MOST HAUNTED HOUSE IN SCOTLAND | Ballechin House & 1st Celeb GhostHunter Ada Goodrich-Freer (Ep 335)

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This is Scotland's most haunted house, the Balkan House. An entire cyclical research team is going to move into this home to document the hauntings. Over the course of 4 months, the group conducted sessions with Ouija boards, crystal gazing, received automatic writing messages. There were at least four apparitions. Everyone who stayed there reported an uneasy heaviness, the feeling of someone was standing just behind you, watching you, because there was. This quickly goes from what seems like an odd eccentric man with this belief in reincarnation to one of the most controversial and scandalous paranormal investigations. A scandal. I'm so intrigued. I know.

Well, if Two Girls Ghost ever comes out with a movie, you probably know what it's going to be based on. Yeah.

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Yeah.

Very spooky.

Hi.

Hi. This is

two girls, one ghost.

Two girls, one ghost. And we are your ghostesses. That is Karen.

Hello. I am Sabrina Jambo. Hello,

Jambo.

And I'm so excited for today's episode.

Me, too. You teased us last two weeks ago.

Two weeks ago. And it's not even like that gave zero indication of what this episode is actually about to entail.

Question. Are you able to go to this house when you go to Scotland this October?

No.

No. Okay. So, we'll just live vicariously through others who have shared their experience online, which you have researched and are about to tell us.

Yeah, I'm okay. I'm just really excited. I also feel like this episode can hardly

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fit the amount of evidence that there is from this house.

No way.

This is Scotland's most haunted house, the Balkan House.

It has just like a medieval name, too. Like I just imagine like the kings and queens sort of like the whole fighting and blood baths and

well there I mean there is I went so deep into this house and like the clan of which the home and the land belong to and they're descendants of one of the kings. Like it is it is very Game of Thrones, but it's also what I teased in episode 333 was the story of a man who very very deeply and profoundly believed in reincarnation that he believed he would be reincarnated as a dog.

Mhm. But this quickly goes from what seems like an odd eccentric man with this belief in reincarnation to one of the most controversial and scandalous

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paranormal investigations from the 19th century.

What?

And the most heartbreaking tragic defamation of a female in the industry of cyclical research.

Right. This is just like another one of those instances where it's like how have we not heard of this before,

right?

This is more evidence that evidence will always be coming forward and even when it happened someund 200 years ago sometimes it's still new to us.

We'll never run out of things to talk about.

We will never ever be done with this podcast.

A scandal. I'm so intrigued.

I know. And I honestly just want to say upfront like justice for Ada.

Justice for Ada.

Justice for Ada. You should have worn your sweatshirt that says ADA. I gotta go. I'll be back in an hour.

A missed opportunity. So, this is the

Ballechin House

story of Scotland's most haunted house, the Bolicanin House. It is located or was located in Perth Shshire, Scotland,

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which I believe is western Scotland. According to the Stewart family clan organization website, which I spent a lot of time on, it is a stunning Georgian estate that had been in the Stewart family since before the 15th century. It belonged to James Stewart of Sticks and Bolicanin, believed to be an illegitimate son of James II, who was the king of Scotland. H the land was once home to a stunning stone structure that fell into disrepair. And the only thing that remained or remained from that original home was the Steuart family arms that was dated 1579. And so I did some research to try to find this code of arms.

Yeah.

And I found that the Steuart family has an organization and an entire website dedicated to their history and lineage. And I was like, "Okay, are these the correct Stewarts?" Mhm.

Because how many Stewarts are there in Scotland? Which the answer is there are many, a lot. But it is the correct Stewarts because when I went to check

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like the website is called stewartsocciety.org.

Mhm.

And it has

it's kind of like creepy in a way to have like a society all about you and your family.

It's very like so much pride in their family line. And I feel like that is common. Same with games game of thrones. But like There's just the clans, right? And Scotland was like very clan-based.

It's just also crazy to think about like castles and large homes and estates and how many people like if you were like the cousin, you also had some sort of Scotland's not very big. How were all of these people and their big ass houses fitting? Well, and they had so many. So there's on this website there's like a whole page, multiple pages about castles and buildings that belong to the Steuart family. And so I found amongst this list the Bolicanin house listed. So I was like, "Oh, it must be the correct stewards." Yeah. But all of the houses have like the name of the manor, the castle, the building, whatever. And then

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the location. The Bolican House had Bolicanin House dash haunted house.

Don't go there. Nothing address. Nothing else.

Just haunted.

Haunted house.

Wait, that's incredible.

I know.

I like that they claim it. I'm sure all the other houses have hauntings, too, but clearly this one is like

and it's infamous. So, this is what I found and what I believe to be the Steuart family arms, which is in the house. So, if you're watching YouTube, you can see some images, and you'll also get to see a lot of photos relative to this story. It's really interesting because it does kind of, and this is no insult to this family, but given that it's not like an actual photo of like a tapestry or something, it does look like something like if you were in middle school and you were using what was that um like paint thing that we used to have on like early days computers thing and you could use like dots and paint and make lines.

Didn't they also have like certain objects that you could like fill in and

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paint? It was kind of like a coloring book on the computer.

Yeah, it looks like that.

Yeah,

it looks like the result of that.

Keep in mind this dates back to like the 1400s. So like the access to colors and like artwork is very different and they're putting this like on their armor. They're putting this on like they're etching it into. But still, it's like you look at all the marles so hard.

I'm not judging the crest or the coat of arms or whatever. What's it called?

The arms. family. I'm not judging that. I'm judging specifically the photo of it that you just showed.

Okay. Well, I don't have a photo of the actual stone carving, but this is what we have. Okay. So, the only thing that remains from the original building is a stone carving of the arms. And in 1806, the Steuart family that lived on the property decided to build a Georgian style manor on the property. not exactly in the exact same spot where the previous home was, but they ensured that the only remnant of the previous home, the family arms, was built into the wall

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of the new home, which I think is a very beautiful homage. So, this home is stunning and massive, and there are blueprints in the YouTube video. So, we're going to go through the basement first. The basement had kitchens, offices, a pantry, a smoking room, a billiard room, and a lamp room, which what happened in a lamp room? I don't know. Then it had a ground floor with a great hall, a dining room, a morning room, a drawing room, a butler room, four bedrooms, and a bathroom.

Wow.

This also kind of plays out like Clue.

Oh, I like this.

The second floor had eight rooms, many of which will play an important role in this episode because they are numbered. And we'll come back to this specific blueprint because when we talk about the specific hauntings, they're like associated with the room numbers. It also had an attic. And then additionally, the property included a beautiful garden, like a stream, servants quarters, outbuildings, a parish, and a churchyard. I'm not sure 100% of this history of the Steuart

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family and like who was the first one to live here,

but there are many notable Stearts who lived on or were of Balkan. They are descendants of the broader family that at one time held the Scottish throne and then later the British throne. But the important thing to note is that there are over 300 years of stewards, their wives, their families who have lived on this land who have owned and potentially died in this home and are potentially buried on the property. But today,

do they have like an actual marked family cemetery? So, and we'll get to this at the very end, but like the property isn't maintained anymore. So, I don't really know what it looks like at this point,

but I do know when we get to Robert, Major Robert, who's the one we talked about in episode 333, like

his grave was not marked. Like, a lot of people were buried there, but not necessarily

marked in the traditional sense that we know.

I'm curious if everyone was like generally buried in the same area or if it was just kind of like go outside and

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dig a hole sort of situ. I think they were all in the churchyard.

Okay.

Yeah,

cuz I was like, that's a little creepy to just be like wandering through the gardens or something and they're like, is great great aunt Sue here?

Well, I smell great great aunt Sue. She must be buried beneath my feet. Okay, but today our story of this haunted house really begins in 1806, the same year that the current property of the home was built. It was January of 1806 when Robert Stewart was born. He was one of nine children, six girls and three boys. And I think he was the youngest boy, so he had two older brothers. And you'll remember Robert from our episode 333, which is two episodes before this. But today, we're going to get to know him and his home so much better. So, Robert entered the military in 1825 at service of the East India Company. He spent a lot of his time traveling. And then in 1834 his mother passed away and he inherited the Balkan house because unfortunately his two other brothers had

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died unmarried and his sisters it's 1834 were not eligible to inherit the home. Boo.

Yeah. But Robert was still away serving in the military. So apparently he rented out the home until 1850 when he retired as Major Robert Stewart and he returned to the Bolican House with some new spiritual beliefs. Again, we briefly

Major Robert Steuart & reincarnation

discussed this in episode 333, but Major Robert Stewart had become so fascinated by Hinduism while serving in the military. And so when he returned to Bolicanin House in 1850, he was convinced he would one day return and inhabit the shape of a black spananiel. In order to make that transition easier, he adopted many black spananiels. I think it was 14. And he figured that one of them would be the vessel for his spirit when he himself passed. He was so adamant in his belief in reincarnation that he made it known to everyone. There's a gardener who was quoted saying that Robert told him, "You better take care to keep up the garden properly for

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when I am gone, my soul will go into a mole and haunt the garden and you too."

