It was an inauguration into the world of paranormal phenomena straight from the pits of hell, but Canadian filmmaker Adam Gray couldn't even let out an appropriate scream when he saw a sinisterly cloaked figure hovering over him in the middle of the night --- he was frozen in a strange state between worlds, conscious, but unable to move or speak. 

Gray won't go as far as to say that he believes in aliens, but after his experiences with sleep paralysis and the things he's witnesses and learned through his filmmaking, he admits there are unanswered questions, and experiences, which can't be denied.  And as long as those experiences are enveloped in mystery, he's intent on doing his part to help open minds and shatter belittling stigmas.

"We are certainly trying to entertain people but I think our agenda is to get people to look at these things with an open mind and try and separate the sort of X-files mythology fiction from what has really happened."

"I think in terms of alien abduction, as soon as you say that people sort of shut down their open mind, but it's a genuine phenomena and there's hundreds of people who have come forward, been through lie detector tests and psychologists, and they genuinely have had some experience.  What is not known is what the cause of that experience was, was it some weird psychological hysteria, or a waking dream?  Whatever it is, it's a really interesting mystery because it's really happening to people and it's changing their lives."

"The White Mountain Abduction," airs on Tuesday, June 2 at 10:30 p.m. ET/7:30 p.m. PT, as part of VisionTV's documentary anthology series Supernatural Investigator.

Gray was experiencing what's known as 'sleep paralysis,'--- a haunting few seconds that left a lasting impression and eventually led to a documentary film on the topic --- the first of four features he and his brother Andrew have created through their company ParaDocs Productions.

"It's something that's very common, you get I think 15-20% of the population that experience sleep paralysis at some point," he notes in a phone interview with CityNews.ca   "You're asleep and you wake up and you're paralyzed and often while people are in this state they have vivid hallucinations of an entity in their room that sort of crawls onto their chest and begins to strangle them.