Latest / Weeknight Mysteries Podcast / Ep. 126 | Creepy Folklore - The Owlman Of Mawnan & The Ghost That Scratched - The Sallie

Transcript

Ep. 126 | Creepy Folklore - The Owlman Of Mawnan & The Ghost That Scratched - The Sallie · Weeknight Mysteries Podcast

0:00
Speaker 1: It was April 1979. The Melling family were spending their
0:04
Speaker 1: Easter holiday in Mornan Smith, a picturesque village in Cornwall, England.
0:10
Speaker 1: On Saturday the 17th, the two children of the family,
0:13
Speaker 1: 12-year-old June and 9-year-old Vicky, had headed out on their
0:17
Speaker 1: own to explore the area. They were passing by St.
0:21
Speaker 1: Mornan and St. Stephen's Church when all of a sudden
0:24
Speaker 1: in the sky above the bell tower, there appeared a
0:26
Speaker 1: huge creature. It looked like a man but it had
0:30
Speaker 1: the wings of a bird. The girls ran back to
0:33
Speaker 1: their parents and they were so disturbed by what they'd
0:35
Speaker 1: seen that their father cut the holiday short. Those girls,
0:39
Speaker 1: it seems, had had an encounter with the Alman of Mornin.
0:44
Speaker 1: The origins of the Alman are unclear. A lot of
0:47
Speaker 1: websites that they read whilst researching this reference are 1926
0:51
Speaker 1: article in the Cornish Echo about two boys that were
0:54
Speaker 1: chased by some sort of a large and ferocious bird.
0:57
Speaker 1: The problem is no website seems to provide any pictures
1:00
Speaker 1: of the article so you can read it for yourself.
1:03
Speaker 1: I had to go to the book The Alman and
1:05
Speaker 1: Others by Jonathan Downs to find the article and read
1:08
Speaker 1: it for myself. The bird was described as being about
1:12
Speaker 1: three feet long with a body like a duck, cream
1:15
Speaker 1: and brown colored plumage with black on the tips of
1:17
Speaker 1: the wings. Now that doesn't sound anything like an Alman
1:21
Speaker 1: to me but there's so many websites that are talking
1:23
Speaker 1: about this article and linking it to the Alman story
1:26
Speaker 1: that I had to put that in there. It seems
1:29
Speaker 1: more likely that the boys were chased by an angry
1:31
Speaker 1: goose rather than some sort of owl-headed cryptid. The first
1:35
Speaker 1: clue we might have to the Alman's origins is when
1:38
Speaker 1: the surrealist artist Max Ernst visited Cornwall in 1937 with
1:42
Speaker 1: a group of other artists. Apparently this group went into
1:46
Speaker 1: all sorts of weird stuff including occultism. The story goes
1:50
Speaker 1: that Ernst and his cohorts went off into some Cornish
1:53
Speaker 1: woods one night and performed strange rituals in an attempt
1:56
Speaker 1: to summon animal-human hybrid entities. Max Ernst himself had a
2:01
Speaker 1: weird obsession with birds and he often painted an alter
2:04
Speaker 1: ego called Lop-Lop a shape-shifting part-man part-bird creature. He also
2:09
Speaker 1: painted scenes that looking back on them now seem to
2:11
Speaker 1: mirror future encounters with the Almond. And take a look
2:15
Speaker 1: at this one it was painted in 1924 and it's
2:18
Speaker 1: titled Two Children Are Threatened by a Nightingale. The weird
2:22
Speaker 1: thing about this is there are two children and a
2:24
Speaker 1: nightingale but it's also this eerie human figure hovering above
2:27
Speaker 1: the building carrying away another child in its arms. Apparently
2:31
Speaker 1: the painting was inspired by a fever induced hallucination that
2:35
Speaker 1: Ernst had as a child but to me it reminds
2:37
Speaker 1: me of June and Vicky Melling seeing that humanoid creature
2:40
Speaker 1: hovering over the morn in church. So did Ernst and co.
2:44
Speaker 1: summon the Alman? Maybe it's some sort of surrealist egregore,
2:48
Speaker 1: something that stepped out from the picture frame and took
2:51
Speaker 1: on a life of its own. Or perhaps the Alman
2:54
Speaker 1: is the spirit of Ernst himself. It might just be
2:58
Speaker 1: a coincidence but Max Ernst died on the 1st of April, 1976.
3:02
Speaker 1: This was just two weeks before the Mellon girls had
3:06
Speaker 1: their encounter. And three months after the girls' encounter the
3:10
Speaker 1: Alman was seen again. Behind the Mornin' Church the land
3:14
Speaker 1: slops down through a wooded area until it reaches a beach.
3:18
Speaker 1: It was in this wooded area that two 14-year-old girls
3:21
Speaker 1: were camping, Miss Ollie Chapman and Barbara Perry. At around
3:26
Speaker 1: 10 p.m. on the 3rd of July, 1976 the girls
3:29
Speaker 1: were awoken by a strange hissing noise. They looked around
3:33
Speaker 1: outside their tents and saw a weird figure standing among
3:36
Speaker 1: the pine trees. He was described as being as tall
3:40
Speaker 1: as a man but had the face of an owl
3:42
Speaker 1: and was covered in grey feathers. His eyes were large
3:46
Speaker 1: and glowed red and it had big pointed ears. On
3:49
Speaker 1: its feet were large black pencil-like claws. At first the
3:53
Speaker 1: girls thought it was someone in a costume but then
3:56
Speaker 1: the creature flew up into the air and disappeared into
3:58
Speaker 1: the trees. The following day another two girls had an
4:02
Speaker 1: encounter with the owlman in the same area. A letter
4:06
Speaker 1: was sent to a local paper from a girl saying
4:08
Speaker 1: that on the 4th of July, 1976 she and her
4:11
Speaker 1: sister were playing it in the wood behind Mornan Church
4:14
Speaker 1: when they saw a large creature up in a tree.
4:17
Speaker 1: It was described as being as big as a man
4:19
Speaker 1: but it had legs bent backwards like a bird's. Its
4:23
Speaker 1: eyes were red and its feet looked like sharp black
4:25
Speaker 1: crab claws. Unlike the last encounter the creature then flew
4:30
Speaker 1: upwards and disappeared above the treetops. The first two encounters
4:34
Speaker 1: were reported by a man named Doc Shields. Now Doc
4:38
Speaker 1: Shields is an eccentric character to say the least, an artist,
4:42
Speaker 1: stage magician and monster hunter with an interest in the occult.
4:46
Speaker 1: At around the time of the Almond sightings he was
4:49
Speaker 1: taking part in a hunt for the Morgra. This is
4:52
Speaker 1: a sea monster that supposedly lived in the waters around Cornwall.
4:56
Speaker 1: In March of 1976 two photos of the Morgara were
5:00
Speaker 1: sent to a local paper from someone named Mary F.
5:02
Speaker 1: Doc Shields came on a scene and DNNeds that he
5:05
Speaker 1: was going to try and summon the Morgara to appear.
5:08
Speaker 1: Morgara Morgara Morgara Morgara Morgara he then orchestrated an elaborate
5:12
Speaker 1: magical ritual on the beach in Cornwall involving naked witches
5:15
Speaker 1: which were his own daughters dancing around. As you can
5:19
Speaker 1: imagine this brought a lot of press attention for Doc Shields.
5:23
Speaker 1: It was because of his reputation for hunting monsters that
5:26
Speaker 1: he was approached first by a Junian Vicky Millings father
5:29
Speaker 1: and later by Sally Chapman and Barbara Perry and they
5:32
Speaker 1: both provided him with eyewitness accounts and drawings of the Alman.
5:36
Speaker 1: Now there is a problem here. Doc Shields does have
5:40
Speaker 1: a reputation for being a bit of a prankster. Over
5:43
Speaker 1: the years he's written numerous books about how to fake
5:45
Speaker 1: paranormal phenomena for stage and he has books like The
5:48
Speaker 1: Shields Effect, How to Become a Psychic Superstar. It teaches
5:53
Speaker 1: you how to create a sort of mythos around yourself
5:55
Speaker 1: which you can leverage for publicity and fame. Many people
5:59
Speaker 1: suspect that Mary F., that mysterious woman that sent the
6:02
Speaker 1: photos of the Morgara to the newspaper was actually Doc
6:05
Speaker 1: Shields sowing the seeds for an elaborate hoax. Some also
6:09
Speaker 1: suspect that Doc Shields invented the story of the Alman.
