The Black Tapes · Pacific Northwest Stories

Episode 108 - Board to Death

August 18, 2015·43 min·3 clips

Michelle Braid saw a tall, dark figure with long hair and a smile during the demon board experiment.

The tape starts with a stumble. Before the case really gets going, Alex Regan and Richard Strand are already fussing with tone, emphasis, and the odd little mechanics of being recorded. Then Regan brings the experiment back into view. She asks about the second day, when the test went sideways and Dr. Roth looked scared on video. The witness remembers confusion, but Regan keeps tightening the frame. She separates the later power outage from the earlier moment when Roth seems to react to something. Strand stays close to the story. His million-dollar prize and flat skepticism matter here, because this paranormal case is being dragged back under his particular kind of light. The offered explanation is medical. Roth had a brain tumor removed after the incident, and the witness says it may have been affecting his vision for years. Regan does not let that answer breathe for long. She asks what Roth actually said. The reply is plain enough to land harder: he saw something standing there. Then the room starts to matter. The camera was near the ceiling, eight and a half or nine feet up, which makes the figure feel wrong in a very physical way. Another witness enters the picture too. A young brunette sitting to Roth's immediate left may have reported seeing the same dark figure. From there, the investigation gets less spooky and more tedious. Regan asks for the volunteer list, and her producers are pointed toward boxes that need searching. Nothing clicks neatly into place. The ending turns toward Strand himself, with his reaction to an audio recording of his missing wife and a possible break in Coralie Strand's disappearance. That is the trapdoor. The case is no longer just a strange experiment on tape. It leads straight back to Strand.

As heard by us

A patient, uneasy chapter that keeps the evidence tangible and the larger mystery intact.

Episode 108 moves from a laboratory incident into a quieter, more personal unease. The questioning around the dark figure and what may have been seen before the power went out keeps the case grounded, and Alex Regan keeps the inquiry moving without overplaying it.

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Why you'd press play

If you like paranormal cases that tighten instead of resolve, start here.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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