An aggressive spirit attacks guests at a historic hotel in Juneau, Alaska, and a shapeshifting menace could be responsible for thousands of abductions in the Alaska Triangle.
An aggressive spirit attacks guests at a historic hotel in Juneau, Alaska, and a shapeshifting menace could be responsible for thousands of abductions in the Alaska Triangle.
For even more of The Alaska Triangle, head to discovery+. Go to discoveryplus.com/alaskatriange to start your 7-day free trial today. Terms apply.
Find episode transcripts here: https://the-alaska-triangle.simplecast.com/episodes/alaskas-most-haunted-building-and-curse-of-the-kushtaka
SPEAKER 1: Alaska, a vast remote wilderness twice the size of Texas.
JONNY
ENOCH:
There are dangerous, unpredictable forces at work here.
SPEAKER 1: In one of the most mysterious corners of the globe.
SPEAKER 2: A lot of things can kill you out here without even trying.
SPEAKER 1: This is a place hundreds of times more deadly than the Bermuda Triangle.
SPEAKER 3: Oh, my god!
SPEAKER 1: Stories of alien abductions.
JARED
AUGUSTINE:
I believe it was a UFO.
SPEAKER 1: The paranormal vanishing airplanes and strange beasts.
JARED
AUGUSTINE:
The Alaskan Bigfoot, he can rip you in half.
JAMES FOX: These accounts are really widespread.
JARED
AUGUSTINE:
[BLEEP] They picked out of the tree right there.
SPEAKER 1: Have haunted those who dare set foot here. In the last 30 years, 16,000 people have disappeared without a trace.
JAMES FOX: More people have disappeared than the Bermuda Triangle, two to three times the amount.
SPEAKER 1: Witnesses tell us their shocking stories.
SPEAKER 4: I was petrified.
SPEAKER 1: And we've gathered some of the world's leading experts in their field.
SPEAKER 5: I'm always after scientific evidence that can be independently corroborated.
SPEAKER 1: To try and unlock the mystery of the Alaska Triangle.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
The Alaska Triangle is steeped in mystery with extraordinary stories and unexplained phenomena. From possessions
and poltergeists, to mythological monsters. It's a hub of supernatural activity.
[GROWLING, SCREAMING]
JEFF
RICHARDS:
The place is absolutely riddled with the paranormal.
SPEAKER 1: Its cities are rife with reported hauntings.
JOSH
ADAMS:
This hotel is a hotbed for the supernatural.
SPEAKER 1: It's wilderness stalked by strange beasts.
[GROWLS]
JEFF
RICHARDS:
We have something here.
SPEAKER 1: Now, paranormal investigators are on a mission to solve the mysteries.
JEFF
RICHARDS:
I feel like I've kind of dipped my arms in ice water right now.
SPEAKER 1: And the results are astonishing.
Look how dangerous this is here.
SPEAKER 1: Alaska's state capital, Juneau, wedged between mountains and ocean. Founded in the gold rush and home to one of
Alaska's most haunted buildings.
JOSH
ADAMS:
Anyone who's worked or lived here for any length of time knows that this hotel is a hotbed for the supernatural.
SPEAKER 1: To understand the building's hauntings is to crack the supernatural mysteries of the Alaska Triangle itself. Leading
the investigation expert intuitive and paranormal investigator Jeff Richards.
JEFF
RICHARDS:
The Alaska Triangle is absolutely a magnet for the spirits of the dead with more cases of hauntings and possessions
than many other places in North America.
SPEAKER 1: The building's history goes hand in hand with the city itself.
JOSH
ADAMS:
This hotel was built in 1913 on gold money. Juneau was a mining town. It was a rough and ready sort of border
town.
JEFF
RICHARDS:
Prospectors were exploring every nook and cranny with a fine comb. 98% of them returned broke.
SPEAKER 1: To celebrate their successes or drink away their failures, Juneau's most colorful characters headed to the Alaskan
hotel.
