THE STEP BY ESTEP GUIDE: Richard Estep investigates The Sallie House, he’s definitely in Kansas

THE LIVING ROOM

THE BEDROOM

THE NURSERY

The Sallie House

For British paranormal enthusiasts of a certain age, the American TV documentary series Sightings conjures up memories of tuning in to watch (or video tape) one of mainstream TV’s first, and inarguably one of the best, paranormal reality shows. For those who might be unfamiliar with it, viewers in the UK could catch Sightings on satellite TV during the 1990s. As a young man with a passion for all things paranormal, I was glued to the telly, devouring the segments on UFOs, cryptids, and most of all…ghosts.

The haunting which captured my imagination most strongly was the so-called “Heartland Ghost.” The Sightings cameras covered the experiences of a young married couple who had moved into their dream home in smalltown Kansas, only to find it already inhabited by the malevolent spirit of a young girl named Sallie. The show was careful not to identify the town, and also gave the family a false name in an attempt to disguise their identity. As the cameras rolled, bleeding scratch marks appeared on the body of the male tenant of the house. Viewers were shown pictures of his body bearing multiple scratches and other wounds, all said to have been inflicted by the vengeful Sallie. Why would the ghost of a young girl be so angry? The house was once the residence of a local doctor, and a persistent story maintains that one day, a six-year-old girl named Sallie was taken there by her terrified mother. Sallie was clutching her belly in agony, which the doctor believed to be caused by a ruptured appendix. A hemorrhaging appendix is a life threat, the doctor placed her on an operating table and cut open Sallie’s abdomen (some variants of the tale claim that he did not use an anesthetic, which would have been even more agonizing). It was, unfortunately, too late. Poor Sallie died right there, inside the house. Her restless and vindictive ghost remains there to this day, and because of her painful death at the hands of a male doctor, really has it in for certain men – which some claim explains her wrath being focused on the man of the house. As a spooky story, it’s brilliant. Unfortunately, it does not seem to bear up to close scrutiny. “During my research, I have been unable to locate any child named “Sallie” living or dying in the vicinity of the house which now bears her name.”

Neither have I been able to discover a headstone bearing that name in any of the local cemeteries (it must be pointed out, however, that “Sallie” could have been a nickname or term of endearment, in much the same way that some girls named Margaret were nicknamed “Peggie.”) If any readers happen to have corroborating documentation, please contact me, and I will be happy to stand corrected. Please note that I am not stating that these events definitely did not happen; I am pointing out that they are, based on the best efforts of myself and other investigators who have researched the Sallie House, not currently substantiated by any form of documentation. Indeed, it’s difficult to say for sure how this story even got started, though a number of selfprofessed sensitives/psychics have reported picking up on elements of it themselves. Going back to the 1990s, they have sensed the presence of an angry young girl in the house. Sightings regularly featured the work of medium Peter James, who arrived at the Sallie House to film one day, looked up, and claimed to see the apparition of a little girl staring down at him from one of the upstairs windows.

The Sallie House story enthralled Sightings viewers, so much so, in fact, that the Showtime channel made a 2002 TV movie about the case. Sightings: Heartland Ghost starred Beau Bridges, Nia Long, and Miguel Ferrer. The house went through a number of other owners after the family plagued by Sallie moved out, and currently sits unoccupied. It is privately owned, and self-guided tours can be taken during the daytime. At night, the house is available for overnight rental, and I did that myself on multiple occasions, driving from my adopted home state of Colorado to Atchison, Kansas.

“There are those who claim that the entire story is a fraud, nothing more than a manufactured haunting that was created to make money or fame for the residents. I find the idea preposterous.”

For one thing, the couple who lived in the house tried (unsuccessfully, as it turned out) to remain anonymous. What little they may have gained by appearing on a handful of television shows and writing a book about their experiences (The Sallie House Haunting: A True Story, Llewellyn Worldwide, 2010) has been more than balanced out by the amount of upheaval and chaos that resulted from their time living in the most notorious house in Kansas.

