.

There seems to be a great deal

of debris in the water,

so it's not an ideal place for people

to be swimming or boating or Jet-Skiing or partying.

The fact is it's a dangerous place.

Authorities claim that many people drown

in Lake Lanier because they get caught

in the debris lurking beneath its surface.

But researchers studying the lake believe

this is only part of the story, and that the source

of the dark force drawing people down into its murky depths

is a Native American burial ground

that was submerged by the lake's construction.

Back in 2007, there was a drought,

and the water went way low,

and because of that, they found an area

called the Summerour Mounds, Indian Mounds.

It's considered a sacred area

that belonged to the Native Americans,

the Creeks and the Cherokees.

Lake Lanier was built by the Army Corps of Engineers,

and according to the Army Corps of Engineers,

they removed all the bodies

while they were creating Lake Lanier.

But back when they were building these lakes,

they didn't have ground-penetrating equipment.

So there's a great likelihood that there are bodies

of the Native Americans under the waters of Lake Lanier.

Could the presence

of Native American remains

beneath Lake Lanier have a connection

to the unusual number of accidental deaths there?

Has the Native American belief in the power

of ancestral spirits cursed Lake Lanier?

Certainly among Native American traditions,

we have a widespread belief in curses,

particularly land-based curses.

And this connects to an overall sort of belief in animism,

that the material world is infused with spiritual aspects.

Now, many Native American traditions have long-standing,

very deep beliefs about how to treat dead bodies,

how not to disturb them, how not to disturb burial sites.

The desecration of those is held in native communities

to bring on a lot of bad spiritual energy.

Is it possible that Lake Lanier is home

to dark spiritual energy?

Perhaps.

But what's most surprising

is that even though this lake may be cursed,

people continue to enter its waters every day.

There's world class divers

that will not dive Lake Lanier.

We have 11 to 14 million people a year

that are coming here and taking their chances

in spite of the fact that there has been somewhere

between 600 and 700 drownings on this lake.

I'm not saying that there's a curse,

but I'm saying

there's definitely some bad energy.

And if it's not cursed, maybe it should be.

It's fascinating

that in spite of Lake Lanier's morbid history,

vacationers continue to frolic in its murky waters.

But there's a mountaintop

located more than 5,000 miles away in Russia

that locals simply refuse to visit.

It was the site of a violent massacre

that some believe was the work

of evil forces.

Nine mountaineers

from the Ural Polytechnic Institute

embark on a perilous journey through Russia's Ural Mountains.

Their destination:

a remote mountain peak known as Otorten,

which in the local Mansi language means,

"Don't Go There."

They went out

on this very strenuous trek or mission

to show that the mountain could be conquered.

As far as we know, they were all experienced.

Igor Dyatlov, who was in charge of the group,

had about seven missions to his name, similar missions.

They were supposed just to study the mountain

to show that they can withstand the incredible cold