A Haunting in Idaho 9: The Unholy Ghost of Salem, Idaho

The following true story has been terrifying me for most of my life. So much so, that I paid homage to it in my first book, The Summoning Those who have read it will immediately remember the significance that the old Salem Church plays in my novel. But, little do people know, such a place really existed and it was no less unnerving. The following true account is taken from none other than my own dad, Ken Longmore. With his permission, I give you the following:

It was the fall of 1967 and Ken was a young man attending his sophomore year at Rick’s College in Rexburg, Idaho—now known as Brigham Young University—Idaho. Ken had come all the way out West, from his home state of Minnesota, to study art, so that, one day, he might fulfill his dream of becoming a professional painter. Having only one year of college under his belt, he was still very unfamiliar with the area and hadn’t really spent a whole lot of time beyond the confining city limits of the small college town.

One morning, while attending one of his classes, the professor felt the sudden necessity to stop his lecture and offer a heart-felt warning to the students in attendance. “I just want to take a moment and tell you young people, that you should stay away from the old Salem Church. I know some of you like going out there, seeking thrills, but something is not right about that place, something evil and sick, and you aught to keep clear of it.”

The professor probably saw the looks of befuddlement, amusement, and disbelief that must have been on many of his students’ faces—Ken included—and decided to add to his message of warning: “A couple of days ago, a few high school kids didn’t come home after being out all night. I was called, as a friend of one of the families, to help search for them. It was discovered that they had been planning to go up to the Salem Church and tell ghost stories and the like. Well, we drove out there and, sure enough, they were still there. We found them on the front steps. They were out of their minds, babbling incoherently, scared half to death. I don’t know what those kids had been dabbling with, but something got at them and really messed with their minds. Two of them came to their senses after we got them home, but one of the girls is still being treated at the state hospital in Blackfoot. I don’t know if she’ll ever be okay. You have no idea what you might be fooling around with, class, so just stay away from that place.”

This professor might have had the best of intentions in offering this warning to his students, but in hindsight, it might have been better if he had just kept quite about this event. Having grown up in a haunted house himself (see A Haunting in Minnesota) Ken’s curiosity was peaked at an all-time high. He had to see this Salem Church for himself. Of course. He is a Longmore.

Not being from the area, Ken had not heard of the place and began asking around about it. He was able to quickly learn that the building used to be an old Mormon church built out of limestone blocks by early pioneer settlers to the area. It had been privately owned for some time now and was derelict, rundown, and slowly eroding from the decay of time. It stood in a rural area, not far away from a small community known as Sugar-Salem. Once he had acquired directions as to its location, he was determined to go out there and have a look.

On a late afternoon, after he was finished with his classes for the day, he hopped into his 1956 Chevy Nomad and began the drive out to the abandoned old church. It was getting to be around five o’clock when he arrived. Despite its rundown condition, Ken was immediately impressed with the unique, Gothic architecture and styling of the building, complete with a belfry. It was really neat, he thought, in its own way. He even considered that the worn-down, two-story structure might provide excellent subject matter for a watercolor painting.

After taking in the scene before him for a few moments, Ken decided it was time to get out of the car and have a look around to see if there was a means to gain entrance and explore this place. It was the reason he had come, after all, despite the warnings of his professor. He had to admit, before arriving, he’d felt pretty bold and adventurous. Now that he was here, all by himself in this rural setting, the old church now loomed threateningly before him in the rays of the waning afternoon sun, and his previous conviction to come here was seeming to feel more and more like a foolish proposition. 

Determined to see this adventure through, however, he approached the church’s main front door. He found the entrance to be securely locked. One would have to break down the doors to get in that way. He knew that there must be another way in, others had told stories of being inside.

To the left of the main entrance, a short distance away, was a smaller door, warped and damaged. It was near the corner of the building, and by the looks of it, this was the means to gaining access to the structure. Sure enough, with a little work, Ken was able to pry the door open, the bottom of it scraping against the ground as he pulled on it. Before him, a steep, narrow flight of stairs climbed dimly upwards to the second story.

Ken steeled his resolve and began ascending the old stairs, the rotting boards groaning under his weight as he climbed to the second story of the old church. The dire warnings of his professor echoed louder in his mind with each step. He finally reached the top. He now stood on a small landing where a door—slightly ajar—led into a larger room on the right.