Is this his way of getting everyone to like stay in line with what he wanted? Just like threatening reincarnation to everybody? No, he like genuinely like believed it and he loved this house and he never got married and he never had children.

So I think like his staff and the people who worked on the property were kind of his only friends

or his closest friends.

Yeah.

In addition to his furry friends. In 1873, a young housekeeper named Sarah and her last name starts with an N. I couldn't find her full name because in the book most people's names are like

redacted.

Redacted. Yeah, Sarah died suddenly and I think she was like either early 30s, late 20s, so she's young. And apparently she died in a mysterious way in the main bedroom as in in Robert's bedroom,

which is this mysterious or is this like where the scandal comes in?

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This actually has nothing to do with the scandal.

Oh,

and we kind of get no answers.

The drama of the story. And we don't get any answers here of like why it was mysterious or like what happened to Sarah, but she died in 1873. And I guess it's insinuated that her and Major Stewart had a relationship of some kind in like a sexual nature, but like again there's no evidence for sure. Then 3 years later in April of 1876, Major Robert Stewart passed away. He was buried beside Sarah and another one of his servants in the middle of the parish courtyard. No monument marked their final resting places. And like we said in episode 333, upon his death, his nephew, his sister's son, whose name was John Skinner, inherited the home. Upon inheriting the home, he actually changed his last name to Stewart to like continue the Steuart of Pelican family clan. Unfortunately, this nephew John was not too keen on the idea of his uncle returning in any

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manner, but especially not as a dog as he had like so adamantly professed for years.

So, John ordered the staff to kill all 14 dogs that had belonged to his uncle Robert and any dog that came onto the property. evil, which is

so he did he had to have believed in reincarnation because he was so fearful of his uncle returning as a dog.

It's one of those like yes, but he wouldn't say that, you know,

any dog who steps on the property you kill. What about a cat? What about a horse?

But is it like a belief of like that's the demon's work? That's devilish or satanic and I don't want anything to do with that.

I think he was very religious and so there's

it's still a belief.

It's a belief. Either way, he believes.

Either way, he believes. And he

apparently it's not devilish to murder innocent animals, though. So,

yeah.

How ironic.

Yeah.

But that did not stop Major Robert Stewart from uh coming back. While he

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may not have been able to reincarnate as a living dog, he sure as heck came back to haunt the home. And it might not just be as a spectral dog. He might have come back as a spirit in his own form. Dang.

hauntings at the house

So almost immediately after Major Stewart's death and the death of all his dogs, very strange happenings start happening at the home. It began with a smell and small sounds that like very easily could have been written off. And keep in mind, John, his wife, and I think he had multiple kids are moving into this house for the first time. They're not that familiar with it. Sure, they visited over the years, but they haven't lived here. They haven't gotten accustomed to like the house's characteristics and traits and like quirks,

but the smell was uncanny to that of a dog.

A wet dog, right?

A wet dog. And then sounds became more and more aggressive. Knocks that seem to be like engaging into ongoing conversations.

Ooh.

Then sounds of explosions.

This is like poltergeist activity for sure.

Sounds of people fighting. And then when

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people would go and investigate the sounds, nothing would be found.

Huh.

My belief is that this home had so I mean there's so much history. There's so many people who have lived on this property, this land,

that it almost feels like once Robert passed away because his belief in the paranormal and like reincarnation was so strong that he opened the floodgates

Yeah.

to activity happening. for some reason reminds me of the Disney movie Encanto because it's like her connection to the house and the whole family's like belief in the house like living and being this big part of them like it it lets the house

Yeah. come to life.

Come to life. Yeah.

Yeah. So, one day John's wife was in the study when that smell of dog became very overpowering and with it came a little nudge against her leg as if a dog had rubbed up against her.

Huge. But it terrified her. She was so scared that she like no longer wanted to stay in the house. Of course, she stayed for a little bit. And then staff started

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becoming terrified of the house as well because there would be unexplained footsteps accompanied by cold spots. And on many nights, John and his wife would hear the sound of someone like pacing and walking around the bed

with a limp. and Robert, Major Robert Stewart, had a limp.

Well, there we go. Proof done. Solved.

People continued to smell the dogs to feel like they were being pushed, cold spots, hearing knocks, voices, rattles. Family members reported being terrorized by poltergeist activity.

Bed clothes would be pulled off the beds by unseen hands. There would be groans, heavy breathing, icy coldness, seeing people when they were not there.

Wait, which family was this? This wasn't the

This is John Stewart.

So, this is his nephew that killed Okay. I wasn't sure if this was like families after this.

No. No.

So, I mean, he went and killed all of the dogs that were beloved to probably

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everyone in the home, too. I'm sure the staff and everybody loves those dogs. So, yeah, I understand the house rejecting him and fighting back,

but the poor kids, his wife, like everyone is and the staff are being

Yeah. I mean, I don't necessarily think it's like terrorized in an evil way, but like the hauntings have just

all of a sudden, floodgates open, everything is happening,

and it seems like it's non-stop.

So, the hauntings become so prominent that John builds a new wing in 1883, and they no longer live in the old portion of the house that had been built in 1806. This is just like the house of my neighborhood. Remember?

Yes. For anyone who doesn't understand the reference, the house doesn't exist anymore, but the neighborhood that I live in used to just be a big amount of land with one giant mansion on top of the hill, and the mansion has since been torn down. But the family that lived there, supposedly they lived in one small section of the house because the rest of the house was just run rampant

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by ghosts and they were scared.

Yeah. And I think also because of John's beliefs and like or rather like disbelief of the paranormal that he didn't know how to deal with it. He didn't understand that this is perhaps like his uncle's spirit wanting redemption or

wanting to be acknowledged or maybe there's like a conversation to be had. Instead, he was like,

or there's some like weird little things going on that as a spectral observer,

his uncle was like, "Oh, hell no. Are you going to do this shitty business?"

Like, we don't know what what the spirit world was peeping in on as well.

Well, am I right?

No. Well, Uncle was looking out and I'll tell you in a minute. We'll get there.

Hey, Uncle was a dog lover, so he in our

We're team Robert.

Yes. So yes, he built a brand new wing in 1883. His family and all of the staff refused to go in the old portion of the

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home. They remain all the staff, too.

Yeah. Everyone.

And I'm assuming this is the same staff that worked for

I'm sure there was some crossover.

And John probably kept Yeah. most of them on. And then he allowed the cottage that was on the property to be used as a retreat for nuns, which then leads us to one of the more prominently documented hauntings at the home prior to what becomes even more heavily documented haunting.

So he brings nuns in and then it becomes more haunted. What?

So like there's the chapel on the property too and it's a private chapel. So there's priests that have like come and gone and stayed.

So there was already that holy aspect to it. So he extended the openness to some nuns.

In 1892, a Jesuit priest named Father Hayden spent many nights in the home and he had to rotate rooms due to hauntings because the first room and the first night he was awoken by loud noises and shrieks of animalistic nature. The next night he chose to sleep in another room, but the encounters happened and that is

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when he started hearing the explosions which sounded similar to that of like military equipment going off. But the sound that alarmed him the most was what he describes as and this is very like to me what I hypothesize out of this haunting is very very sad. he describes as a large animal throwing itself violently against the outside of his door, which makes me think, and this is a common haunting, it's a residual haunting of like one of the dogs being killed. Yeah. No one else seemed to be hearing the sounds, just Father Hayden. So, Father Hayden spoke to the owner, John Stewart, about this. And John confessed that he believed his late uncle was responsible for the hauntings, that perhaps Robert, Major Robert, his uncle, was trying to attract attention because his soul was not at rest. So, John is like, "Oh, we need to help him find peace." So, he

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asks Father Hayden to like pray for Robert's soul.

Mhm. Father Hayden had arrived to the house July 14th, 1892 and left by Saturday, July 23rd. He stated that of the nine nights spent there, the only night that was undisturbed was his final night because the house wanted him gone. Wait, or was the house trying to be like, "Oh no, our play thing's about to leave."

Play thing.

Let's pretend like we're going to be chill. Maybe he'll stay.

I don't know. I mean, that's the thing with all hauntings. It's like and every haunted house we've talked about, it's like why do the hauntings seem to be like really intense one time and then go quiet and then come back? Like what is the pattern and what is the reason?

Well, it's even the Lizzie Bordon house when we went with Ash and Elena and then as soon as we all decided we were going to leave, the house got super bright. We felt super comfortable. It was like okay, we're done.

Like it stopped performing.

Yeah.

