The Sallie House Haunting: A True Story (26 page)

Tony calmed down enough to return a short time later and we resumed our discussion. This time the conversation was much better, but again the horrible static from the baby monitor rang through the house. Again I checked upstairs where Taylor had been sleeping, but found him fast asleep. Nothing in the room was out of the ordinary.

Returning to the living room, I told Tony about the same noise I’d heard on the monitor earlier that day. I felt that Sallie didn’t want to see us mad at each other again and when she saw the discussion escalate, she tried to divert our attention to something else. Of course, there was no proof for this, just my intuition.

Tony usually got home from work shortly after 7:00 a.m. and although he crawled into bed about 8:00, he was usually back up by 10:00 because he didn’t want to miss out on any time with the baby and me. Although I had known him to need very little sleep, the weekends were the worst and I grew concerned that the lack of sleep would catch up with him. I eventually mandated that he stay in bed till at least noon. Whether or not he actually slept wasn’t the issue; I just wanted to be sure he an opportunity to get the rest he needed. I found out later that he would set his alarm for noon, and make himself get up.

I felt he wasn’t taking the lack of sleep and the possible side effects seriously. We had often discussed the fact that hallucinations were a side effect of sleep deprivation and a real concern, given our situation. We needed to know for sure that what he was seeing and hearing was actually happening and not something his mind was making up.

On one of these sleepless mornings, he saw the top of our highboy spin a little clockwise and outward on its lower base. He remembers sitting up to turn off the alarm, which had not gone off yet, and trying to focus his sleepy eyes on the dresser as he approached it. Within a few steps, he realized that the upper portion was indeed off-center. He realized he had not been dreaming or hallucinating.

I saw it differently and felt the side effects of too little sleep had created hallucinations that would explain many of his claims. I questioned it so much that it made him question his own mind and sanity. It is also one of the reasons he did not bring other things to my attention while we lived there.

It was Saturday morning and the TV crew was to arrive later that morning. Knowing they would need additional room, I moved some things out if the way. One of the items was Sallie’s oil lamp, which I had temporarily moved to the buffet table. I had also taken the opportunity to remind Sallie about the TV people coming back to the house.

Tony was very anxious and decided to take a drive to help relax a bit. While he was gone, I headed to the kitchen for coffee and was startled when I noticed a small flame in the oil lamp on the buffet table. Only seconds earlier, I had stood in front of the table tucking a few last-minute things into the drawer and the lamp was unlit. It seemed that Sallie was just as anxious as we were.

It was close to noon before the crew arrived. They set up their equipment and attached wireless microphones to me and Tony. Technical gear and empty equipment cases were lying everywhere.

It was comforting to have the same crew as before. The only addition was Tim White, the host of
Sightings
. Tim was excited to talk with us. As the audio person wired me, Tim talked to Tony and then talked to me while Tony was getting wired. Tim was very concerned about the scratches that Tony had received during the last taping and asked to see them. For the most part, the ones on his torso were healing nicely, but the ones on his triceps had caused scarring.

Tim was captivated by the details of our experiences and eager to find the underlying cause. We sensed that he didn’t really believe our claims and that he thought the mystery would be solved during his visit. He took a logical approach and took advantage of every opportunity to clarify facts and have us reiterate our experiences. I appreciated his healthy skepticism in playing devil’s advocate and the respectful way in which he approached us.

Going into any type of unusual or unknown situation (let alone a paranormal one), it is necessary to have an open mind so you can see all elements and possibilities, even if they take you beyond your comfort zone. The more unreasonable the claim, the longer it should take to influence you and the harder you should have to work at believing it.

Throughout the day, I watched Tim’s reactions, and I could see how often he struggled with his logical self. It was like I could hear his thoughts and see the process by which he drew his conclusions. His mind was being pulled in two different directions; to believe or not to believe.

Shortly after Tim arrived, a knock at the door revealed ghost investigator Al Rauber, who had been invited to the taping by
Sightings
. From the moment he walked in, his skepticism was apparent. When we took him on a tour of the house, he had an explanation for every activity and experience we had claimed.

For instance, he said that fishing wire could have been used to move the bears and that a hair dryer could easily have produced the effect of the wax dripping on the taper candles. They were all ingenious explanations, but ones we had already thought of and tried to duplicate ourselves.

Part of me wanted to scream, and I could tell that Tony was getting frustrated with what seemed to be accusatory remarks and insinuations of trickery on our part. Why would we subject ourselves to such scrutiny and take the chance of being revealed as frauds on national television?