JOSH
ADAMS:
This hotel was a bordello, where rooms were rented out by the working girls. If you were to come in 1913 and to this
very bar, you would see a lot of miners, trappers, fishermen, even lawmen, and legislators. They all came together.
SPEAKER 1: Many think that notorious past has left a permanent paranormal mark.
JOSH
ADAMS:
My family has had this hotel since I was two years old. I grew up around the supernatural, and I grew up around the
ghosts and the spirits that live in this building.
SPEAKER 1: For many guests the hotel's paranormal activity is too much to bear.
JOSH
ADAMS:
Some people can't stay here. They just leave. Some of them running, some of them screaming.
SPEAKER 1: Now, Jeff will use his years of experience investigating hauntings and supernatural activity to dig to the bottom of
the hotel's paranormal history.
JEFF
RICHARDS:
Joshua.
JOSH
ADAMS:
Hey, pleased to meet you.
JEFF
RICHARDS:
It's amazing to be in such a famous, haunted hotel.
JOSH
ADAMS:
I'm hoping that Jeff can tell me a little bit more about the hauntings and possibly the other supernatural beings that
inhabit this building. Yeah, come right back this way. I'd like to know if his findings concur with the legends.
SPEAKER 1: First up, Josh takes him to one of the most disturbing spots in the building.
JOSH
ADAMS:
The first thing I want to show you is down in the basement. So this is where we have a resident poltergeist.
SPEAKER 1: The few people who have ventured into the hotel's basement report an aggressive spirit that physically attacks
them.
JOSH
ADAMS:
He's angry with women. There's a feeling of anguish and hatred, intense hatred and capriciousness. And in that
particular spot in the basement.
SPEAKER 1: As an intuitive, Jeff feels attuned to the presence of spirits in haunted spaces.
JEFF
RICHARDS:
Do you feel that there's sort of this malevolent kind of presence or something that's more likely to push people out
of this space?
JOSH
ADAMS:
Yes.
JEFF
RICHARDS:
Than other parts of the hotel?
JOSH
ADAMS:
Definitely, yes.
JEFF
RICHARDS:
It's like two hands coming up in front of me right now, almost like a roaring kind of masculine energy wanting to
push me back up those stairs for whatever reason. Like I feel like I've kind of dipped my arms in ice water right now.
Does that make sense to you?
SPEAKER 1: For Josh, the poltergeist in the basement arrived after a tragic accident.
JOSH
ADAMS:
Well, let me tell you something about the history of this place. On September 8, 1998, I was standing right here, and
I was looking at a dead man floating face down in what at that time was a hot tub that we had rented to him. His
name was Charles, and he died at the age of 44 by drowning.
SPEAKER 1: After Charles drowned, his body was removed. But Josh believes his spirit never left.
JOSH
ADAMS:
That man is a poltergeist. And he is very, very territorial. After the death, that we never rented another hot tub. And
we never used this area for any commercial purpose.
JEFF
RICHARDS:
I've done over 185 investigations. I hear stories all the time of a haunted space that is haunted because some
incredibly violent act has taken place there, a murder or a suicide. I think it's quite common for those moments to
leave a rip in the energy of that space that those spirits are continually drawn back to.
SPEAKER 1: But Jeff feels there's more at play here.
JEFF
RICHARDS:
So the negativity then-- because I'm feeling right now, it may very well be the energy of that man that passed away.
But to me, it also feels like there's something here that's a bit older than that.
SPEAKER 1: Could it be the hotel's colorful past that has left spirits festering in its basement?
JOSH
ADAMS:
Right where you're standing was a horseshoe bar. The bar was a hub for every scoundrel, scumbag, legislators, con
man, murderer, thief, you name it. There were riots. There were brawls. It was just like the Old West.
JEFF
RICHARDS:
This feels like something connected to the original people on this land. Do you know if there's ever been anything--
like if anything was found with regards to burial sites or sacred spaces, ceremonial spaces on the property that the
Alaska hotel resides on right now?