6:13
Speaker 1: As far as I can tell nobody else has ever
6:15
Speaker 1: been able to track down the Melling family or the
6:18
Speaker 1: two girls saw the creature in the woods. It's very
6:21
Speaker 1: possible that they never existed at all. Similarities between the
6:26
Speaker 1: eyewitness drawings suggest that they might have been drawn by
6:28
Speaker 1: the same person although it does say that the drawings
6:31
Speaker 1: are based on eyewitness sketches so Shields might have redrawn
6:34
Speaker 1: them himself from the children's drawings. Some people have also
6:38
Speaker 1: analyzed the handwriting between these two accounts and they think
6:41
Speaker 1: they might have been written by one person. I don't
6:44
Speaker 1: know much about handwriting analysis so I can't really say
6:47
Speaker 1: for sure but there's something about how the doctor both
6:50
Speaker 1: the eyes drift slightly to the right in both the accounts.
6:53
Speaker 1: But as I say I don't know much about the
6:55
Speaker 1: subject so I can't really comment on it myself. There's
6:59
Speaker 1: no real proof that Doc Shields invented the Alman. It
7:03
Speaker 1: could be as he says he had a reputation as
7:05
Speaker 1: a monster hunter so he was genuinely approached by people
7:08
Speaker 1: that had seen something strange. Shields seems to be a
7:12
Speaker 1: chaotic neutral sort of character. a true surrealist who deliberately
7:16
Speaker 1: soars the seeds of confusion and doubt around all that
7:18
Speaker 1: he does. It doesn't necessarily mean that everything that he's
7:23
Speaker 1: involved in is a hoax but it does mean that
7:25
Speaker 1: we should take it all with a hefty pinch of salt.
7:28
Speaker 1: After the Alman flap of 1976 there were sporadic sightings.
7:33
Speaker 1: According to the book Alien Animals by Janet and Colin Board,
7:37
Speaker 1: there were two more sightings of the Alman in 1978.
7:41
Speaker 1: Once by a 16-year-old girl and a few months later
7:44
Speaker 1: by three young French girls but looking into these cases
7:47
Speaker 1: a bit more Doc Shields' name crops up yet again
7:50
Speaker 1: as the source of these stories. It doesn't necessarily mean
7:53
Speaker 1: that they're fake. I suspect at that time anyone who
7:57
Speaker 1: had an encounter with the Almond would think of contacting
8:00
Speaker 1: Doc Shields. 11 years later in 1989 there was another
8:04
Speaker 1: encounter and this time it seems that Shields had nothing
8:07
Speaker 1: to do with it, at least not directly. There was
8:10
Speaker 1: a young couple known as Gavin and Sally, although that's
8:13
Speaker 1: not their real names. They'd heard the legend of the
8:17
Speaker 1: Alman and decided to go into the woods behind Mornin'
8:19
Speaker 1: Church to investigate. Gavin later contacted the paranormal researcher Jonathan Downs,
8:26
Speaker 1: author of the book The Alman and others I mentioned earlier.
8:29
Speaker 1: He related his story about what happened that night in
8:32
Speaker 1: the woods. He said, we had to torch and I
8:35
Speaker 1: was shining its beam across the trucks about 15 feet
8:38
Speaker 1: off the ground. Every couple of hours we would walk
8:42
Speaker 1: along the fringe of the woods and this was the
8:44
Speaker 1: third time that evening and it was beginning to get dark.
8:47
Speaker 1: From a distance the trees looked black but close up
8:50
Speaker 1: the branches and trunks could be seen. We saw the
8:54
Speaker 1: animal at about 9.30pm. It was standing on a thick
8:58
Speaker 1: branch with its wings sort of held up at the arms.
9:01
Speaker 1: I'd say it was about 5 feet tall. The legs
9:05
Speaker 1: had high angles and the feet were large and black
9:08
Speaker 1: with two huge toes on the visible side. The creature
9:11
Speaker 1: was gray with brown and the eyes definitely glowed. Unseeing
9:16
Speaker 1: as its head jerked down and forwards its wings lifted
9:19
Speaker 1: and it just jumped backwards. As it did its legs
9:22
Speaker 1: folded up we ran away. Six years later in 1995
9:26
Speaker 1: a letter was sent to a local paper. It claimed
9:30
Speaker 1: to be from a student of marine biology from Chicago.
9:34
Speaker 1: She'd been on holiday in Mornan Smith and was walking
9:36
Speaker 1: through the woods behind the church at around 9.15 when
9:40
Speaker 1: she saw in a tree a creature described as the
9:42
Speaker 1: size of a man with a gastelly face, a wide
9:45
Speaker 1: mouth glowing eyes and pointed ears. It had huge clawed
9:49
Speaker 1: wings and was covered in feathers of silver-gray color. The
9:53
Speaker 1: thing had long bird legs which terminated in large black claws.
9:58
Speaker 1: All attempts to track down the Chicagoan witness have failed.
10:02
Speaker 1: Many suspect the letter to be another of Doc Shield's
10:05
Speaker 1: pranks although there's no real proof either way. Sightings continued
10:09
Speaker 1: up until the present day but most don't seem to
10:12
Speaker 1: have much more information about them. So instead let's look
10:16
Speaker 1: at some unusual footage and this was captured via the
10:19
Speaker 1: internet channel called Ghost Adventures of Cornwall. Thank you very
10:23
Speaker 1: much to Mark for letting me use your footage in
10:25
Speaker 1: my video or put a link to the original video
10:27
Speaker 1: in the description. They've decided one night to investigate St.
10:32
Speaker 1: Mornan and St. Stephen's Church but there's one bit where
10:35
Speaker 1: the camera pans across the graveyard and this figure is
10:37
Speaker 1: standing in the background. There was two people in the
10:41
Speaker 1: graveyard the guy holding the camera and his friend who
10:43
Speaker 1: was stood behind him at the time. They didn't notice
10:47
Speaker 1: this strange horned man until they played the footage back
10:49
Speaker 1: frame by frame. Could this be the almond finally caught
10:53
Speaker 1: on camera? I don't know if the almond is a hoax.
10:58
Speaker 1: That could very well be the case. However I am
11:01
Speaker 1: a strong believer in the idea that a fictional story
11:04
Speaker 1: can take on a life of its own if enough
11:06
Speaker 1: people can be convinced that it's real. I talked about
11:09
Speaker 1: this in my Ghostwatch video how the fictional Ghost of
11:12
Speaker 1: Pipes managed to possess the minds of many of its
11:14
Speaker 1: younger viewers giving some of them psychological effects that lasted
11:18
Speaker 1: long after the program had finished one person even took
11:21
Speaker 1: their own life. There's also the case of the Slenderman.
11:25
Speaker 1: It started out as a Photoshop contest and ended up
11:28
Speaker 1: with two girls dragging their friend into the woods and
11:31
Speaker 1: stabbing her 19 times because they thought they were receiving
11:34
Speaker 1: instructions from the Slenderman himself. Maybe something like this could
11:38
Speaker 1: have happened with the almond. You could look at it
11:41
Speaker 1: from a purely psychological perspective. You convince people that the
11:46
Speaker 1: almond exists and next time someone hears a strange noise
11:49
Speaker 1: or sees a dark shape in the woods behind morning
11:51
Speaker 1: church they might believe that they had an encounter with
11:54
Speaker 1: the almond itself. Oh you could get a bit more
11:57
Speaker 1: out there you could look at the almond as a
11:58
Speaker 1: kind of topper. A thought form made flesh. Could the
12:03
Speaker 1: strange rituals performed by shields and urns really have conjured
12:07
Speaker 1: something more solid up? Maybe hoaxing it was a method
12:10
Speaker 1: for willing the almond into existence, getting enough people to
12:14
Speaker 1: believe in it that it actually becomes a reality. I
12:17
Speaker 1: decades long prank in a genuine work of magic at
12:20
Speaker 1: the same time. That might go a bit far for
12:23
Speaker 1: some viewers but I've been interested in the interaction between
12:26
Speaker 1: the mind and physical reality ever since I read the
12:29
Speaker 1: holographic universe when I was younger. I'm not sure if
12:33
Speaker 1: I totally believe that the mind can create an almond
12:35
Speaker 1: out of nothing but it's the sort of thing that
12:37
Speaker 1: I like to speculate on and hey it's nearly Halloween
12:40
Speaker 1: so I'm allowed to indulge in some spooky speculation. The
12:44
Speaker 1: almond he might be real, he might be a prank,
12:46
Speaker 1: he might be in a elaborate work of surrealist art
12:49
Speaker 1: or maybe he's all those things at the same time.
12:52
Speaker 1: So I hope you enjoyed this typically conclusionless video. I
12:56
Speaker 1: don't really like telling people what they should think but
12:59
Speaker 1: I like giving them something to think about so hopefully
13:01
Speaker 1: you found this interesting. October always puts me in the
13:05
Speaker 1: mood for a good spooky story so I hope you
13:07
Speaker 1: guys are enjoying the content. Here's some more recordings you
13:11
Speaker 1: might enjoy. Check out the creepy folklore playlist if you
13:15
Speaker 1: like this sort of thing. Obviously it's nothing like today
13:19
Speaker 1: where you can access a near constant stream of amazing
13:22
Speaker 1: content but I remember that decade fondly it was a
13:24
Speaker 1: time that really piqued my interest in this kind of stuff.