For the sake of the camera and the audience, I wish Rauber had taken the time to re-create the effect on the candle. It is truly amazing how easy it is for skeptics to explain away phenomena that they have never experienced or tried to reproduce. As the day stretched on, Tony and I felt increasingly insulted by Rauber’s comments. He was curt, dismissive, and condescending in almost every conversation he had with us and we found it hard to remain congenial.

He pulled each of us aside separately and said that he felt the other was responsible for generating the poltergeist-like activity in our house. He suggested that one of us had been molested as a child and the trauma had triggered a strong emotion that energized the poltergeist. He recommended that we seek professional help from a psychologist to get through the emotions that were wreaking havoc on our lives. It wasn’t until conversation the next day that we realized Rauber had said the exact same thing to each of us.

This infuriated me, because he had not spent enough time with either one of us to have made such an assessment, and it seemed he was attempting to create a division between us. I felt it was irresponsible and unprofessional.

Throughout the day, we continued to migrate through the house, often feeling the distinct cold spots that had attracted so much attention. During each occurrence, Tim and the rest of the crew tried to find a plausible explanation for it. At one point, we were exploring a temperature fluctuation and electricity in the living room. Everyone was holding out their hands trying to detect where it was and where it was going. Meanwhile, Tony was nearby holding Taylor in his arms.

Suddenly he reached his arm out straight. I thought he was pointing to something or feeling something significant around him. Everyone else did, too. In fact, Tim held out his hand in the area around Tony’s hand. Feeling nothing distinct, he withdrew it. Realizing that no one had picked up on what he was trying to show them, Tony calmly said, “Look at my arm.”

We saw two scratches, one running almost the entire length of his upper forearm. Tim suggested that Tony sit on the couch behind him. George dabbed at the blood, and Tim noted Tony’s apparent shortness of breath. Tim was obviously concerned for him and his safety.

Some time later, we had came up from the basement and were standing in the kitchen. The cold spots had returned and everyone was aware of them. Tony stood by the pantry door quietly watching as everyone followed the cold spots around the room. Then someone pointed out that Tony had huge welts forming across his forehead. Tim seemed very shocked by these, because they seemed to become deeper and more pronounced before our eyes.

Toward the end of the day, Tim asked me if it would be possible for Rauber to stay overnight for continued observations. When I relayed the request to Tony, he accused me of agreeing to it behind his back and told me, “Absolutely not! This was not part of the agreement we made when we said they could come back!”

I agreed. We were completely worn out by the day’s events and the constant physical and emotional activity. We didn’t feel that Rauber had shown compassion, been supportive, or offered relevant evidence to help us understand the situation or our experiences, and we weren’t interested in spending the rest of the evening entertaining him and defending ourselves.

Rauber left a short time later, but Tim had done one last interview with him that Tony and I did not know about until it aired on national television a few weeks later. It didn’t sit well with us, to say the least. Although Rauber spoke of the intense fear he sensed from Tony, that secret interview caught us off guard. Tony and I had never been told about the suggestions or comments that he made.

Had Rauber mentioned the need for a document of our experiences as they happened, I could have let him read my journal entries. Had he brought up the concern that putting toys in the nursery was encouraging the little spirit, I could have told him that we were instructed to do so in order to take her focus off fires, electrical appliances, and my infant son. Since we had given her things of her own, she had pretty much left the baby alone. (A week after his departure, we received a letter from Rauber explaining how dissatisfied he was with how the television show had treated him. The show had not allowed him to do an investigation in his own manner. He had nothing good to say about the experience and we guessed this explained the tension during his visit.)

We both felt drained by the end of
Sightings
’ second visit. We were pleasantly surprised by their early departure and looked forward to having Sunday to ourselves. I can remember Tony asking, “We are done now, right? No more cameras, no more questions, no more people tramping through the house, right?”

I agreed. There was simply no reason for them to come back, and we didn’t need the stress of more strangers interrupting the normalcy in our home.

eighteen

Sightings’ Third Visit

Several weeks later, just after the airing of
Sightings
’ second visit, the phone rang around 11:00 a.m. Apparently, after the experience of Tim White and the crew, there was concern that there was something very real and worrisome about our situation. Although their experiences had primed them with a desire for more information, presenting concern for our family and its safety was an ideal approach to gain re-entry to our home, and that is exactly what happened.

