Latest / Weeknight Mysteries Podcast / Ep. 115 | Color Out of Space - Lovecraft & The Ghost That Scratched - The Sallie

Transcript

Ep. 115 | Color Out of Space - Lovecraft & The Ghost That Scratched - The Sallie · Weeknight Mysteries Podcast

0:00
Speaker 1: If anyone followed me on my gaming channel, they might
0:03
Speaker 1: have seen that I was playing the game Call of Cthulhu.
0:06
Speaker 1: I kind of gave up on it, I probably will
0:08
Speaker 1: return to it at some point, but the thing that
0:11
Speaker 1: made me stop playing it was that I started to
0:13
Speaker 1: reread Lovecraft, and it kind of made me realize how
0:16
Speaker 1: unloved Craftian the game was. I think this is a
0:20
Speaker 1: problem that plays a lot of Lovecraft adaptations, whether it's
0:23
Speaker 1: movies or video games. You can insert as much Lovecraftian
0:27
Speaker 1: lore as you want, but in my opinion this doesn't
0:30
Speaker 1: make it a Lovecraftian horror. I think there's something in
0:34
Speaker 1: Lovecraft writing that is extremely hard to get across in
0:36
Speaker 1: a visual medium, I think maybe that's why it's so
0:39
Speaker 1: hard for people to adapt his works. There's something unseeable
0:43
Speaker 1: or unexplainable in his writings, which is very hard to
0:46
Speaker 1: convey when you're showing the thing visually on the screen.
0:50
Speaker 1: So when I started hearing reviews of The Color Outer Space,
0:53
Speaker 1: I got pretty excited. As people were saying it was
0:57
Speaker 1: one of the most faithful adaptations, it was finally Lovecraft
1:01
Speaker 1: done right, and so I was quite excited to see it.
1:04
Speaker 1: It also stars Nicolas Cage, who is kind of a
1:07
Speaker 1: lovely more hate him kind of actor, but I've got
1:10
Speaker 1: to say I do quite enjoy his films, including The
1:13
Speaker 1: Wicker Man. So I thought I would give it a
1:15
Speaker 1: go and see what the fuss was all about. Is
1:19
Speaker 1: it as faithful as people say? So I've got to
1:22
Speaker 1: say the first impression of this film and the most
1:24
Speaker 1: striking thing about it is the visuals. Every scene is
1:28
Speaker 1: just absolutely stunning to look at. It's a film about
1:32
Speaker 1: color as the title might imply, but they've just really
1:35
Speaker 1: gone to town on the color aspect of this story.
1:39
Speaker 1: It's a film that tells its story with color, I think.
1:42
Speaker 1: It seems like the color is the most important thing
1:45
Speaker 1: on the screen at all times. Everything looks like they've
1:49
Speaker 1: boosted up the saturation to maximum. not in a way
1:52
Speaker 1: that looks wholly unnatural. It just gives everything its like
1:56
Speaker 1: gorgeous lush look to it. And it's quite an interesting
1:59
Speaker 1: choice for a horror adaptation, especially with Lovecraft. I know
2:04
Speaker 1: whenever I read the stories in my head they're always
2:07
Speaker 1: very dark, gloomy type of stories, and that's the kind
2:10
Speaker 1: of imagery I have in my head. And generally horror
2:14
Speaker 1: films are not all that colorful. The colors in it
2:17
Speaker 1: remind me almost of the original Suspiria movie. sort of bright,
2:22
Speaker 1: clashing colors that flash in and out on the screen.
2:25
Speaker 1: There's something really important about the color coding in the movie,
2:29
Speaker 1: and I'd love to see someone go through it scene
2:31
Speaker 1: by scene and decode every use of color in the film,
2:34
Speaker 1: because as well as the alien color, there's just so
2:36
Speaker 1: much more going on. I've noticed that almost every indoor
2:41
Speaker 1: scene they seem to be using blue and this orangey-brown
2:43
Speaker 1: color contrast to the game to each other. And then
2:47
Speaker 1: on the outdoor scenes you've got these greens and purples,
2:50
Speaker 1: contrast in, and then each character seems to have their
2:53
Speaker 1: own color coding. For example, the mother character always seems
2:57
Speaker 1: to be wearing some sort of white outfit, and the
3:00
Speaker 1: daughter's always wearing black. The ward character who plays the
3:04
Speaker 1: narrator in the original story, he's always seems to be
3:07
Speaker 1: wearing blue. Nicolas Gage is often seen wearing this red
3:11
Speaker 1: check color, which I think might be a reference to
3:14
Speaker 1: the original story. There is a certain fate that meets
3:17
Speaker 1: his equivalent character in the story, towards the end the
3:20
Speaker 1: red checked cloth plays some sort of role. So it's
3:24
Speaker 1: probably just a nod towards the original story, but yeah,
3:28
Speaker 1: I think there's something really important with the color, even
3:31
Speaker 1: more than obvious, and like I said, I'd love to
3:34
Speaker 1: see someone do an analysis of the color in this
3:36
Speaker 1: movie and exactly what the meaning of each color is.
3:40
Speaker 1: Even without deciphering everything going on, it's just beautiful to
3:44
Speaker 1: look at. It almost all takes place in the middle
3:47
Speaker 1: of this forest, there's the family who live deep within
3:50
Speaker 1: this woodland. And so every background is just this sea
3:54
Speaker 1: of green. At the beginning of the movie, everything just
3:57
Speaker 1: starts out just beautiful green in the background. And then
4:01
Speaker 1: you get these sort of traces of purple weaved fruit things,
4:04
Speaker 1: the idea of like a purple spiral. It always seems
4:08
Speaker 1: to represent something unnatural. For example, the purple unnatural hair
4:13
Speaker 1: dye in Slovenia's hair, sort of spiraling through her hair.
4:18
Speaker 1: And then when they go to Tommy Chong's character, they
4:21
Speaker 1: go towards his house, he's got these ribbons wrapped around
4:24
Speaker 1: to the trees and spiral shapes in the same purple color.
4:28
Speaker 1: It all seems to sort of try and get this
4:30
Speaker 1: idea in your head from the start that this purple
4:32
Speaker 1: magenta color is a kind of unnatural source among the
4:35
Speaker 1: greenery and natural colors of the woodland. It's kind of
4:38
Speaker 1: an obvious signal, but it's a nice little bit of foreshadowing.
4:43
Speaker 1: So basically, the basic plot of the story, and I'm
4:46
Speaker 1: going to try not to give too many strong spoilers here,
4:49
Speaker 1: but there will be some mild ones. A meteorite lands
4:53
Speaker 1: in Nicolas Cage's front garden. And then within the meteorite
4:57
Speaker 1: is the color from outer space. And I think when
5:00
Speaker 1: Lovecraft was originally writing the story, he wanted to convey
5:04
Speaker 1: an alien presence that was so incomprehensible to human minds,
5:07
Speaker 1: that the only way they had to describe it was
5:09
Speaker 1: of being a color. So in the original story, He
5:13
Speaker 1: describes it as a color which they've never seen before.
5:17
Speaker 1: It's like an unimaginable color. It's something that doesn't exist
5:21
Speaker 1: in our human world. It's a color that shouldn't exist
5:25
Speaker 1: in nature. Obviously, you can't just invent a new color,
5:29
Speaker 1: so they've used this like magenta color. But I was
5:32
Speaker 1: actually looking on IMDB and they've got some interesting trivia
5:36
Speaker 1: about the use of the color. They use magenta because
5:40
Speaker 1: it's a color that doesn't exist from a single wavelength
5:42
Speaker 1: of light as part of the color spectrum of visible light.
5:46
Speaker 1: I don't really understand what that means to be honest.
5:50
Speaker 1: It's an extra spectral color that is already perceived by
5:53
Speaker 1: humans in a specific interaction of the optical rods. So anyway,
5:58
Speaker 1: there's an interesting explanation of why they use magenta, but
6:01
Speaker 1: obviously it's a decent replacement for the indescribable color of
6:04
Speaker 1: the original story. And it looks absolutely stunning in the archive.
6:10
Speaker 1: You've got this kind of idea of this magenta color
6:12
Speaker 1: slowly starting to invade the lush greenery of their surroundings.
6:17
Speaker 1: And first it starts out, you know, the little flowers
6:20
Speaker 1: start sprouting. And then you see like the tendrils wrapping
6:24
Speaker 1: round a tree, mirroring the coloring in the daughter's hair
6:27
Speaker 1: and the ribbons and the trees. You just get this
6:30
Speaker 1: really interesting sense. And this is where they sort of
6:34
Speaker 1: capture the Lovecraftian element the best. there's this slowly creeping
6:39
Speaker 1: into their lives. This magenta color slowly infecting the world
6:43
Speaker 1: around them. And as it begins to infect the world
6:46
Speaker 1: around them, it starts to affect their mental state. And
6:50
Speaker 1: it's done really effectively. I would say for the first
6:54
Speaker 1: two-thirds of the movie, this sort of slow creeping in
6:57
Speaker 1: of this color, this alien color. And the beautiful at
7:01
Speaker 1: the beginning of the movie, and also there's a lot
7:03
Speaker 1: of things where they use color to signal danger. like
7:06
Speaker 1: where she cracks the egg and has blood in the egg.
7:09
Speaker 1: And the delizards with the bright colors on them indicate
7:12
Speaker 1: that they might be poisonous or dangerous. You know, always
7:16
Speaker 1: using these colors to signal some kind of present danger
7:19
Speaker 1: or illness or something that is out of place or unnatural.
7:23
Speaker 1: It's also really obvious that they are absolutely passionate about Lovecraft.