13:28
Speaker 1: Shows like The X-Files and Unsolved Mysteries hit their peak
13:32
Speaker 1: and there seemed to be a real public appetite for
13:34
Speaker 1: anything strange and unexplained. Mary Gloves Stick One of my
13:39
Speaker 1: favorites from this time was a show called Sightings. It
13:43
Speaker 1: was a documentary program that covered all sorts of weird
13:46
Speaker 1: and paranormal cases and there was this one story that
13:49
Speaker 1: did that really got under my skin to this day
13:51
Speaker 1: this image sends a shiver down my spine. I've always
13:55
Speaker 1: wanted to cover the story in more detail so here
13:57
Speaker 1: it is the tale of the hotland ghost. It was
14:01
Speaker 1: late 1992. Married couple Tony and Deborah were looking for
14:05
Speaker 1: a new place to live in their small town of Atchison, Kansas.
14:09
Speaker 1: Deborah was three months pregnant and their rental home was
14:12
Speaker 1: far too small to bring up a child so they
14:14
Speaker 1: decided to move to a new property and old and
14:17
Speaker 1: slightly run-down house at 508 North 2nd Street. This house
14:22
Speaker 1: was the oldest on the street built between 1867 and
14:24
Speaker 1: 1871 by an Irish immigrant family. In the intervening 120
14:26
Speaker 1: plus years it had passed through many hands. Eventually in
14:35
Speaker 1: the early 1990s it has been acquired by a local
14:38
Speaker 1: police officer and he decided to rent it out. The
14:41
Speaker 1: house was the right size for Tony and Deborah Pickman
14:44
Speaker 1: and the rental price was within their budget so on
14:47
Speaker 1: New Year's Eve 1993 the young couple moved in bringing
14:50
Speaker 1: with them their three cats and a dog. The first
14:53
Speaker 1: renovation jobs they did was to convert one of the
14:56
Speaker 1: bedrooms into a nursery. They wanted everything ready for the
15:00
Speaker 1: arrival of their first child. But there was something strange
15:03
Speaker 1: about this room. At first their pet dog Sasha seemed
15:07
Speaker 1: to be terrified to go into it. During their first
15:11
Speaker 1: week in the house whenever Sasha the dog got close
15:13
Speaker 1: to the nursery door she would stop dead in her
15:16
Speaker 1: tracks and begin growling and barking. But after about a
15:19
Speaker 1: week this behavior stopped. Sasha would then happily pass into
15:24
Speaker 1: the room without her second glance. What made this strange
15:28
Speaker 1: is that this is exactly how Sasha behaved around people
15:31
Speaker 1: she didn't know. She was a protective dog by nature.
15:35
Speaker 1: She would be cautious at first barking at strangers until
15:38
Speaker 1: she got familiar with them. But there weren't any strangers
15:42
Speaker 1: in that room, at least as far as they could tell.
15:45
Speaker 1: Tony and Deborah assumed that the previous owners might have
15:48
Speaker 1: had a cat and Sasha the dog was just reacting
15:51
Speaker 1: to some unfamiliar animal scent. So they put it out
15:54
Speaker 1: of their minds and continued the task of settling into
15:57
Speaker 1: what they assumed would be the perfect family home. During
16:01
Speaker 1: the first couple of weeks they did notice a few
16:03
Speaker 1: strange things but nothing too concerning. Sometimes while they were
16:07
Speaker 1: snuggled on a sofa watching TV the television set would
16:11
Speaker 1: switch itself off. Other times the ceiling light above the
16:15
Speaker 1: sofa would slowly dim for a few minutes before going
16:17
Speaker 1: back to full brightness. It was as if someone had
16:21
Speaker 1: turned down the dial on a dimmer switch. The problem
16:24
Speaker 1: is this light didn't have a dimmer switch. They assumed
16:28
Speaker 1: it must be a problem with the bulb so Tony
16:30
Speaker 1: changed it for a new one but the problem persisted.
16:34
Speaker 1: Eventually they called in an electrician to try and solve
16:37
Speaker 1: the problem but he couldn't find anything wrong with the
16:39
Speaker 1: fuses or the wiring. Tony joked that they must have
16:43
Speaker 1: a ghost but neither of them really believed it. The
16:46
Speaker 1: longer they lived in the house the more they noticed
16:49
Speaker 1: strange things. As this was Kansas the interior of the
16:53
Speaker 1: house was often very warm. The couple could only afford
16:57
Speaker 1: one air conditioner which was placed in the window of
16:59
Speaker 1: the master bedroom but then Debra began to notice a
17:02
Speaker 1: strange cold spot at the top of the stairs. It
17:05
Speaker 1: felt like a blast of cold air that would rush
17:07
Speaker 1: past the hitting her upper body. At first she put
17:11
Speaker 1: it down to a draft coming from the bedroom air
17:13
Speaker 1: con but then after a couple of months the air
17:15
Speaker 1: conditioner stopped working making the house stiflingly hot everywhere except
17:19
Speaker 1: for this one cold spot that remained at the top
17:21
Speaker 1: of the stairs. By mid-May Deborah was in the final
17:25
Speaker 1: trimester of her pregnancy. On one especially sweltering night Tony
17:30
Speaker 1: and Deborah decided to sleep on a sofa downstairs with
17:33
Speaker 1: the windows open in an attempt to stay cool. Eventually
17:37
Speaker 1: they managed to fall asleep until around 3.30 a.m. when
17:40
Speaker 1: Deborah was awoken by what sounded like an extremely loud
17:43
Speaker 1: screaming followed by thumps like footsteps running down the stairs.
17:47
Speaker 1: Before she could process what she was hearing something heavy
17:50
Speaker 1: landed on her chest and face. Deborah screamed and this
17:54
Speaker 1: woke Tony. She sat up on the sofa looking for
17:58
Speaker 1: an intruder but there was nobody there just her, Tony
18:01
Speaker 1: and the cats. The cats however were acting very strangely.
18:06
Speaker 1: They seemed to be in a panic state, hackles up
18:08
Speaker 1: running around the room as if looking for some wet hide.
18:12
Speaker 1: Deborah wondered if the sound she'd heard might have been
18:14
Speaker 1: the cats. Maybe the neighbor's cat had gotten into the
18:18
Speaker 1: house and started a fight and in her half-asleep mind
18:21
Speaker 1: she'd heard the commotion and interpreted it as the sound
18:23
Speaker 1: of people screaming and running down the stairs. They looked
18:27
Speaker 1: around the house to see what might have alarmed the
18:29
Speaker 1: cats but they found nothing. Life continued on in this
18:33
Speaker 1: way for a while. Strange things would happen around the house.
18:38
Speaker 1: For example the buzzer on the oven timer would go
18:40
Speaker 1: off at random times even though nobody had said it.
18:44
Speaker 1: They would always put these things down to electrical problems,
18:47
Speaker 1: drafts or the fact that they were living in a
18:49
Speaker 1: very old building. They would make passing jokes about their
18:53
Speaker 1: ghost but neither of them took it very seriously. On
18:57
Speaker 1: the 26th of June Deborah gave birth to a boy
19:00
Speaker 1: Taylor Jacob. Strange things kept happening in the house after
19:04
Speaker 1: Taylor was born. If Deborah was talking to someone on
19:07
Speaker 1: the phone and walked into the nursery the phone would
19:10
Speaker 1: suddenly go dead. When she walked out of the room
19:13
Speaker 1: it would pick up again. This didn't happen anywhere else
19:17
Speaker 1: in the house. Only the nursery room seemed to interfere
19:21
Speaker 1: with the phone signal. There was also the teddy bear
19:24
Speaker 1: mobile attached to Taylor's crib. This was a wind-up device
19:28
Speaker 1: and it required someone to physically turn it but they
19:31
Speaker 1: began to hear the sound of it operating when nobody
19:33
Speaker 1: was near it. It was as if something was playing
19:36
Speaker 1: with it. In late July the family returned home after
19:40
Speaker 1: visiting their in-laws. Tony went upstairs to use the bathroom
19:44
Speaker 1: while Debra went into the kitchen with her sister Karen.
19:48
Speaker 1: A few minutes later Tony came back downstairs with a
19:51
Speaker 1: confused look on his face. Why did he put the
19:54
Speaker 1: teddy bears on the floor he asked Debra. Debra was
19:58
Speaker 1: equally confused. That morning she had been cleaning the nursery room.
20:04
Speaker 1: She remembered she tied it up the toys placing some
20:06
Speaker 1: of them on a shelf and others inside the crib.
20:09
Speaker 1: Tony told that she better come and have a look.