I was hesitant, since nothing positive had come from their last visit. We were assured that the psychic they wanted to bring in was very good and would be very helpful. His name was Peter James and I was already vaguely aware of his paranormal involvement. I began to think that bringing him in might finally get us the answers we were looking for and I became excited.

I reluctantly relayed the information to Tony and his response was worse than I’d anticipated. To avoid further conflict, I dropped the subject and decided it wasn’t something we had to do. This didn’t go smoothly either, as Tony convinced himself that I was angry with him for not wanting to participate. The arguing continued all the next day. I didn’t care if the
Sightings
crew ever came back.

I was finally able to reassure Tony of my sincere lack of interest in bringing the
Sightings
team back. Living with the spirit in our house had been going well, and if we came up against something we couldn’t handle, we could look for further help at that time. This seemed to change the energy in the house to a lighter, more normal environment and our personal interaction was much better than the three previous days.

Tony went to work at three that afternoon and soon after that, our doorbell rang. I opened the door to a dark-haired woman about my age. She introduced herself as Colleen and apologized for the intrusion. Colleen explained that she had lived in the house for about eight months and had moved out only a few months prior to our moving in. During that time there were a few things that now seemed a bit strange to her, and seeing us on the television show the night before had brought several of those things to the forefront of her memory.

For one thing, her daughter had played with an imaginary friend called Sallie. She had never given much thought to her daughter’s imaginary friend, because many children at that age have one. When they moved from the house her daughter’s friend simply wasn’t mentioned anymore, leaving her to think her daughter had grown out of the phase of needing a playmate.

It had certainly been an interesting conversation and before she left, I asked if she would mind sharing her story with the
Sightings
people. I couldn’t wait for Tony to get home to share our conversation and my excitement over what I considered validation.

Up to this point, we’d only had Barbara’s word about this little spirit, and since psychic impressions are often not well received, I felt this would offer more support to our story. Knowing they would like Colleen convinced Tony to allow
Sightings
to come back one more time.

Nothing happened for almost six weeks after the television crew left and I grew concerned. What would happen if the crew came and nothing happened? Would they think it was all a hoax? At the end of the last aired segment of our story, they informed viewers that they would keep them posted on the case. How would they present us if there was no activity?

The more I thought about the lack of activity, the more I began to theorize causes. Perhaps the entity was still in the house but her energy had been exhausted after such extensive interaction and commotion. Was she re-energizing?

It has been theorized that spirits draw from the many energies around them, including the energy that people generate or emit. The more people there are in an area, the more energy is available for spirit consumption. This could explain the distinct inactivity we were experiencing between the visits of the television crew, who were certainly anxious and highly charged with emotional energy when they came. Could those personal energies be responsible, in part, for the increase in activity during their visits? During
Sightings’
first visit, the emotional energy was compounded by the anxiety that Tony and I felt about being interviewed on camera for a national show. Had these emotions contributed to the spirit energy and its use against Tony?

In addition to the emotional energy present during each visit, there were large cameras, batteries and chargers that were in the house at any given time. This certainly could have lent itself to a higher concentration of available energy for the spirit world. The intensity and increased occurrences of the activity during each filming session would seem to support this theory.

I remember
Sightings’
third visit very well. Not only did we get to work with a fascinating individual who made a tremendous impact on our paranormal life experience, we also got two more independent confirmations of a force that had been in the house much longer than us.

Peter James arrived fairly early, and I watched him get out of the car that had brought him. He had been given nothing but very basic information on the case. The camera was rolling as he drove up and after being greeted by the field director, Peter stood in front of the house and studied the windows of the second floor. In his eyes I saw an intent interest.

As he pointed up to the window of the master bedroom, he whispered something to George. We later learned that he had seen the face of a little girl in the window and he was confused because he had been told that a young couple with a baby boy resided in the house. As he entered the house, there seemed to be a calming, angelic air about him, soothing and almost immediately comforting.

He was gracious and courteous, and asked if he could walk around a little to get familiar with his surroundings. He did not seem to need to take in his surroundings visually; instead, he walked with his head down, twisting it back and forth ever so slightly as if he was trying to hear something. Although his eyes seemed to shift from side to side, it was apparent that he was not looking further than a few inches or so in front of him. This behavior impressed me. He seemed to survey his surroundings, gathering important details to do a cold read of our setting.