Yeah. And then so Ada, who will come into the story later, she's a prominent female investigator of the time. She

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recalled that like of many of her studies, she was like the hardest thing about the paranormal is that there doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason. and she said it in a more eloquently like sophisticated way, but basically you could spend a hundred nights at a place and experience zero hauntings, but the day you leave all of the hauntings could happen.

And then you could come back 20 days later and the day before you come it's extremely active, but the day you come it's quiet. So there's no that makes sense.

That happened in my in my parents house too, like in my family house growing up because I remember there was a period where it was so incredibly active and we were all so curious about it that my mom had emailed the New England whatever like some New England paranormal investigative group that was like really big. This was maybe like 15 years ago at this point. And they emailed back like a month later. My mom was like, "It's not really active anymore. Like we're going through a really low like

it's not the right time."

Yeah. Now is not the time. You know, if

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you wanted to come, you would have probably had to come the next day.

Yeah. Father Hayden is departing on Saturday, July 23rd of 1892. On his leave, John Stewart, the owner of the house, begs Father Hayden, "Please not give the house a bad name." Basically being like, "Please don't go around telling everyone the house is haunted."

Yeah.

So, after leaving the home, Father Hayden did share his encounters with very few people. And one evening, I think he was in Scotland or he was somewhere, but he struck up a conversation with a stranger

and he was surprised to find that this woman had been a governness at the Bolicanin estate for some time. So working there from 1778 to 1880 and she left unprompted by Father Hayden. Father Hayden told nothing. This woman is a complete stranger who coincidentally used to work at the house. Tells Father Hayden that she left the home because of the strange sounds that alarmed her. She had never seen anything, but she heard things in certain rooms and told a story

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of two military officers who had spent one night in the house and fled immediately in the morning. This partially reminds me slightly of the bell witch cave where it's like officials just people who are supposed to be like unshakable, unbreakable, and everyone's running screaming from the house.

Yeah. It's also just like such a weird time because there is the spiritualist movement that is happening and this like rise of people being interested and curious, but then there's also the like heavy influence of religion and it's not too distant from witch trials and

you know massacres and persecution of religious beliefs. So I feel like there's like a weird dichotomy that's happening here. And it also I guess I'm just so confused about that time period too because it does to me it just seems so like there's people who get punished for believing those things and then there's other people that are so vocal and it's like what's the right one like how who

who what when why do you stay alive?

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Yeah.

And then you have to like worry about like dissentry and poor hygiene and other things too. It's like

survival is not

for the week. So, now it's January of

John's death

1985 and John Stewart is in the business room preparing to go to London on a business trip. He's on the phone in his business room when all of the sudden paranormal activity seems to hit an all-time high. Like, there is such intense knocking that he can no longer hear the person on the other end of the phone.

Oh, wow.

And instead of taking this as like a sign or a warning of some kind, cuz it's like, why all of a sudden is this so persistent? And it is occurring

up until the moment he leaves the house.

Yeah.

He continues to go to London. He should not have ignored whatever this was because this was his last time ever in the home alive. Shortly after this encounter, John left for London where he was tragically run

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over by a cab in the street and died from his injuries. So now we're calling this story. A lot of people are theorizing. Was this his uncle's spirit or the spirits of the home trying to warn him preventing him from leaving

but he didn't listen?

Or like a little Haunting of Hill House like if you don't stay at the house, if you don't get called back, like still bad things will follow you.

Well, thank you for bringing up Haunting of Hill House because if you haven't, which I feel like you haven't, watch the original Haunting of Hill House movie.

No, I've been wanting to read the book.

Yeah. So, I I think I bought the book. somewhere. I I think the book is probably like the original movie, but it's so different from the TV show we've all watched. A haunting of Hill House movie cuz I haven't read the book is about like a group of people who for some like experiment and study go move into a haunted house and like all of the hauntings that ensue. And it reminds me so much of this story because an entire

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cyclical research team is going to move into this home to document the hauntings and experience an unbelievable amount.

Dang. But before we get there, John passes away.

Mhm. Which I have mixed feelings about how I feel about his passing because obviously he left behind a family and children, but he killed a bunch of dogs.

Yes. I'm not sure I'm going to that he can redeem himself in my eyes after that.

Pretty awful.

Graza

This episode of Two Girls One Ghost is brought to you by Graza and it is that time of the year. It's summer. So whether you're grilling on the deck or if you're at the beach, Graza is your one and only summertime never blended single origin olive oil. And we recommend getting the trio. There are two more bottles that come with this one, but this is my empty one because we just finished it off last night. the drizzle. It's a finishing oil, but they also have the sizzle and the frizzle. The sizzle is for kind of like everyday cooking oil, and then the frizzle is for

29:00

those high heat meals, like when you're grilling and and doing stuff like that.

I've been romanticizing everything in my life lately. So, I've been like in a very like Allah European lifestyle. I've been making baguettes with slices of tomatoes and bara and I always drizzle the drizzle on top of it with like a little bit of flaky salt.

Delicious.

Delicious. And you can get 10% off on Graza's site with your first order. We recommend getting the trio, the Frile, the Drizzle, and the Sizzle. So head to graza.co and use two girls to get 10% off the trio, which includes the sizzle, the drizzle, and the frizzle, and get to cooking your next chef quality meal. After John's death, the home and the estate continued to be passed down the Steuart family line. But the hauntings had become such a persistent problem that no Steuart really lived in the house. They would rent it out. So, they had a proprietor.

They Airbnbed it before was a thing.

They did

the original haunted Airbnb experience.

Oh my gosh. Amazing.

They had a proprietor who basically like

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managed the property and they would rent it out,

but they would rent it out without telling people of the hauntings, but they quickly found out because they had moved into the house and most of them would move out like almost immediately. So many tenants left within weeks of taking residency. There was one family that took residency in August of 1896 and left after 7 weeks, forfeiting most of their rent. Wow. So then in 1896, one Colonel Taylor, who was a member of the London Spiritualist Alliance in the Society of Cyclical Research, which we'll call SPR for the remainder of this episode.

Yeah, let's save your brain and mouth. the trouble

took over the lease of the home because by this time the haunting nature of the house had been heard and shared amongst the cyclical n or like community. So there's someone named Lord but who is also a part of this story and like comes into for the investigation but he had befriended father Hayden the one who had

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stayed in 1892 and they had traded stories of this house. So Lord but had known of the home. So when Colonel Taylor basically got the opportunity to rent it, he was like, "Lord, but you and this woman, Ada Goodrich Frier, who we'll get to in a second, are going to lead the investigation of this home." It's just so crazy now to think that people were like because that timeline is like the Edwwardian period moving into the Victorian period and just like picturing people in their outfits but then also just being like totally spooked by ghosts and running around these properties and like trying to do

like psychic research and stuff like it just seems it just doesn't match in my brain.

Yeah,

the outfits don't match.

But I kind of love it. Like I start wearing those things. I saw on Tik Tok people are like layering their long skirts.

Oh, and I was like, this is very Victorian era. Like, it's very Cinderella. Wait, I have no idea if this was accurate, but it sure as hell looked

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very accurate. Someone posted that Hollister was bringing back their like 2001 or like 2000. It was like a 20 years ago, like two decades ago line, and it was exact like exactly what we used to wear. Like they're it's back. Let me quickly fact check this.

I'm not surprised because someone was saying that with the tariffs they just

a very haunted house - hauntings persist

brought back old inventory to get rid of.

It's literally just been There's no way that's just been sitting in a warehouse for 20 years.

Okay. Hollister 2000s. It's so accurate. Oh my gosh. Okay, I'm going to pull up the Tik Tok because specifically when you watch the Tik Tok, you'll be like, "Oh [ __ ] this is crazy." We're going to watch a Tik Tok, everyone. This is from Kate Steinberg.

Oh my god, that's crazy. They they didn't use new designers, right? They like literally brought back exactly it's not even like inspired by. This is what we wore

with Ugg boots with your jeans tucked in case anyone wants to complete their outfit for this fall.

The last one that comes up too, like the

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tieback shirt. Holy [ __ ]

The short shorts too.

Is that crazy? We should pull out some old photos of us and just I I had really dark black eyeliner that I only put on my bottom plate on the bottom and it was not good.

It's so funny how like I mean it's every generation goes through this but like we look back and we're like oh my god that style was horrendous and then it comes back which is

I know it was better than elementary school. I wore every single day for four years straight. This was like I was like elementary school started when I was five and a half or six. What did you wear?

I wore one of those really thick headbands and a choker. And I wore that, which is a weird choice for such a young child.

Yeah.

But I wore a choker and a headband for four years straight. And when my chokers would break off, usually they'd last like a year, a year and a half before they break off. I just immediately put a new one on for my like threeack.

The black like um stringy ones,

the black and then the red and black.

The plastic ones.

