disprove anything but rather for the proponents to prove ... claims". Brian Dunning wrote that there was no need to discuss the supposed paranormal activity until there was evidence that the story was true. "Vague stories indicate that there was a witch in the area. All the significant facts of the story have been falsified, and the others come from a source of dubious credibility. Since no reliable documentation of any actual events exists, there is nothing worth looking into." Dunning concludes, "I chalk up the Bell Witch as nothing more than one of many unsubstantiated folk legends, vastly embellished and popularized by an opportunistic author of historical fiction." Joe Nickell has written that many of those who knew Betsy suspected her of fraud and the Bell Witch story "sounds suspiciously like an example of "the poltergeist-faking syndrome" in which someone, typically a child, causes the mischief." Amy Fluker, a researcher of the Mississippi version of the legend while affiliated with the University of Mississippi, has expressed the Bell Witch legend has other value. "As a historian of collective memory, it matters very little to my research if hauntings are real or not. It does matter that people believe they are. As a result, they can help us understand the perspectives, in this case, of 19th and 20th century Americans." Bell Witch in culture Film There have been several movies based, at least in part, on the Bell Witch legend. Roger Clarke, former film critic for The Independent, argues the legend has also had a measurable influence on cinema such as in the Poltergeist film series, the found footage Paranormal Activity film series, The Witch released in 2015, the trope of burial ground disturbance in The Amityville Horror, and the apport of cherries to the children in Mama released in 2013. Television The American paranormal television series Ghost Adventures filmed an episode at the Bell Witch Cave. Director Sid Zanforlin released a documentary episode on the legend and the town of Adams in 2014 for a series entitled Boogeymen: Monsters Among Us which aired on Destination America and also organized as a collection known as America's Monsters entitled "Forest Monsters: Mothman and the Bell Witch." An American television series – Cursed: The Bell Witch – based on selected descendants of the Bell family trying to end a curse. The series premiered October 2015 on the A&E Network. In 2018, the