7:28
Speaker 1: There's so many little references in there. And probably loads
7:32
Speaker 1: that completely went over my head. I'm not like a
7:36
Speaker 1: huge Lovecraft fan. But you know, there's all these like
7:40
Speaker 1: references to things within the Lovecraft universe. And also how
7:45
Speaker 1: it would be in a modern world. So I really
7:48
Speaker 1: like the daughter has the cheap paperback Necronomicon that she's reading.
7:52
Speaker 1: And it is the kind of thing that if this
7:54
Speaker 1: book existed in the real world, this is kind of
7:56
Speaker 1: the format that you would expect to get it in
7:58
Speaker 1: the modern world. Beautiful film. I really love the atmosphere
8:04
Speaker 1: at the beginning of this creeping, invading. It feels really
8:08
Speaker 1: menacing and you don't really know what's going on. And
8:11
Speaker 1: the way it starts to affect the mentality of the family.
8:15
Speaker 1: I think towards the end, it starts to fall apart
8:18
Speaker 1: slightly though. It gets to a point where it starts
8:21
Speaker 1: to get a bit too crazy. In the original story,
8:25
Speaker 1: the way the color out of space ultimately affects people
8:28
Speaker 1: and how it affects the livestock is it kind of
8:30
Speaker 1: starts to make them disintegrate. It kind of starts to
8:34
Speaker 1: change things in really subtle ways. Like they describe how
8:38
Speaker 1: they keep finding animals and they can't really tell what's
8:41
Speaker 1: wrong with them. But they've, you know, they find them.
8:46
Speaker 1: It's like a woodchuck or something like that. And it's
8:49
Speaker 1: been transformed in some way. They can't really tell how
8:53
Speaker 1: it just looks unnatural to them. And they see like
8:57
Speaker 1: a hare leaping across the road or a rabbit. And
9:00
Speaker 1: it's tried as a bit too long to be normal.
9:03
Speaker 1: It's just something when they see it, they can't describe it.
9:07
Speaker 1: It's just something unnatural and uncanny about the creatures the
9:10
Speaker 1: way they've been mutated. The movie doesn't go that subtle.
9:15
Speaker 1: Let me just say, without getting any spoilers, it's very
9:19
Speaker 1: unswaddled in its conveying of the horror. This is sort
9:22
Speaker 1: of the, some of the parts one don't like that
9:25
Speaker 1: much about the film. It starts to take on a
9:28
Speaker 1: bit of like a body horror vibe, which would be fine.
9:32
Speaker 1: And it's fine to just for them to stride a
9:34
Speaker 1: bit from the source material. But they rely way too
9:37
Speaker 1: much on computer generated effects to achieve these body horror scenes.
9:42
Speaker 1: And as good as it is, I'm not being down
9:45
Speaker 1: on the people who did these CG effects. It just
9:48
Speaker 1: never looks right. You can always just tell it's not
9:52
Speaker 1: really there. Even if they had a slightly cheaper looking
9:55
Speaker 1: practical effect, I just think it would look so much better.
10:00
Speaker 1: It looks so much more realistic. And it's a shame
10:03
Speaker 1: they didn't go with that. I think it starts to
10:06
Speaker 1: slightly fall apart at that point for me the movie.
10:10
Speaker 1: So I'm going to go over some of the things
10:12
Speaker 1: I didn't like in the film. The characters are all
10:15
Speaker 1: kind of a bit stereotypical. You've got an English Cage
10:19
Speaker 1: playing Nicolas Cage. You've got Tommy Chong playing Tommy Chong.
10:25
Speaker 1: You've got the stoner teenager brother. You've got the wife
10:28
Speaker 1: who's down of cancer and you've got the small child
10:31
Speaker 1: who basically acts as the creepy kid similar to the
10:34
Speaker 1: one in Poltergeist who goes there. Yeah, basically plays that role.
10:39
Speaker 1: And then you've got the the wife cracking snarky teenager.
10:43
Speaker 1: This role seems to be in every movie these days.
10:47
Speaker 1: I don't know why they always have to insert this
10:49
Speaker 1: sort of character. It's basically the snarky teenage girl character
10:54
Speaker 1: who always has a one line if every scene. I
10:57
Speaker 1: call it the live Houston character. Yeah, they did this
11:01
Speaker 1: with the IT movies. They always have to have like
11:04
Speaker 1: witty one liners whenever something scary happens. And it kind
11:09
Speaker 1: of ended up sort of reducing the horror factor of
11:11
Speaker 1: a lot of scenes. And although it's not too bad
11:15
Speaker 1: in this movie, there is a bit of that. There's
11:18
Speaker 1: a bit of a luller and a comedy. I don't
11:21
Speaker 1: know what the obsession of alpacas is. They always have
11:25
Speaker 1: alpacas in there because it's I don't know. I don't
11:28
Speaker 1: know if it's some reference that goes over my head,
11:31
Speaker 1: but it's a bit sort of oh look at us
11:32
Speaker 1: how random we are. We've got alpacas. I don't know.
11:38
Speaker 1: It's good to have a bit of light relief, but
11:40
Speaker 1: I don't know if in this film sometimes it felt
11:43
Speaker 1: a bit out of place. So yeah, I was going
11:46
Speaker 1: to go saying about the characters in the film. I
11:49
Speaker 1: didn't like him too much because he all felt a
11:51
Speaker 1: bit typical. But you can tell with this movie they're
11:55
Speaker 1: trying to do something very different with a horror movie
11:57
Speaker 1: and a lot of the characters felt very tropey. If
12:01
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, they felt very like you'd
12:03
Speaker 1: seen him in every other horror movie and I kind
12:05
Speaker 1: of wish they'd done something slightly different with the characters
12:08
Speaker 1: as well as the movie itself. The final act of
12:12
Speaker 1: the movie it all feels a bit muddled. The problem
12:15
Speaker 1: is the beginning of the film builds up so well
12:17
Speaker 1: this horror. And it all sort of ends in a
12:20
Speaker 1: crescendo and it all feels a bit sort of they're
12:23
Speaker 1: just throwing a load of things at your load of elements.
12:26
Speaker 1: And whereas I think if they went a bit more
12:28
Speaker 1: slow a bit more slow paced and subtle with the
12:31
Speaker 1: horrors it would be more effective. For example, I think
12:35
Speaker 1: there's some genuinely creepy moments. For example, when there's something
12:39
Speaker 1: that happens to the mother and the younger son when
12:42
Speaker 1: it first reveals what happens to them it's pretty horrific.
12:45
Speaker 1: You feel like oh my god that's horrible and the
12:48
Speaker 1: reactions of the family are really good and you kind
12:50
Speaker 1: of feel that horror along with them. And then they
12:54
Speaker 1: just kind of they don't know much else with it.
12:57
Speaker 1: They don't explore the horror of that situation enough. And
13:01
Speaker 1: I think they could have explored this idea a little
13:03
Speaker 1: bit more what they do with the mother and the
13:05
Speaker 1: younger son is pretty horrific and I think they could
13:07
Speaker 1: have sort of explored their family's reaction to that a
13:10
Speaker 1: little bit more than they do. Like you'll spoil a
13:13
Speaker 1: little bit further with it. And there's another really good
13:16
Speaker 1: moment where they go back to Tommy Jones' house and
13:19
Speaker 1: there's just this sound from outside. Just the sound design
13:23
Speaker 1: at this moment in the film is really good. It
13:26
Speaker 1: has a really sinister effect I think. It shows real
13:30
Speaker 1: moments of horror but it's kind of interspersed at this
13:32
Speaker 1: point with a lot of very noisy scenes, a lot
13:35
Speaker 1: of very bright flashing colors that are slightly disorientating and
13:38
Speaker 1: I think it kind of takes away from the horror
13:40
Speaker 1: in certain scenes. It gets a bit kind of a
13:44
Speaker 1: bit over the top. I'm not being too down on
13:47
Speaker 1: the movie I just think towards the end it could
13:49
Speaker 1: have been torn down a little bit. I understand what
13:52
Speaker 1: they're doing with the colors but it gets so bright
13:54
Speaker 1: and psychedelic that it actually becomes quite difficult to watch.
13:58
Speaker 1: It's like I was getting a headache at some point.
14:02
Speaker 1: I remember there was a scene where there was like
14:04
Speaker 1: this a blue flashing light from a police car and
14:06
Speaker 1: it was interspersed with this bright magenta color and it
14:09
Speaker 1: was flashing across people's faces and it was just like
14:11
Speaker 1: I was getting a headache from watching it. It was
14:14
Speaker 1: so disorientating and you know it's interesting visually but it's
14:18
Speaker 1: not horrific. It's not a scary scene. It kind of
14:22
Speaker 1: like that they tried to do something slightly different with
14:25
Speaker 1: the what the color does to people and what it
14:27
Speaker 1: does to the animals but I think if they were
14:29
Speaker 1: going to go with CG effects I think if they
14:31
Speaker 1: stuck with what it says in the book it would
14:32
Speaker 1: have been more interesting like in the book. Everything sort
14:36
Speaker 1: of turns gray and starts to like disintegrate as if
14:38
Speaker 1: it sort of turns ash. I think they could have
14:42
Speaker 1: done that quite well with computer generated effects but I
14:45
Speaker 1: think what they went with it all looked a bit
14:46
Speaker 1: cartoony a bit slightly silly a lot of the CG
14:49
Speaker 1: kind of took me out of the atmosphere of the
14:51
Speaker 1: movie at that point but there were things that they
14:53
Speaker 1: changed from the original story that I had to like
14:55
Speaker 1: I think in the Lovecraft's original short story. In the
14:59
Speaker 1: final scene he introduced like a whole bunch of characters
15:02
Speaker 1: that haven't been introduced in the rest of the story
15:04
Speaker 1: like the big climax of the story involves a bunch
15:06
Speaker 1: of people that you don't apart from them the writer
15:09
Speaker 1: you don't really know any of the other characters I
15:11
Speaker 1: think they do a better job it sort of combines
15:13
Speaker 1: two different parts of the original story to make the
15:16
Speaker 1: end of the movie which they do that I think
15:17
Speaker 1: in a better way. All in all I enjoyed the
15:20
Speaker 1: movie I don't want to sound like I'm being down
15:23
Speaker 1: on it I'm trying to list the things that I
15:24
Speaker 1: didn't like but I really like that there's a modern
15:27
Speaker 1: horror movie that they've tried to do something different with
15:29
Speaker 1: I see so many trailers for horror movies coming out
15:32
Speaker 1: and it just looks like every other horror movie I've
15:34
Speaker 1: seen for the last 10 years or so you can
15:36
Speaker 1: tell immediately like beat for beat everything that's going to
15:39
Speaker 1: happen in that movie just from watching a trailer and
15:42
Speaker 1: it's Just refreshing to see him finally do something a
15:45
Speaker 1: bit different the visuals and everything with the movie it's
15:48
Speaker 1: completely unique the only thing I can compare it to
15:50
Speaker 1: really is Annihilation and I think Annihilation is quite inspired
15:54
Speaker 1: by The Color Out of Space I think maybe Annihilation
15:57
Speaker 1: does an even better job of being Lovecraftian than The
15:59
Speaker 1: Color Out of Space does Annihilation kind of to me
16:02
Speaker 1: is like a mashup of Lovecraft and JG. Ballads The
16:05
Speaker 1: Crystal World it's just kind of like those two books.