SPEAKER 1: Many of Alaska's towns were built in the sites of settlements established by Indigenous Native American tribes. Jeff's
keen to know if the Alaskan hotel was to.
JOSH
ADAMS:
This building was built on native lands. And this land is still sacred to the people. And when the White people came,
they took it from the Native Americans. And many of those homes were decimated. So a lot of that negative energy
could be coming from the disenfranchised native ancestors.
JEFF
RICHARDS:
Building a home on the sacred grounds, on burial lands can potentially be problematic. That can be a bad idea.
Because those grounds are protected in the living world, but they're also protected in the spirit world. And those
energies might take action against whoever is there.
SPEAKER 1: Jeff has felt the presence of multiple spirits in the basement.
JEFF
RICHARDS:
I've explored the basement. I've seen a lot. I felt a lot here. I'm excited to get to the rest of the hotel, though, to see
what else I can find.
JOSH
ADAMS:
OK, I'm going to give you keys to the two most haunted rooms in the entire hotel. Here's a key to room 219, which is
right here.
JEFF
RICHARDS:
OK.
JOSH
ADAMS:
And here's a key to room 315, which is on the third floor.
JEFF
RICHARDS:
All right. Get started.
SPEAKER 1: First stop, room 219 on the second floor.
[SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC]
JEFF
RICHARDS:
This room has a very sad sort of air about it as soon as you come into the space. I mean, I feel it right now. It feels
oppressive in the way that it's taken a life previously, at least one.
[SCREAMS]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
SPEAKER 1: The Alaska Triangle, a hub of unexplained disappearances and a hotspot for paranormal activity.
ANDREW
GOUGH:
Everybody knows about the Bermuda Triangle. But the Alaska Triangle is even weirder.
SPEAKER 1: In Alaska's capital city Juneau, paranormal investigator Jeff Richards is trying to contact residents spirits in one of
the Alaska hotel's most haunted rooms, 219.
JEFF
RICHARDS:
This room has a very sad sort of air about it as soon as you come into the space. I mean, I feel it right now.
JOSH
ADAMS:
We have a particular spirit that gets seen by a lot of people. And we call her Alice. Alice lived in a room with her
Beau. And that room was 219. She was with him, but he left to go out and seek his fortune.
SPEAKER 1: 100 years later, Jeff has picked up on spiritual energy in that same room, 219.
JEFF
RICHARDS:
The energy of the basement was menacing that this-- this is almost sorrowful. You know it's--
JOSH
ADAMS:
Alice ran out of money. And so she turned to the world's oldest profession.
SPEAKER 1: Like many impoverished women down on their luck back then, she became a prostitute.
JOSH
ADAMS:
The only problem is her boyfriend did come back. He became furious.
SPEAKER 1: He killed her in a crime of passion. Jeff, a self professed intuitive, thinks he can feel a link to those events.
JEFF
RICHARDS:
There's like a feminine voice, a woman's voice. And she's saying, tell me, like sort of like shouting it, like tell me.
And there's confusion.
JOSH
ADAMS:
And to this day people see Alice in a diaphanous gown.
JEFF
RICHARDS:
Sadness is there because it's like something's been pulled away before its time with no real explanation. OK, I want
to see-- I want to go see 315.
SPEAKER 1: Another shocking story haunts the floor above.
JOSH
ADAMS:
There's another strange occurrence that happened in room 315. There was a sailor in the year 2007 who rented a
room. He was rather intoxicated. And he wanted a room that was haunted.
SPEAKER 1: Though the man entered the room alone, guests reported hearing loud voices.
[MAN SHOUTING]
JOSH
ADAMS:
It was as if someone were talking to someone else in the room who wasn't there.
SPEAKER 1: But it wasn't just voices.
JEFF
RICHARDS:
People hear screaming, yelling. Virtual chaos in the room.
[PEOPLE SCREAMING]
He ends up actually throwing himself out of this window. So whatever he was experiencing was so terrible, was so
frightening that he was compelled to leap up this window and fall three stories down. The window itself, it's small.
