I hope the italics helped you to hear that in Robert Stack's voice.
It's fun to reminisce on old TV and bask in the enduring sentimentality of the program blocks that built my castle. But this is bigger and badder than some arbitrary Brady Bunch or Beakman's World, because this brought on a chain reaction following my first (and only) viewing that a more dramatic person could refer to as "past trauma."
Around this time, both Unsolved Mysteries and Rescue 911 were huge -- in general popularity, but more specifically with me. They were pretty similar in tone and subject matter (and coincidentally hosted by Airplane! alumni) and I'd certainly not seen much like them before; I suppose they were kinda "Docuseries" or "Reality TV," but personally, the concept of "based on true events" always hit me in profound ways. Both series played out like mid-career Scorsese flicks, with voiceover testimony describing the onscreen action - and done with nearly the same amount of finesse. And while 911's standout achievement was its phenomenal stunt work (some of the best I've ever seen to this day actually) the reenactments on Unsolved Mysteries were largely focused on detail and mood (understandably). Both shows were terrifying in cautionary ways ("don't play with fire" vs. "don't talk to strangers") but the cerebral horror of UM is what kept me up nights. So for several years, I apprehensively allowed it to earn my trust, and the night before Halloween in 1991 when I was 8 years old, it took advantage of that trust.
Episode 7 of Season 4 told us of a missing person, a wanted thief, and some psychic phenomena (all par for the course). But I don't really remember any of those, because the episode kicks off with a segment called "St. James' Ghost," and nothing in my life after that felt interesting or relevant. I don't particularly recall any ghost-related "mysteries" up until this episode - and the thorough effect it had on me further confirms that.
The St. James Hotel in Cimarron, New Mexico was built in 1880 and accumulated a history of a kinda Wild West violence involving gunslingers and gamblers and lawmen and loose women. It was bought again and refurbished in 1985, and the new owners and staff immediately and consistently began "having experiences" involving sounds, voices, moving objects, electrical curiosities, and actual apparitions.
I'd never heard grownups confess with such conviction and legitimate fear that they'd believed in, interacted with, and were afraid of ghosts. This show had been about real people, real crimes and tragedies - and now it was telling me real ghosts; the thing from movies that I was assured was a product of fiction. There was always a chance that Freddy would suck me into the bed and turn me into a geyser of Ocean Spray, but intellectually I knew that wasn't possible. I had questions: what are ghosts? What do they do? How do I deal with this? And within a matter of minutes, this abstract psychological awakening brought on by this show presented a very explicit and vivid image that left a prominent scar.
Although "scar" would indicate healing - really it's still an infected open wound. A janitor at the hotel testifies on camera to seeing a deformed child in the empty barroom early one morning. And the reveal in the reenactment became one of those things - a face on the Mount Rushmore of my own personal kindertrauma. And while it wasn't much more than a crude mixture of colored lights and stage makeup, the clout of the context crushed one of the remaining corners of my childhood innocence. The Boogeyman was real, and I'd found him.
As I stated, the remaining segments in the episode aren't anywhere in my memory - not because the power of the St. James story was so distracting, but because the rest of the evening evolved into a family discussion immediately following the trauma that occurred. This is the part I've already told you about some time ago (which you can/need to read here), but it was during this, my most vulnerable existential crisis I'd yet to experience, that my closest loved ones chose that moment to assure me that Unsolved Mysteries was not lying; that there actually was such a thing as ghosts. They regaled me with amazing stories of their own experiences with the paranormal - all of which occurred in the apartment that we lived in until I was 3 years old.
Naturally their vivid descriptions and the graphic images from the TV were inseparable in my mind, and I was shackled with an uneasiness that never entirely lifted over any course of time. I was led to believe that this is what ghosts looked like, and I'd apparently spent a portion of my life living in close proximity to these monsters - during my most defenseless years, no less. I couldn't help but wonder if my soul had been compromised at some point by these unseen forces that occupied my living space. My psyche may've been molested, or possessed, or replaced by the boy in the bar of the St. James Hotel in a splash of neon lights and ectoplasmic residue. How could I ever sleep again?
The series is streaming just about everywhere right now, so if you or someone you know Wants To Believe (or at least get a visual sense of the most menacing campfire tale I've ever been told) then seek out my favorite episode... of Unsolved Mysteries. (cue music)
- Paul
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