(Intro music fades in. Acoustic guitar, church bells, a faraway female voice.)
NEWT: Welcome to the Black Tapes Podcast. I’m Newton Geiszler.
The Black Tapes is in part an exploration of belief and the search for truth, and in part a profile of the founder of the Gottlieb Institute, professional skeptic Dr. Hermann Gottlieb. This is part two of our pilot episode. If you haven’t listened to part one, please go back and do so. No spoilers.
(interlude music #1)
(Recorded sounds, fuzzy from age, of cheerful chatter, laughter, children--a party.)
FEMALE VOICE: Hello, hello sweetie!
CHILD’S VOICE: Firetruck!
FEMALE VOICE: Wow!
CHILD’S VOICE: Got it from Santa!
FEMALE VOICE: Fantastic!
(In another room, people begin singing a carol. Footsteps. Sound of a door opening.)
FEMALE VOICE: Laurie?
(child crying becomes audible)
FEMALE VOICE: Laurie, honey, what’s the matter?
CHILD: (crying) (unintelligible)
FEMALE VOICE: Oh honey, it’s okay...
CHILD: (sniffling) I hate Christmas!
(sound of static)
NEWT (VO): Dr. Gottlieb and I were sitting in his office, huddled around a sleek new monitor hooked up to a clunky old VHS player. He had just agreed to let me take a look at his black tapes, the “open” or “as-yet" unsolved paranormal cases in his archive.
We were watching a VHS tape, a home movie. It was a family Christmas celebration. It was crowded and homey, full of tinsel and crumpled paper and 80s sweaters. The tape was labeled simply “Hall.”
NEWT: So what are we seeing here?
DR. GOTTLIEB: Let me play it again. Keep an eye on the background.
NEWT (VO): Dr. G played the tape again. I watched closely.
DR. GOTTLIEB: Did you see it that time?
NEWT: Um...
(sound of tape rewinding)
(click as tape pauses)
DR. GOTTLIEB: Here.
NEWT (VO): We were looking at the shot towards the end, the moment when the woman filming opens the door. We could see the little girl--Laurie--sitting on the floor next to a bunch of wrapping paper, and the window and wall behind her.
DR. GOTTLIEB: Does anything look unusual to you?
NEWT: (...)
DR. GOTTLIEB: By the window.
NEWT: Oh. The shadow?
DR. GOTTLIEB: Do you see a shadow?
NEWT: Isn’t it her mom’s shadow?
DR. GOTTLIEB: Think about the light source. It’s the sunlight coming from outside the window. It’s darker in the hallway, where the mother is standing with the camera. Her shadow wouldn’t fall that way. And anyway, the distance between the door and the wall is too far for such an oblique shadow.
NEWT: Huh...
NEWT (VO): He was right.
The longer I looked, the stranger the shadow became. It was hardly more than a wisp. Almost like smoke. But when I looked closer, I saw the gaps--on each side, like arms. A vertical slice in the middle, splitting the bottom half into legs.
And it was tall. It stretched from the floor almost to the ceiling.
It was freaky.
NEWT: That’s freaky.
DR. GOTTLIEB: Indeed.
NEWT: What is it?
DR. GOTTLIEB: Now that I’ve pointed it out, tell me what you see.
NEWT: Well it looks like a man. A really tall, thin man.
DR. GOTTLIEB: (testing him) Are you sure? Not a tree?
NEWT: Why would there be a tree shadow in a house?
DR. GOTTLIEB: Perhaps there’s another window. We don’t know the layout of other side of the room.
NEWT: No, it couldn’t be a tree. Look at the gap.
DR. GOTTLIEB: Which gap?
NEWT: This one. (sound of fingernail tapping glass) Legs.
DR. GOTTLIEB: (no longer testing) Don’t jump the gun, Mr. Geiszler. Describe what you are actually seeing.
NEWT: Fine, I see a gap. A gap that could be legs. Trees don’t have that.
DR. GOTTLIEB: Then what is it?
NEWT: You tell me.
(click)
(sound of tape playing)
NEWT (VO): Dr. Gottlieb pushed play on the tape and we watched the second half. The scene has changed. The resolution is sharper. We’re in a hall of some kind.