16:09
Speaker 1: combined almost i felt like some points this film was
16:11
Speaker 1: trying to emulate annihilation but not quite doing a good
16:14
Speaker 1: enough job of it but as i say on a
16:16
Speaker 1: great different horror movie and interesting enough to elevate it
16:19
Speaker 1: above just a slew of rubbish that comes out these
16:22
Speaker 1: days i've really got to give the the filmmakers kudos
16:24
Speaker 1: for trying something different and being brave enough in it
16:27
Speaker 1: yeah like i say the first the first two thirds
16:29
Speaker 1: of the movie i loved the last third of the
16:31
Speaker 1: movie i didn't like as much but i didn't hate
16:35
Speaker 1: it it wasn't boring it was just kind of lost
16:37
Speaker 1: its pacing a little bit it kind of went a
16:38
Speaker 1: bit too much over the top for me i say
16:40
Speaker 1: go watch it it's interesting at least is it the
16:42
Speaker 1: best lovecraft adaptation i don't know i haven't seen them
16:45
Speaker 1: all has it captured the feeling of a lovecraft movie
16:48
Speaker 1: possibly yes it's it's got the sort of weird one
16:50
Speaker 1: explains even towards the end of it you don't quite
16:53
Speaker 1: know what the horror is it leaves enough questions in
16:56
Speaker 1: your mind this is what i like about lovecraft is
16:59
Speaker 1: you'll describe things in detail but you'll leave enough out
17:02
Speaker 1: for your mind to sort of turn it over I'll
17:04
Speaker 1: give you an example the mountains of madness are re-raising
17:06
Speaker 1: it and the way the way they describe the city
17:08
Speaker 1: in the book they give such a detailed account of
17:10
Speaker 1: the structures of the buildings when it enters forgotten city
17:13
Speaker 1: they give such a detailed account of all the structures
17:16
Speaker 1: of the buildings how they're built what material they made
17:18
Speaker 1: out of all the rock you could probably just draw
17:21
Speaker 1: a picture An accurate map of the city just from
17:24
Speaker 1: the description but there's enough in the descriptions to know
17:27
Speaker 1: that there's something unnatural about it that the narrator can't
17:29
Speaker 1: describe and although you build up in your mind this
17:32
Speaker 1: accurate image of the city it leaves something out because
17:34
Speaker 1: the narrator can't quite tell you what it is it's
17:37
Speaker 1: just something unnatural and evil about it it kind of
17:39
Speaker 1: causes you to turn this image of the city around
17:41
Speaker 1: in your head and ponder on it and that's kind
17:44
Speaker 1: of I think where the Horror is it's indescribable and
17:47
Speaker 1: I think this movie does a good job of conveying
17:50
Speaker 1: that sort of or knowable horror it does a good
17:52
Speaker 1: job of capturing that essence of the weird cosmic horror
17:55
Speaker 1: that you you can't quite place in your mind it
17:57
Speaker 1: doesn't quite make sense to a human brain and I
17:59
Speaker 1: think I think people who read Lovecraft will have a
18:01
Speaker 1: they'll all have their own opinion on what makes a
18:04
Speaker 1: Lovecraftian horror but for me it does a fairly good
18:06
Speaker 1: job and I would recommend it and I've heard them
18:09
Speaker 1: making like Two more in the same series so I'll
18:12
Speaker 1: be excited to see them I'll definitely be watching them
18:15
Speaker 1: when they come out if you've seen it let me
18:16
Speaker 1: know what you think as well I'll be interested to
18:18
Speaker 1: know if other people enjoyed it or not oh and
18:21
Speaker 1: I wanted to say as well as something else you'll
18:23
Speaker 1: notice more and more as you rewatch it there seems
18:25
Speaker 1: to be a lot of symbolism and images in there
18:27
Speaker 1: which you might not spot on the first time round
18:29
Speaker 1: or you might not make the connections. For example at
18:32
Speaker 1: the beginning of the film when Lavinere is doing that
18:36
Speaker 1: weird ritual you see these doll legs hung up in
18:38
Speaker 1: tree in a kind of swastika. Pattern and then later
18:42
Speaker 1: on which I didn't realize I didn't spot the first
18:44
Speaker 1: as they're going towards Tommy Chong's house you see a
18:46
Speaker 1: doll hung up in the tree there and kind of
18:48
Speaker 1: I didn't make the connection at first but then I
18:50
Speaker 1: think well what wonder if there's some connection between Tommy
18:53
Speaker 1: Chong's he's kind of called Ezra between Ezra and Lavinier
18:56
Speaker 1: that isn't quite explained in the movie but maybe rewatching
18:59
Speaker 1: it you'll see more links between these different characters it
19:02
Speaker 1: seems like the kind of movie. Where there's going to
19:05
Speaker 1: be a lot of these like little weird symbols and
19:07
Speaker 1: easter eggs and things to spot and I think rewatching
19:10
Speaker 1: it you'll get more out of it so yeah that
19:12
Speaker 1: was another thing I think might be important is probably
19:14
Speaker 1: a movie that requires a few viewings to appreciate fully.
19:18
Speaker 1: Growing up in the 90s as a kid obsessed with
19:21
Speaker 1: all things creepy I was kind of spoiled for choice
19:23
Speaker 1: obviously it's nothing like today where you can access a
19:26
Speaker 1: near constant stream of amazing content but I remember that
19:29
Speaker 1: decade fondly it was a time that really piqued my
19:32
Speaker 1: interest in this kind of stuff shows like the X-Files
19:34
Speaker 1: and Unsolved Mysteries hit their peak and there seemed to
19:37
Speaker 1: be a real public appetite for anything strange and unexplained.
19:41
Speaker 1: Mary Gloves Stick Mary Gloves Stick One of my favorites
19:47
Speaker 1: from this time was a show called Sightings it was
19:49
Speaker 1: a documentary. program that covered all sorts of weird and
19:52
Speaker 1: paranormal cases and there was this one story that really
19:55
Speaker 1: got under my skin to this day this image sends
19:57
Speaker 1: a shiver down my spine. I've always wanted to cover
20:01
Speaker 1: the story in more detail so here it is the
20:03
Speaker 1: tale of the hotland ghost. It was late 1992, married
20:08
Speaker 1: couple Tony and Deborah were looking for a new place
20:10
Speaker 1: to live in their small town of Atchison, Kansas. Deborah
20:14
Speaker 1: was three months pregnant and their rental home was far
20:17
Speaker 1: too small to bring up a child so they decided
20:20
Speaker 1: to move to a new property an old and slightly
20:22
Speaker 1: run down house at 508 North 2nd Street. This house
20:27
Speaker 1: was the oldest on the street built between 1867 and
20:29
Speaker 1: 1871 by an Irish immigrant family. In the intervening 120
20:36
Speaker 1: plus years it had passed through many hands. Eventually in
20:40
Speaker 1: the early 1990s it has been acquired by a local
20:42
Speaker 1: police officer and he decided to rent it out. The
20:46
Speaker 1: house was the right size for Tony and Deborah Pickman
20:49
Speaker 1: and the rental price was within their budget so on
20:51
Speaker 1: New Year's Eve 1993 the young couple moved in bringing
20:54
Speaker 1: with them their three cats and a dog. The first
20:58
Speaker 1: renovation jobs they did was to convert one of the
21:00
Speaker 1: bedrooms into a nursery they wanted everything ready for the
21:03
Speaker 1: arrival of their first child but there was something strange
21:06
Speaker 1: about this room. At first their pet dog Sasha seemed
21:09
Speaker 1: to be terrified to go into it. During their first
21:13
Speaker 1: week in the house whenever Sasha the dog got close
21:16
Speaker 1: to the nursery door she would stop dead in her
21:18
Speaker 1: tracks and begin growling and barking but after about a
21:20
Speaker 1: week this behavior stopped. Sasha would then happily pass into
21:25
Speaker 1: the room without her second glance. What made this strange
21:29
Speaker 1: is that this is exactly how Sasha behaved around people
21:32
Speaker 1: she didn't know. She was a protective dog by nature
21:35
Speaker 1: she would be cautious at first barking at strangers until
21:38
Speaker 1: she got familiar with them but there weren't any strangers
21:41
Speaker 1: in that room at least as far as they could tell.