20:13
Speaker 1: All of the teddy bears had been placed in a
20:15
Speaker 1: circle in the center of the floor. All of them
20:18
Speaker 1: were sitting upright with their backs facing towards the middle.
20:22
Speaker 1: Tony and Deborah both knew that they hadn't done this
20:24
Speaker 1: so they assumed that someone must be playing a prank.
20:28
Speaker 1: Someone else had been in the house that day. Whilst
20:31
Speaker 1: Tony and Deborah were out, Tony's sister-in-law Jeannie had popped
20:35
Speaker 1: by to drop off an old high chair for them.
20:38
Speaker 1: They had spoken to Jeannie after that and Jeannie had
20:40
Speaker 1: told them that she'd gone up to take a look
20:42
Speaker 1: at the nursery room. She hadn't mentioned anything about the
20:46
Speaker 1: toys but then they remembered that Jeannie had seemed unusually
20:49
Speaker 1: agitated when they spoke to her. Deborah rang Jeannie and
20:53
Speaker 1: asked her if she'd noticed anything strange in the nursery
20:56
Speaker 1: or if she'd moved any of the teddy bears. Jeannie
20:59
Speaker 1: claimed that she hadn't moved anything. When Deborah explained what
21:03
Speaker 1: had happened, Jeannie suddenly burst out with, oh my god
21:07
Speaker 1: I wasn't going to say anything. She then told Debra
21:10
Speaker 1: that when she stopped by the house she'd felt a
21:13
Speaker 1: strange sensation as soon as she walked in as if
21:15
Speaker 1: something was wrong. She walked up the stairs and she'd
21:19
Speaker 1: felt this weird cold air rushing past her. She went
21:23
Speaker 1: into the nursery room but this strange feeling of Orny's
21:25
Speaker 1: grew so strong that she had to turn back. She'd
21:29
Speaker 1: rushed out the house as fast as she could. Jeannie
21:33
Speaker 1: then asked Debra outright, do you think you've got a ghost?
21:37
Speaker 1: Up to that point although they had joked about the
21:39
Speaker 1: house being haunted, they'd never really taken it seriously but
21:42
Speaker 1: now Debra actually considered the possibility. Could there really be
21:46
Speaker 1: a restless spirit in their family home? After getting off
21:50
Speaker 1: the phone they tidied the bears away. Between themselves they
21:54
Speaker 1: concluded that they must have been a joke. Toonie's brother
21:58
Speaker 1: was always playing pranks on them. It was probably him
22:01
Speaker 1: they told themselves. But as they walked downstairs they noticed
22:06
Speaker 1: that the light in the nursery room was on. Toonie
22:09
Speaker 1: was sure that he'd switched it off when they left
22:11
Speaker 1: the room moments ago so they went back up to
22:13
Speaker 1: the nursery and now in the middle of the room
22:15
Speaker 1: was a single teddy bear. One of the moments before
22:19
Speaker 1: Debra had placed in a wicker chair. Once again Debra
22:23
Speaker 1: put the teddy bear back on the seats and they
22:25
Speaker 1: tried to figure out what was going on. If this
22:28
Speaker 1: was a prank then whoever was doing it would still
22:30
Speaker 1: have to be inside the house. It didn't seem possible
22:34
Speaker 1: that in the time it took them to descend the
22:36
Speaker 1: staircase someone could have snuck into the room, turned on
22:38
Speaker 1: the lights and moved a teddy bear without being seen.
22:42
Speaker 1: The terror grew even stronger later that night when Deborah
22:45
Speaker 1: went upstairs to use the bathroom. She took a peek
22:48
Speaker 1: into the nursery and saw the bear once again lying
22:51
Speaker 1: in the center of the room. More and more they
22:54
Speaker 1: found themselves entertaining the possibility that they really did have
22:57
Speaker 1: a ghost. This seems to be a pretty common occurrence
23:01
Speaker 1: with tales of hauntings. They start out as little things,
23:05
Speaker 1: things that can be brushed off as having natural causes
23:08
Speaker 1: but then once someone starts to acknowledge that they might
23:11
Speaker 1: actually be a ghost the phenomena really starts to ramp up.
23:15
Speaker 1: If you're not a believer you could say that there's
23:16
Speaker 1: a psychological reason for this. Once you start thinking you
23:20
Speaker 1: have a ghost you become hyper aware of every little
23:23
Speaker 1: sound or movements, things that you might have ignored before,
23:26
Speaker 1: now become further evidence that you have a haunting. If
23:30
Speaker 1: you are a believer then you could say that paying
23:32
Speaker 1: attention to the ghosts feeds it with a kind of
23:34
Speaker 1: energy makes it stronger and more able to display phenomena.
23:38
Speaker 1: What followed the rest of the night is described in
23:40
Speaker 1: detail in Deborah's book The Sally House Haunting which I'm
23:43
Speaker 1: using as the main source for this case. I won't
23:46
Speaker 1: go into as much detail here. They called Larry's brother
23:50
Speaker 1: over to help them investigate the phenomena, repeatedly throughout that
23:54
Speaker 1: night a large heavy teddy bear in a living room
23:56
Speaker 1: would be found turned around to face the wall. This
24:00
Speaker 1: only happened when nobody was looking at it, each time
24:02
Speaker 1: they found it they would turn it back to face
24:04
Speaker 1: the room. Sometimes it seemed to happen in the blink
24:08
Speaker 1: of an eye whilst their backs were turned, they would
24:10
Speaker 1: just look away from the teddy bear and then when
24:12
Speaker 1: they looked back it would be turned around to face
24:14
Speaker 1: the wall again. Another time a stuffed heart toy with
24:18
Speaker 1: a teddy bear print was found hanging from the door
24:20
Speaker 1: of the nursery even nobody had been upstairs. By the
24:24
Speaker 1: end of the night all family members and their pets
24:26
Speaker 1: were huddled together in the master bedroom to terrify the
24:29
Speaker 1: venture out into the house in case something else happened.
24:33
Speaker 1: In the following days the family tried to find an
24:35
Speaker 1: answer to what was happening in the house. They managed
24:39
Speaker 1: to track down the woman who lived in the house
24:41
Speaker 1: before Tony and Debra. They asked if anything strange ever
24:45
Speaker 1: happened while they were living there. She told them that
24:48
Speaker 1: she'd always noticed a foul smell in the house and
24:51
Speaker 1: she was always picking up her son's toys from the floor.
24:54
Speaker 1: Her son who slept in the room that was now
24:57
Speaker 1: the nursery would always claim that he hadn't been playing
24:59
Speaker 1: with the toys. She also told them that her daughter
25:02
Speaker 1: would play for hours in another bedroom, hiding in the
25:05
Speaker 1: walk-in closet talking to an imaginary friend she called Sally.
25:10
Speaker 1: Once they moved out of the house the girl never
25:12
Speaker 1: mentioned Sally ever again. Tony and Debra also contacted a psychic.
25:18
Speaker 1: She told them that they had disparate of a young
25:20
Speaker 1: girl between the age of 5 and 13 years old
25:23
Speaker 1: in their house and that this girl felt very protective
25:25
Speaker 1: over a baby. The psychic told them that a single
25:29
Speaker 1: name kept coming into our mind. Sally. After that Tony
25:34
Speaker 1: and Deborah began to address the spirit by name. When
25:38
Speaker 1: a toy moved they would tell Sally that she was
25:40
Speaker 1: welcome to play with it but she had to put
25:42
Speaker 1: things back where she found them. Whether this whole thing
25:46
Speaker 1: was real or just in their minds they were feeding it,
25:48
Speaker 1: giving it life. The activity just continued to escalate. On
25:54
Speaker 1: the 27th of July Tony's younger brother George came by
25:57
Speaker 1: the house. George was pretty skeptical of all things paranormal
26:01
Speaker 1: so when he told them about the events in the
26:03
Speaker 1: house he set about trying to find a natural explanation,
26:06
Speaker 1: searching the nursery for anything that might cause the toys
26:09
Speaker 1: to move. He was unable to find anything out of
26:12
Speaker 1: order but he still didn't believe that they had a ghost.
26:16
Speaker 1: He and Tony went into the dining room. Tony picked
26:20
Speaker 1: up his camera, he pointed it at the large teddy
26:22
Speaker 1: bear in the corner of the room and said in
26:24
Speaker 1: a half-joking manner. Sally if you're there say cheese. As
26:29
Speaker 1: he took the photo the bear suddenly flipped around to
26:32
Speaker 1: face the wall. It happened in an instant but his
26:35
Speaker 1: younger brother George had seen it with his own eyes.
26:39
Speaker 1: Tony quickly snapped another photo but that was enough they
26:42
Speaker 1: decided to get out of there. They turned to leave
26:45
Speaker 1: but as they started upstairs George froze. His legs wouldn't move.
