Speaker 1: In the spring of nineteen eighty six, Allen and Debbie
Speaker 1: Tallman moved in with their three young children into a
Speaker 1: modest ranch house on South Larrabee Street in Horicon, Wisconsin.
Speaker 1: The house was new, it had been built in nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty four, although it's worth noting that being nwe did
Speaker 1: not mean it wouldn't come with problems, and no, I'm
Speaker 1: not talking about the faults and the home inspection. For
Speaker 1: a while, life was ordinary and it was expected. They
Speaker 1: were living in a small Midwestern town after all. But
Speaker 1: all of that was going to change. They were still
Speaker 1: furnishing their home, so Allan and Debbie went to a
Speaker 1: local furniture shop in Horicon and found a set of
Speaker 1: bunk beds perfect for their two younger daughters. So they
Speaker 1: paid the second hand shop one hundred dollars and took
Speaker 1: it home. They took it straight to the basemind and
Speaker 1: stared it there before putting it together and then taking
Speaker 1: it upstairs. Eventually they got them into their daughter's bedrooms,
Speaker 1: but when they started sleeping in them, the first signs
Speaker 1: of trouble began. Soon after the bunk bed was moved
Speaker 1: into place, the children began experiencing health problems. They visited
Speaker 1: doctors more than usual, and one of them was hospitalized
Speaker 1: twice for illnesses that seemed unrelated to one another. At
Speaker 1: the same time, one of them was telling her parents
Speaker 1: that she kept hearing a strange voice telling her to
Speaker 1: be quiet at night. Danny, the oldest of three, claimed
Speaker 1: he saw a suitcase slide across the floor on its
Speaker 1: own before returning to where it had been. Allan and
Speaker 1: Debby assumed that these were the kinds of things children
Speaker 1: might imagine, but the events continued, the children's fear grew,
Speaker 1: and their stories were told with a consistency that was
Speaker 1: hard to dismiss. Over the weeks that followed, what began
Speaker 1: as strange noises and shifting objects would developed into something
Speaker 1: far more disturbing, marking the beginning of one of the
Speaker 1: most unusual hauntings ever reported in Wisconsin. Now, I came
Speaker 1: across this story in an old episode of Unsolved Mysteries,
Speaker 1: and although it was a very short segment, it still
Speaker 1: brought a long lasting type of fear of objects, things
Speaker 1: that don't move, that don't have a life of their own.
Speaker 1: I'm going to tell you the infamous tale of the tall,
Speaker 1: mean bunk bed incident. My name is Edwin and here's
Speaker 1: a horror story. It was late May of nineteen eighty
Speaker 1: seven when the bed was moved into the children's room.
Speaker 1: The arrangement was that the two girls would share the
Speaker 1: bunk beds and their oldest, a boy, would have his
Speaker 1: own room. The first incident came from the oldest son, Danny,
Speaker 1: who was sleeping in the room next to the bunk
Speaker 1: bed when he saw the clock radios dial moved by
Speaker 1: itself from one side to the other. He told his parents,
Speaker 1: but they were like, no, that can't happen. But still
Speaker 1: the mom, Debbie, thought that it was interference, so she
Speaker 1: went and took a look. That's when she saw that
Speaker 1: the knob was turning by itself and the red signal
Speaker 1: indicator was moving across a frequency bar. She found it
Speaker 1: really odd and took the radio out of the room.
Speaker 1: A few weeks later, mister Allan Tallman was painting in
Speaker 1: the basement when Debbie called him up for dinner. He
Speaker 1: laid the brush down and went upstairs. But when he
Speaker 1: went back down to the basement he found the brush
Speaker 1: he had been using bristles down in the paint. Now
Speaker 1: he would have never left it like that, so he
Speaker 1: tried to explain it to himself, but still couldn't. And
Speaker 1: yet he didn't want to even begin to think that
Speaker 1: his house was haunted. At first, Allan and Debbie try
Speaker 1: to calm themselves and the children down by suggesting that
Speaker 1: they were only dreaming or imagining things, but the consistency
Speaker 1: of it became harder to dismiss. Two of the children
Speaker 1: spoke of similar events, often separately, but their fear was real,
Speaker 1: and as parents, they were aware of it. In interviews,
Speaker 1: Debbie said that their two year old daughter had woken
Speaker 1: up screaming several times, saying that there was a fire
Speaker 1: on the door of her room, going shhh. Now, she
Speaker 1: mentioned that her son had told her of an old
Speaker 1: lady that was standing by the door in his room.