21:44
Speaker 1: Tony and Debra assumed that the previous owners might have
21:47
Speaker 1: had a cat and Sasha the dog was just reacting
21:49
Speaker 1: to some unfamiliar animal scent so they put it out
21:52
Speaker 1: of their minds and continued the task of settling into
21:54
Speaker 1: what they assumed would be the perfect family home. During
21:58
Speaker 1: the first couple of weeks they did notice a few
22:00
Speaker 1: strange things but nothing too concerning. Sometimes while they were
22:04
Speaker 1: snuggled on a sofa watching TV the television set would
22:08
Speaker 1: switch itself off. Other times the ceiling light above the
22:12
Speaker 1: sofa would slowly dim for a few minutes before going
22:14
Speaker 1: back to full brightness it was as if someone had
22:17
Speaker 1: turned down a dial on a dimmer switch. The problem
22:20
Speaker 1: is this light didn't have a dimmer switch. They assumed
22:24
Speaker 1: it must be a problem with the bulb so Tony
22:26
Speaker 1: changed it for a new one but the problem persisted.
22:30
Speaker 1: Eventually they called in an electrician to try and solve
22:32
Speaker 1: the problem but he couldn't find anything wrong with the
22:35
Speaker 1: fuses or the wiring. Tony joked that they must have
22:39
Speaker 1: a ghost but neither of them really believed it. The
22:42
Speaker 1: longer they lived in the house the more they noticed
22:44
Speaker 1: strange things. As this was Kansas the interior of the
22:48
Speaker 1: house was often very warm. The couple could only afford
22:52
Speaker 1: one air conditioner which was placed in the window of
22:55
Speaker 1: the master bedroom but then Debra began to notice a
22:57
Speaker 1: strange cold spot at the top of the stairs. It
23:01
Speaker 1: felt like a blast of cold air that would rush
23:03
Speaker 1: pasta hitting her upper body. At first she put it
23:07
Speaker 1: down to a draft coming from the bedroom air con
23:09
Speaker 1: but then after a couple of months the air conditioner
23:12
Speaker 1: stopped working making the house stiflingly hot everywhere except for
23:15
Speaker 1: this one cold spot that remained at the top of
23:17
Speaker 1: the stairs. By mid-May Deborah was in the final trimester
23:21
Speaker 1: of her pregnancy. On one especially sweltering night Tony and
23:25
Speaker 1: Deborah decided to sleep on a sofa downstairs with the
23:28
Speaker 1: windows open in an attempt to stay cool. Eventually they
23:32
Speaker 1: managed to fall asleep until around 3.30 a.m. when Deborah
23:36
Speaker 1: was awoken by what sounded like an extremely loud screaming
23:39
Speaker 1: followed by thumps like footsteps running down the stairs. Before
23:43
Speaker 1: she could process what she was hearing something heavy landed
23:46
Speaker 1: on her chest and face. Deborah screamed and this woke
23:50
Speaker 1: up Tony. She sat up on the sofa looking for
23:53
Speaker 1: an intruder but there was nobody there just her, Tony
23:56
Speaker 1: and the cats. The cats however were acting very strangely.
24:02
Speaker 1: They seemed to be in a panic state, hackles up
24:04
Speaker 1: running around the room as if looking for some wet hide.
24:08
Speaker 1: Deborah wondered if the sound she'd heard might have been
24:10
Speaker 1: the cats. Maybe the neighbor's cat had gotten into the
24:14
Speaker 1: house and started a fight and in her half-asleep mind
24:16
Speaker 1: she'd heard the commotion and interpreted it as the sound
24:19
Speaker 1: of people screaming and running down the stairs. They looked
24:23
Speaker 1: around the house to see what might have alarmed the
24:25
Speaker 1: cats but they found nothing. Life continued on in this
24:29
Speaker 1: way for a while, strange things would happen around the house.
24:33
Speaker 1: For example the buzzer on the oven timer would go
24:35
Speaker 1: off at random times even though nobody had said it.
24:39
Speaker 1: They would always put these things down to electrical problems,
24:42
Speaker 1: drafts or the fact that they were living in a
24:44
Speaker 1: very old building. They would make passing jokes about their
24:48
Speaker 1: ghosts but neither of them took it very seriously. On
24:52
Speaker 1: the 26th of June Deborah gave birth to a boy
24:55
Speaker 1: Taylor Jacob. Strange things kept happening in the house after
24:59
Speaker 1: Taylor was born. If Deborah was talking to someone on
25:03
Speaker 1: the phone and walked into the nursery the phone would
25:05
Speaker 1: suddenly go dead. When she walked out of the room
25:08
Speaker 1: it would pick up again. This didn't happen anywhere else
25:12
Speaker 1: in the house, only the nursery room seemed to interfere
25:15
Speaker 1: with the phone signal. There was also the teddy bear
25:18
Speaker 1: mobile attached to Taylor's crib. This was a wind-up device
25:23
Speaker 1: and it required someone to physically turn it but they
25:25
Speaker 1: began to hear the sound of it operating when nobody
25:27
Speaker 1: was near it. It was as if something was playing
25:31
Speaker 1: with it. In late July the family returned home after
25:34
Speaker 1: visiting their in-laws. Tony went upstairs to use the bathroom
25:39
Speaker 1: whilst Deborah went into the kitchen with her sister Karen.
25:42
Speaker 1: A few minutes later Tony came back downstairs with a
25:45
Speaker 1: confused look on his face. Why did he put the
25:49
Speaker 1: teddy bears on the floor he asked Deborah. Deborah was
25:52
Speaker 1: equally confused. That morning she had been cleaning the nursery room.
25:58
Speaker 1: She remembered she tied it up the toys, placing some
26:01
Speaker 1: of them on a shelf and others inside the crib.
26:04
Speaker 1: Tony told her that she better come and have a look.
26:08
Speaker 1: All of the teddy bears had been placed in a
26:10
Speaker 1: circle in the center of the floor. All of them
26:13
Speaker 1: were sitting upright with their backs facing towards the middle.
26:17
Speaker 1: Tony and Deborah both knew that they hadn't done this
26:19
Speaker 1: so they assumed that someone must be playing a prank.
26:23
Speaker 1: Someone else had been in the house that day. Whilst
26:26
Speaker 1: Tony and Deborah were out, Tony's sister-in-law Jeannie had popped
26:30
Speaker 1: by to drop off an old high chair for them.
26:33
Speaker 1: They'd spoken to Jeannie after that and Jeannie had told
26:36
Speaker 1: them that she'd gone up to take a look at
26:37
Speaker 1: the nursery room. She hadn't mentioned anything about the toys
26:42
Speaker 1: but then they remembered that Jeannie had seemed unusually agitated
26:45
Speaker 1: when they spoke to her. Deborah rang Jeannie and asked
26:48
Speaker 1: her if she'd noticed anything strange in the nursery or
26:51
Speaker 1: if she'd moved any of the teddy bears. Jeannie claimed
26:55
Speaker 1: that she hadn't moved anything. When Deborah explained what had happened,
26:59
Speaker 1: Jeannie suddenly burst out with, oh my god I wasn't
27:02
Speaker 1: going to say anything. She then told Debra that when
27:06
Speaker 1: she stopped by the house, she'd felt a strange sensation
27:09
Speaker 1: as soon as she walked in as if something was wrong.
27:12
Speaker 1: She walked up the stairs and she'd felt this weird
27:15
Speaker 1: cold air rushing past her. She went into the nursery
27:19
Speaker 1: room but this strange feeling of Orny's grew so strong
27:22
Speaker 1: that she had to turn back. She'd rushed out the
27:25
Speaker 1: house as fast as she could. Jeannie then asked Debra outright,
27:30
Speaker 1: do you think you've got a ghost? Up to that
27:33
Speaker 1: point although they had joked about the house being haunted,
27:35
Speaker 1: they'd never really taken it seriously but now Deborah actually
27:39
Speaker 1: considered the possibility, could there really be a restless spirit
27:42
Speaker 1: in their family home? After getting off the phone they
27:45
Speaker 1: tidied the bears away, between themselves they concluded that they
27:49
Speaker 1: must have been a joke. Tony's brother was always playing
27:52
Speaker 1: pranks on them, it was probably him they told themselves.
27:56
Speaker 1: but as they walked downstairs they noticed that the light
27:59
Speaker 1: in the nursery room was on. Tony was sure that
28:03
Speaker 1: he'd switched it off when they left the room moments
28:05
Speaker 1: ago so they went back up to the nursery and
28:07
Speaker 1: now in the middle of the room was a single
28:09
Speaker 1: teddy bear, one of the moments before Debra had placed
28:12
Speaker 1: in a wicker chair. Once again Debra put the teddy
28:15
Speaker 1: bear back on the seats and they tried to figure
28:18
Speaker 1: out what was going on. If this was a prank
28:21
Speaker 1: then whoever was doing it would still have to be
28:23
Speaker 1: inside the house. It didn't seem possible that in the
28:26
Speaker 1: time it took them to descend the staircase, someone could
28:29
Speaker 1: have snuck into the room, turned on the lights and
28:32
Speaker 1: moved to teddy bear without being seen. The terror grew
28:36
Speaker 1: even stronger later that night when Deborah went upstairs to
28:39
Speaker 1: use the bathroom. She took a peek into the nursery
28:42
Speaker 1: and saw the bear once again lying in the center
28:44
Speaker 1: of the room. More and more they found themselves entertaining
28:48
Speaker 1: the possibility that they really did have a ghost. This
28:52
Speaker 1: seems to be a pretty common occurrence with tales of hauntings.
28:56
Speaker 1: They start out as little things that can be brushed
28:58
Speaker 1: off as having natural causes but then once someone starts
29:01
Speaker 1: to acknowledge that they might actually be a ghost the
29:04
Speaker 1: phenomena really starts to ramp up. If you're not a
29:07
Speaker 1: believer you could say that there's a psychological reason for this.