26:51
Speaker 1: It was as if something invisible held him there a cold,
26:53
Speaker 1: precious wrapping around his body. Whether this was Sally's doing
26:58
Speaker 1: or just the effect of severe panic is unknown. He
27:02
Speaker 1: later said that he felt this cold sensation moving through him.
27:06
Speaker 1: Minnie felt completely unable to move his muscles. When the
27:10
Speaker 1: sensation finally lifted he stumbled forward. The two of them
27:14
Speaker 1: raced upstairs to get Debra. They quickly told her what
27:18
Speaker 1: had happened and then they grabbed baby Taylor and they
27:20
Speaker 1: made their plans to leave desperate to be away from
27:23
Speaker 1: whatever it was in the house. But it wasn't quite over.
27:27
Speaker 1: Tony went downstairs and placed a baby car seat on
27:30
Speaker 1: the sofa. He leaned over it to fasten Taylor in.
27:35
Speaker 1: As he did so he felt a quick sharp sensation
27:37
Speaker 1: crossing his back and he let out a small yell
27:40
Speaker 1: of pain. He told Debra that he thought a bug
27:43
Speaker 1: had bitten him but not wanting to waste time. They
27:46
Speaker 1: just got out of the house into the car and
27:48
Speaker 1: they drove to Tony's parents house. It was only once
27:52
Speaker 1: they got to the in-laws that Debra had a chance
27:54
Speaker 1: to check his back. She lifted his shirt and she
27:58
Speaker 1: saw three long scratches across her skin. They were so
28:02
Speaker 1: deep that there was blood dripping from them. This would
28:05
Speaker 1: mark a dangerous escalation in the activity in the house.
28:09
Speaker 1: By this point Tony and Deborah were at their wits end.
28:13
Speaker 1: They called the psychic again and asked what they should do.
28:17
Speaker 1: The psychic informed them that they should talk to Sally.
28:21
Speaker 1: Tell it that they were angry with her and that
28:23
Speaker 1: if she misbehaved they would send her to her room
28:25
Speaker 1: and forbid her from playing with the toys. And so
28:28
Speaker 1: that's what they did. They returned home and Deborah spoke
28:32
Speaker 1: aloud to Sally telling her that this was their home
28:35
Speaker 1: now and that she was welcome to stay but she
28:37
Speaker 1: mustn't misbehave. The psychic visited the house and told them
28:41
Speaker 1: that they should leave a shelf of toys just for Sally.
28:45
Speaker 1: They started to leave an empty place at the dinner
28:47
Speaker 1: table for Sally and they even bought girls toys so
28:49
Speaker 1: that she had some possessions of her own. Deborah also
28:53
Speaker 1: left the box of crayons and some paper out asking
28:56
Speaker 1: Sally to draw them a picture or answer questions that
28:59
Speaker 1: Deborah wrote at the top. This actually seemed to get results.
29:04
Speaker 1: One day Debra left the paper with the words Hello
29:06
Speaker 1: Sally how old are you written at the top. Sometime
29:10
Speaker 1: later when Tony was putting some toys in the nursery
29:13
Speaker 1: he found out someone had written 7 like in childlike
29:15
Speaker 1: scroll underneath Debra's question. Again we see this idea of
29:20
Speaker 1: them feeding this energy, interacting with it more and more.
29:24
Speaker 1: In the following days they decided to get some photographs developed.
29:28
Speaker 1: This roll of film included the photos that Tony had
29:31
Speaker 1: taken of the teddy bear before and after it rotated
29:34
Speaker 1: to face the wall. This is one of the photos.
29:38
Speaker 1: You can't actually see the bear in the picture. It's
29:41
Speaker 1: obscured by this strange blurred mass. In Deborah's book she
29:46
Speaker 1: claims that the fuzzy area resembles a person's head and shoulders.
29:50
Speaker 1: Personally I can't make it out maybe the original photo
29:53
Speaker 1: is clearer. It could just be a defect in how
29:56
Speaker 1: the picture was developed or something on a lens camera
29:59
Speaker 1: or just maybe it's a ghost posing for the photo.
30:02
Speaker 1: Either way after that the family would notice many strange
30:05
Speaker 1: defects in the photographs that were taken inside the house.
30:09
Speaker 1: Odd blurred shapes dark shadows or inky spots that would
30:12
Speaker 1: seem to float around their family's snaps especially in photos
30:15
Speaker 1: of baby Taylor. They tried multiple different cameras and films
30:19
Speaker 1: but they would always capture these anomalies. They used to
30:23
Speaker 1: be a website with a lot of the pictures on.
30:26
Speaker 1: I can way back machine it and grab a few
30:29
Speaker 1: but they're extremely low resolution and most of the links
30:31
Speaker 1: are broken. Hopefully one day they get re-uploaded in a
30:35
Speaker 1: better quality. As the Pickmans interacted more and more with
30:39
Speaker 1: Sally there was another disturbing escalation in her behavior. It
30:44
Speaker 1: first started with two candles in the bathroom. These candles
30:48
Speaker 1: had always been there purely for decoration but one day
30:51
Speaker 1: Tony's brother was walking by the door when he noticed
30:53
Speaker 1: a strange glow coming from the room. He found two
30:57
Speaker 1: candles burning away. Tony and Deborah were the only other
31:01
Speaker 1: people in the house and neither of them had lit
31:03
Speaker 1: the candles. It seemed that Sally now had the ability
31:07
Speaker 1: to start fires. From then onwards items around the house
31:11
Speaker 1: would be found with small burns on them. It was
31:14
Speaker 1: usually candles. Sometimes they were found with wax dripping upwards
31:19
Speaker 1: as if someone had lit it and then held it
31:21
Speaker 1: upside down for some time. Other times the plastic wrap
31:25
Speaker 1: on an unopened candle would be melted. As the months
31:28
Speaker 1: passed the family's interaction with Sally grew more involved. From
31:33
Speaker 1: reading Deborah's book I get the impression that most of
31:36
Speaker 1: this interaction came from Deborah. She seemed to be quite
31:39
Speaker 1: happy to have a little girl in the house even
31:41
Speaker 1: if it was a ghost. Tony appears to have taken
31:45
Speaker 1: a bit more of a backseat to this all. Having
31:48
Speaker 1: experienced strange things himself he wasn't exactly aseptic but he
31:52
Speaker 1: would roll his eyes at Debra when she gift-wrapped presents
31:54
Speaker 1: for Sally and read stories to her or invited her
31:57
Speaker 1: to sit on her lap. Over the following months these
32:01
Speaker 1: interactions continued and Sally responded in her usual way, moving
32:05
Speaker 1: objects around, interfering with electronics and burning candles. Then on
32:10
Speaker 1: the 22nd of September there was a very disturbing event.
32:14
Speaker 1: Deborah had gone to work and she'd left a pile
32:16
Speaker 1: of washing to be put in the dryer. Later that
32:19
Speaker 1: day Tony got up, he put the clothes in the dryer,
32:23
Speaker 1: switched it on and then went about his day. He
32:26
Speaker 1: could hear a loud thumping noise coming from the dryer
32:28
Speaker 1: and he assumed that Deborah had thrown some trainers in
32:31
Speaker 1: there so he just went on about his day doing
32:33
Speaker 1: chores around the house. But strange things kept happening. When
32:38
Speaker 1: he tried to play music on the stereo it would
32:40
Speaker 1: switch itself off the same thing would happen to the
32:43
Speaker 1: vacuum when he tried to do some cleaning. This happened
32:46
Speaker 1: over and over again until he grew frustrated and he
32:49
Speaker 1: shouted out loud telling Sally to stop misbehaving. Later that
32:53
Speaker 1: day Deborah returned home and she went to unload the dryer.