Speaker 1: It was a little old lady, quote really ugly, with
Speaker 1: long black hair and a glow about her like fire,
Speaker 1: with sounds of feet moving across the carpet. At one point,
Speaker 1: a babysitter saw a chair at the kitchen table that
Speaker 1: was rocking back and forth, with absolutely no one sitting
Speaker 1: on it and no explanation. Now, they themselves would sometimes
Speaker 1: see strange glowing shapes around the house as well. So
Speaker 1: at this point Debbie began to think that her house
Speaker 1: was proudly haunted, and the possibility that something in their
Speaker 1: home was intentionally trying to unsettle them. Near that last
Speaker 1: part of nightineteen eighty seven, they kept hearing doors banging
Speaker 1: open and shut, strange voices calling to them, and visions
Speaker 1: that were scaring the children. Things were getting out of hand.
Speaker 1: A week before Christmas, something had scared their son again,
Speaker 1: so Alan reached his breaking point. He started running around
Speaker 1: the rooms, challenging the entity, screaming to it, pick on me,
Speaker 1: leave my kids alone. If you want to fight, I'll fight.
Speaker 1: And he heard nothing back. But then one night, when
Speaker 1: he was getting home, he heard the howling of the wind,
Speaker 1: even though there was no breeze. He then heard it
Speaker 1: say come here, clearly audible. He started searching around to
Speaker 1: see who might have said that, expecting to find a prankster.
Speaker 1: He rushed over the front steps when he saw something
Speaker 1: glowing inside the garage. It was orangish red. He could
Speaker 1: see flames coming out of the overhead door, and that's
Speaker 1: when he saw two eyes in the windows. He immediately
Speaker 1: thought it was fire, but then he took a second look,
Speaker 1: and there was nothing. It was late around the same
Speaker 1: time again, at around two in the morning, and Alan
Speaker 1: had just returned from his late shift. He worked as
Speaker 1: a supervisor in a manufacturing plant, so it wasn't anything
Speaker 1: unusual for him, and on this occasion, Alan was in
Speaker 1: his daughter's bedroom waiting for them to fall asleep, when
Speaker 1: suddenly he heard a vacuum like sound. Startled. He looked around
Speaker 1: the room when he saw a foggy thing rise directly
Speaker 1: out of the floor with green eyes. As he stared
Speaker 1: in disbelief, he heard it say you're dead, and then
Speaker 1: it vanished instantly in a flash of flames. Now Alan
Speaker 1: was traumatized. He was visibly shaken when his wife, Debbie,
Speaker 1: saw him, describing him as white as a ghost and
Speaker 1: with blue lips. She kept asking what happened, what's wrong,
Speaker 1: but he wouldn't say anything. He was just standing there,
Speaker 1: tears coming down his face. His wife got on the
Speaker 1: phone and called a pastor from their church and told
Speaker 1: him what was going on, begging him to come right away,
Speaker 1: saying that Alan was crying and wouldn't tell her what happened.