29:11
Speaker 1: Once you start thinking you have a ghost you become
29:14
Speaker 1: hyper aware of every little sound or movements things that
29:16
Speaker 1: you might have ignored before now become further evidence that
29:19
Speaker 1: you have a haunting. If you are a believer then
29:22
Speaker 1: you could say that paying attention to the ghost feeds
29:25
Speaker 1: it with a kind of energy makes it stronger and
29:27
Speaker 1: more able to display phenomena. What followed the rest of
29:31
Speaker 1: the night is described in detail in Deborah's book The
29:33
Speaker 1: Sally House Haunting which I'm using as the main source
29:36
Speaker 1: for this case. I won't go into as much detail here.
29:41
Speaker 1: They called Larry's brother over to help them investigate the phenomena.
29:45
Speaker 1: Repeatedly throughout that night a large heavy teddy bear in
29:48
Speaker 1: a living room would be found turned around to face
29:50
Speaker 1: the wall. This only happened when nobody was looking at it.
29:55
Speaker 1: Each time they found it they would turn it back
29:57
Speaker 1: to face the room. Sometimes it seemed to happen in
30:01
Speaker 1: the blink of an eye whilst their backs were turned.
30:04
Speaker 1: They would just look away from the teddy bear and
30:06
Speaker 1: then when they looked back it would be turned around
30:08
Speaker 1: to face the wall again. Another time a stuffed heart
30:12
Speaker 1: toy with a teddy bear print was found hanging from
30:14
Speaker 1: the door of the nursery even nobody had been upstairs.
30:18
Speaker 1: By the end of the night all family members and
30:20
Speaker 1: their pets were huddled together in the master bedroom to
30:23
Speaker 1: terrify the venture out into the house in case something
30:25
Speaker 1: else happened. In the following days the family tried to
30:29
Speaker 1: find an answer to what was happening in the house.
30:32
Speaker 1: They managed to track down the woman who lived in
30:35
Speaker 1: the house before Tony and Debra. They asked if anything
30:39
Speaker 1: strange ever happened while they were living there. She told
30:42
Speaker 1: them that she'd always noticed a foul smell in the
30:45
Speaker 1: house and she was always picking up her son's toys
30:47
Speaker 1: from the floor. Her son who slept in the room
30:50
Speaker 1: that was now the nursery would always claim that he
30:53
Speaker 1: hadn't been playing with the toys. She also told them
30:56
Speaker 1: that her daughter would play for hours in another bedroom
30:59
Speaker 1: hiding in the walk-in closet talking to an imaginary friend
31:02
Speaker 1: she called Sally. Once they moved out of the house
31:05
Speaker 1: the girl never mentioned Sally ever again. Tony and Deborah
31:09
Speaker 1: also contacted a psychic. She told them that they had
31:13
Speaker 1: the spirit of a young girl between the age of
31:15
Speaker 1: 5 and 13 years old in their house and that
31:18
Speaker 1: this girl felt very protective over a baby. The psychic
31:22
Speaker 1: told them that a single name kept coming into our mind. Sally.
31:27
Speaker 1: After that Tony and Deborah began to address the spirit
31:30
Speaker 1: by name. When a toy moved they would tell Sally
31:34
Speaker 1: that she was welcome to play with it but she
31:36
Speaker 1: had to put things back where she found them. Whether
31:39
Speaker 1: this whole thing was real or just in their minds
31:41
Speaker 1: they were feeding it, giving it life. The activity just
31:45
Speaker 1: continued to escalate. On the 27th of July Tony's younger
31:50
Speaker 1: brother George came by the house. George was pretty skeptical
31:54
Speaker 1: of all things paranormal so when he told them about
31:56
Speaker 1: the events in the house he set about trying to
31:58
Speaker 1: find a natural explanation, searching the nursery for anything that
32:02
Speaker 1: might cause the toys to move. He was unable to
32:05
Speaker 1: find anything out of order but he still didn't believe
32:08
Speaker 1: that they had a ghost. He and Tony went into
32:11
Speaker 1: the dining room. Tony picked up his camera. He pointed
32:16
Speaker 1: it at the large teddy bear in the corner of
32:18
Speaker 1: the room and said in a half joking manner. Sally
32:22
Speaker 1: if you're there say cheese. As he took the photo
32:25
Speaker 1: the bear suddenly flipped around to face the wall. It
32:29
Speaker 1: happened in an instant but his younger brother George had
32:31
Speaker 1: seen it with his own eyes. Tony quickly snapped another
32:35
Speaker 1: photo but that was enough. They decided to get out
32:39
Speaker 1: of there. They turned to leave but as they started
32:42
Speaker 1: upstairs George froze. His legs wouldn't move. It was as
32:47
Speaker 1: if something invisible held him there a cold, precious wrapping
32:51
Speaker 1: around his body. Whether this was Sally's doing or just
32:54
Speaker 1: the effect of severe panic is unknown. He later said
32:58
Speaker 1: that he felt this cold sensation moving through him. Many
33:02
Speaker 1: felt completely unable to move his muscles. When the sensation
33:07
Speaker 1: finally lifted he stumbled forward. The two of them raced
33:11
Speaker 1: upstairs to get Debra. They quickly told her what had
33:14
Speaker 1: happened and then they grabbed baby Taylor and they made
33:17
Speaker 1: their plans to leave desperate to be away from whatever
33:19
Speaker 1: it was in the house. But it wasn't quite over.
33:23
Speaker 1: Tony went downstairs and placed a baby car seat on
33:26
Speaker 1: the sofa. He leaned over it to fasten Taylor in.
33:31
Speaker 1: As he did so he felt a quick sharp sensation
33:34
Speaker 1: crossing his back and he let out a small yell
33:36
Speaker 1: of pain. He told Debra that he thought a bug
33:39
Speaker 1: had bitten him but not wanting to waste time. They
33:43
Speaker 1: just got out of the house into the car and
33:45
Speaker 1: they drove to Tony's parents' house. It was only once
33:48
Speaker 1: they got to the in-laws that Deborah had a chance
33:51
Speaker 1: to check his back. She lifted his shirt and she
33:54
Speaker 1: saw three long scratches across her skin. They were so
33:58
Speaker 1: deep that there was blood dripping from them. This would
34:02
Speaker 1: mark a dangerous escalation in the activity in the house.
34:06
Speaker 1: By this point Tony and Deborah were at their wits' end.
34:09
Speaker 1: They called the psychic again and asked what they should do.
34:13
Speaker 1: The psychic informed them that they should talk to Sally.
34:17
Speaker 1: Tell it that they were angry with her and that
34:19
Speaker 1: if she misbehaved they would send her to her room
34:21
Speaker 1: and forbid her from playing with the toys. And so
34:24
Speaker 1: that's what they did. They returned home and Deborah spoke
34:28
Speaker 1: aloud to Sally telling her that this was their home
34:31
Speaker 1: now and that she was welcome to stay but she
34:33
Speaker 1: mustn't misbehave. The psychic visited the house and told them
34:37
Speaker 1: that they should leave a shelf of toys just for Sally.
34:41
Speaker 1: They started to leave an empty place at the dinner
34:43
Speaker 1: table for Sally and they even bought girls toys so
34:46
Speaker 1: that she had some possessions of her own. Debra also
34:49
Speaker 1: left the box of crayons and some paper out asking
34:52
Speaker 1: Sally to draw them a picture or answer questions that
34:55
Speaker 1: Debra wrote at the top. This actually seemed to get results.
35:00
Speaker 1: One day Debra left the paper with the words hello
35:03
Speaker 1: Sally how old are you written at the top. Sometime
35:06
Speaker 1: later when Tony was putting some toys in the nursery
35:09
Speaker 1: he found that someone had written 7 like in childlike
35:11
Speaker 1: scroll underneath Deborah's question. Again we see this idea of
35:16
Speaker 1: them feeding this energy interacting with it more and more.
35:20
Speaker 1: In the following days they decided to get some photographs developed.
35:24
Speaker 1: This roll of film included the photos that Tony had
35:27
Speaker 1: taken of the teddy bear before and after it rotated
35:29
Speaker 1: to face the wall. This is one of the photos.
35:34
Speaker 1: You can't actually see the bear in the picture. It's
35:37
Speaker 1: obscured by this strange blurred mass. In Deborah's book she
35:41
Speaker 1: claims that the fuzzy area resembles a person's head and shoulders.
35:46
Speaker 1: Personally I can't make it out maybe the original photo
35:49
Speaker 1: is clearer. It could just be a defect in how
35:52
Speaker 1: the picture was developed or something on the lens camera
35:55
Speaker 1: or just maybe it's a ghost posing for the photo.
35:58
Speaker 1: Either way after that the family would notice many strange
36:01
Speaker 1: defects in the photographs that were taken inside the house.
36:05
Speaker 1: Odd blurred shapes dark shadows or inky spots that would
36:08
Speaker 1: seem to float around their family snaps especially in photos
36:11
Speaker 1: of baby Taylor. They tried multiple different cameras and films
36:15
Speaker 1: but they would always capture these anomalies. They used to
36:19
Speaker 1: be a website with a lot of the pictures on.