I interviewed the couple as part of the research process for my upcoming book about the case, and while my views are purely subjective, they struck me as being trustworthy and honest individuals. Neither of them asked for any money or material gain, and were willing to share notes, documentation, and photographs from their time living in the Sallie House. They are, to my mind, credible witnesses.

The Sallie House brings many visitors to Atchison each year, many drawn by the desire to experience the infamous location for themselves. For paranormal investigators and enthusiasts, it is a bucket list place. But the question that was foremost in my mind was: does it live up to all the hype?

It cannot be denied that the Sallie House has a fearsome reputation. This began with Sightings, and has continued to grow, thanks to appearances on TV shows such as Ghost Adventures. I personally know more than one investigator who flatly refuse to ever set foot in the house again. One suffered spontaneous burns on his legs while taking holy water down to the basement.

From the outside, there’s nothing particularly noteworthy about the property. It looks like an ordinary home in an ordinary residential neighborhood. The street outside is fairly busy, with both vehicular and foot traffic, which makes audio contamination a real problem for the visiting investigator to contend with. The house’s notoriety also presents other challenges. I was sitting quietly in the living room during one visit, all alone in the house (my colleagues were out fetching food). There were a couple of unexplained noises upstairs, which sounded like footsteps, but may simply have been the structure settling as the temperature cooled. Something made me look up. I froze. There, staring at me through the open blinds of the front window, was a young boy’s face.

For a moment, my heart quite literally skipped a beat. I looked at him. He looked at me. Then he kept on looking around the living room. I got up and went to the window.

“Something made me look up. I froze. There, staring at me through the open blinds of the front window, was a young boy’s face.”

THE STAIRS

A family of nine or ten was standing outside the house, chattering excitedly while they took pictures. This was to be a source of constant interruption during our investigation. One evening, as I was sitting at the front of the house and interviewing a witness, a chap rode by on a motor scooter and screamed at the top of his lungs: “Y’all gonna DIE!” (Spoiler: we did not, in fact, die. Otherwise, Paul and Andy would have one heck of a story on their hands…) Later that same evening, a loud knock at the front door startled us all. We ran for the door, only to find nobody there. Then we went out into the street, circled the house, searched the back yard, and checked behind the parked cars. No culprit was ever found. If we were pranked, then whoever did it was a hide and seek champion…either that, or they were very fleet of foot. once everybody bedded down, with one exception – the sound of footsteps walking around on the upper floor when none of us were awake.

One of my fellow investigators, a police officer by profession, had made it clear upon entering the house that he wasn’t particularly impressed by it. He and his wife were the last two people to leave at the end of one night’s investigating. Realizing he had left something in the fridge, he went back into the darkened house and was surprised to hear a door slamming somewhere inside the house. Even more surprising was what happened next: the kitchen light switched itself on, as did the master bedroom light upstairs. Deciding that discretion was the better part of valor, he beat feet for his car and hit the road.

I’ve talked to several paranormal investigators who claim that the Sallie House is somehow cursed…or, if not that, then the resident entity (or entities) like to cause mayhem in the lives of visitors. One visitor was left shaken when she hit a dear just a few miles away from the house, totaling her car and killing the animal in the process (fortunately, she herself did not sustain serious injury). I tend to be skeptical about such claims, but I do try to keep an open mind.

Driving home from the Sallie House after several hours of investigation, I was listening to the host of a podcast mock alien abduction stories, demanding to know why the only people ever abducted by UFOs were “driving through rural Kansas at four o’clock in the morning.” The irony was not lost on me that I was, in fact, driving through rural Kansas…at four o’clock in the morning. I was about forty minutes outside of Atchison, cruising west toward the Colorado border, when there suddenly came a loud bang.

“One highlight of the investigation was a remote viewing session conducted across the Atlantic with UK-based MJ Dickson.”

