Poltergeists (6 page)

After we had thanked Detective Weaver for his courtesies we decided to pay a visit to the house itself. After a moment of hesitation, the officer suggested that he come along since it might make things easier for us. How right he was. When we arrived at the house on Elizabeth Street and cautiously approached the entrance, with me staying behind at first, there was something less than a cordial reception awaiting us. Mr. M. was fully aware of my purpose, of course, so that we were hardly surprising him with all this.

After a moment of low-key discussion at the door between Howard Beaird and Detective Weaver on one hand and Mr. M. on the other, I was permitted to enter the house and look around for myself. The M. family had come to see me, if not to greet me, and looked at me with curious eyes. I explained politely and briefly that I wanted to take some photographs for the record and I was permitted to do so. I took black and white pictures with a high sensitivity film in various areas of the house, especially the kitchen area where it connects with the garage and the living room, both places where many of the phenomena have been reported in Mr. Beaird’s testimony.

On developing these, under laboratory conditions, we found there was nothing unusual except perhaps certain bright light formations in the kitchen area where there should be none since no reflective surfaces existed. Then I returned to the living room to talk briefly with Mr. M. and his family.

Was there anything unusual about the house that he had noticed since he had moved in? Almost too fast he replied, “Nothing whatsoever. Everything was just fine.” When Mr. M. explained how splendid things were with the house he shot an anxious look at his wife, and I had the distinct impression they were trying to be as pleasant and superficial as possible and to get rid of me as fast as possible. Did they have any interest in occult phenomena such as ghosts? I finally asked. Mr. M. shook his head. Their religion did not allow them such considerations, he explained somewhat sternly. Then I knew the time had come to make my departure.

I made inquiries with real estate people in the area and discovered a few things about the house neither Mr. Beard nor Mr. M. had told me. The house was thirteen years old and had been built by a certain Terry Graham. There had been two tenants before the Beairds. Prior to 1835 the area had been Indian territory and was used as a cow pasture by the Cherokee Indians.

I also discovered that Mrs. M. had complained to the authorities about footsteps in the house when there was no one walking, of doors opening by themselves, and the uncanny feeling of being watched by someone she could not see. That was shortly after the M.s had moved into the house. The M.s also have young children. It is conceivable that the entities who caused such problems to the Beaird family might have been able to manifest through them also. Be that as it may, the matter was not followed up. Perhaps their religious upbringing and beliefs did not permit them to discuss such matters and they preferred to ignore them, or perhaps the activities died of their own volition. At any rate, it seemed pretty certain to me that the poltergeist activities did not entirely cease with the removal of the Beairds from the house. But did these activities continue in the new house the Beairds had chosen for their own? That was a far more important question.

I asked Howard Beaird to send me a report of further activities if and when they occurred at the new house. On February 23 he communicated with me by letter. I had asked him to send me samples of John’s and Andy’s handwriting so that I could compare them with the notes he had let me have for further study. In order to arrive at a satisfactory explanation of the phenomena it was, of course, necessary to consider all ordinary sources for them. Amongst the explanations one would have to take into account was the possibility of either conscious or unconscious fraud, that is to say, the writing of the notes by either John or Andy and their somehow manipulating them so that they would seem to appear out of nowhere in front of Mr. Beaird. For that purpose I needed examples of the two handwritings to compare them with some of the handwritings on the notes.

There were a number of noises in the new home that could be attributed to natural causes. But there were two separate incidents which, in the opinion of Howard Beaird, could not be so explained. Shortly before I arrived in Tyler a minor incident occurred which makes Howard wonder whether the entities from beyond the veil are still with him in the new house. One evening he had peeled two hardboiled eggs in order to have them for lunch the following day. He had placed them in the refrigerator on a paper towel. The following morning he discovered that both eggs were frozen solid even though they were still on the lower shelf of the refrigerator. This could only have been accomplished if they had spent considerable time in the freezer compartment during the night. Questioning his wife and son as to whether they had put the eggs in the freezer, he discovered that neither of them had done so. He decided to test the occurrence by repeating the process. He found that the two new eggs which he had placed in the refrigerator that night were still only chilled but not frozen the next day. What had made the first pair of eggs as hard as stone he is unable to understand, but he is satisfied that the occurrence may be of non-psychic origin.