Yeah.

You're like Matilda, but you went a little bit more goth.

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This girl in the green ribbon. make her goth with cargo pants, but then Paul Frank kissing monkeys on my shirt.

I want to see pictures of you. I think that's cute. Kids can wear literally anything and be cute.

Mhm. But like middle school, high school, that's when it starts to get like,

okay, Colonel Taylor, who's the member of SPR, takes over the lease of the home. But when he's taking over the lease, the proprietor is like, "Okay, he doesn't say that the previous tenants left because it was haunted, but he does say that they made complaints of strange noises." And there was one contingency to this agreement between Colonel I almost said Colonel Sanders.

I love your laugh.

That was a good one though. I wish you did. I don't know that I would have even noticed. Oh, there's so many S's and like Stewarts and Stewart.

Yeah. Anyway, there was one contingency that Colonel Taylor had to agree to to take over the lease.

35:00

Mhm.

That he would not complain on the subject like the previous tenants had. So, again, still not saying haunted, not saying ghost, but like you're not allowed to complain or break the lease because of strange sounds. Now, like this the specifics here are a little bit unclear because the book that I'm going to mention which has like all the documentation is written so scientifically that it's kind of hard to focus on every detail.

Yeah.

Um but there seems that there was an agreement made between the SPR, the Society of Cyclical Research, and the Stewart family to investigate the hauntings that are occurring in the house. But in doing so, they had to do it in a respectful manner. And the SPR, which was common of the time, was not going to in any documentation or like publications say the name of the house, the real location or any names unless given permission.

Okay, that makes sense. Yeah, for privacy sake. So you don't have people just showing up and or whatever like

36:00

your own reputation being.

So the book is like very very heavily redacted, but because it became such like a big thing and controversy, there are some names that are very clear of like who they are. Well, and once the house became exposed as like this was the house that we're talking about, I'm sure it was a lot easier to place like what time period this happened, who could have lived there. Exactly.

It is interesting though, like I I'm curious what the exact rules were where it was like you can't complain or break your lease because it's like, okay, well, what if like the walls start bleeding or what if my animals thrown out the window?

I think you can like just move out, but you sacrifice your money like

I don't I don't think there was like as like renter friendly laws in place,

right? I guess that's true. So, a paranormal research society moved into the home at the helm of Miss Adah Goodrich Frier. And remember, justice for Ada.

Justice for Ada.

Ada Goodrich-Freer – first celebrity ghost hunter

Ada Goodrich Frier was born May 15th,

37:00

1857. And she is the first celebrity ghost hunter.

Oh my god. Yes.

In history.

Yes.

But she is very like, have you ever heard her name before? No. You've heard of Harry Price who was influenced very heavily by Adah Goodrich Fer Freer but as you'll hear in the rest of the story unfortunately she and others I think did as much as possible to erase her from history.

Oh,

but she also did it herself because of what happened.

Oh, interesting. Although, okay, wait side question. What do you think's going to happen to Zach Bagens when he dies? Cuz he's made enemies with the spirit world.

I know. So, you would assume perhaps he'd go on to haunt, but I think he's going to get beat up or will he just like join the demonic ranks?

Oh god, he's the new boogeyman.

Can you imagine being haunted by Zach Beans?

Instead of Hatman, it's like a man from 2008 with black spiky hair saying,

"Come at me, bro."

wielding an axe. The ax is like hovering above him like, "Do it. Do it. I dare

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you."

Oh my god.

Fumbled Holly will never forgive you. Never. Literally, I that like blows my mind. Holly is a little a prize.

Okay.

We would date Holly if she would let us.

Absolutely. Absolutely. Together. Us together.

A throppple. Okay. So, sadly, due to the nature of her life and the scandals surrounding the Bolican house and her involvement, she kind of has a ghost in terms of her history until she's 31 years old. But even then, she worked under a pseudonym, Miss X. Because keep in mind this is the

this ex is like also the coolest [ __ ]

I know but keep in mind like she's a woman in the like paranormal realm which is already like a taboo industry or you know society

super scary cuz like 180 years ago some people were still getting killed for

I know dabbling with the spirits.

Yeah. So the information I was able to find on Ada is thanks to Trevor H. Hall who wrote a book called The Strange Story of Ada Goodrich Frier and I

39:00

believe is working with us to like justice for Ada for much of the so-called controversy which is very controversial in my mind as in like made up to defame a successful woman in a predominantly male industry in a male-dominated world. But anyway, what I could find was that by 8 years old, Ada was an orphan and she was separated from her siblings and like remaining family and basically sent to her aunt's boarding school. And so in place of friends and family, she focused on scholarly activities and she became like very very well educated. So that by the time she was 18, she was wellversed in writing and in science and math like everything. And there's this is heart and it's like based on my research people are like she was a bit scandalous and like she looked younger than her age and she used that to her advantage and she got involved in like relationships with men in order to like advance herself. But I'm like or is she a woman who experienced a lot of trauma and used her smarts to like

40:00

do what you got to do successful

to survive and where you need to be. Yeah. By the time she was in her 30s, she had become acquainted with the spiritual cyclical world and began writing for a journal under a pseudonym Miss X. She then met Frederick Meyers of the Society of Cyclical Research, which she joined in 1888, which is where she was eventually introduced to our haunted house, Bolicanin House. She approached the paranormal like a scientist with theories and hypotheses, inquiries into all aspects of spiritualism like crystal gazing, automatic writing, folklore, second sight, etc. And it was Ada along with multiple other visitors and members of the SPR who on February 3rd of 1897 moved into the Bolicanin house to investigate the subject or subjects of the supposed hauntings at the house. So,

investigation of the house

here we are, February 3rd, 1897. Ada along with her good friend and avid investigator Lord But who was the vice president of SPR and a few others moved

41:00

into the house. The group along with I think over the span of almost 4 months a total of 35 visitors spent time in the home and the purpose of this investigation was to document the hauntings and test for potential fraud, hallucination or environmental cause. So again, a very scientific approach where they're like there was one thing that I read where Aydah's belief in the paranormal and I can't remember who

she like referenced another person in this field who like proposed this that hauntings or paranormal activity were of a hallucinatory nature for two reasons. One that people of the beloved like lost loved ones create it out of like grief or like their own belief or two that there's like something in the liinal space and time

that we don't understand which is like

42:00

how we kind of refer to ghosts.

Yes.

You know but that like that falls within the hallucinatory nature because it's something that we couldn't understand at that time.

Right. Oh, so it's interesting. So she's not just being like, "It's people having mold exposure or just grieving and making stuff up to help themselves grieve." She's like, "Well, could be that." Or,

yeah,

maybe there's something of this plane of this earth in the space that we live in that we can't interact with in a way that we understand yet.

Exactly. Cuz there's even like one encounter that I didn't write down from this house where when they ask a spirit their age. So basically they believe they were talking to one spirit who would have been I think 53 if he had continued to live

and he gave 53 as the age that he was meaning that like in his reality or whatever the spirit was like existing in he was continuing to age as he would have been if he hadn't died.

Oh

yeah. So it's like we clearly don't

43:00

understand what that alternate reality or like slip in time is like,

right? And like how different haunting cuz

I know.

Well, we don't have to get into it.

Imagine like read I was reading this book and I'm like it's trippy because it's one it's hard to like fully comprehend because it's so scientific whereas you and I are like it's a ghost. The end.

I heard a knock. It's a ghost. I smelled something weird. It's a ghost. The point of this being that it's a very scientific approach

and almost immediately the group experienced hauntings. So this is where the book that is called the alleged haunting of bee house because again everything was kept redacted really came into play for my research. And you can read the PDF of this book and we'll link it in the show notes if people want to like read more. There is a full like addendum of all of the hauntings, all of the sounds, what date they were heard, who witnessed it, what the sounded like, what room it was in. There's like,

44:00

oh my gosh,

hundreds of

Wait, that's incredible.

Yeah. And it makes me sad cuz I can't share all of the things. Like I feel like I'm I'm sharing the like most interesting ones,

the big the largest wildest moments.

Like it's crazy looking at this list. February 4th, there are like four things heard. February 5th, there's like two housemates here. Continuous reading. Um, February 6th, February 8, 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, and 12th were quiet. But then 13th, 15th, 16th, 17th, and it like keeps going. Like every day there's something. Safe to say, collectively the group experienced undeniable evidence of the paranormal in my opinion. voices, footsteps, loud bangs, knockings, several apparitions, a nun, a man, a dog, so much more. Over the course of 4 months, the group conducted sessions with Ouija boards, crystal gazing, received automatic writing messages, and more. This was and remains one of the most elaborate investigations

45:00

of the late 19th century, but also one of the most controversial. Over the course of this four months, the group made a couple theories about the hauntings. The theories out at the end were that there were at least four apparitions and a phantom dog. They appeared as fullbodied apparitions, cloudlike, sometimes with shifting colors or sometimes as moving shadows.