(Recorded sound of a crowd, murmuring, echoing in a large space. Distant music is playing.)
NEWT: Oh, this is a wedding.
DR. GOTTLIEB: Yes.
NEWT: Mazel tov.
(Music gets louder. Organ music.)
(muffled, sounds of music and then someone making a speech continue in the background)
NEWT (VO): It’s a wedding in a large, well-lit hall filled with flowers. The couple getting married are cute: the bride is in a dress, and the other bride is in a tux. They’re reading their vows when I spot it--this time, Dr. Gottlieb doesn’t have to point it out for me.
NEWT: Wait. Oh my god.
DR. GOTTLIEB: You see it.
NEWT: Yes... It’s the same shadow!
DR. GOTTLIEB: Is it?
NEWT: It’s so... My god. How high is that ceiling?
DR. GOTTLIEB: Probably fifteen feet.
NEWT: Fifteen? But its head is almost touching the ceiling...
NEWT (VO): Here’s what I saw. A shadow, again. It was on the wall, to the left behind the platform. It was impossibly tall this time, but on this higher-res recording, I could see it a lot clearer. I could see two legs, even a neck and head at the top. And at the ends of its long arms, I could see what looked like long, long fingers.
NEWT: Dude. What the [expletive bleeped].
DR. GOTTLIEB: This is the wedding of Lauren and Lucille Hall of Northampton, Massachusetts. They were married in 2006. The first film, which was taken in 1986...
NEWT: Laurie...
DR. GOTTLIEB: ...Short for Lauren.
NEWT: Same girl, twenty years later. Same person, same shadow.
DR. GOTTLIEB: So it would seem.
NEWT: Is there more?
DR. GOTTLIEB: These two videos are the only recorded proof we have.
NEWT: Recorded?
DR. GOTTLIEB: Yes. We have their testimony as well. They reported numerous sightings. The two first became friends as children, and grew up together. They claim they have been followed by this... figure since their childhood.
NEWT: You looked into this case, when?
DR. GOTTLIEB: Three years ago.
NEWT: And you couldn’t disprove it. The videos aren’t fake?
DR. GOTTLIEB: No, the videos haven’t been tampered with. Our forensics experts verified that. And the testimony of the two women--
NEWT: Both of them? Laurie's wife saw it too?
DR. GOTTLIEB: (strained) Yes. They were both... quite convinced.
NEWT: I’m sure most people are.
DR. GOTTLIEB: Most people who contact the Institute, yes. But I’ve rarely met anyone who wanted less to be convinced than Laurie Hall did.
NEWT: She wished she was wrong?
DR. GOTTLIEB: She very much wished both she and her wife were wrong.
NEWT (VO): Before we go on, I have to address something of a... broader journalistic nature. My producer Mako had become uncomfortable with the underhanded way I got access to his black tapes. She’s concerned that, by stretching the truth about my second visit, I manipulated Dr. G into giving me access.
MAKO: I think we should pause and examine this. We’re journalists, Newt. There’s an ethical code to what we do. And what sort of foundation are we building with our subject if we start in this way?
NEWT: Do you think I crossed a line?
MAKO: It sounds like you don’t think so.
NEWT: I don’t.
MAKO: I don’t, either. But making this show, you asked me to challenge you in matters of point of view. I’m challenging you on this one. You should think about it.
NEWT: (semi-convinced) Okay.
MAKO: If nothing else, it’s worth a conversation.
NEWT (VO): A conversation, we decided in the end, with Dr. G. But when I called and told him, he said he knew. He could tell. He just didn't care. He said I had nothing to apologize for.
So. It looked like my shenanigans hadn’t put our show in jeopardy. Not only that, but Dr. Gottlieb was receptive to what I proposed next.
NEWT: Well, we were wondering if you’d be willing to look more into the Hall case. The one you showed me.
DR. GOTTLIEB: ...I’m open to it, but I don’t believe Mrs. and Mrs. Hall feel the same.
NEWT: We got in touch. They are.
(interlude music #2)
(interior, cafe sounds)
WOMAN: (understated but steady, with a musical intonation that rises and falls) Hi. You must be Newt...