I made a point not to tell her which location I was at, or to post about it on social media. In addition to getting a number of solid hits on the nature of the house, she told me that for some strange reason, she was getting clear images of the cartoon character Tweety Bird. This knocked me for six, because upstairs in the closet of the nursery (long considered to have been ground zero for the original haunting) sat a plush, bright yellow Tweety Bird children’s toy. The sheer specificity and MJ DICKSON accuracy of this hit is something that I still cannot explain to this day. My fellow investigator, Rob, was quite shaken after feeling what he insists was a small hand touching him in the small of his back, beneath his T-shirt. Estes Method sessions would yield crude, sexually explicit responses from whatever was trying to communicate via the sweeping spirit box, much of it unprintable in the pages of a magazine as it was borderline pornographic. This type of language proved that we were not simply picking up on a commercial radio station, as using that type of profanity over the airwaves would cause the Federal Communications Commission to pull the station’s license. There were also threats and the standard pleas for help that seem to come through on the majority of spirit box sessions. Yet for all this, we slept undisturbed, each taking a bedroom to ourselves. There were no nightmares or strange nocturnal incidences

THE PICKUP AFTER THE LOUD BANG

THE SHREDDED TYRE

My pickup truck began to skid. I fought for control, turning into the skid as best I could, and the truck came to a halt at the side of the highway. Getting out to survey the damage, I discovered that the rear driver’s side tire was not just damaged, but absolutely shredded. Practically nothing was left. It was a new set of tires, with less than 5,000 miles on them. The mechanics who looked at the remnants later said that the catastrophic rupture may have been caused by a very rare manufacturing defect. He may well have been right, but part of me wondered, particularly after not just one but two psychic mediums that I know, had reached out to warn me that some kind of negative, hostile entity appeared to have glommed onto me because of my association with the Sallie House. Once again, I had taken their warnings with a grain of salt, but now I was seriously beginning to wonder. One glaring question which begs to be answered is: if Sallie never truly existed as a flesh and blood little girl, what really lies behind the haunting in the house which still bears her name? To me, it seems logical that we are dealing with a thought form of some kind. The story of the little girl dying on the operating table has been told countless times, over and over again. That same story can be found not only on the house’s website, but also on laminated cards affixed to the walls inside the home, as part of the self-guided tour. There is also a distinctly chilling painting of a ghostly little girl on display in the kitchen, along with a mocked-up surgeon’s table and medical implements. This all supports what has become the stand Sallie narrative.

The story has been repeated so many times, over and over again, that it is entirely possible for the tale to have taken on a life of its own. The concept of thought forms, also known as a tulpa, is far from new. I believe that it explains certain well-known hauntings, such as that of Inez at Iowa’s Malvern Manor, and the infamous Philip Experiment. As a tale grows and becomes entrenched in popular culture, as it is heard by hundreds, then thousands, then tens of thousands of people, it somehow manages to crystallize, assuming a living form that is capable of interaction with not just the physical environment, but also those people who inhabit it. On the other hand, perhaps an opportunistic entity has assumed Sallie’s mantle, and simply pretends to be her, role-playing as the dead child for its own opaque reasons. So many people visit the Sallie House each year, it is inconceivable that at least some of them would not take along some kind of “paranormal hitch-hiker,” one of which might have detached itself from its host and chosen to stay at the property. Perhaps scaring visitors is how it gets its kicks. It no longer matters whether the backstory is real or not. Sallie herself – or, perhaps more accurately, itself – is real, as numerous visitors and investigators can attest. Something strange and mysterious is going inside the house at 508 N. 2nd Street in Atchison, and whatever it is, has shown a distinct flair for being by turns playful and malicious. Again, this is just my theory, but I believe it bears further investigation. Reports of strange incidents at the Sallie House continue to cross my desk. Some visit the house and experience nothing at all, confidently declaring that it’s all overblown hype. Others, however, have life-changing encounters inside the mundane-looking residence. Without visiting in person to see for yourself, it’s impossible to say which will be the case for you.

Should you decide to roll the dice and spend the night there in person, I would welcome hearing from you (richard@ richardestep.net). I strongly recommend treating the house, and whatever lies within its walls, with the greatest of respect.

Richard

Readers can currently read about my time at the Sallie House in The Great American Ghost Trip, and the forthcoming book Sallie’s Home.