Speaker 1: From the Unsolved Mysteries episode that I watched where they
Speaker 1: talked to the pastor. He said that Alan gave no
Speaker 1: signs of having made everything up. The pastor had been
Speaker 1: around terrified people before, and this is what was in
Speaker 1: front of him. So the pastor blessed the house, gave
Speaker 1: the family communion right there, and then gave them the
Speaker 1: tapes of church music for them to play in the house. However,
Speaker 1: the paranormal events resumed. This time had happened to a
Speaker 1: relative who was asked by Alan to watch over their
Speaker 1: daughters while they fell asleep since he had to go
Speaker 1: to work later than usual. This relative was skeptical of
Speaker 1: ghost so he was like, okay, we'll do it. But
Speaker 1: then he too saw quote the same specter, the one
Speaker 1: that had been seeing by the Tallman family. So he
Speaker 1: left the bedroom completely scared, saying, I am never coming
Speaker 1: back to this house. I cannot handle this. The family
Speaker 1: decided to leave the house for good that same night,
Speaker 1: opting instead to stay at a motel before the church
Speaker 1: provided them with a place to stay for the time. Now,
Speaker 1: around this time, word had spread around the neighborhood about
Speaker 1: the haunted Tallman home, something Debbie mentioned in an interview
Speaker 1: where she says how tough it was because she had
Speaker 1: to deal with the unknown in their home and the
Speaker 1: talk of around town. The house was in a subdivision
Speaker 1: of ten other houses noted by the Horricon Police Chief
Speaker 1: Douglas Claman. He, the pastor, and the homeowner had toured
Speaker 1: the house searching for recording devices, amplifiers, anything that showed
Speaker 1: that everything might have been a prank, even considering projection equipment,
Speaker 1: but nothing unusual was found. After all those nights of
Speaker 1: fear and sleeplessness, Alan and Debbie concluded that the bed
Speaker 1: was a source of the problem and that it had
Speaker 1: to be removed. So in early February of nineteen eighty eight,
Speaker 1: they arranged for the bunk bed to be taken to
Speaker 1: a local landfill. That wasn't just discarded, It was buried
Speaker 1: to ensure that no one else could ever use it.
Speaker 1: The family wanted to be absolutely certain that the object
Speaker 1: could not return to their home or passed to another family.
Speaker 1: Now at this point you might be thinking, what about
Speaker 1: this story made it about the bunk bet. What turns out,
Speaker 1: the activity throughout the Tollman home was strongly connected to
Speaker 1: the second hand bunk bets, the ones that were purchased.
Speaker 1: You see, they moved into November of nineteen eighty six,
Speaker 1: and the problem started six months later when the bunk
Speaker 1: beds were purchased, more specifically for the moment they were
Speaker 1: actually used for the first time. Now, something like a
Speaker 1: trigger came from those beds. Based on comments and polls
Speaker 1: from you guys, have found that we generally believe that
Speaker 1: entities might be tied to places or people themselves. This
Speaker 1: house was a relatively new construction and everything was fine
Speaker 1: until the beds were used. Plus, the new family who
Speaker 1: purchased the house in April of nineteen eighty eight reported
Speaker 1: no paranormal activity after moving in. Their story might have
Speaker 1: ended there had it not been for local press coverage
Speaker 1: and then the national attention through the television series Unsolved Mysteries.
Speaker 1: When the episode aired in October of nineteen eighty eight,
Speaker 1: it introduced the Tallman Haunting to a white audience. The
Speaker 1: segment featured dramatizations of the events, but also included interviews
Speaker 1: with Reverend Wayne doe Brats and police Chief Doug Glammon,
Speaker 1: both of whom vouched for the family's sincerity. I described
Speaker 1: them as credible, ordinary people now that supports at the
Speaker 1: Tallman case apart from many ghost stories, which often lack
Speaker 1: outside witnesses. Although the Tallman family never saw publicity, their
Speaker 1: experience quickly became a talking point in paranormal circles. It
Speaker 1: was unusual in that the disturbances seemed to be tied
Speaker 1: not to a house or a location, but to a
Speaker 1: single object. This gave the case a unique place, and
Speaker 1: discussions of cursed or haunted objects often mentioned alongside items
Speaker 1: like the Hope Diamond or the Annabel Doll. Although it
Speaker 1: never gave the same level of fame, the Taumans themselves
Speaker 1: did not pursue further media appearances. They gave no book deals,
Speaker 1: no follow up interviews. They avoided turning their story into entertainment.
Speaker 1: They would turn to private life, leaving only the original
Speaker 1: episode of Unsolved Mysteries and a handful of reports as
Speaker 1: a record. Some ways, this reluctance has added to the
Speaker 1: story's power. Unlike the Amityville Horror or Enfield Poulter Geist,
Speaker 1: the tall Men haunting was not commercialized or exaggerated for decades.