NEWT: Laurie?
LAURIE: Hi.
NEWT: Nice to meet you.
LAURIE: Nice to meet you too. Hi, Dr. Gottlieb.
DR. GOTTLIEB: Hello, Laurie. Good to see you.
(beat)
NEWT: Thanks for speaking with us. We really appreciate it.
LAURIE: Mhm.
NEWT (VO): After some diplomatic phone calling, we were able to meet with Laurie Hall. She agreed to speak with Dr. Gottlieb as well, after some hesitation. I was surprised he even wanted to come. But I got the feeling he was unsatisfied with how the case had ended a few years before--or rather, not ended.
We met with Laurie in a coffee shop near her home in the Hilltowns, east of the Berkshires. She’s thin but sturdy, with short, wispy red-blond hair under a buffalo plaid cap. She has callused farmers’ hands and a tired look in her eyes. Like... really tired.
LAURIE: Can you hear me alright?
NEWT: You’re good, Laurie.
LAURIE: (clears throat) Okay. I’m ready.
NEWT: Go ahead.
LAURIE: I actually used to love telling about this. It scared people. I thought it was funny.
NEWT: Used to?
LAURIE: Yeah. Not anymore.
I’ve seen him my whole life, ever since I was a kid. I don’t remember not seeing him. I always saw him out the corner of my eye. It never worried me. He never really moved, and he vanished every time I turned to look. He never left any sign of being real. I never thought to worry about him. It was just one of those things you accept when you’re a kid, those things you never think to ask, until later, when, duh.
It was like that as I grew up. Sometimes, a few weeks or even months would go by without a visit. Then, there he would be again, around a corner or standing in a doorway. He always came back. It didn't feel like spying, or checking in, or anything, really. I felt no intent. But then there were some periods of time where I would see him a lot. Multiple times a day.
Lucy and I met when we were kids. We were friends for years before we fell in love--when we got married, we’d been together for ten years already.
NEWT: Wow.
LAURIE: Yeah. But when we were growing up, I never mentioned this to her. Him. I never mentioned it to anyone, like I said. So it took me by complete surprise one day when she mentioned seeing “Mr. Tall Man” again. We were probably fifteen. I looked at her and said, “Who?”
“Oh, it’s just--” She laughed. “Sometimes I see this--this thing out the corner of my eye. It looks like a tall man, a shadow of one maybe, but like. Tall. I don’t know if I’m haunted or cursed or what. But I see him sometimes. I call him Mr. Tall Man. It’s okay, he never does anything...” I must have looked freaked out, because she started reassuring me: “He never does anything, I don’t even know if he’s real--”
“But that’s impossible,” I said. “I see him too. I see him all the time.”
(interlude music #3)
LAURIE: Before I keep going, I just want to clarify something. This was not at the forefront of our lives. Not then. We were in high school, then college. He didn’t come as often in college--I didn’t see him at all for a few years, and Lucy only saw him once or twice. By that point, I thought it was all just coincidence and our imaginations.
NEWT: And no one else ever reported seeing him, besides you and Lucille?
LAURIE: That’s right.
NEWT: Did you ever both see him at the same time?
LAURIE: No. Not that I can remember.
We got engaged after college. We had been together since we were teenagers. We told the Tall Man story like a joke at parties. I hadn’t seen him in years.
It was when she got pregnant that things changed. We had been married a couple years by then. Something changed while she was pregnant... I don’t know what. She started talking about him again, and it wasn’t as a joke. She wasn’t seeing him... but she was thinking about him. I didn’t understand why.
She had Tessa. Life was good. At first. That’s how I knew it wasn’t postpartum depression--Tessa was more than ten months old when it started. The first night it... she... I still remember.
It was a hot summer night. Late July. We were watching TV on the couch. The baby monitor went off, and it was my turn. I got up and (shuddering sigh) I went to get Tessie. I picked her up, held her, rocked her. She went on crying, you know. I patted her back, thinking she was gassy, and I walked out into the hall.