36:22
Speaker 1: I can way back machine it and grab a few
36:24
Speaker 1: but they're extremely low resolution and most of the links
36:27
Speaker 1: are broken. Hopefully one day they get re-uploaded in a
36:31
Speaker 1: better quality. As the Pickmans interacted more and more with
36:35
Speaker 1: Sally there was another disturbing escalation in her behavior. It
36:39
Speaker 1: first started with two candles in the bathroom. These candles
36:44
Speaker 1: had always been there purely for decoration but one day
36:47
Speaker 1: Tony's brother was walking by the door when he noticed
36:49
Speaker 1: a strange glow coming from the room. He found two
36:53
Speaker 1: candles burning away. Tony and Deborah were the only other
36:57
Speaker 1: people in the house and neither of them had lit
36:59
Speaker 1: the candles. It seemed that Sally now had the ability
37:03
Speaker 1: to start fires. From then onwards items around the house
37:07
Speaker 1: would be found with small burns on them. It was
37:10
Speaker 1: usually candles. Sometimes they were found with wax dripping upwards
37:15
Speaker 1: as if someone had lit it and then held it
37:17
Speaker 1: upside down for some time. Other times the plastic wrap
37:21
Speaker 1: on an unopened candle would be melted. As the months
37:24
Speaker 1: passed the family's interaction with Sally grew more involved. From
37:29
Speaker 1: reading Debra's book I get the impression that most of
37:31
Speaker 1: this interaction came from Debra. She seemed to be quite
37:35
Speaker 1: happy to have a little girl in the house even
37:37
Speaker 1: if it was a ghost. Tony appears to have taken
37:40
Speaker 1: a bit more of a backseat to this all. Having
37:44
Speaker 1: experienced strange things himself he wasn't exactly a skeptic but
37:47
Speaker 1: he would roll his eyes at Debra when she gift
37:50
Speaker 1: wrapped presents for Sally and read stories to her or
37:52
Speaker 1: invited her to sit on her lap. Over the following
37:56
Speaker 1: months these interactions continued and Sally responded in her usual way,
38:00
Speaker 1: moving objects around, interfering with electronics and burning candles. Then
38:05
Speaker 1: on the 22nd of September there was a very disturbing event.
38:10
Speaker 1: Deborah had gone to work and she'd left a pile
38:12
Speaker 1: of washing to be put in the dryer. Later that
38:15
Speaker 1: day Tony got up, he put the clothes in the dryer,
38:18
Speaker 1: switched it on and then went about his day. He
38:22
Speaker 1: could hear a loud thumping noise coming from the dryer
38:24
Speaker 1: and he assumed that Debra had thrown some trainers in
38:27
Speaker 1: there so he just went on about his day doing
38:29
Speaker 1: chores around the house. But strange things kept happening. When
38:34
Speaker 1: he tried to play music on the stereo it would
38:36
Speaker 1: switch itself off. The same thing would happen to the
38:40
Speaker 1: vacuum when he tried to do some cleaning. This happened
38:43
Speaker 1: over and over again until he grew frustrated and he
38:46
Speaker 1: shouted out loud telling Sally to stop misbehaving. Later that
38:50
Speaker 1: day Deborah returned home and she went to unload the dryer.
38:54
Speaker 1: As she was pulling clothes out she noticed red spots
38:57
Speaker 1: staining the garments. With growing horrors she continued to unload
39:02
Speaker 1: the machine until at the back of the drum she
39:04
Speaker 1: discovered the source. It was one of the kittens. It
39:08
Speaker 1: must have climbed into the machine just before Tony loaded
39:11
Speaker 1: the clothes in there and he just hadn't noticed. The
39:15
Speaker 1: poor animal had been slowly cooked and pummeled to death
39:18
Speaker 1: inside the spinning dryer. In a book Deborah interprets Sally's
39:22
Speaker 1: actions earlier that they were turning off the stereo and
39:25
Speaker 1: the vacuum cleaner as an attempt to warn Tony that
39:27
Speaker 1: the kitten was trapped. It's interesting that Debra never considers
39:31
Speaker 1: the more disturbing possibility that Sally might have put the
39:34
Speaker 1: kitten in the dryer herself. Sally had always shown an
39:38
Speaker 1: interest in the cats and she had a habit of
39:40
Speaker 1: teleporting objects into strange places. Yet at this point in
39:44
Speaker 1: the story Debra seems completely unwilling to attribute any malice
39:48
Speaker 1: to her behavior. Even when Sally scratches people or starts
39:52
Speaker 1: fires Deborah frames it as harmless mischief or the protectiveness
39:56
Speaker 1: of a small child. As it says Sally's behavior was
40:00
Speaker 1: similar to other kids' hurryage. They will do anything for
40:04
Speaker 1: attention and it doesn't matter if it's good or bad.
40:07
Speaker 1: And the bad behavior definitely seemed to outweigh the good.
40:11
Speaker 1: The activity in the house continued in the usual pattern.
40:15
Speaker 1: Electronics would switch themselves on or off by themselves. Objects
40:20
Speaker 1: would move and things would be found burned as if
40:22
Speaker 1: someone had held a flame to them. Each time they
40:26
Speaker 1: happened Deborah would admonish Sally aloud but just like a
40:29
Speaker 1: naughty child they were rewarding bad behavior with attention and
40:32
Speaker 1: in order to keep getting that attention it seemed like
40:34
Speaker 1: the activity was getting worse by the day. One day
40:38
Speaker 1: Tony was sitting on the couch watching TV. He told
40:41
Speaker 1: Deborah that he could feel a strange sensation on his
40:44
Speaker 1: toes as if something was biting them. Over the following
40:48
Speaker 1: days he would repeatedly feel this sensation on different parts
40:51
Speaker 1: of his body. Usually this was at night when he
40:54
Speaker 1: was trying to sleep. It all came to a head
40:57
Speaker 1: when Tony was taking a shower one morning. He suddenly
41:01
Speaker 1: felt a sharp bite on his leg. He looked down
41:05
Speaker 1: and on his thigh there was a round red mark
41:07
Speaker 1: with a distinct imprints of little teeth in his flesh.
41:10
Speaker 1: He also began seeing a dark shadowy shape around the house.
41:15
Speaker 1: It was always seen out of the corner of his
41:17
Speaker 1: eye or fleetingly glimpsed behind him in a reflective surface.
41:21
Speaker 1: It seemed to be following him around but he never
41:23
Speaker 1: got a good enough look at it to see what
41:25
Speaker 1: it actually was. That was until Halloween 1993. It was
41:31
Speaker 1: early morning and Tony was in the kitchen pouring himself
41:33
Speaker 1: a glass of orange juice. He turned around from the
41:37
Speaker 1: fridge and standing there in the middle of the kitchen
41:39
Speaker 1: was a small girl. She looked to be about five
41:42
Speaker 1: years old although it was hard to tell for sure
41:46
Speaker 1: She was wearing a white frilly dress and her dark
41:48
Speaker 1: hair was tied in a bow. The girl stared at
41:51
Speaker 1: Tony with a shocked expression on her face. This didn't
41:55
Speaker 1: seem like a ghostly apparition. It was completely solid. It
42:00
Speaker 1: was so real that Tony assumed that some neighborhood kid
42:03
Speaker 1: had wandered into the house. He began asking her how
42:07
Speaker 1: she had got in but then he realized how old-fashioned
42:10
Speaker 1: her clothing was. It dawned on him that this might
42:14
Speaker 1: not be a neighborhood kid after all. The sudden shock
42:17
Speaker 1: caused him to drop his orange juice. He looked down
42:21
Speaker 1: briefly as the glass fell and then when he looked
42:23
Speaker 1: up the girl had vanished. This had happened in the
42:26
Speaker 1: blink of an eye. There was no way a real
42:29
Speaker 1: child could disappear that quickly. He had seen Sally. Tony
42:35
Speaker 1: was a fairly decent artist so once he got over
42:37
Speaker 1: the shock he grabbed some pencils and he sketched what
42:40
Speaker 1: he had seen. This would become the definitive image of
42:43
Speaker 1: what the entity in the house looked like. An image
42:47
Speaker 1: reproduced many times by various TV shows and magazine articles
42:51
Speaker 1: in the future. The only known sighting of Sally. Over
42:56
Speaker 1: time Sally's fire starting habit became more dangerous. On one occasion,
43:01
Speaker 1: Deborah's sister Karen was visiting the house. Karen was napping
43:05
Speaker 1: on the couch when she suddenly awoke to see one
43:08
Speaker 1: of the teddy bears on fire. There were flames shooting
43:11
Speaker 1: about 8 inches from the top of its head. Karen
43:15
Speaker 1: quickly grabbed the bear and she rushed it towards the
43:17
Speaker 1: kitchen to douse the flames but by the time she
43:20
Speaker 1: got to the sink the fire had died out. When
43:23
Speaker 1: they studied the bear they found that one side of
43:25
Speaker 1: its face had been completely melted and there was a
43:27
Speaker 1: strange circular burn on the top of its head. It
43:31
Speaker 1: was as if the fire had burned in a perfect
43:33
Speaker 1: ring without melting any of the fur inside of it.
43:37
Speaker 1: Some weeks later during a Christmas party, a doll had
43:40
Speaker 1: been left on the staircase suddenly burst into flames. This
43:44
Speaker 1: timely fire was so powerful that it set off the
43:46
Speaker 1: smoke alarm and Tony burnt his arms as he rushed
43:49
Speaker 1: the flaming doll to the upstairs bathroom. Deborah reckoned Sally
43:53
Speaker 1: was starting these fires because she was frustrated at being
43:56
Speaker 1: ignored during family gatherings. In early 1994, Tony's brother George
44:02
Speaker 1: came round with him he brought two of his workmates
44:05
Speaker 1: who were interested in the ghost. They decided that they
44:08
Speaker 1: would do a seance around the dining table. The three
44:12
Speaker 1: of them along with Tony and Debra sat in a
44:14
Speaker 1: circle around the table with their hands resting on the surface.
44:18
Speaker 1: For around half an hour nothing happened but then Tony
44:21
Speaker 1: said he felt something moving around his head. He flopped
44:24
Speaker 1: his hands in front of his faces at batting away
44:27
Speaker 1: some unseen force and then he returned his hands to
44:30
Speaker 1: the top of the table. About 20 minutes later, one
44:33
Speaker 1: of George's workmates leaned over the table and said that
44:36
Speaker 1: he could see something on Tony's forehead. It was dark
44:40
Speaker 1: in the room so they couldn't see what it was
44:42
Speaker 1: very clearly. Tony touched his forehead and his fingers came
44:46
Speaker 1: away wet. It was blood. When they examined him in
44:50
Speaker 1: the lights, they saw that there were multiple scratches above
44:53
Speaker 1: his eyebrows and there was a blood trickling down his face.