32:57
Speaker 1: As she was pulling clothes out she noticed red spots
33:00
Speaker 1: staining the garments. With growing horrors she continued to unload
33:05
Speaker 1: the machine until at the back of the drum she
33:07
Speaker 1: discovered the source. It was one of the kittens. It
33:11
Speaker 1: must have climbed into the machine just before Tony loaded
33:14
Speaker 1: the clothes in there and he just hadn't noticed. The
33:18
Speaker 1: poor animal had been slowly cooked and pummeled to death
33:21
Speaker 1: inside the spinning dryer. In a book Deborah interprets Sally's
33:25
Speaker 1: actions earlier that day, turning off the stereo and the
33:28
Speaker 1: vacuum cleaner as an attempt to warn Tony that the
33:31
Speaker 1: kitten was trapped. It's interesting that Deborah never considers the
33:35
Speaker 1: more disturbing possibility that Sally might have put the kitten
33:38
Speaker 1: in the dryer herself. Sally had always shown an interest
33:42
Speaker 1: in the cats and she had a habit of teleporting
33:44
Speaker 1: objects into strange places. Yet at this point in the
33:48
Speaker 1: story Deborah seems completely unwilling to attribute any malice to
33:52
Speaker 1: her behavior. Even when Sally scratches people or starts fires
33:56
Speaker 1: Deborah frames it as harmless mischief or the protectiveness of
33:59
Speaker 1: a small child. As it says Sally's behavior was similar
34:04
Speaker 1: to other kids' hurryage. They will do anything for attention
34:08
Speaker 1: and it doesn't matter if it's good or bad. And
34:11
Speaker 1: the bad behavior definitely seemed to outweigh the good. The
34:15
Speaker 1: activity in the house continued in the usual pattern. Electronics
34:19
Speaker 1: would switch themselves on or off by themselves. Objects would
34:24
Speaker 1: move and things would be found burrowed as if someone
34:26
Speaker 1: had held a flame to them. Each time they happened
34:30
Speaker 1: Debra would admonish Sally aloud but just like a naughty
34:32
Speaker 1: child they were rewarding bad behavior with attention. And in
34:36
Speaker 1: order to keep getting that attention it seemed like the
34:39
Speaker 1: activity was getting worse by the day. One day Tony
34:42
Speaker 1: was sitting on the couch watching TV. He told Debra
34:46
Speaker 1: that he could feel a strange sensation on his toes
34:49
Speaker 1: as if something was biting them. Over the following days
34:53
Speaker 1: he would repeatedly feel this sensation on different parts of
34:56
Speaker 1: his body. Usually this was at night when he was
34:59
Speaker 1: trying to sleep. It all came to a head when
35:02
Speaker 1: Tony was taking a shower one morning. He suddenly felt
35:06
Speaker 1: a sharp bite on his leg. He looked down and
35:09
Speaker 1: on his thigh there was a round red mark with
35:11
Speaker 1: the distinct imprints of little teeth in his flesh. He
35:15
Speaker 1: also began seeing a dark shadowy shape around the house.
35:19
Speaker 1: It was always seen out of the corner of his
35:21
Speaker 1: eye or fleetingly glimpsed behind him in a reflective surface.
35:25
Speaker 1: It seemed to be following him around but he never
35:28
Speaker 1: got a good enough look at it to see what
35:29
Speaker 1: it actually was. That was until Halloween 1993. It was
35:35
Speaker 1: early morning and Tony was in the kitchen pouring himself
35:38
Speaker 1: a glass of orange juice. He turned around from the
35:41
Speaker 1: fridge and standing there in the middle of the kitchen
35:44
Speaker 1: was a small girl. She looked to be about five
35:47
Speaker 1: years old although it was hard to tell for sure.
35:50
Speaker 1: She was wearing a white frilly dress and her dark
35:53
Speaker 1: hair was tied in a bow. The girl stared at
35:56
Speaker 1: Tony with a shocked expression on her face. This didn't
36:00
Speaker 1: seem like a ghostly apparition. It was completely solid. It
36:05
Speaker 1: was so real that Tony assumed that some neighborhood kid
36:08
Speaker 1: had wandered into the house. He began asking her how
36:12
Speaker 1: she had got in but then he realized how old-fashioned
36:15
Speaker 1: her clothing was. It dawned on him that this might
36:18
Speaker 1: not be a neighborhood kid after all. The sudden shock
36:22
Speaker 1: caused him to drop his orange juice. He looked down
36:25
Speaker 1: briefly as the glass fell and then when he looked
36:28
Speaker 1: up the girl had vanished. This had happened in the
36:31
Speaker 1: blink of an eye. There was no way a real
36:34
Speaker 1: child could disappear that quickly. He had seen Sally. Tony
36:39
Speaker 1: was a fairly decent artist so once he got over
36:42
Speaker 1: the shock he grabbed some pencils and he sketched what
36:44
Speaker 1: he had seen. This would become the definitive image of
36:48
Speaker 1: what the entity in the house looked like. An image
36:51
Speaker 1: reproduced many times by various TV shows and magazine articles
36:55
Speaker 1: in the future. The only known sighting of Sally. Over
37:00
Speaker 1: time Sally's fire starting habit became more dangerous. On one occasion,
37:06
Speaker 1: Deborah's sister Karen was visiting the house. Karen was napping
37:10
Speaker 1: on the couch when she suddenly awoke to see one
37:12
Speaker 1: of the teddy bears on fire. There were flames shooting
37:16
Speaker 1: about 8 inches from the top of its head. KAREN
37:19
Speaker 1: QUICKLY GRABBED THE BEAR AND SHE RUSHED IT TOWARDS THE
37:22
Speaker 1: KITCHEN TO DOUCE THE FLAMES BUT BY THE TIME SHE
37:24
Speaker 1: GOT TO THE SINK THE FIRE HAD DIED OUT. WHEN
37:27
Speaker 1: THEY STUDIED THE BEAR THEY FOUND THAT ONE SIDE OF
37:30
Speaker 1: ITS FACE HAD BEEN COMPLETELY MELTED AND THERE WAS A
37:32
Speaker 1: STRANGE CIRCULAR BURN ON THE TOP OF ITS HEAD. IT
37:35
Speaker 1: WAS AS IF THE FIRE HAD BURNED IN A PERFECT
37:38
Speaker 1: RING WITHOUT MELTING ANY OF THE FUR INSIDE OF IT.
37:41
Speaker 1: SOME WEEKS LATER DURING A CHRISTMAS PARTY A DOLL HAD
37:44
Speaker 1: BEEN LEFT ON THE STAIRCASE SUDDENLY BURST INTO FLAMES. This
37:48
Speaker 1: timely fire was so powerful that it set off the
37:51
Speaker 1: smoke alarm and Tony burnt his arms as he rushed
37:53
Speaker 1: the flaming doll to the upstairs bathroom. Deborah reckoned Sally
37:57
Speaker 1: was starting these fires because she was frustrated at being
38:00
Speaker 1: ignored during family gatherings. In early 1994 Tony's brother George
38:06
Speaker 1: came round with him he brought two of his workmates
38:09
Speaker 1: who were interested in the ghost. They decided that they
38:12
Speaker 1: would do a seance around the dining table. The three
38:16
Speaker 1: of them along with Tony and Deborah sat in a
38:18
Speaker 1: circle around the table with their hands resting on the surface.
38:22
Speaker 1: For around half an hour nothing happened but then Tony
38:25
Speaker 1: said he felt something moving around his head. He flapped
38:28
Speaker 1: his hands in front of his face as if batting
38:30
Speaker 1: away some unseen force and then he returned his hands
38:33
Speaker 1: to the top of the table. About 20 minutes later
38:37
Speaker 1: one of George's workmates leaned over the table and said
38:40
Speaker 1: that he could see something on Tony's forehead. It was
38:43
Speaker 1: dark in the room so they couldn't see what it
38:45
Speaker 1: was very clearly. Tony touched his forehead and his fingers
38:49
Speaker 1: came away wet. It was blood. When they examined him
38:53
Speaker 1: in the light they saw that there were multiple scratches
38:56
Speaker 1: above his eyebrows and there was blood trickling down his face.
39:00
Speaker 1: Apparently Tony hadn't felt any pain when it had happened.
39:04
Speaker 1: This experience reinforced a troubling idea that they'd been considering.
39:09
Speaker 1: A lot of this activity especially the scratching didn't seem
39:12
Speaker 1: like the behavior of a small child. Tony and Deborah
39:16
Speaker 1: began to suspect that there was more than one spirit
39:18
Speaker 1: inhabiting the house, a small child and a woman. On
39:22
Speaker 1: one occasion Tony had heard a woman's voice. It was
39:26
Speaker 1: on one evening when he'd lost the remote control. he
39:30
Speaker 1: decided to nap on the sofa and in his half-awake
39:32
Speaker 1: state he heard a woman's voice saying here's your remote
39:35
Speaker 1: control when he woke up later he found a remote
39:39
Speaker 1: control lying on his lap another time he was taking
39:43
Speaker 1: a bath when he saw a woman walk past a
39:45
Speaker 1: bathroom door In both of these instances he just assumed
39:49
Speaker 1: it was Deborah but when he asked her about it
39:51
Speaker 1: later it turned out she was always in a different
39:53
Speaker 1: part of the house at the time that they happened.
39:56
Speaker 1: Personally if these events happened exactly as they described I'd
39:59
Speaker 1: be inclined to consider a different explanation that the activity
40:02
Speaker 1: might be demonic in nature. The fires, the scratching and
40:06
Speaker 1: now seemingly the ability to mimic members of the household.
40:10
Speaker 1: These are all things I've heard described in other demonic cases.