She's still crying. I'm rocking her, saying, (in gentle singsong) “Oh, let’s go see Mama, come on Tessie,” and I’m walking down the hall, down to the living room. I can see Lucy on the couch. She turns around, lifting her arms, starting to say, “Come here Tessie...” and then her face just... drops. Her eyes go wide and her mouth opens. But she doesn’t scream. She points.
She looked wild. (gasping) “It’s-- it’s him--”
My arms tightened around the baby and I spun around. The hall behind me was dark, but there was a light at the end of it. A lighted doorway.
That was the thing--I didn’t see anything. The doorway was empty.
I spun back to Lucy--he was gone again, just like always, I thought--and the baby was crying, louder now--wailing. And Lucy was still pointing at it.
She could see it. It was still there.
And I couldn’t see it anymore.
“Lucy, what is it?” I said. She just shook her head. “There’s nothing there!” Then she looked at me--or at the baby. I don’t know how she moved so fast, but in a second she had reached me and grabbed the baby and dashed outside.
NEWT: God. That must have been terrifying.
LAURIE: It was. I’ll never forget the look on her face when she saw... when she saw it.
It took a lot of talking her down to get her back inside the house. From that night on, her paranoia took off. She started burning incense, reading about hauntings, calling psychics and mediums and “ghost hunters.” She even called a priest--a priest? Lucy? She hadn’t set foot in a church since she was nine. It wasn’t like her at all.
I tried to be supportive at first. If it made her feel better, I would go along. But it wasn’t helping. She wasn’t seeing him, but she said she could feel him. That was worse, somehow. And it was even worse because I couldn’t see him anymore--I wasn’t really convinced any of it was real, and she could tell. It got bad enough to...
NEWT: To call the Gottlieb Institute?
LAURIE: ...Yes.
NEWT (VO): At this point, Laurie looked at Dr. Gottlieb. It occurred to me she had not really looked at or spoken to him the whole time we had been there. Now, she looked angry.
NEWT: Was there any particular incident that prompted your wife to call?
LAURIE: (flatly) I called.
NEWT: (surprised) You called?
LAURIE: (tensely) I called. We were outside, I forget why. We had run to the barn to check something. The light was on in Tess’s room as we walked back. And through the curtain, Lucy saw--said she saw--his silhouette. A silhouette.
NEWT: But you didn’t see anything?
LAURIE: No.
NEWT (VO): At this point, she glared pretty pointedly at Dr. Gottlieb.
LAURIE: No, I didn’t see anything. And that was what eventually led Dr. Gottlieb and his high-powered team to conclude that my wife was just hysterical.
DR. GOTTLIEB: (clearing throat) You yourself said...
LAURIE: (really truly pissed) Have you ever been married, Dr. Gottlieb?
DR. GOTTLIEB: (pauses) No.
LAURIE: That’s what I thought.
(silence)
NEWT: ...So if you--
LAURIE: You were supposed to help us. You didn’t do a thing. You satisfied yourself that it was all fake, all in her head, and then you left us out here where you found us.
(cafe sounds fade out, into interlude music #2)
NEWT (VO): We wrapped up the interview soon after. It was clear that Laurie was deeply upset by the effect of all this on her family. And she was upset with Dr. Gottlieb as well. When she had contacted his institute, she hadn’t been after the prize. He says she never even mentioned it. She had been after the debunk. The reassurance of scientific fact. He hadn’t been able to deliver it.
I called Laurie a few days later with some follow-up questions. Speaking to me from at home on her farm, she seemed more relaxed. I asked if her wife would be willing to share her side of the story. Laurie said it took some convincing, but she got Lucille to agree.
For her story, stay tuned. I’m Newt Geiszler. It’s the Black Tapes Podcast. We’ll be right back.
-----------SPONSOR BREAK #1-----------
⏮ ⏯ ⏭
(Sound of wind, trees, birds)
NEWT (VO): The Hall farm is up a long, winding hill road in Chester. Most of their business is eggs, but from the house we can see a big vegetable garden and a cute apple orchard. Lucille is small and sturdy like her wife. She has short hair and big blue eyes that keep you at a distance. She doesn’t look like a person who gets hysterical about imaginary threats; she looks like a person who’s weathered a lot of cold winters, and will weather a lot more.
Lucille showed me and my producer around the house.