Oh my gosh. Shifting colors like a mood ring.

Kind of like auras.

However they feel oras. My mind is in like the 90s and early 2000s.

We should bring back mood rings. These full body apparitions were most often seen in rooms three and eight, and then out in the Glenn, which is like the yard and by the stream. The main prominent apparitions were a nun, the gray woman, the shuffling limping man, a religious man with a brown crucifix, and the phantom dog, which played with Ada's dog, which she had brought to the house for the investigation. Then there were very prominent noises, clanging noises like metal struck with

46:00

wood, commonly in the mornings between 3 and 6:00 a.m. Mostly in rooms 1, 3, and 8. So already rooms 3 and 8 seemed to be the most haunted. They heard voices talking, seemingly a man and a woman in an argument. There was often chanting of a voice, maybe like a priest, saying what sounded like Bible verses or in prayer, heard at all times of the day and night.

Wow. They heard footsteps, bangs, and thuds, most which could never be recreated, the sound of what seemed to be a large animal throwing itself against doors, groaning and whispering near doors and wardrobes. And I feel like given the history of the house and Robert's belief in reincarnation as a dog and episode 333, I decided, let's start with the dog hauntings.

Great.

It was so common. The spectral dog was witnessed by pretty much everyone who spent time in the house. Most people did hear that like really horrific sound of like the dog. Yeah, I hate that. Ada brought her dog with her to Bolicanin house and she recalled, this is a quote,

47:00

"I saw a black dog larger than mine dart across the room towards my left. Then my real dog, Spooks, I love that his name is Spooks, ran in from the opposite side, and I realized there had been two dogs in the room, but he only had one."

It reminds me of my mom's haunting. the dog. The only time she saw the ghost dog in our house that everyone else seemed to see except for my family.

It's wild. Later, two ghostly paws jumped onto her nightstand in the middle of the night and they were black spananiel paws. So, again, probably one of the dogs who had been

Yeah.

killed. I do feel like the door and I want I hope I think this is my wishful thinking. The door sound of like the dog or like an animal hitting the door I think was residual cuz it seemed to happen in the same room.

I hope the other one seems playful and like it's just like the ghost dog.

Okay. And now one of the most prominent

the ghost nun

hauntings that occurred over the months was that of the nun.

It began with an automatic writing

48:00

session early on into their stay where a spirit instructed the group to go down to the Glenn by the stream. The first visual encounter occurred on the afternoon of February 24th, 1987. So this is 20 days after they moved in to the house. Keep in mind this is just specifically about the nun. They started experiencing paranormal activity day one. Okay. So Ada Goodridge Frier was walking alone along the small stream when all of a sudden she spotted a woman standing beneath a tree, still and unmoving. She appeared to be wearing a habit like she was a nun with black robes and a veil. The woman was faint, like a drift of mist, and asda approached her, the woman simply vanished. And what I love about this book is it is mostly documented journals from people who stayed at the house during this investigation. So they're like actual entries from their journals like as they are experiencing things.

Yeah.

So it's not like recalled later. It's literally like I had a paranormal experience and I'm writing it down. So

49:00

it's like very fresh. And there is a drawing that Miss Aida made of what she saw.

I mean, that is a nun.

It's a nun. Trying to rationalize it, Aida kept it to herself. She documented it in her personal journal only, not telling anyone else about it. The next morning, February 25th, she returns to the same spot and again sees the exact same woman standing there. Wait, I wonder is this the way that they were doing things where like they weren't telling each other? They were just like individually writing what they experienced in their own journals.

Yeah. And then I think they would like

I love that. I think they would come together to do like communication sessions and if like something really like crazy happened I think they would tell each other

but otherwise it was like let's just see what everyone else experiences.

Yeah.

Compare notes

because they didn't want to

influence one influence. Yeah.

Right.

So this time she sees the woman again in the same spot standing there still. But this time the nun is not alone. She is accompanied by a woman dressed in gray. The woman in gray seemed to be older than the nun. And this time the nun

50:00

seemed to be weeping and the woman in gray was like comforting her

again. They disappear. Aida still keeps this information to herself so as not to persuade alter other people's experiences. But in the days, weeks, and months that followed, multiple people witnessed the same figure. On March 3rd, the group partook in a session with a crystal and a Ouija board in room number three. They asked the spirit they were talking to for her name and the board spelled out I S H B E L Ishbel is

or like Isabelle.

Oh, okay.

When they asked what she wanted, they were given the message, she is afraid. Margaret comforts her. So Aida's clocking like

Oh, okay. So Lady and Gray is Margaret.

Yeah. And is the nun Ishbel or Isabelle?

Who? Yeah. Who is she afraid of too? or just afraid just in general like what is she afraid of not who necessarily.

Oh,

I guess you can also that can be a

51:00

thing.

So then on March 9th, Mr. Q, who is another investigator of the home, was on a walk again down by the stream when he saw a woman in black kneeling by the stream, head bowed down. She was fully formed. He was so convinced that this was a real woman. So he approached her, but she had faded into a mist and he was like, "Oh, not a real woman." Okay. Again, no one's sharing these encounters. And then the next day, March 10th, Miss Langton sees the same figure at the edge of the woods standing beside a tree. When she sees this nun, she is overcome with a profound sense of sadness. It's not long after, I think a couple days later, where Miss Langden is laying in bed. It's early morning, so she had just begun to wake up, but she's not fully awake, but not asleep. She's like in the liinal space between. The room was quiet, but suddenly she sees a woman in a long black habit standing at the foot of her bed. The nun did not speak. She did not move. She simply just stood there watching,

52:00

which is creepy, but at least she has the backstory where it's like this nun is afraid of something and it's comforting.

Well, she didn't know the nun. She literally she doesn't know the nun at all. Like

Oh, yes. Right. Because they don't Yeah. share. But this appearance of this woman comes with intense sadness and grief. And then without warning, another woman appears next to the nun. So now there's two spirits standing at the edge of her bed. But this other woman is older wrapped in gray and exudes calmness. And almost like instantly with the presence of this woman in gray, that sadness fades to like a dull, more bearable feeling.

That's so interesting. the older woman.

It's weird that they're like displaying that these spirits are like displaying this relationship to like just keep showing it to people.

But are they showing it to people or are they like existing in another plane and the people just keep keep seeing it? M

53:00

it's almost like did this like moment happen in real life where the nun was in her room crying sad for some reason and the woman in gray comes in to comfort her and Miss Langden who's just like sleeping in bed is witnessing like some lapse in time.

Yeah. Oh

I don't know. But so the two women stood there in silence. I guess the older woman in gray placed a hand on the nun's shoulder and like then they disappear.

Mhm. But again, it's this like idea of compassion, of like sadness, of comfort between these two. So after that encounter, again, I don't know specifically how she shared it, but everyone starts talking about these experiences with the nun and the woman in gray, and they realize, oh my gosh, we've all been seeing the same spirits.

So then they start to theorize. So Ada has been clocking like maybe Ishbel and Margaret are the names of these two spirits. And they look at the family line. Robert Stewart, Major Robert Stewart, had a sister whose name was Isabelle who had gone to be a nun. And

54:00

there's very little about her and like why she went to go be a nun, but like

a generalization about that time of like women who went to like were sent to nunneries and stuff like some of them were unwed mothers or like misbehaved women and they were like forcefully sent

Yeah. to go be nuns. So, is there some tragedy in her story? Because she's like very sad and now she's returned back to the house. It's not totally clear who Margaret is. Some people were like, "Oh, it's that woman Sarah who worked at the house who died and is buried next to Major Robert, but she was like in her 20s, 30s, so she's young."

Yeah.

So, it's not her. I believe it probably is Isabelle.

I mean, that makes sense,

the brown crucifix & room no.3

right? Now, one of the other most common hauntings, and honestly, to me, if I experienced this, it would be terrifying hauntings, is that of the brown crucifix in room number three.

55:00

Room number three.

Room number three, I would never stay there.

I know. Room number three at Balkan House had a reputation. Everyone who stayed there reported an uneasy heaviness, the feeling of someone was standing just behind you, watching you because there was.

Jeez.

And Ada was the first to see it. On March 4th, 1897, she was alone in the room when all of a sudden she felt like the energy completely shift and there was like this like overbearing heaviness that accompanied the shift.

Then suspended in the air appeared a dark wooden crucifix as if invisible hands were holding it, like presenting it to her. It hovered there for several seconds and then faded. But the moment it disappeared, so too did like the oppressive feeling. Oh.