44:57
Speaker 1: Apparently Tony hadn't felt any pain when it had happened.
45:01
Speaker 1: This experience reinforced a troubling idea that they'd been considering.
45:06
Speaker 1: A lot of this activity especially the scratching didn't seem
45:09
Speaker 1: like the behavior of a small child. Tony and Debra
45:12
Speaker 1: began to suspect that there was more than one spirit
45:15
Speaker 1: inhabiting the house, a small child and a woman. On
45:19
Speaker 1: one occasion Tony had heard a woman's voice. It was
45:23
Speaker 1: on one evening when he'd lost the remote control. He
45:27
Speaker 1: decided to nap on the sofa and in his half
45:29
Speaker 1: a week state he heard a woman's voice saying here's
45:32
Speaker 1: your remote control. When he woke up later he found
45:35
Speaker 1: a remote control lying on his lap. Another time he
45:39
Speaker 1: was taking a bath when he saw a woman walk
45:41
Speaker 1: past a bathroom door. In both of these instances he
45:45
Speaker 1: just assumed it was Debra but when he asked her
45:47
Speaker 1: about it later it turned out she was always in
45:49
Speaker 1: a different part of the house at the time that
45:51
Speaker 1: they happened. Personally, if these events happened exactly as they described,
45:57
Speaker 1: I'd be inclined to consider a different explanation that the
45:59
Speaker 1: activity might be demonic in nature, the fires, the scratching
46:03
Speaker 1: and now seemingly the ability to mimic members of the household.
46:07
Speaker 1: These are all things I've heard described in other demonic cases.
46:11
Speaker 1: Who knows if Sally really is what they thought. It
46:15
Speaker 1: could have been something far more sinister taking on the
46:18
Speaker 1: form of a harmless little girl just to gain the
46:20
Speaker 1: trust of the family. The idea of an evil spirit,
46:24
Speaker 1: ingratiating itself with the household in order to bend them
46:27
Speaker 1: to its will, it's even more unsettling when you consider
46:30
Speaker 1: it from Tony's point of view. At the end of
46:33
Speaker 1: Deborah's book there's a short chapter written by Tony and
46:36
Speaker 1: it gives his perspective. Tony initially tolerated the ghost, though
46:41
Speaker 1: only begrudgingly but over time he became convinced there was
46:44
Speaker 1: an evil presence in the house. He implored Deborah for
46:47
Speaker 1: them to find somewhere else to live. but by that
46:50
Speaker 1: point Debra had become so enamored with the idea of
46:53
Speaker 1: the helpless little girl ghost that she insisted that they stay.
46:57
Speaker 1: Tony began to hear strange things. At first it was
47:01
Speaker 1: a sort of constant scratching noise like there was something
47:03
Speaker 1: in the walls. This noise got louder over time but
47:07
Speaker 1: it seemed like only he could hear it. Eventually the
47:11
Speaker 1: scratching changed to a low murmuring noise. It was like
47:15
Speaker 1: the voices of multiple people talking at a distance. It
47:18
Speaker 1: was too quiet to make out what was being said
47:21
Speaker 1: but he could hear it constantly. Tony worked in night
47:24
Speaker 1: shift and he slept for only a few hours during
47:27
Speaker 1: the day. Deborah told him that much of what he
47:30
Speaker 1: was experiencing might just be the effects of sleep deprivation
47:33
Speaker 1: and so Tony began to fear that he was losing
47:35
Speaker 1: his mind. Due to this he kept a lot of
47:38
Speaker 1: his experiences to himself. He began to feel extremely isolated.
47:44
Speaker 1: It created a bit of a rift between him and
47:46
Speaker 1: Deborah and it led to a lot of arguments. If
47:50
Speaker 1: this really was a demonic presence then it was playing
47:52
Speaker 1: a classic game of divide and conquer. Tony began to
47:56
Speaker 1: have increasingly dark thoughts. He began thinking about how much
48:00
Speaker 1: he wanted to hurt Deborah. It seems like at times
48:04
Speaker 1: he was becoming possessed. Something was making him think and
48:08
Speaker 1: act in ways that were totally out of character. The
48:11
Speaker 1: most disturbing event happened when Deborah was at work. One
48:15
Speaker 1: morning Tony was in a kitchen getting a ball of cereal.
48:19
Speaker 1: He left the ball on the counter and went to
48:21
Speaker 1: grab a spoon. When he turned around and neighbor's cat
48:25
Speaker 1: was on the counter drinking milk out of his bowl.
48:28
Speaker 1: At the sight of this cat Tony suddenly felt a
48:30
Speaker 1: violent rage come over him. He grabbed a kitchen knife
48:34
Speaker 1: and he stabbed the cat to death. His thoughts then
48:38
Speaker 1: turned to Deborah. Deborah loved cats and he thought about
48:42
Speaker 1: how disturbed she would be upon seeing the cat's dead body.
48:46
Speaker 1: The thought excited him and so he left the body
48:48
Speaker 1: on display and waited for it to come home. He
48:51
Speaker 1: then began to think about how much he would like
48:53
Speaker 1: to stab Deborah too. He sat on the sofa holding
48:57
Speaker 1: a knife knowing that the moment she came home and
48:59
Speaker 1: saw the dead cats he would have to kill her
49:01
Speaker 1: as well. Sometime later he left the house to pick
49:05
Speaker 1: up his son and his head suddenly cleared. He was
49:08
Speaker 1: horrified at what he had done. Upon returning to the
49:12
Speaker 1: house he cleaned up the cat's corpse and he hid
49:14
Speaker 1: the evidence. Deborah didn't find out about this event until
49:18
Speaker 1: later on when they had moved out of the property.
49:21
Speaker 1: So as 1994 rolled on the activity in the house
49:24
Speaker 1: continued as normal. Deborah became steadily more attached to this
49:29
Speaker 1: entity that she called Sally. Tony became more withdrawn and disturbed.
49:34
Speaker 1: The spirit seemed to be attracted to Taylor's toys especially
49:38
Speaker 1: the ones that made noises. At strange times they would
49:41
Speaker 1: hear these toys activating over and over again as if
49:44
Speaker 1: someone was playing with them. Sometimes they would hear the
49:48
Speaker 1: toys playing music over the baby monitor in the dead
49:50
Speaker 1: of night but when they checked in on Taylor he
49:53
Speaker 1: would be fast asleep and nowhere near the toys. Taylor
49:57
Speaker 1: grew scared of one toy in particular. It was a
50:00
Speaker 1: clown that contained a clockwork mechanism. It played music when
50:04
Speaker 1: it was wound up. When he first got the toy
50:08
Speaker 1: he loved it. They placed it next to his crib
50:11
Speaker 1: and they wound it up at bedtime so that the
50:13
Speaker 1: music would law him to sleep. But then the clown
50:16
Speaker 1: started playing music at random times. Remember that this is
50:20
Speaker 1: a toy where someone has to physically win the mechanism
50:23
Speaker 1: to get it to play. This thing seemed to be
50:26
Speaker 1: playing music when nobody had touched it. After some months
50:30
Speaker 1: of this happening Taylor grew extremely fearful of the clown.
50:34
Speaker 1: At first he was only frightened when the music played
50:37
Speaker 1: but eventually he became so scared of the clown that
50:39
Speaker 1: he wouldn't even look at it and Debra had to
50:41
Speaker 1: hide it away. Now away from the house events were
50:45
Speaker 1: unfolding that would have a significant impact on the household.
50:49
Speaker 1: If you remember Debra had been consulting a psychic on
50:52
Speaker 1: how to deal with Sally. The psychic's name was Barbara.
50:56
Speaker 1: Barbara had also been touring around doing lectures at various
51:00
Speaker 1: universities talking about the psychic world. During one of these
51:04
Speaker 1: lectures she spoke about the Sally House haunting. It just
51:07
Speaker 1: so happened that in the audience was somebody from the
51:10
Speaker 1: sightings TV show. Afterwards they spoke to Barbara. They asked
51:15
Speaker 1: her if she thought Deborah would allow them to visit
51:17
Speaker 1: the house. They wanted to bring in a camera crew
51:21
Speaker 1: to film a segment for the show. Barbara put them
51:24
Speaker 1: in contact with Deborah and after much arguing between Tony
51:28
Speaker 1: and Deborah the Pickmans agreed to let sightings investigate their home.
51:32
Speaker 1: So on the 23rd of July, 1994 the sightings team
51:36
Speaker 1: arrived with them they brought a reporter, a paranormal expert,
51:39
Speaker 1: a full camera crew and various electronic gadgets for detecting ghosts.
51:44
Speaker 1: This sudden commotion appeared to have sent these spirits into overdrive.
51:49
Speaker 1: During the few hours that the sightings crew spent in
51:51
Speaker 1: the house there was more activity than Tony and Debra
51:54
Speaker 1: had experienced for months. Now you could see this as
51:58
Speaker 1: evidence of a hoax. Ghosts don't typically play up for
52:02
Speaker 1: the camera but all of a sudden you've got cold
52:04
Speaker 1: spots moving around the house, things being burned and scratches
52:07
Speaker 1: appearing on Tony's body. It does seem a bit too
52:11
Speaker 1: convenient but they did capture some very interesting things on camera.
52:16
Speaker 1: For example this cold spot that seemed to move around
52:18
Speaker 1: the room, multiple people were able to confirm that it
52:21
Speaker 1: was there and it was picked up on a thermometer.
52:24
Speaker 1: Tony and Debra turned off all the air con in
52:26
Speaker 1: the house because it was to interfere with the microphones.