(sounds of footsteps, doors opening)
NEWT: So you and Laurie moved in here after Dr. Gottlieb completed his investigation?
LUCILLE: That’s right. Laurie inherited the farm when her aunt died. Before, we were living in Huntington--caretakers on an old lady’s horse farm.
NEWT: So that was the house Dr. Gottlieb and his team investigated?
LUCILLE: Yes. He told us--or, told Laurie, I guess, I wasn’t listening very well at the time--that there was nothing to worry about. She believed him.
NEWT: You didn’t.
LUCILLE: (flatly) No.
NEWT: And you thought moving would help? A fresh start, all that jazz?
LUCILLE: I didn’t have a lot of hope, seeing as... it had been following us since we were kids. It was Laurie who thought a fresh start would be good.
NEWT: No such luck, I take it?
LUCILLE: No.
NEWT: Can you describe one of the incidents? If it’s not too upsetting.
LUCILLE: I won’t go into detail. I’ve seen it firsthand three times since we moved in here, three years ago. Once in the bathroom, once in the kitchen, and once in her bedroom.
NEWT: Whose bedroom, sorry?
LUCILLE: Tessa. My daughter, Tessa.
NEWT: Oh. Yes. Is--is it always with her?
LUCILLE: Yes. Always. It’s after her.
(beat)
LUCILLE: I want to show you something.
NEWT (VO): She took us upstairs and brought us into Tessa’s room. Tessa is five, so it’s got the usual stuff--stuffed horses, toy train track sets, lots of picture books. Lucille brought us to the back of the room and opened the closet door.
NEWT: What’s in here?
LUCILLE: Look.
(sound of wire hangers being pushed aside)
LUCILLE: There.
NEWT: Oh...
NEWT (VO): On the wall in the back of the closet, there was a big, black smudge. It looked like a smoke stain, or maybe an oil stain, the kind that you get on the garage floor after a long time. But--and maybe I know what Dr. G would say about this, but--there were two gaps in the smudge. Two spots missing. Like eyes.
NEWT: Did Tessa draw this?
LUCILLE: Mr. Geiszler, does that look like something a kid would draw?
NEWT: Well, a weird kid.
LUCILLE: (...)
NEWT: (hastily) Which your daughter isn’t. It could be mold, too.
LUCILLE: (darkly) It’s not mold.
NEWT (VO): Back downstairs, I asked Lucille if she had collected any other “evidence” over the past few years--since Dr. Gottlieb completed his investigation.
NEWT: We saw the Christmas tape and the wedding tape. Do you have any other photos or videos that we could maybe take a look at?
LUCILLE: No.
NEWT: Um... we can’t look?
LUCILLE: There's nothing to look at. We don’t have any photos.
NEWT: No photos? Wait, at all?
LUCILLE: No. We don’t take photos anymore.
NEWT (VO): Suddenly I realized. I looked around the living room, craned my neck to see into the hall--no. I hadn’t seen a single framed photo in the whole house.
NEWT: You don’t have... any photos? Of your daughter?
LUCILLE: No. I deleted, burned, erased everything.
NEWT: But why?
LUCILLE: It was in all of them.
(interlude music #1)
LUCILLE: We saw him when we were kids. I’m sure Laurie told you.
NEWT: Yes. But he--it didn’t worry you?
LUCILLE: Not then.
NEWT: And now?
LUCILLE: (takes a deep breath, exhales) It’s Tessa I worry about. It started when I was pregnant with her.
NEWT: You started seeing it again?
LUCILLE: No. No, it actually--it was actually my mother. In my third trimester, I went to visit my parents. They live up in Montreal now. It was the dead of winter. Right before my trip, one of her childhood friends died--a terrible plane accident. So when I got there, she was in kind of a despondent mood. She talked a lot about her childhood, especially late at night, after a few drinks.
One night, she told me this story. Two things you should know first, actually. One, my mother had a bad childhood. For a while, she and her sister were in a children’s home. And two, I had never talked to her about the Tall Man. Never mentioned it. Not once. Okay?
NEWT: Okay. I'm following you.