40:15
Speaker 1: who knows if Sally really is what they thought. It
40:18
Speaker 1: could have been something far more sinister taking on the
40:21
Speaker 1: form of a harmless little girl just to gain the
40:23
Speaker 1: trust of the family. The idea of an evil spirit,
40:27
Speaker 1: ingratiating itself with the household in order to bend them
40:30
Speaker 1: to its will, it's even more unsettling when you consider
40:33
Speaker 1: it from Tony's point of view. At the end of
40:36
Speaker 1: Deborah's book there's a short chapter written by Tony and
40:39
Speaker 1: it gives his perspective. Tony initially tolerated the ghost though
40:43
Speaker 1: only begrudgingly but over time he became convinced that there
40:46
Speaker 1: was an evil presence in the house. He implored Debra
40:50
Speaker 1: for them to find somewhere else to live but by
40:52
Speaker 1: that point Debra had become so enamored with the idea
40:55
Speaker 1: of the helpless little girl ghost that she insisted that
40:58
Speaker 1: they stay. Tony began to hear strange things. At first
41:03
Speaker 1: it was a sort of constant scratching noise like there
41:05
Speaker 1: was something in the walls. This noise got louder over
41:09
Speaker 1: time but it seemed like only he could hear it.
41:12
Speaker 1: Eventually the scratching changed to a low murmuring noise. It
41:17
Speaker 1: was like the voices of multiple people talking at a distance.
41:21
Speaker 1: It was too quiet to make out what was being
41:23
Speaker 1: said but he could hear it constantly. Tony worked in
41:27
Speaker 1: night shift and he slept for only a few hours
41:29
Speaker 1: during the day. Deborah told him that much of what
41:32
Speaker 1: he was experiencing might just be the effects of sleep deprivation.
41:37
Speaker 1: And so Tony began to fear that he was losing
41:39
Speaker 1: his mind. Due to this he kept a lot of
41:42
Speaker 1: his experiences to himself. He began to feel extremely isolated.
41:48
Speaker 1: It created a bit of a rift between him and
41:50
Speaker 1: Debra and it led to a lot of arguments. If
41:54
Speaker 1: this really was a demonic presence then it was playing
41:56
Speaker 1: a classic game of divide and conquer. Tony began to
42:00
Speaker 1: have increasingly dark thoughts. He began thinking about how much
42:04
Speaker 1: he wanted to hurt Debra. It seems like at times
42:08
Speaker 1: he was becoming possessed. Something was making him think and
42:12
Speaker 1: act in ways that were totally out of character. The
42:15
Speaker 1: most disturbing event happened when Deborah was at work. One
42:19
Speaker 1: morning Tony was in a kitchen getting a ball of cereal.
42:23
Speaker 1: He left the ball on the counter and went to
42:25
Speaker 1: grab a spoon. When he turned around a neighbor's cat
42:29
Speaker 1: was on the counter drinking milk out of his bowl.
42:32
Speaker 1: At the sight of this cat Tony suddenly felt a
42:34
Speaker 1: violent rage come over him. He grabbed a kitchen knife
42:38
Speaker 1: and he stabbed the cat to death. His thoughts then
42:42
Speaker 1: turned to Deborah. Deborah loved cats and he thought about
42:45
Speaker 1: how disturbed she would be upon seeing the cat's dead body.
42:49
Speaker 1: The thought excited him and so he left the body
42:52
Speaker 1: on display and waited for it to come home. He
42:55
Speaker 1: then began to think about how much he would like
42:57
Speaker 1: to stab Deborah too. He sat on the sofa holding
43:01
Speaker 1: a knife knowing that the moment she came home and
43:03
Speaker 1: saw the dead cats he would have to kill her
43:05
Speaker 1: as well. Sometime later he left the house to pick
43:08
Speaker 1: up his son and his head suddenly cleared. He was
43:12
Speaker 1: horrified at what he had done. Upon returning to the
43:15
Speaker 1: house he cleaned up the cat's corpse and he hid
43:18
Speaker 1: the evidence. Deborah didn't find out about this event until
43:22
Speaker 1: later on when they'd moved out of the property. So
43:25
Speaker 1: as 1994 rolled on the activity in the house continued
43:28
Speaker 1: as normal. Deborah became steadily more attached to this entity
43:33
Speaker 1: that she called Sally. Tony became more withdrawn and disturbed.
43:38
Speaker 1: The spirit seemed to be attracted to Taylor's toys especially
43:41
Speaker 1: the ones that made noises. At strange times they would
43:45
Speaker 1: hear these toys activating over and over again as if
43:48
Speaker 1: someone was playing with them. Sometimes they would hear the
43:52
Speaker 1: toys playing music over the baby monitor in the dead
43:54
Speaker 1: of night but when they checked in on Taylor he
43:56
Speaker 1: would be fast asleep and nowhere near the toys. Taylor
44:00
Speaker 1: grew scared of one toy in particular. It was a
44:04
Speaker 1: clown that contained a clockwork mechanism. It played music when
44:08
Speaker 1: it was wound up. When he first got the toy
44:11
Speaker 1: he'd loved it replaced it next to his crib and
44:13
Speaker 1: they wound it up at bedtime so that the music
44:16
Speaker 1: would law him to sleep. But then the clown started
44:19
Speaker 1: playing music at random times. Remember that this is a
44:23
Speaker 1: toy where someone has to physically wind the mechanism to
44:26
Speaker 1: get it to play. This thing seemed to be playing
44:29
Speaker 1: music when nobody had touched it. After some months of
44:33
Speaker 1: this happening Taylor grew extremely fearful of the clown. At
44:37
Speaker 1: first he was only frightened when the music played but
44:39
Speaker 1: eventually he became so scared of the clown that he
44:42
Speaker 1: wouldn't even look at it and Debra had to hide
44:44
Speaker 1: it away. Now away from the house events were unfolding
44:48
Speaker 1: that would have a significant impact on the household. If
44:51
Speaker 1: you remember Debra had been consulting a psychic on how
44:54
Speaker 1: to deal with Sally. The psychic's name was Barbara. Barbara
44:59
Speaker 1: had also been touring around doing lectures at various universities
45:03
Speaker 1: talking about the psychic world. During one of these lectures
45:07
Speaker 1: she spoke about the Sally House haunting. It just so
45:10
Speaker 1: happened that in the audience was somebody from the sightings
45:13
Speaker 1: TV show. Afterwards they spoke to Barbara. They asked her
45:18
Speaker 1: if she thought Debra would allow them to visit the house.
45:22
Speaker 1: They wanted to bring in a camera crew to film
45:24
Speaker 1: a segment for the show. Barbara put them in contact
45:27
Speaker 1: with Deborah and after much arguing between Tony and Deborah
45:31
Speaker 1: the Pickmans agreed to let Sightings investigate their home. So
45:35
Speaker 1: on the 23rd of July, 1994 the Sightings team arrived
45:39
Speaker 1: with them they brought a reporter, a paranormal expert, a
45:42
Speaker 1: full camera crew and various electronic gadgets for detecting ghosts.
45:47
Speaker 1: This sudden commotion appeared to have sent these spirits into overdrive.
45:51
Speaker 1: During the few hours that the sightings crew spent in
45:54
Speaker 1: the house there was more activity than Tony and Debra
45:57
Speaker 1: had experienced for months. Now you could see this as
46:00
Speaker 1: evidence of a hoax. Ghosts don't typically play up for
46:04
Speaker 1: the camera but all of a sudden you've got cold
46:06
Speaker 1: spots moving around the house, things being burned and scratches
46:10
Speaker 1: appearing on Tony's body. It does seem a bit too
46:13
Speaker 1: convenient but they did capture some very interesting things on camera.
46:18
Speaker 1: For example this cold spot that seemed to move around
46:21
Speaker 1: the room. multiple people were able to confirm that it
46:23
Speaker 1: was there and it was picked up on a thermometer.
46:26
Speaker 1: Tony and Deborah turned off all the air con in
46:29
Speaker 1: the house because it was an interfere with the microphones.
46:33
Speaker 1: Also Tony appeared to get scratched whilst the cameras were
46:36
Speaker 1: filming him and there doesn't seem to be any way
46:38
Speaker 1: that he could have done it. There's a moment where
46:41
Speaker 1: he lifted his shirt because he feels something on his torso.
46:45
Speaker 1: When he does so they see that there's multiple scratches
46:47
Speaker 1: on his belly. But the camera then films the area
46:51
Speaker 1: for a full 9 minutes and during this time a
46:53
Speaker 1: completely new scratch seems to appear out of nowhere and
46:56
Speaker 1: starts bleeding. Oh look they're forming. Can't come up with
47:01
Speaker 1: an explanation why she does this. It's forming right there.
47:06
Speaker 1: She tends to do this to me because I upset
47:08
Speaker 1: her sometimes. I on the right a frame of video
47:11
Speaker 1: with a long bleeding welt on the left an image
47:14
Speaker 1: taken 8 minutes earlier when our camera first began to roll.