It's a very small opening. This wall here is just a few feet away. So he would have been skidding down that wall,
getting bumped and banged up and scratched the whole way down.
SPEAKER 1: When the police finally enter the room they find a scene of carnage.
JOSH
ADAMS:
There was blood all over the room. The window was broken. And when I say blood all over the room, I mean, the
walls, the ceiling, the beds, everywhere.
JEFF
RICHARDS:
I do feel a bit uneasy right now in the room, I mean, especially with the door closed. But it's not even that. It's just
like everything sort of-- it's kind of closing in a little bit. This room feels-- it feels oppressive in the way that it's
taken-- it's taken a life previously, at least one. OK, I want to get some of the equipment out and start trying to
communicate with whatever this might be.
SPEAKER 1: Jeff will use a trio of electromagnetic meters to gauge any spirits activity in the room.
JEFF
RICHARDS:
Hopefully, we're able to net something here today. OK, it's warming up big time. OK. I'd like to invite anyone who
may be present in this room right now to step forward and communicate with me. My name is Jeff, and I enter your
space with nothing but respect. I'm simply here to record your story.
SPEAKER 1: Jeff's specialist device picks up on electromagnetic variations in the room's atmosphere. Incredibly, it can translate
any paranormal messages into actual words, which are then spoken by the machine.
[DISTORTED VOICE]
JEFF
RICHARDS:
Basement. July. Can I just-- July 12, 1921. July. OK. Those are-- again, we're getting a string of very significant hits
here right now.
SPEAKER 1: Amazingly, Jeff has heard the spirit voice say the same date he picked up on earlier and wrote on his pad.
JEFF
RICHARDS:
What's July? What's the 12th of July? Was that the day you were killed, 12th of July? Go ahead, touch that light. Yes.
Good, good.
SPEAKER 1: Jeff believes that ghost can show its presence by boosting the energy in the room, which registers on his machine.
JEFF
RICHARDS:
I'd like to know what it is that you want, while you're here. Can you tell me why you're here?
[DISTORTED VOICE]
Hell. What about hell? Are you stuck in hell? Are you in hell?
[DISTORTED VOICE]
Alice. This does not happen often. But when it does, it's significant. Alice. So we're speaking with Alice. Is this Alice?
SPEAKER 1: In a remarkable development, Jeff feels he's in direct contact with the hotel's best known, ghost the gold rush era
guest known as Alice, brutally murdered by her furious lover.
JEFF
RICHARDS:
Alice, you can touch this light. If this is Alice that we're speaking with, is this Alice? OK, very good. Alice. Did you die
in room 219?
[DISTORTED VOICE]
Poltergeists. Alice, are you the poltergeist in the basement? Alice, are you still with us?
[DISTORTED VOICE]
Alice? Alice, I'd like to say thank you for speaking with us. I thank you for your communication. I'm going to say
goodbye now. Once again, thank you. I firmly believe that today, I was speaking directly to Alice.
My theory is that the young man who stayed in this room had an encounter with her, the scorned woman who was
killed before she was ready, obviously very tragically she was killed and is sort of now left wandering, trapped. Alice.
For me, that confirms the name. That confirms what has been speculated about in this hotel for years, and years,
and years.
We have now given them some conclusive proof. That's a big deal. It's very, very significant. July, basement. Again,
these are all clues leading towards us connecting today with Alice from room 219.
[DOOR CLOSES]
Those were huge hits. Those are really big hits. From an investigative perspective, those were great. I think we're
done.
SPEAKER 1: From the hundreds of paranormal experiences to psychic contact, the evidence of intense paranormal activity at
Juneau's Alaskan hotel is abundant. And there are plenty more hauntings for Jeff to investigate. But supernatural
forces in the triangle aren't just urban phenomenon. From deep in the wilderness far from civilization come legends
of a mysterious beast.
[GROWLS]
Like the Bigfoot or Sasquatch.