LUCILLE: She tells me this story. She and her sister were staying in this children’s home, some Catholic home outside of Boston. Nuns, rulers, cement. The dormitory where they slept was two long rows of beds with a central aisle, doors at either end. My mom was in one bed, and her sister was asleep across the aisle.
For some reason, one night, she couldn’t sleep. She was lying awake when she saw this--this man, she thought, come in the door. But he was... tall, she said. He had to duck to get through the doorway. He wasn’t a nun, and he sure wasn’t a priest. He was wearing a suit, it looked like. She couldn’t see his face in the dark.
He walked slowly down the aisle, looking at the sleeping girls. He got closer and closer, and she sank lower and lower under her blanket. When he got to the foot of her bed, he stopped. Then he turned away, and turned towards her sister. He walked up next to her bed. She was asleep, lying still. He leaned over her, then bent, down, slowly, towards her. My mother was shaking.
Then he straightened up, walked away, and went out the other end of the dorm.
NEWT: Wow.
LUCILLE: Well, my mom wasn’t a stupid kid. The next morning, she thought it was probably a dream. But at breakfast, her sister leaned over and said, “Did you see someone come into the dormitory last night?” She had pretended to be asleep. But she'd seen him too.
NEWT: So they both saw him at the same time. And they saw him move. That’s different than anything you and Laurie ever experienced, right?
LUCILLE: That’s right.
NEWT: Have you ever asked your aunt about this story?
LUCILLE: I can’t.
NEWT: Because it--
LUCILLE: Because she’s dead.
NEWT: Oh. I’m sorry. (...) When did she...?
LUCILLE: She died as a child. I never knew her. She went missing. It was a few years after this. My mother couldn’t get the police to care, and they found her body a week after she disappeared. She had drowned in a river.
NEWT: That’s horrible. I’m sorry.
(pause)
LUCILLE: (voice dropping, getting urgent) But you can see why this story upset me. What if it came after my daughter? And it has. It’s following her. What if it leads her across the highway or off the end of a dock the way it did to my aunt? Can’t you see?
NEWT: (trying to keep the conversation calm and on-track) Does your daughter see the same thing you and your--and others have seen?
LUCILLE: (severely) No.
NEWT: Have you asked her?
LUCILLE: No. We don’t want to upset her, or put ideas into her head.
NEWT (VO): At this point, Lucille’s phone rang, and she had to go answer it. While I was waiting in the living room, someone else came in.
NEWT: (voice pitching up) Hi there. You must be Tessa.
TESSA: (small voice, shy) Hi.
NEWT: I’m Newt. It’s nice to meet you.
TESSA: Nice to meet you.
NEWT: I met your kitten on the porch earlier. She’s very cute.
TESSA: Mhm.
NEWT: Did you name her?
TESSA: Was my mom mad at you?
NEWT: I hope not. Did you hear us talking?
(beat)
NEWT: I don’t think she’s mad. Sometimes when adults sound angry, they’re really just stressed out.
TESSA: (quiet) I think you were talking about [unintelligible].
NEWT: What’s that?
TESSA: Were you talking about my friend?
NEWT: ...What friend is that, Tessa?
TESSA: (...)
NEWT: Where is your friend? Does he have a name?
TESSA: (...)
NEWT: Tessa?
(...)
NEWT: (quietly) Is he in here?
TESSA: (also quiet) He’s in my closet.
NEWT: What’s his name?
TESSA: Why are you following him?
NEWT: Did he say I’m following him?
(beat)
TESSA: ...He says you don’t want to meet him.
(sound of footsteps)
NEWT: But--
LUCILLE: (to Tessa) Hi, honey. We have to get going. (To Newt) We have an appointment to get to. I’m sorry.
NEWT: No, that’s alright... Thanks very much for your time.
(interlude music #2)
NEWT (VO): One problem with journalism--especially this kind, the investigative kind--is the never-ending chain of non-answers. Had I learned more from talking to Lucille? Yes. But like a hydra, what answers I had got just raised three more questions each. And now I was more curious than ever.
It’s the Black Tapes Podcast. I’m Newt Geiszler. Stay with us.
