A Night with the Allen Family

Location: The Allen House; Monticello, AR

Date: February 18, 2012

While Hayley and John were back in Arkansas for a long weekend, SPI visited the home of Mark and Rebecca Spencer in Monticello, Arkansas—otherwise known as the Allen House.  The house dates back to the early twentieth century and has a storied, troubled past.  Mr. Spencer has written a book, A Haunted Love Story, that details the house’s history and discusses its paranormal activity.

After arriving at approximately seven ‘o clock, our crew was given a tour of the property, which detailed the stories and locations of many of the paranormal events.  Following the tour, we set up infrared cameras in the breakfast room, the parlor (which now serves as Mr. Spencer’s library), the master bedroom (where Ladell, one of the Allen daughters, committed suicide by cyanide poisoning), and the attic.  We also set up a standard video recorder in the room adjacent to the master bedroom.  With the video equipment in place, we turned out most of the lights; distributed our voice recorders, walkie-talkies, K2 meters, and flashlights; and began the investigation.

The two photos above were taken only seconds apart prior to the investigation. The ghosts of the Allen House are known for peeking out the windows at passersby. The window in question is in Ladell's bedroom, and the bottom photo seems to feature a grown woman that could perhaps be her. The top photo features perhaps a small child (maybe Allen?) or crouching figure.

No more than five minutes had passed before things got interesting.  I was sitting quietly in Ladell’s room with a recorder and K2 meter.  John and Samantha were watching the infrared monitor at the top of the stairs, just down the hall from me.  Samantha and John called me on the walkie-talkie to ask if I was in a nearby bathroom, because someone, they said, was shuffling around on the other side of the door…  I said no, but curious, I proceeded through the adjacent room and into the bathroom to find that it was empty… and one of the cabinets was open.  

During my initial walk-through of the house, I was sure that all the cabinets had been closed.

The house went on to provide evidence that is a bit more tangible, albeit still open to interpretation.

The Allen House’s attic is a vast room with a slightly-separated turreted section that, according to story, served as a favorite play area for Allen Bonner.  Towards the end of our investigation, at approximately ten p.m., we discovered an anomaly on our infrared feed from the attic turret.  A shadow that seemed too small and faint to be a human shadow passed in front of the window curtains and faded to nothing.  I was excited…  but not convinced we’d found anything special: I’d been up in the attic just a brief time before, readjusting the camera after one of the Spencer’s many cats bumped it out of position. The cat had become distraught while Beverly was investigating in the attic, and in it’s unexplainable frenzy it jumped on the table and bumped the camera. It’s possible, I thought, that this was my shadow. However, I was walking the opposite direction (leaving the attic) of this shadow at the time it appeared.

When I went to debunk the image, our findings were inconclusive.  My human shadow, on video, appears tall and defined.  The shadow in question seems, as stated previously, smaller, fainter.  Had I not so recently visited the room, this phenomenon would be a slam-dunk.

Shortly before we discovered the attic shadow, Hayley and John captured on video an invisible presence knocking over a flashlight.  They were sitting in the breakfast room.  John stood his flashlight up on its end and invited any lurking presence in the room to knock it over.  A couple of seconds later, the flashlight swayed, and fell.  The video footage of this event and the shadowy attic figure can be found below.

In addition to these pieces of video evidence, Don captured two EVPs.  While investigating the breakfast room, he heard an audible noise above him, a deep, groan-like noise that seemed to come through the ceiling.  Despite people walking throughout the house all night, and despite the night’s rainy weather, this noise was not heard again at any other point during our visit, by any ear or voice recorder.  The other EVP came from the parlor.  Don asked any possible presence if it would be willing to come in and talk to him for a minute.  A raspy voice replies with a resounding, “No.”  This occurred while the rest of our crew was upstairs, going over the attic video. Both of these EVPs are featured below as well.

Overall, the Allen House provided us an interesting experience that was well worth the travel, and we would like to thank the Spencers for allowing us to investigate their home.  They were hospitable, informative, and supportive of our efforts.  

Mitch