Then there was the matter of a clock playing a certain tune as part of its alarm clock device. Through no apparent reason this clock went off several times, even though no one had been near it. Even though it had not been wound for a long time and had only a 24-hour movement, it played this tune several times from deep inside a chest of drawers. Eventually the clock was removed, and in retrospect Mr. Beaird does not think that a supernatural situation could have been responsible for it. But the two separate incidents did frighten the Beairds somewhat. They were afraid that the change of address had not been sufficient to free them from the influences of the past. As it turned out, the move was successful and the separation complete.

I had to work with two kind of evidence. There was, first of all, the massive evidence of mysterious notes which had fallen out of the sky and which showed handwriting of various kinds. Perhaps I could make something out of that by comparing them with the handwritings of living people. Then there was the question of talking personally and in depth with the main participants, the Beairds, and, finally, to see what others who knew them had to say about them. Howard Beaird’s daughter, Amy, now Mrs. Howard C. Wilson, thought that the real victim of what she thought “a circus of horrors” was her brother Andy. “If you had known Andy when he was small, up to the time mother began to show real signs of her illness, it would be impossible for you to recognize him as the same person now. He was typically, for a little boy, simply brimming over with mischievous humor. He would do anything to make people laugh and would run simply hooting with joy through the house when he had done something devilish.” That was not the Andy I met when I came to Tyler. The boy I talked to was quiet, withdrawn, painfully shy, and showed definite signs of being disturbed.

The following morning I went to see the Beairds at their new home. The home itself is pleasant and small and stands in a quiet, tree-lined street. As prearranged, Mr. Beaird left me alone with each of the two other members of his family so that I could speak to them in complete confidence. Andy, a lanky boy, seemed ill at ease at first when we sat down. In order to gain his confidence, I talked about songs and the records popular at the time, since I had seen a number of record albums in his room. Somehow this helped open him up; he spoke more freely after that. Now sixteen, he was studying at a local barber college. When I wondered how a young man, in this day and age, would choose this somewhat unusual profession, he assured me that the money was good in this line of work and that he really liked it. He felt he could put his heart and soul into it. After some discussion of the future as far as Andy was concerned, I brought the conversation around the matter at hand.

“When these peculiar events took place you and your father lived alone in the other house. Did you ever see anyone?” “Well, I had seen a vision of my mother this one time. It looked like her but nobody was there really...kind of like a shadow, or a form.” “Have you seen the notes?” “Yes.” “Did you ever actually see anyone writing them?” “No.” “Did you ever hear any voices?” “Yeh. I talked to them.” “How did they sound?” “Well, the women that were here all sounded alike...real high voices. The men were dead, you know...the spirits, or whatever you want to call them. They had real deep voices. They were hard to understand.” “Did they talk to you in the room?” “From out of nowhere. No matter where I might be.” “You didn’t see them anywhere?” “Never saw them.” “Was your father with you at the time you heard the voices or were you alone?” “He was with me at times and not at others.” “These voices...are they mostly in the daytime or are the at night?” “At night...mostly at night, or afternoon, when I’d get home from school.” “Did it start right after you moved in?” “No...it was two or three months after....” “Did you see the insects?” “Oh yes.” “Where did they come from?” “It seemed like just out of the ceiling.” “Could they have come in any other way?” “They couldn’t have come in...not that many.” “Whose voices did you hear?” “First of all my mother’s.” “The time she was away at Daingerfield?” “Yes.” “What did the voice sound like?” “The same high voice. It sounded a little like her.” “What did she say?” “She started to talk about my grandfather’s funeral and about someone being mean to her.”