-----------SPONSOR BREAK #2-----------
⏮ ⏯ ⏭
NEWT (VO): If one thing stuck with me from the conversation with Lucille, it was the photos. What kind of parent has no pictures of their child? Or rather, what could be stronger than that biologically hardwired parental sentimentality? What kind of terrible scare?
I couldn't unravel the scare. But I could uncover a picture or two. With her parents’ permission, I called Tessa’s elementary school. The vice principal emailed me Tessa’s class picture from picture day last September. Twenty cute little kids, in two rows in front of a red curtain. And there she is, all gap teeth in the front row.
Her shadowy “friend”? Nowhere to be seen.
Maybe Lucille had been wrong. But I was still curious. Of course I was. So I asked the vice principal to put me in touch with the photographer.
(sound of phone ringing)
MAN’S VOICE: Hello?
NEWT: Hi, is this Nick?
NICK: Speaking! Are you the reporter?
NEWT: That’s me!
NEWT (VO): Nick Yau has worked for Hayward Photography for sixteen years. He’s taken a lot of class and individual portraits. But he helpfully agreed to dig up the photos from Tessa’s class.
NICK: Oh yes, I remember her class. Sweet kids.
NEWT: Yeah, she is, uh... she’s an interesting kid.
NICK: Tessa?
NEWT: Yeah. Did you find her picture? Her mother called ahead to give us clearance.
NICK: Yep. I’m sending it to you now.
NEWT: Ah. Just got it. Okay... Hmm.
NEWT (VO): It’s a charming portrait. Tessa is smiling, pretty naturally, which is rare for a five-year-old. I couldn’t help but think Laurie and Lucille should have a copy of it. It was a lovely photo of their daughter. And there was nothing wonky--I scanned the curtain backdrop. No sign of her smudgy so-called “friend.”
NEWT: Huh.
NICK: What is it? Is something wrong?
NEWT: Something right, more like. I was checking if something was wrong. But it seems not to be.
NICK: Oh. I see. (sounding like he doesn’t) So why are you interested in these? Am I allowed to ask?
NEWT: Of course. My show is doing some research into the paranormal.
NICK: Ghosthunting? On NPR? That’s new.
NEWT: (chuckles) Well it’s not actually NPR. It’s a podcast.
NICK: Oh.
NEWT: Tessa’s family has a sort of... ongoing case around it. Something with shadows showing up in photos, old home movies. Creepy [expletive bleeped]. We wanted to check if they showed up here, too. Guess not.
NICK: I took them out.
NEWT: What?
NICK: The shadows. I edited them out.
NEWT: (sounding very interested again) Which ones? Where? Sorry--which, which photos had shadows?
NICK: I believe it was... this one, Tessa Hall, and the class portrait as well. We do it all the time, retouching. I just photoshop the flaws out.
NEWT: Do you still have the originals?
NICK: Probably, in my archive. I can check for you.
NEWT: Nick, I would love that.
NEWT (VO): Nick did check. I spent a long time examining the originals, and comparing them to the edited photos. He was right. There was a shadow.
Honestly, it wasn’t much. Just a vertical, slightly angled smudge against the red curtain. No arms, legs, or other sinister appendages. It was almost hard to see if you weren’t looking for it. Which, if you’re Nick Yau or Lucille Hall--or me--you are.
It was one thing in the individual photo. It could have been a curtain shadow. But in combination with the class photo? It was unsettling. It seemed awfully unlikely that it would show up in both. In the class photo, it was smaller, because the angle was wider. But with the wider angle, I could see that the shadow stopped abruptly towards the top of the curtain. It wasn’t a fold.
NEWT: So what do you think?
DR. GOTTLIEB: (over the phone) Think?
NEWT: Of the photos. The ones I sent you. You looked at them, right?
DR. GOTTLIEB: ...Yes.
NEWT: You don’t sound very impressed.
DR. GOTTLIEB: I looked at them. I saw what you were getting at, but frankly, they just look like shadows to me. Regular shadows. It’s a large curtain, with a lot of creases. There is nothing figurative about these shapes. The only reason you see a figure is that you are examining them in the context of this frightening story, this story of a shadowy figure.
NEWT: Pareidolia.
DR. GOTTLIEB: That’s right.
