Dark Encounters gumshoes sleuth out legends

Release Date: 12/13/2001. Expired: 2/28/2002

Is there really a vampire lurking somewhere in the backwoods of Dickson County? What fact or fiction lies behind the legend of the White Screamer?

Finding answers to these and other mysterious questions is the mission of Dr. Nathan Swane and his crack team of super sleuths in Dark Encounters Investigated, a tongue-in-cheek parody produced at The Renaissance Center and airing on local cable access Channel 19.

The series stars The Renaissance Center’s own Brad Diamond, director of Program Development, as the crafty Dr. Swane, paranormal investigator.

Swane and his team are determined to muddle through the murky abyss of paranormal occurrences and otherworldly goings on rumored to be rampant within the community.

“Dark Encounters Investigated follows a team of investigators that seeks out tales of the paranormal and supernatural that have some relationship to Dickson County,” Diamond said. “There are a whole bunch of us and we gather referrals from people in the community who ask us to investigate paranormal or strange phenomena.”

Craig Anderson, studio manager at The Renaissance Center, said the program was originally designed to be a local access show covering local area legends. However, he said, he took it a step further.

“We decided it needed a little more than that,” he said. “We even investigate those legends. If there’s truth to be found, we will find it. If there’s a werewolf, we’re going to catch him. We’re going to wrestle him to the ground and bring him home. We don’t come home with orbs or fuzzy little out-of-focus shots and call them ghosts. We catch them and cage them.”

Anderson said having been raised in Dickson he’s always been aware of the rich abundance of folklore and mysterious occurrences. He said DEI provides him the opportunity to present the legends in entertaining ways.

“There are stories that have never been documented and probably lost by now,” he said.

David Van Hooser, writer/producer for the center’s Multimedia Department, helped create DEI along with Anderson.

“Craig Anderson is the one who created it and I’ve been a part of that as co-producer/writer, and I also portray one of the team members, Jake Manley,” Van Hooser said. “Not only do I get to do the behind the scenes stuff but I get to do it in front of the camera as well.”

This quasi-fictitious team of paranormal investigators is intent on entertaining viewers. Van Hooser explains it as “telling a ghost story around a campfire.”

“It’s not blood, guts and gore and that kind of stuff, but hopefully it’s fun. I think a lot of people have fun just being a little spooked, scared or chilled by things, and that’s what we want to do with this,” he said.

The team’s first case was the legend of the white screamer, and it took the team to a rural area of the county where farmers reported hearing strange noises. The legend had been passed down through generations.

In talking with him, it’s often difficult to determine just who is doing the speaking, Diamond or Dr. Swane.

“We talked to people that lived around there that had supposedly heard the white screamer,” Diamond said. “We got an idea and one of our paranormal experts basically profiled this creature and said what they thought it was, what specter they thought it was.”

The “team” set up special equipment to record whatever might be heard at the site.

“Well, when we did that we waited until the time of night it typically was heard and we had the right conditions. We didn’t hear anything. We walked down this road where a young couple had encountered this ghost and then we did hear something. It was a scream and we got it on recording.”

The team later heard other noises closer to their vehicles and their equipment.

“We ran back to see what it was and all of our stuff had been turned over and rifled through,” Diamond said. “We didn’t know if it was legitimate or if it was somebody playing a trick on us.”

Of course, when the team examined the videotape later that night they saw an apparition on the tape that wasn’t there during the actual investigation.

“It looked ethereally like the ghost of a woman,” he said. “We didn’t alter the tape any, we don’t do that sort of thing. We don’t know what it was.”

The second case in the series was the case of the back road vampire.

“It was the kind of thing where legend had it that a vampire lived in this area,” Diamond said. “Cattle had been mutilated and had the blood drawn from them, they had puncture marks. So we go in to investigate to see if it’s legitimate.”

A team member outfitted with a hidden camera and microphone went into the area where the vampire was reportedly lurking.

“We were standing by at a moment’s notice to rush to his aid if he needed it,” Diamond said. “He’s disguised as a stranded motorist and the vampire invites him into his home.”

Dark Encounters Investigated airs on local cable access Channel 19 at 8 p.m. Thursdays, 12:30 p.m. Saturdays and 6:30 p.m. Sundays.