Speaker 1: It remains what it always was, a short, intense burst
Speaker 1: of terror centered around a single ordinary piece of furniture.
Speaker 1: The concept of things being haunted is way more common
Speaker 1: than you think, with even museums filled with objects that
Speaker 1: are set to be haunted. I remember when I visited
Speaker 1: Zach Begen's Haunted Museum in Las Vegas with my friend
Speaker 1: Michelle and left with a strange sense of dread because
Speaker 1: of the things that they had in there. At the
Speaker 1: paranormal field, they say that there are a few ways
Speaker 1: that an object can become haunted. One is residual energy
Speaker 1: or an energy attachment. The idea goes that living things
Speaker 1: energy and that it's this energy that can be stored
Speaker 1: or recorded with an objects. During my research, I kept
Speaker 1: finding stone tape theory, so I looked it up. It
Speaker 1: turns out it's a BBCTV play that was back from
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy two. It's actually called The Stone Tape and
Speaker 1: the story scientists investigate a haunted mansion, suggesting that the
Speaker 1: stone walls can record traumatic human events, kind of like
Speaker 1: how magnetic tape records sound. The idea seemed to make
Speaker 1: sense to paranormal research circles, so it stayed. They say
Speaker 1: that under certain conditions, these events can be replayed like
Speaker 1: a recording, and that's when people experience them as apparitions, sounds,
Speaker 1: or sensations. This is different than a ghost because they
Speaker 1: are seen as residual hauntings like mindless echoes of the
Speaker 1: past with no interaction. A second way is an actual
Speaker 1: spirit attachment, where if the objects was particularly loved by
Speaker 1: a spirit during their life, like a favorite doll or
Speaker 1: a toy, the bond to the item can be so
Speaker 1: strong spirit remains connected to it after passing away. This
Speaker 1: is where activity happens after buying a secondhand item. It's
Speaker 1: when we hear that a spirit may become upset if
Speaker 1: someone else tries to claim it. The third theory is
Speaker 1: a negative energy from traumatic events, where a negative imprint
Speaker 1: remains on a physical object, like if a weapon was
Speaker 1: used in a murder. It might retain the negative energy,
Speaker 1: making people feel uneasy if they hold it now. This
Speaker 1: is not to be confused with demonic type or energy.
Speaker 1: But then here's the fourth, which is an actual curse
Speaker 1: is on the object, but they are linked to malevolent
Speaker 1: forces like demons sometimes that will bring bad luck, misfortune,
Speaker 1: or death to their owners. This is one we hear
Speaker 1: about the most, at least in this podcast, because folklore
Speaker 1: and paranormal research is filled with them, some like stories
Speaker 1: of cursed diamonds that cause death to their owners or
Speaker 1: the recent stories circulating about Annabelle. These are just some
Speaker 1: examples and how this activity manifests through haunted objects, while
Speaker 1: it varies with things like electronic disturbances, movement of objects,
Speaker 1: sounds and voices, apparitions, illness and fires. Another famous example
Speaker 1: of haunted objects is the story of the Hexham Heads.
Speaker 1: The Hexham Head story begins in nineteen seventy one when
Speaker 1: two boys, Colin and Leslie Robson, reported digging up a
Speaker 1: pair of small carved stone heads in the garden of
Speaker 1: their families home in Hexham, Northumberland. Soon after the discovery,
Speaker 1: members of the rocks and household and the next door family,
Speaker 1: the Dods, described poltergeist like disturbances, objects shifting position when
Speaker 1: no one was near them, bottles thrown across the rooms,
Speaker 1: hair pulled, and in one neighbor's account, citing a strange
Speaker 1: part human before leaving the house. The heads, each only
Speaker 1: a few centimeters hi, quickly became the suspected focus of
Speaker 1: the activity. The artifacts were passed on to doctor Anne Ross,
Speaker 1: a noticed Celticist who had publicly written about the ritual
Speaker 1: importance of human head imagery in iron Age and Romanto
Speaker 1: British contexts. Ross later stated that she witnessed an apparition
Speaker 1: a part wolf, part man figure walking out of a
Speaker 1: room in her house and vanishing downstairs. Her daughter subsequently
Speaker 1: reported a similar encounter. Now Anne associated these events with
Speaker 1: the heads and returned them. Decades later, she repeated her
Speaker 1: first reactions and experiences in interviews, some that are cited
Speaker 1: by academic research. They were keeping the heads linked to
Speaker 1: uncanny phenomena. Eventually people examined how the pieces were made.