[GROWLS]
But Alaska has its own mythical monster.
SPEAKER 6: They're very dangerous.
SPEAKER 1: Suspected of thousands of human abductions.
SPEAKER 7: It is extremely bad luck to even mention its name.
SPEAKER 1: Feared by generations of Native Americans.
SPEAKER 6: They have old stories going back thousands of years about these things.
SPEAKER 1: And possibly attacking people today.
DIANA LYNN
TUCKER:
I know it happened because I got the scars to prove it.
SPEAKER 1: Its name is Kushtaka. It's a creature synonymous with the spirit world of Native American Tlingit people. The
Indigenous population of Southeast Alaska.
SPEAKER 8: The Kushtaka is a shapeshifting creature in Tlingit society and it's known to inhabit all of Southeast Alaska. The
literal translation is land otter man.
SPEAKER 6: They're very dangerous. They're very big and muscular, and they have a lot of physical power behind them.
SPEAKER 1: Part man, part otter. This land and water dwelling monster is reputed to have abducted countless people over
generations.
SPEAKER 7: Kushtaka's tie-in to Tlingit culture and accounting for missing people and what might happen to them.
SPEAKER 1: For centuries, Native American artists have depicted the creature's terrifying form in masks in art.
SPEAKER 7: This being is similar to the Tlingit Kushtaka. Because this being hair covered and very cold in the body is the same
sort of creature that would steal a drowning fisherman and take him to another land. And as such is much feared.
SPEAKER 1: Tales of its attacks stretch back hundreds of years. Thomas Bay, Southern Alaska. Known as the Bay of Death, it's
the site of one of the Alaska triangle's most infamous mysteries. And locals like Bjorn Dihle grew up on its terrifying
tales.
BJORN
DIHLE:
The legend of Thomas Bay is the quintessential spook story of Southeast Alaska.
ANDREW
GOUGH:
Back at the beginning of the 20th century, Alaska was still a wild, unexplored frontier. But people were starting to
explore it.
BJORN
DIHLE:
So this is a couple of years after the Klondike gold rush ended. There's no gold to be had, really. But people are still
just fleeing the Lower 48 in hopes of economic opportunities that Alaska might offer.
SPEAKER 1: Among them, a gold hungry prospector known as Charlie.
BJORN
DIHLE:
Charlie knew this elderly Tlingit man who had this big piece of courts that was flecked full of gold. And Charlie was
following following this Tlingit man around being like, where did you find this?
SPEAKER 1: The tribesman gives Charlie a vital tip off. Charlie heads alone into the wilderness, desperate to find his fortune. His
destination, Thomas Bay. An area revered by Native Americans for its evil spirits and known for an historic landslide
that wiped out an entire settlement.
BJORN
DIHLE:
The Tlingit people of the area wouldn't have anything to do in the bay.
ANDREW
GOUGH:
There was a fear of something menacing in the forest.
SPEAKER 1: They call it Devils Country. Undeterred, Charlie sets up camp alone.
BJORN
DIHLE:
So Charlie sets up camp. And immediately, it just starts pouring rain.
SPEAKER 1: For a full week, Charlie waits out the rain in his tent.
BJORN
DIHLE:
Charlie, after weeks of rain, comes out of his tent. He's following this Tlingit man's directions to this gold deposit.
SPEAKER 1: Alone in the wilderness with supplies fast running out, the man searches the hillsides for any sign of the long
rumored gold seams.
BJORN
DIHLE:
He's up high on a ridge. He's kind of turned around. And then he exposes this huge ledge full of gold.
SPEAKER 1: Of the hundreds of thousands of prospectors who sought their fortunes in the gold fields of America, few ever tasted
such luck. After marking the find, Charlie goes in search of more gold. But his luck is about to run out.
BJORN
DIHLE:
He turns around. And right there are these creatures that are neither man nor monkey but just hideous, shrieking
screaming, hollering, and trying to get him. And the only word that he can use to describe them are devil creatures.