47:18
Speaker 1: There's no welt visible. Now sightings usually only covers a
47:22
Speaker 1: story once but the footage they recorded in the house
47:24
Speaker 1: generated so much interest that the camera crew would visit
47:27
Speaker 1: the family three more times after this and each time
47:30
Speaker 1: these scratches would appear they conducted some very vigorous tests
47:34
Speaker 1: to ensure that Tony wasn't causing the scratches himself. In
47:38
Speaker 1: one he sat on a chair with multiple cameras trained
47:41
Speaker 1: on him and an investigator watching him at all times
47:43
Speaker 1: and still scratches seemed to appear on his body sometimes
47:46
Speaker 1: right in front of people's eyes. If this was all
47:50
Speaker 1: just a hooks then it was very cleverly done. Tony
47:53
Speaker 1: and Debra eventually moved out of the house after about
47:56
Speaker 1: 20 months of living there. Tony claims that he'd been
48:00
Speaker 1: stood at the top of the stairs one day when
48:02
Speaker 1: a massive invisible force shoved him from behind, nearly sending
48:05
Speaker 1: him headfirst over to Bannister. This it seems was the
48:09
Speaker 1: final straw. Fearing for their safety they decided to find
48:13
Speaker 1: a new place to live. It was only after leaving
48:16
Speaker 1: the Sally house that Deborah was able to reflect on
48:19
Speaker 1: what happened properly. She began to wonder if this entity
48:23
Speaker 1: was something far more unsettling than she'd initially believed. At
48:27
Speaker 1: the end of a book she writes, In the years
48:29
Speaker 1: since leaving the house and continuing to investigate it I
48:32
Speaker 1: have realized the distinct negativity and demonic nature of what
48:35
Speaker 1: was there and the danger that existed. A few people
48:39
Speaker 1: who lived in the house after Tony and Debra did
48:41
Speaker 1: report a couple of strange things. Mostly electronics switching on
48:46
Speaker 1: and off. They always put it down to bad wiring though.
48:51
Speaker 1: Nobody else has experienced the kind of activity that Tony
48:54
Speaker 1: and Debra went through. Since then the Sally house has
48:58
Speaker 1: been turned into a bit of a tourist attraction for
49:00
Speaker 1: the town. Efforts have been made to find out who
49:04
Speaker 1: Sally actually was. The official story is that she was
49:07
Speaker 1: a patient of Dr. Charles Finney. Records show that this
49:11
Speaker 1: man did exist and he did live in that house
49:14
Speaker 1: in the early 1900s. Apparently Sally was a little girl
49:18
Speaker 1: who lived locally at that time. and she fell ill.
49:22
Speaker 1: She was rushed to Dr. Charles Finney's house and there
49:24
Speaker 1: she was operated on. Depending on which story you hear
49:28
Speaker 1: she either died of a rupture appendix or pneumonia. It's
49:32
Speaker 1: said the reason why Sally attacks men is because she's
49:35
Speaker 1: angry at Dr. Finney for causing her death. The problem
49:39
Speaker 1: is there's no actual record of a Sally ever dying
49:41
Speaker 1: in the house or of Dr. Finney doing medical procedures
49:44
Speaker 1: at home he had his own practice. There is a
49:47
Speaker 1: record of a Sally Isabel Hall. She died in 1905
49:52
Speaker 1: in a property just up the road from the Sally house.
49:55
Speaker 1: This was an African American girl which goes against Tony's
49:58
Speaker 1: apparent sighting of the little white girl in the kitchen.
50:02
Speaker 1: There's not much information about how Sally Isabel Hall died
50:05
Speaker 1: nor is there any evidence that she ever visited the
50:08
Speaker 1: Sally house. All the newspaper reports I could find say
50:12
Speaker 1: that she died in a house up the road. There's
50:15
Speaker 1: also rumors that it could be the spirit of Joanna
50:17
Speaker 1: Barnes or her son. Joanna was a divorced mother of
50:21
Speaker 1: three who had a nervous breakdown and spent some time
50:24
Speaker 1: in a mental asylum. She was eventually released and she
50:28
Speaker 1: was placed into the care of Dr. Charles Finney. She
50:31
Speaker 1: then lived in the property next door to the Sally house.
50:35
Speaker 1: In 1906 in a fit of madness Joanna Barnes turned
50:39
Speaker 1: on the gas in her house and laid down in
50:41
Speaker 1: bed next to her six-year-old son. The gas killed her
50:44
Speaker 1: son and left Joanna in a critical condition. And I
50:48
Speaker 1: did find newspaper reports relating to this incident. It seems
50:53
Speaker 1: it really did happen but they say that Joanna Barnes
50:55
Speaker 1: was living in Kansas City when it happened nowhere near
50:58
Speaker 1: the Sally house. So the identity of Sally remains a
51:02
Speaker 1: mystery and if we consider the possibility of a demonic
51:05
Speaker 1: presence then who knows if it really is what it
51:07
Speaker 1: claims to be. And of course the whole thing could
51:10
Speaker 1: be a hoax. From reading Deborah's book she sounds pretty
51:14
Speaker 1: earnest though. If anyone was behind a hoax then it
51:18
Speaker 1: was definitely Tony and that's not to say I think
51:20
Speaker 1: he was faking but if this is a hoax then
51:22
Speaker 1: Tony is the only one who could realistically have been
51:25
Speaker 1: behind all of it. Most of the activity seems to
51:28
Speaker 1: happen around him. For example there's a bit in the
51:31
Speaker 1: book where he sat on a rocking horse toy. All
51:35
Speaker 1: of a sudden there's this flash of light and one
51:37
Speaker 1: of the horse's ears burst into flame. Interestingly they then
51:41
Speaker 1: try holding a flame to the rocking horse's other ear
51:44
Speaker 1: and they find that the material won't burn at all
51:46
Speaker 1: but there's multiple instances like this throughout the book. Something
51:50
Speaker 1: weird will happen and most of the time Tony will
51:52
Speaker 1: be nearby and this isn't every time. There are some
51:56
Speaker 1: weird unexplainable things that happen when Tony is nowhere near
51:59
Speaker 1: the house. We know that Tony's mental health was suffering
52:03
Speaker 1: whilst he was living in the house. He was having
52:07
Speaker 1: very dark thoughts and he even killed a neighborhood cat
52:09
Speaker 1: so the idea that he could be deliberately doing stuff
52:12
Speaker 1: just to mess with Debra isn't out of the question.
52:15
Speaker 1: But I still can't explain how he would cause scratches
52:18
Speaker 1: to appear on his body in front of multiple witnesses
52:21
Speaker 1: and in full view of cameras. Also when people do
52:24
Speaker 1: fake paranormal phenomena they usually do it because they want
52:27
Speaker 1: some attention on themselves. There's usually quite a narcissistic streak
52:32
Speaker 1: to their actions but Tony was always against the idea
52:35
Speaker 1: of being on camera. At first he didn't even want
52:39
Speaker 1: any camera crew to visit the house. It was Deborah
52:42
Speaker 1: that convinced him and when he finally did agree to
52:45
Speaker 1: be filmed he insisted that they obscure his face and
52:47
Speaker 1: keep his identity hidden. But these are the kind of
52:50
Speaker 1: cases that I like to cover. Weird stories that don't
52:54
Speaker 1: have a nice wrapped up answer. I don't think this
52:57
Speaker 1: is a case of them experiencing something natural and misinterpreting it,
53:01
Speaker 1: thinking that it is something paranormal. Either it's a really
53:05
Speaker 1: clever hoax, one that I can't figure out how they
53:08
Speaker 1: would pull it off or it's a genuine case of
53:10
Speaker 1: the paranormal. I recommend Deborah Pickman's book The Sally House
53:14
Speaker 1: Haunting a True Story. It was my main source for
53:18
Speaker 1: making this case. It's a great read, very interesting and
53:22
Speaker 1: of course there's much more in the book than i
53:24
Speaker 1: was able to cover in a short video so yeah
53:27
Speaker 1: if you're interested in this story then i really recommend
53:30
Speaker 1: getting that book and reading it for yourself and if
53:33
Speaker 1: you want to watch the sightings episodes they're also really
53:36
Speaker 1: interesting someone has re-upload them to the internet it's old
53:41
Speaker 1: footage probably recorded on a vhs tape and it's a
53:44
Speaker 1: pretty low resolution but they're all there Most of the
53:48
Speaker 1: episodes are in season 3 but then in season 5
53:51
Speaker 1: they actually go back to the house and do a
53:53
Speaker 1: few investigations after the family have moved out. So yeah
53:57
Speaker 1: have a look if you want to check them out
53:59
Speaker 1: as well. I hope you found it interesting. Huge thanks
54:03
Speaker 1: as always to the patrons. It's probably something that you'll like.
54:09
Speaker 1: I cover all sorts of creepy topics.