Two nights later, Mr. Q stayed in the same room and he had not heard anything about Ada's experience, but the same thing happened. He described it as a simple wooden cross almost glowing as if carrying its own light. H and again it faded and the tension in the room

56:00

dissolved. Then Miss Langden on March 8th, 1897, so this is like all within like a 3-day period, she saw not just the crucifix but a shadowy figure holding it forward like a silent warning or a blessing. The moment she acknowledged it, it disappeared. Everyone agreed that unlike all of the other hauntings in the house, this had a very different feeling. Like it felt kind of aggressive. And I think Father Hayden, who had stayed at the house back in 1892, he in one of his journals like recalls an experience with a brown crucifix. Like he had been sleeping in the house. He's a priest. So like he had brought with him his own crucifix and he had his priest stuff. And he recalls like waking up one morning and like he's like kind of foggy and he sees what is a crucifix like suspended in the air but like in his rational brain he's like oh it's just a crucifix on the wall like hung at the entrance of the door. and he doesn't like think too much of it, but

57:00

then later on when recalling like all the other hauntings he experienced, he was like, "That wasn't my crucifix. That was like a wooden brown crucifix and it was definitely floating in the middle of the air." Which is absolutely terrifying. Yeah. But it does also make me wonder. It's just kind of like I go back and forth because it does feel like there's such oppressive negative energy in this room that it would make sense that this is some sort of poltergeist demonic sort of presence, something evil. I just realized and I hadn't put this together. What if it's John Stewart?

Oh.

Who was so anti all of the hauntings who died despite being warned potentially by the spirits.

Yeah.

Like coming back and trying to still pro like to still stop events. and he doesn't like these investigators being there,

right? Oh, that's interesting. Especially because if it's if it's held upright because I feel like so often when it's a demonic entity, we hear about them being upside down.

Yeah. The only thing that that doesn't

58:00

unless we're talking like weird time glitches thing, John Stewart was alive when Father Hayden had experienced it.

Oh, yeah.

So, I don't know. It's also weird because it's like just on the property already having that chapel,

right,

and religious figures coming and going.

And again, this property has been in the Steuart clan since the 1400s. So like

there are so many potential spirits or people that could be responsible for these hauntings,

right? And also another thing that makes me wonder or like almost argue against it being something demonic is that the crucifix is being presented like it's being brought into the space. It doesn't already exist there, right?

So it does feel more like someone's trying to present something that's like holy or like like you were saying like

prevent something. I'm curious because I'm almost there, but like kind of towards the end of the the stay of the cyclical society, they do have like a blessing performed and I'm very curious what cross they used or what crucifix

59:00

they used. They don't state, but I'm like

again, is it like some cuz it does feel like a like pushing into the room being like

be gone or something.

Mhm.

the limping man - Major Stueart?

Okay. So then one spirit that it is very clear who it is is that of the limping man. And again like I shared the story of John and his wife who had heard the like steps. Yeah.

February 28th, 1897, Miss Frier Ada was sleeping in room number four, which was the major's former bedroom. And she woke to the unmistakable sound of footsteps. But these footsteps weren't just like normal. She woke up and she heard step scrape step scrape like a dragging sound

which even if they were normal like you you know and recognize people have very distinct walks and if you live somewhere with someone like you'll know who's coming down the stairs or who's the stairs

1:00:00

she's in her bed and this sound is coming around like going from one side of her bed to the other like it is in her room and there is

that's creepy. I in my mind I was picturing it like right outside of the bedroom like down the hallway.

There are a couple instances like that, but this is like literally

next to her. So she she's like it sounds like someone walking with a limp.

Later a man, Mr. Mac P stayed in the same room and he too heard the slow uneven gate, but this time it was outside his door. When he opened his door,

it was just an empty hallway. Miss Lankton had her own encounter. It was early morning. She lay awake in her bed when she heard boots approaching, but it was similar. Step, drag, step, drag. They stopped outside her door and just like stopped there and then they turned to walk away. And she was so uneasy about it that she didn't dare open the door.

Mhm.

Colonel Taylor even attempted to do a control test. He walked to the corridor with a cane. He even stiffened one of his legs to mimic the sound of like a

1:01:00

limp and dragging it. But those who like stayed inside the room were like, "No, what we are hearing is so much heavier and like almost reverberating in this like echoey way

that no matter what Colonel Taylor did, it couldn't be recreated."

And they never wandered aimlessly. Like these footsteps always happened in room four and the hallway right outside of room 4.

Is that where he stayed?

It was his room.

That was his room.

the hauntings end

Yeah. After nearly 62 days of countless almost daily hauntings, on May 6th, 1897, the group held a series of Roman Catholic rights, which is where I'm like, did they

crucifix? Let's see.

Yeah. Well, there's no record of it, but I'm but I'm curious because they did a mass for the dead and a full house blessing. So during the mass, multiple people saw the ghostly nun and Margaret the gray woman

standing outside the window like seemingly watch watching this like blessing. Then afterward, the bishop and

1:02:00

the priest walked through the entire house room by room sprinkling holy water and praying over the spaces that were like most afflicted, especially rooms 1, 3, and 8. So again, like is this did they go into room three

and like one of them is holding out the cross, right?

And the other ones are praying, doing this blessing.

Yeah, it is weird because then it's like again with time it doesn't really matter when that happened. It could like that haunting could just be absorbed into the house and then no matter if someone's experiencing it before that blessing actually happened or after the house

and however time works is still presenting that moment.

Okay. And this is a quote. The three clergymen had hardly gone when there was a loud bang upon a small table. Then after a repeated blessing, the bang occurred but much more faintly. That quote is the final paranormal encounter ever recorded in the Bolican House. For

1:03:00

almost immediately after this blessing that was performed on May 6th, 1897, the hauntings just stopped. What? Most of the members moved out of the house, leaving Ada and I think one other member alone in the home for an entire week. And not a single haunting happened in that final week

after so much.

Yes.

Full body apparitions, noises,

such distinct messages.

Kind of like what we were saying with the Lizzie Bordon house, Ada wrote that like it almost felt like as most of the paranormal investigators left, the house just calmed. Like she felt a shift in the energy of the entire house and property.

Yeah. It was tired. It needed a break. It was trying to was really worked up.

controversy

Yeah. So, days after leaving the home, and again, the timeline here is a little bit unclear, but I believe Ada's plan was to like slowly publish portions of this investigation in the Times, almost

1:04:00

like as a series. So, it wasn't going to be like a book, but it was like every week there'd be a new publication about the hauntings. Days after leaving the home, an article is published in the Times basically tearing apart the investigation. How I think it's called like on the trail of ghosts and I honestly don't want to give it too much time because [ __ ] that. But I'll give you the context. Basically, the findings have hardly been published yet. So this article is published on the trail of ghosts and it is just destroying ADA and the practices of the SPR cyclical research society and

who is this troll?

Well, that's also what's worse. It's written anonymously. the by line wrote was like correspondent but it's very clear that it's someone who was involved with the investigation because and a big part of this was ADA and SPR and Colonel Taylor had agreed that they would not share the name of the house, the name of people involved anything, but this

1:05:00

correspondent person names the Balkan House, names the Stewarts, names everyone fully. And

who had such like a do they have any idea like do they have was there like one person that was like

Ada does because okay so they literally like the author directly calls out Ada which makes me think it's like a personal vendetta

right does feel

they wrote this is a quote simply because she is a lady and because she had her duties as hostess to attend to she is unfit to carry out the actual work of investigating the phenomena in question. And then the author continues to basically say the methods of the SPR society are extremely repulsive, relying on gossip as evidence and degrading beings who are called sensitives and mediums. This is published in the times and as the weeks follow like more people and keep in mind like if you're the Stewarts who have lived in the Balkan house for years who didn't want their

1:06:00

name out there, they immediately are like, "Yeah, this house is not haunted." and they start publishing their own

right trying to

trying to like agree with this article saying that that

they're panicked. They Yeah.

So there's a lot of people trying to cover their own asses and like anyone who had been like called out in the first article are now being like there was no hauntings. I never experienced anything.

How's Aydah like she can't win here because what's she going to do? Like create a slander post or like article about the person that wrote this and then it then her credibility goes away. It's just Yeah, there's no way of winning. And so everyone here is like trying to protect themselves and like their own reputation. And it is not until June 21st, 1897 that someone who worked in the house wrote into the Times. Like this is the first response to the first article where someone is like, "No, yeah, it was haunted."

They wrote and their name was Harold. Oh, there is a Saunders, not Sanders, but

Harold Saunders explained that he had been on assignment only a few days before maids and family members began

1:07:00

reporting ghostly noises in the house. He was like, "No, this is probably just like hot water and pipes banging or like branches hitting the house." So, he decides to do his own investigating. And for 3 weeks, he hears nothing

until one night he heard a tremendous thumping outside of his door. And he said the same thing happened at variation almost nightly for 2 months while I was there. Every time he would hear the thumping, he would then have in like a chill run through his body like entering an ice house. and he reported hearing two distinct groans like someone being stabbed and falling to the floor. Then when he went to bed, he felt his sheets being lifted off of him. This one evening, he tried to light a match, but his hand was held back like as if someone was like preventing him from doing it.