[GROWLING]
So he tries to use his gun, which doesn't work that well.
SPEAKER 1: Terrified for his life, Charlie flees Thomas Bay, taking nothing with him except an incredible tale that will last for
centuries. And for Alaskans, it corroborates a legend as old as Alaska itself, the legend of the Kushtaka.
[GROWLING]
SPEAKER 8: The Kushtaka is one of the most terrifying creatures there is in our folklore.
SPEAKER 6: We don't acknowledge their existence. They're the boogeyman. They're demonized.
SPEAKER 1: Now, cryptozoologist Lance Hightower is on a mission to find the mythical monster and sort legend from reality.
LANCE
HIGHTOWER:
We're on a hunt looking for evidence of the Kushtaka. We have the ideal environment. We have dense forests, steep
cliffs, and water. In fact, we're not too far away from very famous location, Thomas Bay. So I think this is going to be
an ideal location. And I'm looking forward and getting in there and seeing what we can find.
SPEAKER 1: Could Kushtaka be a genuinely unknown species?
ANDREW
GOUGH:
Science does not know everything. We're discovering new species all the time. That is there's many new and
undiscovered species waiting to be found, including very big animals.
SPEAKER 1: Lance is ready to find out and prepared for every eventuality.
LANCE
HIGHTOWER:
So I have, in my backpack, EM mater. It's been said that these elicit some type of electromagnetic frequency. And in
addition, I have an infrared. So as night falls, I want to be able to see what's going on around me. As we go over here
and investigate, I have no idea what's over there. So we want to be safe at all cost.
SPEAKER 1: It's a precaution worth taking. It was not far from this spot in woods like these that one of the most recent and
terrifying Kushtaka encounters occurred.
DIANA LYNN
TUCKER:
Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think that I would have an encounter with the Kushtaka.
[GROWLING]
BJORN
DIHLE:
The Kushtaka are shapeshifting beings from the Tlingit mythology. They have old stories going back thousands of
years about these things.
SPEAKER 1: They're infamous for appearing out of nowhere and swooping on their victims. People like Diana Lynn Tucker.
DIANA LYNN
TUCKER:
Back in 2007, my husband and I had saved up enough money to come to Alaska for the summer. We had rented a
little summer home. And we had some friends come up to visit us. It was a beautiful, beautiful July date.
My friend and I decided to go in a walk. So Sheree and I found a couple of paths to go. And there was one, it was
more woodsy than the other one.
SPEAKER 1: Diana heads deep into the woods, enchanted but alone.
DIANA LYNN
TUCKER:
Next thing I know, everything went silent. It was like that nightmare came to life.
SPEAKER 1: Unaware of the danger, Diana was walking in the world of the Kushtaka.
[GROWLING]
Just like cryptozoologist Lance Hightower, on an expedition deep into the wilderness, he's looking for signs of the
legendary otter man.
LANCE
HIGHTOWER:
Wait a minute. We have something here. OK. At first glance, I thought this was a decomposing carcass here of an
animal. But it looks like what we have here is plant based fibers that it starts to decay and pull apart, very much like
a dead animal. But in this area, this would be very much what a Kushtaka would eat. An opportunistic animal right
here on the shoreline. So this is a prime area for the Kushtaka to hunt and feed.
SPEAKER 1: The land otterman is the name Kushtaka translates. It's said to live between the water and the land, but also
between the physical and spirit worlds.
SPEAKER 6: They know how to do things that we don't even understand yet that's beyond us.
ANDREW
GOUGH:
This may sound like a nightmarish fairy tale, a legend but Alaska remains the last great unexplored region of the
United States. There's things there that remain anomalous because no one's really had a chance to investigate
them.
SPEAKER 1: Experts link the Kushtaka's awesome powers to the location of its habitat deep in the Alaska Triangle.
LANCE
HIGHTOWER:
Look at this. Look how dangerous this is here. Anything could be watching us. This is like a fortress in here. You have
the high cliffs, dense forest. And if I was going to be a Kushtaka, I would be in the shadows. I need to find a way to
investigate up there. I need to get over there.