Speaker 1: One academic assessment concluded that the heads were molded rather
Speaker 1: than carved, suggesting a modern origin. The chain of custody
Speaker 1: during the mid nineteen seventies included museum staff and later
Speaker 1: independent investigators. After a period of private examination in the
Speaker 1: late nineteen seventies, the original heads reportedly went missing and
Speaker 1: the present whereabouts are unknown. Nineteen seventy four, a local
Speaker 1: lorry driver, Desmond Craigie, who was known as des claimed
Speaker 1: that he had made the heads in nineteen fifty six
Speaker 1: as toys for his daughter while living in the same
Speaker 1: address that the Robsons later occupied. He demonstrated the claim
Speaker 1: by producing new examples cast from local materials, though observers
Speaker 1: noted his replicas did not convincingly match the originals. DES's claim,
Speaker 1: if correct, would explain both the molded manufacture and the
Speaker 1: presence of the objects in the garden, but the debate
Speaker 1: over authenticity has never fully settled. The case briefly entered
Speaker 1: UK popular consciousness in nineteen seventy six via a BBC
Speaker 1: nationwide segment that featured Doctor Ann and reference a reported
Speaker 1: werewolf idea, a broadcast later restored and resurfaced by BBC Archives.
Speaker 1: The TV coverage helped cement the Heads as a nineteen
Speaker 1: seventies folklore touchdoone half archaeological curiosity, half contemporary legend. Today,
Speaker 1: the Hexham Heads set at the intersection of folklore studies, archaeology,
Speaker 1: and modern myth. The core facts a garden discovery, reported disturbances,
Speaker 1: expert interest, and a modern manufacturer claim, and the artifact's
Speaker 1: disappearance are reasonably well documented. However, the supernatural elements are
Speaker 1: mostly tied to witness testimony instead of some evidence, which
Speaker 1: is why the story persists as both a cautionary archaeological
Speaker 1: curiosity and as a classic haunted object story. But here's
Speaker 1: another one you might know. Back when I was taking
Speaker 1: a ghost tour in poor the tour guide told me
Speaker 1: a story about a very famous cursed object, one that
Speaker 1: I had heard of in Zach Began's museum. Although this
Speaker 1: story might not be exactly what you thought it was.
Speaker 1: Now this is a story of the Dibiic Box, and
Speaker 1: it begins in two thousand and one. Now a man
Speaker 1: named Kevin Mannus, a Portland, Oregon antique stealer, bought a
Speaker 1: small wooden wine cabinet and an estate sale. In his
Speaker 1: later accounts, Mannu said that the cabinet had belonged to
Speaker 1: a Polish Jewish woman, one who survived a Nazi concentration
Speaker 1: camp and brought it to the United States after World
Speaker 1: War Two. According to his story, the woman's granddaughter told
Speaker 1: him that the box had been kept hidden away and
Speaker 1: was never to be opened. She supposedly referred to it
Speaker 1: as a depic box. It's important to note, however, that
Speaker 1: this backstory has never been independently verified, and Manus himself
Speaker 1: has since admitted that much of it was a creative embellishment.
Speaker 1: Now Jewish folklora a typyk is understood as a restless spirit,
Speaker 1: one that can attach itself to a person, often portrayed
Speaker 1: as malicious or troubled. The figure of the dibik has
Speaker 1: been part of Jewish storytelling for centuries, though not all
Speaker 1: traditions accept it literally. The specific idea of a dibic box, however,
Speaker 1: does not come from Jewish religious practice, and appears to
Speaker 1: have originated with Manis tail A. Man Is described opening
Speaker 1: the box and finding two nineteen twenties pennies, a lock
Speaker 1: of hair tied with a string, and a small statue
Speaker 1: engraved with the Hebrew word shalom, a wine goblet, and
Speaker 1: a dried rosebud, also a candle holder. He claimed that
Speaker 1: soon afterward strange events began. According to his story, he
Speaker 1: had nightmares of an old hag attacking him, and his
Speaker 1: mother suffered a stroke on the very day he gave
Speaker 1: her the cabinet. He also described flickering lights, unexplained orders,
Speaker 1: and visitors who felt dread or illness in its presence.