52:30
Speaker 1: Also Tony appeared to get scratched whilst the cameras were
52:33
Speaker 1: filming him and there doesn't seem to be any way
52:35
Speaker 1: that he could have done it. There's a moment where
52:38
Speaker 1: he lifted his shirts because he feels something on his torso.
52:42
Speaker 1: When he does so they see that there's multiple scratches
52:45
Speaker 1: on his belly. But the camera then films the area
52:48
Speaker 1: for a full 9 minutes and during this time a
52:50
Speaker 1: completely new scratch seems to appear out of nowhere and
52:53
Speaker 1: starts bleeding. Oh look they're forming. Can't come up with
52:58
Speaker 1: an explanation why she does this. It's forming right there.
53:03
Speaker 1: She tends to do this to me because I upset
53:05
Speaker 1: her sometimes. I on the right a frame of video
53:09
Speaker 1: with a long bleeding welt on the left an image
53:11
Speaker 1: taken 8 minutes earlier when our camera first began to roll.
53:15
Speaker 1: There's no welt visible. Now sightings usually only covers a
53:19
Speaker 1: story once but the footage they recorded in the house
53:22
Speaker 1: generated so much interest that the camera crew would visit
53:25
Speaker 1: the family three more times after this and each time
53:28
Speaker 1: these scratches would appear they conducted some very vigorous tests
53:31
Speaker 1: to ensure that Tony wasn't causing the scratches himself. In
53:35
Speaker 1: one he sat on a chair with multiple cameras trained
53:38
Speaker 1: on him and an investigator watching him at all times
53:41
Speaker 1: and still scratches seemed to appear on his body sometimes
53:44
Speaker 1: right in front of people's eyes. If this was all
53:47
Speaker 1: just a hoax then it was very cleverly done. Tony
53:51
Speaker 1: and Deborah eventually moved out of the house after about
53:53
Speaker 1: 20 months of living there. Tony claims that he'd been
53:57
Speaker 1: stood at the top of the stairs one day when
53:59
Speaker 1: a massive invisible force shoved him from behind, nearly sending
54:03
Speaker 1: him headfirst over to Bannister. This it seems was the
54:06
Speaker 1: final straw. Fearing for their safety they decided to find
54:10
Speaker 1: a new place to live. It was only after leaving
54:14
Speaker 1: the Sally house that Deborah was able to reflect on
54:16
Speaker 1: what happened properly. She began to wonder if this entity
54:20
Speaker 1: was something far more unsettling than she'd initially believed. At
54:25
Speaker 1: the end of her book she writes, In the years
54:27
Speaker 1: since leaving the house and continuing to investigate it I
54:30
Speaker 1: have realized the distinct negativity and demonic nature of what
54:33
Speaker 1: was there and the danger that existed. A few people
54:37
Speaker 1: who lived in the house after Tony and Deborah did
54:39
Speaker 1: report a couple of strange things. Mostly electronics switching on
54:43
Speaker 1: and off, they always put it down to bad wiring though.
54:48
Speaker 1: Nobody else has experienced the kind of activity that Tony
54:51
Speaker 1: and Debra went through. Since then the Sally house has
54:54
Speaker 1: been turned into a bit of a tourist attraction for
54:57
Speaker 1: the town. If it's have been made to find out
55:00
Speaker 1: who Sally actually was, the official story is that she
55:03
Speaker 1: was a patient of Dr. Charles Finney. Records showed that
55:07
Speaker 1: this man did exist and he did live in that
55:09
Speaker 1: house in the early 1900s. apparently sally was a little
55:13
Speaker 1: girl who lived locally at that time and she fell
55:16
Speaker 1: ill she was rushed to dr charles finney's house and
55:20
Speaker 1: there she was operated on depending on which story you
55:23
Speaker 1: hear she either died of a rupture of the appendix
55:26
Speaker 1: or pneumonia it said the reason why sally attacks men
55:30
Speaker 1: is because she's angry at dr finney for causing her
55:32
Speaker 1: death the problem is there's no actual record of a
55:36
Speaker 1: sally ever dying in the house or of dr finney
55:39
Speaker 1: doing medical procedures at home he had his own practice
55:43
Speaker 1: There is a record of a Sally Isabel Hall. She
55:46
Speaker 1: died in 1905 in a property just up the road
55:49
Speaker 1: from the Sally House. This was an African American girl
55:53
Speaker 1: which goes against Tony's apparent sighting of the little white
55:56
Speaker 1: girl in the kitchen. There's not much information about how
55:59
Speaker 1: Sally Isabel Hall died nor is there any evidence that
56:02
Speaker 1: she ever visited the Sally House. All the newspaper reports
56:07
Speaker 1: I could find say that she died in a house
56:09
Speaker 1: up the road. There's also rumors that it could be
56:12
Speaker 1: the spirit of Joanna Barnes or her son. Joanna was
56:16
Speaker 1: a divorced mother of three who had a nervous breakdown
56:19
Speaker 1: and spent some time in a mental asylum. She was
56:22
Speaker 1: eventually released and she was placed into the care of Dr.
56:25
Speaker 1: Charles Finney. She then lived in the property next door
56:29
Speaker 1: to the Sally house. In 1906 in a fit of madness,
56:34
Speaker 1: Joanna Barnes turned on the gas in her house and
56:36
Speaker 1: laid down in bed next to her six-year-old son. The
56:40
Speaker 1: gas killed her son and left Joanna in a critical condition.
56:44
Speaker 1: And I did find newspaper reports relating to this incident.
56:48
Speaker 1: It seems it really did happen. But they say that
56:52
Speaker 1: Joanna Barnes was living in Kansas City when it happened
56:55
Speaker 1: nowhere near the Sally house. So the identity of Sally
56:59
Speaker 1: remains a mystery and if we consider the possibility of
57:02
Speaker 1: a demonic presence then who knows if it really is
57:04
Speaker 1: what it claims to be. And of course the whole
57:07
Speaker 1: thing could be a hoax. From reading Deborah's book she
57:11
Speaker 1: sounds pretty earnest though. If anyone was behind the hoax
57:15
Speaker 1: then it was definitely Tony. And that's not to say
57:18
Speaker 1: I think he was faking. But if this is a
57:21
Speaker 1: hoax then Tony is the only one who could realistically
57:24
Speaker 1: have been behind all of it. Most of the activity
57:27
Speaker 1: seems to happen around him. For example there's a bit
57:31
Speaker 1: in the book where he sat on a rocking horse toy.
57:34
Speaker 1: All of a sudden there's this flash of light and
57:37
Speaker 1: one of the horse's ears burst into flames. Interestingly they
57:41
Speaker 1: then try holding a flame to the rocking horse's other
57:44
Speaker 1: ear and they find that the material won't burn at all.
57:47
Speaker 1: But there's multiple instances like this throughout the book. Something
57:51
Speaker 1: weird will happen and most of the time Tony will
57:54
Speaker 1: be nearby. And this isn't every time. There are some
57:58
Speaker 1: weird unexplainable things that happen when Tony is nowhere near
58:02
Speaker 1: the house. We know that Tony's mental health was suffering
58:06
Speaker 1: whilst he was living in the house. He was having
58:09
Speaker 1: very dark thoughts and even killed a neighborhood cat. So
58:13
Speaker 1: the idea that he could be deliberately doing stuff just
58:15
Speaker 1: to mess with Debra isn't out of the question. But
58:19
Speaker 1: I still can't explain how he would cause scratches to
58:21
Speaker 1: appear on his body in front of multiple witnesses and
58:24
Speaker 1: in full view of cameras. Also when people do fake
58:28
Speaker 1: paranormal phenomena they usually do it because they want some
58:31
Speaker 1: attention on themselves. There's usually quite a narcissistic streak to
58:36
Speaker 1: their actions. But Tony was always against the idea of
58:40
Speaker 1: being on camera. At first he didn't even want any
58:43
Speaker 1: camera crew to visit the house. It was Deborah that
58:47
Speaker 1: convinced him. And when he finally did agree to be
58:51
Speaker 1: filmed he insisted that they obscure his face and keep
58:53
Speaker 1: his identity hidden. But these are the kind of cases
58:57
Speaker 1: that I like to cover. Weird stories that don't have
59:00
Speaker 1: a nice wrapped up answer. I don't think this is
59:03
Speaker 1: a case of them experiencing something natural and misinterpreting it.
59:07
Speaker 1: thinking that it's something paranormal. Either it's a really clever hoax.
59:12
Speaker 1: One that I can't figure out how they would pull
59:14
Speaker 1: it off or it's a genuine case of the paranormal.
59:18
Speaker 1: I recommend Deborah Pickman's book The Sally House Haunting a
59:21
Speaker 1: True Story. It was my main source for making this case.
59:26
Speaker 1: It's a great read, very interesting and of course there's
59:29
Speaker 1: much more in the book than i was able to
59:31
Speaker 1: cover in a short video so yeah if you're interested
59:34
Speaker 1: in this story then i really recommend getting that book
59:37
Speaker 1: and reading it for yourself and if you want to
59:40
Speaker 1: watch the sightings episodes they're also really interesting someone has
59:45
Speaker 1: re-upload them to the internet it's old footage probably recorded
59:49
Speaker 1: on a vhs tape and it's a pretty low resolution
59:52
Speaker 1: but they're all there Most of the episodes are in
59:55
Speaker 1: season 3 but then in season 5 they actually go
59:58
Speaker 1: back to the house and do a few investigations after
1:00:01
Speaker 1: the family have moved out. So yeah have a look
1:00:04
Speaker 1: if you want to check them out as well. Hope
1:00:07
Speaker 1: you found it interesting. Huge thanks as always to the patrons.
1:00:12
Speaker 1: Thank you very much for the help. That's probably something
1:00:16
Speaker 1: that you'll like. I cover all sorts of creepy topics.
1:00:21
Speaker 1: So until next time goodbye.