SPEAKER 1: As the sun sets, Lance heads deep into the forest.
LANCE
HIGHTOWER:
OK, we made it to the top of the ridge here. And as hunter, one of the things I'm looking for is any signs, such as scat
or anything like that. And I don't see any right now. But in addition, I'm looking for movement. You want to be still,
and you want to see movement. And if there's movement, you want to wait just a second to see what you have.
SPEAKER 1: It was in woods like these that Texan Diana Lynn Tucker encountered the shapeshifting Kushtaka while walking on
summer vacation.
DIANA LYNN
TUCKER:
All of a sudden, there were these ravens. I don't even know what they were, this big, black birds. And they were
coming into the trees.
SPEAKER 1: Separated from her friend, Diana is vulnerable to attack.
DIANA LYNN
TUCKER:
I'm looking around for Sheree. I can't find her anywhere. I can't speak. I can't move. I can hardly breathe. It just
became dark with these black crow of birds. And then I look over.
[GROWLING]
And there's this bird-like man, this huge entity with this big face. Suddenly, I just fell. The birds were coming at me. I
could feel the blood going down my arms. And-- I'm sorry. It's just so scary.
[GROWLING]
SPEAKER 1: The shape-shifting Kushtaka has made Diana's worst nightmares a reality by transforming into a bird.
DIANA LYNN
TUCKER:
When I was a child, I had older brothers. And we watched a very famous movie about these big black birds that were
just evil. And ever since then, they have just always, always terrified me.
ANDREW
GOUGH:
The Kushtaka is something that preys upon your most primal fears with this ability to almost peer into your soul.
SPEAKER 1: Incredibly, Diana escaped with her life.
DIANA LYNN
TUCKER:
And my friend, she was, what is wrong? And why are you bleeding? She thought that I had like fallen. And I was
freaked out and scared. What in the hell just happened? It was unexplainable.
SPEAKER 1: Diana could make no sense of her terrifying experience until she came face to face with a Native American elder.
DIANA LYNN
TUCKER:
She looked up at me with just the fear of God in her eyes as if she had just seen the devil. And she asked me if I had
been touched by the Kushtaka. She told me that the fact that I came out of it alive meant that I had a very strong
soul, and there was some larger purpose for me in life. It was validating. This was real. This did happen. I was
approached. And there's something out there.
[GROWLING]
I know it happened because I've got the scars to prove it. It was just frightening as hell.
SPEAKER 1: Diana survived her experience. Now, Lance Hightower is seeking the shapeshifting beast she says attacked her.
LANCE
HIGHTOWER:
Anything could be watching us right now, and we wouldn't know it. How dense everything, just look at it. There
could be something 15 yards away. You'd never in the shadows.
SPEAKER 1: What's more, Native Americans believe the Kushtaka can make itself invisible.
ANDREW
GOUGH:
If the acoustic car has all the special powers that the Tlingit people say it does, then this could be one of the hardest
creatures to track down. That's because it appears to morph between our realm and another realm.
LANCE
HIGHTOWER:
So I pulled out my EMF meter. It reads the electromagnetic frequency that these acoustic are supposed to emit.
SPEAKER 1: Into the early hours of the Alaskan twilight, Lance searches for any sign of the Kushtaka.
LANCE
HIGHTOWER:
OK, it's dark here now. I did my investigation up on this ridge. There's no telling what's up there that could be
watching me right now. I didn't register anything on my EMF meter or my infrared. But that doesn't mean they don't
exist. These are master of disguise, going to the shadow world. What I know, it's dark, I sense all on this ridge, and I
need to get out of here.
SPEAKER 1: As Lance leaves Alaska, the mystery of the acoustic remains hidden deep in the forest. From hotel hauntings to
supernatural beasts, the mysteries of the Alaska Triangle continue.
[GROWLING]
[MUSIC PLAYING]