Speaker 1: These reports come solely from Manus's own testimony, and while
Speaker 1: they have been repeated often, there's no outside confirmation that
Speaker 1: such events took place. Over time, Manus tried to give
Speaker 1: the box away. He said that each new owner reported misfortunes,
Speaker 1: including insomnia, hair loss, and severe anxiety. One owner, a
Speaker 1: college student named Josef Nitzke, listed the box on eBay
Speaker 1: in two thousand and three, calling it a cursed object,
Speaker 1: and that list thing went viral very quickly. It just
Speaker 1: spread across the Internet forums and news outlets, capturing attention
Speaker 1: as one of the first widely shared online ghost stories. Eventually,
Speaker 1: the box was purchased by Jason Haxton, the director of
Speaker 1: a museum in Missouri that Haxton later wrote a book
Speaker 1: about the object in twenty eleven, where he claimed it
Speaker 1: caused welts to appear on his skin and interfered with electronics.
Speaker 1: He said he once sealed it in a military container
Speaker 1: and buried it for safety before finally donating it to
Speaker 1: Zach Began's Haunted Museum in Las Vegas. Today, the box
Speaker 1: is displayed there as one of the museum's main attractions.
Speaker 1: Begans has said that multiple visitors, including musician Post Malone,
Speaker 1: experienced frightening incidents after interacting with it. I actually got
Speaker 1: to see it and the story behind it. Even though
Speaker 1: it might be made up partially, it's pretty cool. In
Speaker 1: twenty twenty one, reporting revealed that Kevin Mannis had admitted
Speaker 1: to crafting much of this story. It was kind of
Speaker 1: a creative exercise that later took on a life of
Speaker 1: its own. Despite this, the Devic Box has endured in
Speaker 1: popular culture, largely because of its viral spread online, its
Speaker 1: appearance in books and television, and it's continued to display
Speaker 1: at the Haunted Museum. Today, the story persists less as
Speaker 1: a matter of document minted fact and more as a
Speaker 1: blend of modern folklore, marketing, and the timeless fascination with
Speaker 1: cursed objects. The power of story behind objects is a
Speaker 1: very powerful one, enough to make people pay much more
Speaker 1: for what they're getting, and at times quite literally, like
Speaker 1: for the bunk bets, the family paid one hundred dollars
Speaker 1: and ended up losing more than three thousand after giving
Speaker 1: up their home because of the incidents. And if you're
Speaker 1: like thrifting, have you ever purchased something that didn't quite
Speaker 1: feel right? Because when it comes to secondhand items, the
Speaker 1: shared walls of hotel rooms, and perhaps the physical memories
Speaker 1: of those who lived in your home long before you,
Speaker 1: can you actually trust what remains now. This episode of
Speaker 1: Horror Story was researched and written by me Edwin Komar
Speaker 1: Rubias regarding the story of the Tallman bunk beds. Was
Speaker 1: it actually the beds? Let me know what you think
Speaker 1: about it, and if you want to watch the original
Speaker 1: Unsolved Mystery segment, I'll link to it so you can
Speaker 1: watch it on YouTube. That show was one of my
Speaker 1: favorites back in the day. Anyway, to support this and
Speaker 1: my other shows, you can try out Scary plus over
Speaker 1: on scaryplus dot com. You get all these episodes at
Speaker 1: free and keeps everything going. Or if you can drop
Speaker 1: some stars for me in the reviews, that always helps.
Speaker 1: We're following the show. I'll be back next week with
Speaker 1: another story. Thank you very much for listening. Keep it
Speaker 1: Scary everyone, See soon.