There’s something strange moving through Kentucky like a virus, twisting through the Mammoth Cave system and hovering in the skies above the Appalachian Mountains. While might catch glimpses of this intelligence in grainy UFO videos, reports of strange creatures lurking rural backroads, or encounters with strange Men in Black, these are only masks. The true face of the Phenomena has remained elusive.. until now.
Planet Weird’s cinematic documentary series Hellier returns on Black Friday with ten highly anticipated new episodes poised to change the way paranormal tv is experienced. Following a search for strange creatures in the town of Hellier, a team of investigators are contacted by a mysterious figure with new information about extraterrestrial contact in rural Kentucky. What begins as a fresh lead soon descends into an Appalachian conspiracy involving murder, occult rituals, and an ancient intelligence, forcing the team to question the true nature of the Phenomena.
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In 2017, paranormal investigators Greg & Dana Newkirk, Karl Pfeiffer, and Connor Randall trekked into the heart of Appalachian coal country – Hellier, Kentucky – in search of a man who claimed that small, alien creatures were emerging from a long-abandoned mine shaft on his rural property. What they uncovered was more than a case of little green men, it was a far-reaching mystery with huge implications for the reality of paranormal phenomena.
“We thought we were going to shoot an hour-long documentary about a man with goblins in his yard,” Newkirk says. “We never could have anticipated we would crack open a 50-year-old mystery that touches on some of the biggest cases of extraterrestrial contact in history. We weren’t exactly prepared for that at the time.. now we are.”
Thanks to it’s deliberate pacing, unconventionally-beautiful cinematography, and haunting look at the highs and lows of actual, boots-on-the-ground paranormal research, Hellier quickly became an instant classic, hailed by reviewers as a “breath of fresh air” and “essential to the understanding of paranormal phenomena.” But the mystery wasn’t finished with Newkirk and company.
In 2018, just before the release of Hellier‘s first season, the team was contacted by a mysterious source with unsettling news: the strange encounters in Kentucky had started once again, and this time, the sightings had taken a much darker turn.
“We’re talking about actual deaths, here,” Newkirk says. “Unexplained, anomalous deaths directly linked to the case we’ve been researching – the caves of Appalachia and strange creature sightings – and they are well-documented and extremely unsettling. We didn’t even want to get involved, but honestly had no choice.”
After following up on the loose threads from season one, the team recruits caving expert Tyler Strand and prepares to head deep into the underground caverns of the Mammoth Cave system on a quest to learn the truth about a supernatural virus spreading through the Appalachian mountains. The results are ten gorgeous, terrifying, and fascinating episodes of the best paranormal television ever produced.
With a host of cutting-edge research tools, never-before-seen parapsychological experiments, and even assistance from the viewers of Hellier first season, the investigators find themselves in the middle of an occult conspiracy that sees them tracking down extraterrestrial contactees, discovering the real reason they were sent to Hellier, Kentucky, and coming face-to-face with an ancient force that appears to be pulling the strings.
“This case has literally changed our lives,” Newkirk says. “I have a feeling that it’s going to do the same for the viewers of Hellier.”
All episodes of Hellier: Season 2 premiere exclusively on Amazon Prime on Friday, November 29th at 12:01AM ET, and free-of-charge on YouTube two weeks later, on Friday, December 13th. Check out Hellier.tv for episode descriptions, downloads, behind-the-scenes looks, and special features. Follow @WeirdHQ and #HELLIER for more exclusive content and updates.
Hellier is produced by Planet Weird. Executive producers for Planet Weird are Greg Newkirk and Dana Newkirk. Hellier is directed by Karl Pfeiffer and co-produced by Connor Randall.
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