Also as he walked around, he made short sounds, as if he was trying to sound out a word. “S, S, S, Sa, Sa.” Working his way back to the front door and the stairwell to the upstairs, he suddenly stopped and pointed to the top. “There’s a little girl standing right there.” As we and the camera moved in to get a closer look, he put his hand up to stop us as if moving closer would startle or scare away the little girl. The camera got closer and he went on. “Right at the top of the stairs.”

In a firm but friendly voice, he said “Hello, hello.” Then he pointed again and whispered, “Look.” The camera got close enough to see the stairwell and landing.

“Hello, can you speak to me? Sallie, is that your name?” Peter mounted the stairs. “Okay, okay,” he said as he slowly ascended into her space.

I was standing just behind the cameraman. I heard Peter very clearly and when he asked if her name was Sallie, I was overjoyed. Within only a few minutes, he had been able detect the little spirit in our house and put a name to her. I felt it was one more validation for our claims and us. Additionally, I was pleased that Sallie was comfortable enough to have already allowed him to get close.

A short time later, we had a knock at the front door. Apparently,
Sightings
had arranged for the previous tenant to tell of her experiences. Colleen had agreed to a short on-camera interview but, like Tony, had wanted to remain anonymous. They set her up as a silhouette on the couch and we listened as she spoke.

She told them that she and her three children had lived in the house prior to us. She described how her five-year-old daughter had played with an imaginary friend named Sallie, and that they often played in the walk-in closet of the master bedroom. She recalled many occasions on which she would scold her daughter for leaving toys out or making a terrible mess, but her daughter denied doing so, saying, “I didn’t do it, Sallie did.” Other times her daughter would do things out of character and then report, “Sallie told me to do it.” With an air of regret, Colleen told of the times she punished her daughter for lying about those situations. Only now did she realize that her daughter had probably been telling the truth.

After her interview, the crew followed Peter in an attempt to get his impressions of paranormal experiences as they happened. Tony and I felt comfortable walking with Peter in the house, because it seemed there was a very real connection and he was able to communicate with the spirits. He had an “in” to the other side, so perhaps, we thought, there would be no more attacks on Tony. This, however, was not the case.

While in the hallway outside the master bedroom, Peter reported a strong level of resistance; he said that whatever was in the room didn’t want him to enter. To show the spirit he was not intimidated and was ready to stand his ground, he said, “Hello, hello.” With the rest of us standing just a few feet behind him, he stepped a foot or so into the room and in a demanding voice said, “Speak to me!” Tony and I had been standing in the doorway of the room and although I was not aware of it, Tony felt a distinct rush of fresh cold air fly past and through him right after Peter’s command; seemingly in reaction to it.

Tony was clearly nervous at this point, and he paced the hallway outside the room. With our previous experiences in mind, I knew there was something very wrong. A moment later Tony complained of a stinging on his lower back and stepped away to the area at the top of the stairs.

At the time Peter had no idea that Tony was sometimes physically attacked when the spirit wanted to make its presence known. So when the visibly distressed Tony backed away from the area, Peter tried to assure him that he shouldn’t be frightened. Peter told Tony, “You’re in control here.” Tony and I, however, knew differently.

I asked Tony to lift his shirt and found the letters “M” and “C”—each about four to five inches high—carved into his lower back. The cameraman documented these scratches and as he did so, we all heard electrical snaps sounding all around us. Peter felt one of them on the area of his wrist.

Aware that there was significance in the activity and likely fear on the part of the spirit, Peter firmly said, “Hello. Easy!” He paused for a moment. “I’m not afraid of you!”

He stood just outside the doorway for a minute and then reentered the room. He then resumed his attempt to communicate further and asked the spirit not to harm Tony.

He mentally asked who was in the room, but reported that all this particular spirit would give him was the letter “B.” Possibly the spirit was uncomfortable with the questions, because Tony was attacked again. This time, the back of his shirt was set on fire.

At first it seemed to smolder, and this is what caught the eye of one of the crew members standing behind Tony. The shirt then burst into flame and several of us began to smack at it to put it out. Tony seemed to have been completely unaware of what was happening. When the flame was finally put out, inspection showed that Tony’s skin was not affected, only the shirt.

Tony changed shirts to make the burnt one available for closer inspection. Each person was given the opportunity to look at the shirt. The manner in which it burned seemed normal and everyone agreed that there was no smell of a flammable substance on the shirt to have ignited it so inexplicably. The experience baffled the team. One of the crew members had been standing behind us to get the best camera shot of all of us, and had not seen Tony’s hand or anything else that could have been responsible for the incident.