Real Story...Real Fear

Sandy Ting: Dared to be scared

"Looking for the nation's toughest people" read a flier as I scanned through CD's at a record shop in downtown Minneapolis. Little did I know, I was about to begin the long and arduous process of being a cast member on MTV's "Fear."

I travel extremely often and too frequently make spontaneous decisions. I lack planning and structure to my actions and enjoy spur of the moment events.

"Fear" seemed to be built for me and I loved the ambiguity and well, sketchiness, of the whole experience. However, the night before I left, I had the strangest feeling inside my stomach. I couldn't touch on it and wasn't sure how to express my anxiety in words. The next morning, I hopped Delta Air and was on my way.

After a cab ride during which the driver was instructed not to speak to me and nearly 24 hours in a hotel that made the one in "The Shining" look appealing, the show's producers came for me and I was blindfolded and hooded while inside my room and led down the same flight of stairs I came up the day before. I was guided into a van and was told strictly to not speak. I felt the vehicle drive around the hotel and the doors opened as more individuals climbed in and were given the same instructions. We were driven with blindfolds and hoods for another half hour or so in silence and led out of the van. Finally, we were asked to take off our hoods and blindfolds and meet one another for the first time on camera. The shock of the daylight made me jump and some of us nearly fell over from dizziness and partial carsickness from riding off-road blindfolded. At this point, I met my cast members: Victoria, Zach, Dave, Natasha and Jose. We met with a native of the woods individually and were asked to leave a material belonging as a form of insurance for the spirits in the woods. I left all I had to give: an earring.

We were driven blindfolded and hooded (to prevent us from returning and recognizing our surroundings) for the final time. We were led to a room and asked to count to 100 before taking off our covers. We got to about 20, took off our covers and absorbed everything around us. A room attached to the room we were in opened and the camera technician came in. He showed us his "room" which was the size of a small closet and said that we were not permitted to communicate with him in any way except if we had camera troubles. Otherwise, he said, we would be disqualified immediately. We watched a tape of the history of the mine we were in and began our missions. Here is where MTV edited more than a fair share of footage.

The first dare shows Jose knocking over a cross and completing his dare. This was not the case. MTV failed to show his real dare. After Jose knocked over the cross, Natasha, who was his navigator, read him the rest of the instructions. The instructions read for Jose to reach into his backpack and remove the two planks of wood along with a hammer and some nails and construct a new cross. The new cross was then nailed above the altar in the abandoned church, upside down.

Jose was then instructed to pull out a sheet of paper in his backpack and kneel before the upside-down cross that he had just nailed above the altar and read from the paper. The paper had the Lord's Prayer on it, backward. Some Satanic rituals claim that reciting the Lord's Prayer in reverse is a way of calling up demons. This was the first dare that we completed successfully.

The second dare called for Natasha and myself to leave together. The footage fails to show that our directions were faulty and that we were lost for nearly an hour in the mine.

As Natasha struggled to find her site, I waited quietly. I never have been a paranoid person. I am not known to get nervous or scared, nothing comes to mind that particularly scares me or makes me uncomfortable for any reason. For this reason, I know I was not imagining the footsteps that first tiptoed, then walked, then raced past me, around me and throughout the room. The presence in the room I was in, the heaviness and thickness of not being alone was enough to make me more than uncomfortable. I went on this trip thinking it was rigged, that I would receive a script and was looking forward to it.

Sounds of hammering began all around me, so loud I barely could hear the radio instructions in my earpiece. I stood in the room for nearly two hours, though the show only shows a few minutes, and thought about the history of this mine. So many people were killed in what was once the most prosperous mine in the world, simply for the sake of money and greed. 

I wholeheartedly admit that I was scared. I respect that some may scoff that the MTV crew had set up the entire event, but I trust my instinct and respect the energy I felt in that room. Leaving was difficult; I am an all-or-nothing person who never has quit anything before and had to bid farewell to my teammates. I was blindfolded by the camera technician in the next room and lead outside to wait for a MTV car to pick Natasha and I up and take us to another hotel, where the rest of the staff was staying. We asked for Carla, the clairvoyant, to come and comfort us as we were a bit shook up. Natasha and I comforted one another in the room until Carla showed up, sleepy eyed but ready to hug us and talk. She eyed us carefully and told me that water seemed to have "found its way to me." I was confused but she told me that a small child's spirit seemed to be on my hands and asked me if I had touched anything or been near water. No one, not even Natasha, had known that. Carla proceeded to hold her hands above mine, not touching me, and "pulled" the spirit off of me. As she was doing so, my hands flushed bright red and I felt a firey sensation shoot up my arms as the spirit was removed from me and then from Natasha's knees. However, I had no time to be shocked; … Jose had just quit and arrived. Natasha, Jose, Carla and myself had become great friends in the time together and enjoyed a laughter-filled dinner. All of a sudden, Jose stopped laughing and flushed bright red. He said he felt scared, sick and began sobbing uncontrollably. Carla said she noticed a spirit clinging to his neck when he continually claimed he felt that there was a presence following him since he had performed his first dare. This strange happening set a heavy mood at the table as well as in my heart. Jose expressed his intense regret and deepest apologies for doing what he had done in the church for the sake of a dare. Jose stated that the sensation he felt of the Lord standing before him and forgiving him was greater than anything he had felt before and stronger than anything he had felt in the mine. This, I thought, was the whole purpose of my trip.