Ooh.

Yeah. So, he's trying to be like, "No, like there are hauntings at this house."

Yeah.

But it was too late. the damage was done and the Society of Cyclical Research decided to basically put all of the blame on Ada. They fire her. They

1:08:00

distance themselves from her. They accuse her of being responsible for all of the fraud that was being accused of the re of the society, stating that they themselves were very ethical and science-based, but Ada was not. Ada wrote to the Times expressing her objection to the original correspondent being like, "First of all, I can't believe they revealed all of the private information about the like house and the people who were involved because it was supposed to be kept private." So, she knows it clearly has to be someone who was involved with the investigation to have all that information. and she asserts that the investigation had been done with the utmost professionalism and that the criticisms leveled against her were both unfounded and sexist. Unfortunately, it was too late. But here's what I think. I think Aida knew who the leak was. She never named them, but she did say in her response to the Times that this correspondent in quotes only spent 48 hours in the home. Meaning she knew who it was.

1:09:00

Yeah. And that this person had only spent a short amount of time there. And like if they didn't experience anything, that's their issue,

right? And it 48 hours in the home kind of sounds like they were excused from

Yeah. the home

or they just like only came for a short amount of time cuz they wanted to get involved and they maybe they did see like there's very different like situations that could have happened. But in my mind, I'm like I think they could have gone to the house and been like, "Oh, this is like a massive get for Ada.

I'm going to do everything in my power to destroy it because I want fame. I don't want Aida to have it.

Right.

And there's a lot of speculation about Ada's life and that she was like mixed up in some messy love triangles and affairs. And again, like her history is a little bit blurry, but there was I think some speculation that she was involved with one of like the heads of the Society of Cyclical Research and that he had like multiple mistresses and like women that he was involved with and it got really messy and like so there could have been jealousy or

1:10:00

someone else coming forward. And also, even if none of that did exist, I imagine like depending on when this person came and spent the 48 hours, I imagine it would be really hard or just like weird to come into an investigation in the middle of it where like you don't understand how things have already been operating and people are communicating after they've already like built this rapport and built the like systems that they created and communicating what they're experiencing in the house. And maybe to that person it just looks like random slumber party gossip,

right? Either way, it's heartbreaking because yeah,

it was too late. Like Ada's reputation was just like in the dirt. And I think like looking at the political societal climate, it's the 1890s. Ada is a unmarried single woman.

Yeah.

In an industry that is male-dominated and also questionably like perceived by the public. I think she was a threat and that someone wanted to ruin her reputation and then once it was out, everyone was just protecting themselves and she unfortunately became the

1:11:00

scapegoat.

Yeah.

She was excommunicated from the SPR.

She did however publish her findings in the book called The Alleged Haunting of Bee House in 1899, which is the book that I use for most of this research. And again, you can read the PDF. It's online for free. It's hard to read because it's very scientific, but when you go to like the journal entries, those are amazing. Like there's so many journal journal entries from like various people who had been involved in the investigation. But regardless of its publication, Ada was viewed as a pariah in the cyclical world. And shortly after, Lord, but who had supported Ada the most throughout it all, had passed away. So basically, anyone who was supporting her in the world in that like world was no longer. She continued to write about the paranormal and maintained a small following, but it was pretty much the end of her career. And shortly thereafter, and this is like again supposedly she was in London performing like as a medium or something

1:12:00

and she was caught doing fraudulent things.

Oh, but again there's no like specifics. I don't know. Either way, she moved to Jerusalem in 1901, got married, moved to New York, and truly like disappeared from the world. And it seems like she tried to erase herself and that the like cyclical society also tried to erase her from the world. Yeah. It's hard cuz I I'm also curious about like what the setting was with her like faking the mediumship too

because in my mind like let's compare it to like Britney Spears, right? We know Britney Spears is an amazing dancer and an amazing singer. She's a great performer. Just because she has to lip-s sync sometimes when she has really danceheavy choreography and dance number for how long and how many shows are you performing like

that doesn't mean that she that the other stuff isn't true about her. It's it's like a balance for the performance and for just like especially when you've

1:13:00

been doxed by the whole community

but you need to be successful in order to like continue making money. Yeah. If you fudge a couple things out

if she fudged a few things I don't I don't blame her. I guess it just depends on what the setting was. Like if she was invited into someone's private home that's grieving and she's faking it, then then I'm like, "Wo, you know."

No, I think it was like a show and then

then what do you expect? You went to a show.

I know. And then it makes me sad too because with this happening, like clearly that would just reinforce all of the beliefs about her being a fraud prior to this.

She died on February 24th, 1931 in New York. And while she was not able to rectify her place in the world and in her notoriety in the paranormal world, we are doing it today justice for Ada. And um like I said, Harry Price was like very influenced by her. And we've heard of him before, so let's all remember Ada Goodrich Frier, too. So all of this and we're like, okay, well, is the house haunted? To me, absolutely, yes. And

1:14:00

we're like, okay, can we go there? You asked it in the beginning. Can we go? Mhm.

Sadly, no. Because after the SPR cyclical society left and like this whole ordeal, plus also the Stewarts knew it was haunted and no one wanted to stay there, which is why they were renting it out in the first place. Yeah.

The house fell into disrepair and I think by 1932 it was basically abandoned and sadly in 1963 a fire destroyed the home. The only remnants were the servants quarters. And that is the story of the oh so haunted and controversial and scandalous Bolicanin house.

Dang, there's a lot involved in that house. And it's devastating that it doesn't exist.

I know, but exists in our hearts.

It does.

Like I love this house. If this was a movie, I would think it was like a fictional.

Like I wouldn't believe too good to be true.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It has all of the elements that you would want in a great movie.

A dead nun.

1:15:00

a eccentric man with a limp who served in the army and came back as a reincarnation of a dog.

Right. Phantom crosses, crucifixes popping up throughout the house.

A scandalous woman involved in a love triangle. Yeah. Who then

undeserving of her position that she worked so hard for during that time. Someone else doxing her. A mystery.

Exactly.

How do we buy the rights to this?

I think it's in public domain.

And how much are they? How much do they cost?

I think it's free.

Well, if Two Girls One Ghost ever comes out with a movie, you probably know what it's going to be based on.

It's so funny because I feel like we've covered so many stories and so many different hauntings over the years that naturally in our creative minds, I think we are going to be influenced by all of you and all the stories we've shared

that like they'll bleed into all of our creative endeavors.

You know what I think about all the time? What? And we only read it like a month or two ago, but it like plays in

1:16:00

my head so often. And I feel like this has to be in a movie or in some sort of show. The person who wrote in about their uncle who was like traveling through was it like Cambodia or something like that and went to the puppet show.

Oh my god. Yes. Like the weird creepy back alley puppet show and then was sent home as the puppet that's haunted.

That's haunted. I think about it all the time. Like every other day. That's so funny cuz I have not thought about it until you brought it up.

Oh, that stuck with me. I was like that is that would have been the scene in like a horror movie that stay would stay with me.

Yeah.

If only we had all of the time and space and energy to turn all of your stories into movies.

One day.

One day. All of them.

All of them.

A munch or like we'll be inspired by all of them.

Yeah, we are already.

listener story

Okay. I picked a story from Scotland. not from this house because unfortunately

we cannot go.

We cannot go. But this is sent to us by

1:17:00

someone who's emailed us before, our listener Bethany, and it's titled me again, but I forgot the scariest one. So,

good.

Follow it up with the scariest story. Okay. Hi. I can't believe I forgot to send this one, but probably best that it's on its own. This is the sad Scotland ghost. In 2012, I was a theater kid in high school and we were invited to perform at the Fringe Festival. Is that where you went?

Wait, I thought that was a unique experience of mine. Actually, no. I knew that like multiple schools. Wait, that's so wild. What year?

It was 2012. So, we were in college.

Okay. So, I went the summer before because I went to the summer before starting college.

Oh,

it was like my senior year.

Oh, going into your senior year?

No, it was my senior year play that was invited. So, be right before LMU. I went

Okay. So 2011. So spring 2011 or summer. Summer. So you had already graduated.

Yeah.

Oh, interesting.

Okay.

They were gonna recast me.

Oh man. All right. You guys just missed

1:18:00

each other, so we can assume summer 2012, theater kid high school invited to the French festival in Scotland.

Bethany writes, "Totally the most haunted place I've ever been. I could share lots of urban legends that the locals told me, but I'll stick to my own personal experiences. We stayed in a university dorm. I couldn't tell you which one.

I literally did the same.

How crazy.

Yeah.

