Situated on the edge of the woods, near the town of Knight, Missouri lie’s a relatively large house. This house has changed owners and occupants more times than most can count as a result of the many bizarre events and phenomena that have been known to happen both on the inside and the outside.Before I continue this post, I would like to specify that, based on all I have learned in my investigation, I believe Buckley Mansion is not haunted, at least not in the traditional way. You won’t hear me recounting how I had an encounter with an apparition, or how this house was used by a devil worshipping cult or something like that.
From what I’ve gathered, accounts of the paranormal in Buckley Mansion began sometime after the death of Thomas Burke. Dr. Burke was a researcher and professor of physics at a local university. He was noted by both students and colleagues alike as being an exceptionally intelligent man, as well as having his own theories on the nature of reality. These theories of his, which he would often incorporate into his curriculum, would earn him a fair bit of derision and mockery from both the university administration and other scientists.
Dr. Burke’s theories revolved around the idea that reality was divided into many layers that intersected and interacted with one another. He believed that certain unexplained phenomena, such as hauntings and extrasensory perception, were a result of our layer of reality synchronizing with another layer. By monitoring and measuring the properties of different elements and particles, which he believed interacted differently in other layers, he thought it was possible to detect locations which were more sensitive to synchronizations.
In the summer of 1952, Dr. Burke, along with several of his students, assembled in Buckley Mansion for the purpose of conducting experiments with which he hoped to prove his fringe hypothesis. What these experiments entailed exactly hasn’t been discovered, but what is known is that about a month after moving into the mansion, police were called to the premises for a wellness check.
Inside they found the lifeless bodies of Dr. Burke and seven of his students. Cause of death was never determined. Initially it was thought they died from exposure to some kind of toxin or radiation, which would make sense considering what they were doing in the mansion, however, no unusual chemicals were found within their systems, nor was any radiation present in or around the mansion. It was then thought that they may have died from heart attacks or strokes, but this theory was quickly discarded as the tell-tale signs of either were absent.
The investigation into their deaths ultimately went nowhere, and the mansion was eventually sold off. It was then that tales of strange events started being reported. Note that these events weren’t your standard haunted house stories, rather they seemed to just be random inexplicable occurrences.
The radios in or around the house would report on events that had never occurred, or would receive reports of real events, but occurring differently. For example, in 1963, following the assassination of John F. Kennedy, news reports received within the mansion reported how the assassin was a civil rights protester; a month after that, another transmission was received on a radio in the house, one of JFK making a speech proclaiming US victory in Vietnam.
This phenomenon would also occur on television and mobile phones. In 1986, a report by CNN showed the Space Shuttle Challenger completing its mission without any complications and its crew coming back to Earth; in 1990, a news segment talked about the execution of Nelson Mandela by the South African government, as well as the ensuing civil unrest.
Mobile phone users reported new apps or features appearing on their devices, or of unknown persons appearing in their contact lists. In one instance, a paranormal investigator opened an app called “Latentia”, upon which he burst into flames. In another, less extreme instance, a student who was renting out the home for a time wrote and published an essay about the Sino-Soviet War. When other academics pointed to the fact that no such conflict had ever been fought, she expressed confusion and claimed it was one of the biggest conflicts in human history. When looking at the sources she had saved on her computer, they were all found to be dead links. This student was institutionalized for about a year after publishing her essay and seems to barely recall any of the aforementioned events.Attempts at recording these events for future archive or viewing outside the mansion have so far failed as all recordings ended up being corrupted beyond recognition thru unknown means. Later attempts to live stream from the house would also prove to be difficult as recording devices would constantly glitch and malfunction.
Reports of people experiencing sensory hallucinations or fugue states while living there also abound. Shadow people, figures in the distance, knocking or whispering coming from empty rooms, even claims of the entire house being drastically altered for select periods of time.
I’ve actually experienced these myself. During my stay at the mansion, the interior would gradually change; first in minute things, such as the patterns on a vase or brands of electronics changing, but then in more extreme things, such as the design of the interior changing. You may have also noticed I didn’t refer to any of these changes as hallucinations, and that’s because they weren’t hallucinations. I held the altered objects and inspected them carefully, each time finding they were normal tangible things. Other people experienced the same changes as I did, many of whom had far more emotionally turbulent reactions than me.
My residence in Buckley Mansion was recently cut short after a wealthy party lobbied the town to tear the mansion down, which is actually the reason I am writing this post in the first place. I’m not trying to warn people of Buckley Mansion, rather I think its destruction will be a loss for mankind. Much of the fear surrounding it is a result of superstition and urban legend; however, during my stay, I felt overwhelming excitement at the changes and anomalies that were occurring around me. I would encourage people to help me stop the mansion’s destruction, but at this point that seems unlikely.