Clearly the boy was not at his best. Whether it was my presence and the pressure the questioning was putting on him or whether he genuinely did not remember, he was somewhat uncertain about a lot of the things his father had told me about. But he was quite sure that he had heard his
mother’s voice at a time when she was away at Daingerfield. He was equally sure that none of the insects could have gotten into the house by ordinary means and that the notes came down, somehow of their own volition, from the ceiling. I did not wish to frighten him and thanked him for his testimony, short though it was. I then asked that John, Mrs. Beaird that is, be asked to join me in the front room so we could talk quietly. Mrs. Beaird seemed quite at ease with me and belied the rather turbulent history I knew she had had. Evidently the stay at her sister-in-law’s house and the prior psychiatric treatment had done some good. Her behavior was not at all unusual; in fact, it was deceivingly normal. Having seen one of her earlier photographs I realized that she had aged tremendously. Of course I realized that her husband would have discussed many of the things with her so that she would have gained secondhand knowledge of the phenomena. Nevertheless, I felt it important to probe into them because sometimes a person thinks she is covering up while, in fact, she is giving evidence.

“Now we are going to discuss the other house,” I said pleasantly. “Do you remember some of the events that happened in the other house?” “Well, I wasn’t there when they took place. They told me about it...and actually, you will learn more from my son than from me because I don’t know anything.” “You were away all that time?” “Yes.” “Before you went, did anything unusual happen?” “Nothing.” “After you came back did anything happen?” “Well, I don’t know...I don’t remember anything.” “Before you bought the house, did you have any unusual experience involving extrasensory perception at any time?” “Never. I know nothing whatever about it.” “You were living somewhere else for a while.” “I was with my sister-in-law.” “How would you describe that period of your life? Was it an unhappy one? A confusing one? What would you say that period was?” “I have never been unhappy. I have never been confused.” “Why did you go?” “I felt I needed to for personal reasons.” “During that time did you have contact with your husband and son? Did you telephone or did you come back from time to time?” “I did not come back, but I had some letters from them and I believe that I talked some....” “Did your husband ever tell you some of the things that had happened in your absence?” “Yes. He told me.” “What did you make of it?” “I didn’t understand it. If I had seen it, I’d have gotten to the bottom of it somehow.” “The people who are mentioned in some of these notes, are you familiar with them? Were there any of them that you had a personal difficulty with or grudge against?” “None whatever. They were friends.” “Now, you are familiar with this lady, Mrs. Elliott, who has, apparently, sent some notes.” “Oh yes. She was a very good friend of mine. Of course, she is much older. She had a daughter my age and we were very good friends.” “Did you have any difficulties?” “I have no difficulties,” she replied and her eyes filled with tears. “No? You had at the time you left here.” “Not real difficulties. For several reasons, I needed a change. I didn’t intend to stay so long. She was living alone and she worked during the day. And we sort of got into a most enjoyable relationship whereby I took care of certain household chores while she was gone...” “What made you stay so long?” “I just really can’t tell you what it was.” “You still have no answer to the puzzle as to what happened?” “None. I have no idea.” “Do you remember having any treatments?” “I’m just getting old. That is the difficulty.”

It was clear that her mind had blocked out all memory of the unpleasant occurrences in her life. As often happens with people who have undergone psychiatric treatment, there remains a void afterwards, even if electric shock therapy has not been used. Partially this is, of course, due to the treatment, but sometimes it is self-induced deliberately by the patient in order to avoid discussing the unpleasant. Mrs. Beaird had returned to her husband and son to resume life and try to make the best of it. To go back over the past would have served no purpose from her point of view. This was not a matter of refusing to discuss these things with me. She did not remember them quite consciously and no amount of probing would have helped, except perhaps in-depth hypnosis, and I was not prepared to undertake this with a former mental patient. Clearly then I could not get any additional material from the principal. I decided to re-examine the evidence and talk again with the one man who seemed, after all, the most reliable witness in the entire case, Mr. Beaird himself.