Also, I remember thinking how cute it was when I first got in. It had a bed, a sink, and a wardrobe in the room itself and then a small bathroom that was attached. While I was unpacking, I kept hearing my name. But when I looked around to the door, no one was there. So, I assumed maybe my friends are just messing with me. So, I kept unpacking. I kept ignoring the voices. We all got together again for dinner and I asked everyone about what I heard, but no one owned up to it. A couple of my friends accused me of making it up to try to scare them and laying the groundwork for a prank that I would soon.

Typical theater kids,

right? When we got back to the dorms, it was now curfew and we had to stay in our own individual rooms. As I was getting ready for bed, I heard crying, which I

1:19:00

assumed was my friend. So, I sat on my bed trying to decide if I should text her and break the rules and check in on her or maybe if I should give her space, all while awkwardly listening to this sobbing. I looked to my left where the sink in the mirror were and I saw a person sitting next to me on the bed crying. I jumped up. I looked to my right to where the person was, but I didn't see anyone. So, then I looked back into the mirror, but the figure was gone from there, too. But I still heard the crying. I was scared. So, I put headphones in and then I tried to go to sleep. So, the next day I asked my friend if they were okay. Still not really sure what I'd heard or saw

and wanting to believe it was the friend. Yeah.

And she said, "Yeah, but are you okay unwell?

I heard you crying last night.

Just stop." The same night that I heard the crying, I woke up to my hair washed and braided. I sleepwalk. So there is a logical explanation. I will say though I

1:20:00

have never before or since sleptw walk that well to shower.

Yeah.

And braid your hair.

Uhhuh.

And nothing else is wet. So meaning that that meant she would like sleepwalk, shower, dry herself completely, get redressed, and braid her hair and get back into bed.

There was no water spilled anywhere. My shampoo and towel were still neatly set next to the sink. My braids were perfect. Normally I knock things over and make an absolute mess if I do anything while I'm sleeping.

How crazy.

That is so creepy.

Oh, can you imagine just like totally passed out and there's a ghost washing, drying, and braiding your hair?

Well, we did read a story where like these girls were at the sleepover, remember? And the one like woke up to her hair being braided.

I forgot about that.

Yeah. The second night, I woke up in the middle of the night to hear scratching that sounded like a person dragging their nails down the wood. I've heard mites in the walls, squirrels in the walls, even bats in walls. This was not that. It was a long continuous sound

1:21:00

that slowly moved, paused, and then started again. I put my headphones in, but all I could hear was the scratching.

Oh my god.

I heard it over my music. And the whole time I heard it, I was terrified. But then after a few hours, I eventually fell back to sleep.

Oh my god.

When I woke up, I told everyone, but they insisted I must have just dreamt it. I told them I couldn't have because I went to sleep without headphones and then I woke up with the headphones on. So clearly I'd woken up and I put my headphones on. They pointed out that maybe I could have sleptw walk again and that maybe I was just dreaming at all. The next night I put my headphones in straight away so I could tune out whatever was triggering these bad dreams. I woke up again in the middle of the night to the scratching sound. I lucid dream sometimes so I decided to do a am I dreaming trick. My trick is if I poke my hand in the dream, my finger usually goes through my palm. That's crazy. This time it did not. I was certain I was awake. I was so scared I turned on the lights. I sat up in the

1:22:00

corner of my bed with my back against the wall and I waited for the curfew to be over. I never fell back asleep. The sound continued for hours. God, that's terrifying. Oh, that's awful. And you're alone in this dorm.

And no one believes you.

No one believes you. If no one believes you about the scratching noise, no one's ever going to believe you that your hair was washed and braided. Although your friend thinks you're

heard the sobbing.

Well, but she thinks that she was sobbing, right?

My thing is like, did the girl who shared the wall not hear it scratching? So, the scratching is like literally only for

Yeah.

This continued like this for the whole 3 weeks that I was there.

3 weeks.

Except the scratching would sometimes start even before I could fall asleep. I didn't sleep more than a couple to a few hours every night. I would fall asleep constantly during the day and one night I snuck over to my friend's room and I slept in her room. No scratching. I slept like a baby. But I got caught and I didn't want to be sent home. So back to the haunted room for the last few nights. The very last night I did not

1:23:00

hear anything right away and I was able to fall asleep. But then I had a dream. And in the dream I was trapped in a dark place.

I just knew in this dream that I was someone else and there was a man on the other side of the door that I was afraid of. Also, my body hurt really bad, like I had been beaten.

I heard footsteps walk away. I tried to get out while I had the chance. I pushed against it as hard as I could, but the door would not budge. Desperate, I clawed at it so hard I felt my nails break.

Oh my god.

I knew if I stayed in here that I would die. Suddenly, I heard the footsteps return and I knew that that was it, that I was about to die. And then I woke up. There was no scratching, but the crying was back. It was quiet this time. It didn't scare me, but I was so exhausted that I fell back to sleep. The next morning, I packed up absolutely stoked to be leaving. But right before I left, I turned back to the room and I said, "I'm sorry. See you on the other side, Bethany.

1:24:00

That's so heartbreaking."

I know. And I'm also really like simultaneously jealous, but also happy that I stayed in that exact same dorm and didn't experience that.

Yeah. Like I stayed in a haunted dorm and I didn't know

right at first because it like brought back memories and I remember like very specifically my one friend Julia who was on the trip with me

Mhm. was dating my friend Connor who was also on the trip and they like were fighting and I remember Julia like balling her eyes out and like a couple of us like sitting in the room with her like comforting her and I was like what if her crying like bled through time and was residually haunting Bethany but then the story took a lot of turns. Oh, it's so sad, too. And it it is clearly the spirit knew that Bethany was leaving to on the last night like give the explanation, give the dream,

right?

But it's horrifying. It's so terrifying. It's

I wish like that up front

cuz then maybe like they could have had a conversation

maybe.

Or you're like

1:25:00

be worse because she'd be like fearful of this person coming to kill her.

I mean, I feel like I hardly know how to approach the paranormal nowadays. Like I wouldn't I wouldn't have known what to do if I was 17 18 years old. Like

also I feel like if I were a chaperone Did you have chaperones like from your school? If I were chaperone and I saw like Bethany could barely keep herself awake and like wanted to share a room with her friend. Absolutely.

Call both parents. Call the friend's parents. Call Bethy's parents. Do we have permission to put these two together?

Right.

Let her get some rest.

So sad.

Why do they all have to be separate in another country all by themselves?

And also like you're sleepd deprived now too and you have to perform. Right. And on top of that, like if you had never been a theater kid, this never would have happened to you. But we're so glad it did.

We're so glad it did so that you could email it to us. Yeah. I feel like that's such a common response to so many people who email us like their terrifying encounters. It's like, I'm so sorry this happened, but selfishly, I'm also grateful because now we get to

1:26:00

we get to hear about it. And that's all

and amazing. And additional proof of the paranormal.

As if we needed it.

As if Ada needed it. Poor Ada.

Justice for Ada.

Justice for Ada.

And the Bolicanin house is 100% haunted. And I'm sure those ghosts are still haunting that land.

Oh, interesting. I wonder if like kids go at night to go look and they see the nun at the

Oh, maybe

base of the tree.

I feel like Scotland while it's small is also just like

so sparsely populated like

that this castle exists like with nothing else around it. Mhm. I'm going to do one quick Google search

of what?

I need a reference. Okay. I just Googled like what's the what's a comparable US state to the size of Scotland.

Mhm.

And it said Maine.

Oh.

Which Maine is pretty big.

What's the population of Scotland? Cuz I know Edinburgh probably has the largest population, but like what's the country?

Scotland population it is 5.49 million people.

1:27:00

So it's not big. And how many of those people live in in Edinburgh?

I don't know. But in comparison, in Los Angeles, 3.8 million people live in just LA.

Yeah. Lots of castles out there, lots of ghosts, lots of hauntings, lots of Steuart clans, and Colonel Sanders. Of course,

Edinburgh has a half a million.

Okay.

So, a tenth of the people

live there.

Yeah. 10% of the people live in Edinburgh.

I love Edinburgh. I'm so excited to go back. Well, anyway, thank you all for listening and joining us. I feel like this was one of those episodes and I love every episode we research, but like there are certain ones where I just get like carried away in my own excitement that

you're like, I can't believe this.

Yeah. Like I feel like this was more for me than for you, but thank you for being here

and I'm glad that you got to participate in my own enjoyment. So, we uh love you all.

Yes, we did.

I forgot all the other things. Sorry, I confused you.

Could you see it? Well, I mean, could we skip it? We could skip it. Do all the things.

Do all the things. YouTube, Patreon,

1:28:00

tell people.

Shout out to Jamie Ryan who edits and produces this podcast. Thank you, Jamie.

Love you, Jamie. And we love all of you. And we will see you on the other side.

Very spooky.