NEWT: (annoyed) So I’m seeing what I want to see.
DR. GOTTLIEB: Possibly.
NEWT: But what about your bias? You don’t want to see a shadowy figure, so you don’t.
DR. GOTTLIEB: That may be. What we would need in that case was a neutral observer, someone without prior bias. And I can think of just such a person. Did the photographer interpret these as figures?
NEWT: (flatly)...No. He didn’t. He thought they were lens errors.
DR. GOTTLIEB: (crisp) Well. If you had never spoken to Mrs. Hall, you would have interpreted these shadows the same way he did--as a shadow or lens aberration.
NEWT: Then, what? It’s all coincidence?
DR. GOTTLIEB: We cannot disregard the video evidence. I won’t pretend I can explain that. But the shadows in these photos are just as much the product of Lucille Hall’s paranoia as the rest of her stories. It’s simply been passed on to you.
NEWT: What about the smudge in the closet?
DR. GOTTLIEB: You yourself said it looked like the work of a child.
NEWT: (vehement) But Tessa says she didn’t do it.
DR. GOTTLIEB: And children never lie?
NEWT: I think you’re discounting any evidence you find inconvenient. I think you’re engaging in bad science.
DR. GOTTLIEB: What, exactly, do you know about the scientific method, Mr. Geiszler?
NEWT: Excuse me?
DR. GOTTLIEB: You are a journalist. And as a journalist I understand your mind must stay open. But there is such a thing as too open.
NEWT: (agitated laugh) Ha! My god! Dude, it is no wonder you’re so unpopular with your peers.
(beat)
NEWT: Hello?
(pause)
(interlude music #1 fades in)
NEWT (VO): He hung up on me. He’s not the first; surely he won’t be the last.
What I said was unprofessional. And rude. I wasn’t sure if I had just put the whole podcast in jeopardy. Maybe we would have to move on from paranormal investigators after all, on to our next unusual career--geocachers--the way we had originally planned, all those weeks ago.
(brief pause as interlude music #1 ends)
In the course of our research on the paranormal investigators we spoke to, my producer Mako had uncovered some personal information about Dr. Gottlieb. After some deliberation, we decided to include it in our show.
Earlier, when Laurie Hall asked Dr. Gottlieb accusatorially if he had been married, he said no.
Perhaps he thought the matter was too personal to discuss with Laurie--sure. But he was lying. Hermann Gottlieb was married. Legally, he still is. His wife went missing in 2005 under mysterious circumstances. She has not been seen for the last ten years.
I said it was his research that interested me, not his life. But the more I learned about Dr. Gottlieb, the more questions arose. It’s starting to seem that the two--his research and his life--are hard to separate. No one is on a mission like his for no reason. What might that reason be? Was it something in his past? Did it have anything to do with his wife? Would I ever find out, now?
NEWT (VO): A week after our last conversation, I came into work to find a voicemail from Dr. Gottlieb.
DR. GOTTLIEB: (muffled through phone) Hello, Mr. Geiszler. This is Hermann Gottlieb. I wanted to... apologize for our conversation last week. I was dismissive and improperly personal. I should not have hung up so abruptly.
Yesterday I got an interesting call. It pertains to a case you might be interested in--one of the ones you refer to as the “black tapes.” If you want to hear more, please give me a call.
(beat)
Take care.
NEWT (VO): I sure was interested.
-----------OFF THE RECORD-----------
MAKO: Are you really going to call him back? He was pretty rude.
NEWT: (shifting in seat) I know. I kind of liked it.
MAKO: (bemused) All right, Newt.
NEWT: He’s interesting. What can I say? More interesting than geocaching.
MAKO: Like, yes, sure. But is he more interesting than the other, pleasanter paranormal investigators we could be profiling?
NEWT: Honestly? Yeah.
(pause)
MAKO: So maybe a better question is, why is he calling us back?
-----------RESUME RECORD-----------
NEWT (VO): ...I called him back right away. Next time: our second case. And more on the story behind the story, the story of the missing Mrs. Gottlieb.
(outro music begins)
I’m Newt Geiszler. This is the Black Tapes Podcast.
See you next time.
(music fades out)
⏺ Rec