As he reached the landing, his presence must have startled some doves that happened to be taking shelter in the old place. There was an avian explosion of flapping and beating wings in the other room as the birds became startled and made their escape through some holes in the roof. Ken jumped  back in his own shocked surprise. His heart certainly needed no more shots from his already pumping adrenal gland.

When the birds had made their evacuation and things had settled back down, Ken gathered his wits once more and peered through the six inch crack left by the slightly open door. He could see a large room filled with maybe some old furniture he thought, along with scattered bits and piles of debris from the failing and caving roof. There was what may have been a stage, or otherwise some kind of raised platform at the back of the room. He decided to go in and have a look.

He went to place his hand on the door in order to nudge it the rest of the way open. But as he raised his hand toward it, the door suddenly swung back toward him and closed, all by itself, right before his eyes. This was not a gentle swaying of the door as one might expect that a draft would cause—there wasn’t any wind outside anyway. Nor was it an outright slamming of the door; it was almost just the regular force that one might expect a person to use under normal circumstances when shutting a door.

To Ken, these were not normal circumstances. Not at all! In Ken’s words: “I don’t even remember my feet touching one stair on my way out of there.” The next thing he knew, he was in his Nomad and heading down the road like a bat out of hell. He never returned to the old church in Salem, figuring that maybe there are powers that are not to be trifled with, and places that are better left alone.

There’s no saying what Ken really encountered in the old church that day in 1967: a draft of wind, a shifting of the building, or perhaps it was, indeed, an unseen entity letting him know that he was not welcome. Who knows what really happened to those kids that the professor had warned about, that were driven into such a state of fear as to have temporarily lost their sanity? That story remains to be told, but it probably won’t be by me.

We will probably never be able to find adequate answers to these questions; the building itself is gone, having been torn down, and hauled away years ago. Maybe for good reason.

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 If you have a personal story of the paranormal or an adventure that you would like me to share on my blog please contact me at
bradylongmore@gmail.com I'd love to hear your story. You can remain anonymous if you wish.

Some images in this blog post were obtained through Google. The author does not own these images and takes no credit for them. No copyright infringement was intended. 

Free Falling

The following story comes from a close friend who wishes to remain anonymous. In the following story I will refer to him as Tyler.

Have you ever heard of astral projection, or OBE (out of the body experience)? The principle is pretty basic. It’s based on the belief that your spirit can vacate the confines of the physical body, for a time, and then return back to the body. This isn’t to be confused exactly with a near death experience but the two can definitely be linked, I believe.

An OBE can happen accidentally to someone. Some people have reported that in a moment of extreme duress, pain, or exhaustion, suddenly finding themselves floating outside of their body and observing what is taking place from a different angle, as if they were someone else merely observing. Others have reported to have left their body inadvertently while sleeping. They might be having a dream and then, the next thing they know they are standing in the bedroom, looking down at their own unconscious body.

Astral projection is the same concept, except that it is the deliberate action of leaving the body. Some claim to have figured out how to meditate and concentrate in the right way, allowing them to leave their body at will. Those who have been able to do this, say that they then are able to move about on what they call the astral plane. They are still here but are able to move through walls, fly about, and even meet other beings and spirits. NO THANKS.

My dad used to know a man that claimed he could do this. According to this person, there was a sort of silver umbilical cord that connected him to his body. He had the feeling that when you die, the silver cord is severed and your spirit is permanently separated from your body. Off you go towards the light. This man gave up the practice, however, after laying down on his bed one night, he meditated and successfully entered the astral plane.

He turned around to look at his body and was horrified to see a dark, shadowy figure standing in the corner of the bedroom. He felt an evil vibe coming off this specter and had the distinct feeling that this character was trying to figure out how to take possession of this now vacant vessel. He jumped back into his body without hesitation, and gave up the practice of astral projection. SO WOULD I! 

In my debut novel, The Summoning, the main antagonist, Daniel, uses astral projection to inhabit the body of someone else and commits a murder that can’t be traced back to him in any way.

The story of my friend, Tyler, is not that scary, but still quite incredible.

One late afternoon, after returning to his second-story apartment from an extra hard rugby practice, he collapsed on his couch. He was so exhausted that he didn’t bother taking a shower or anything. He doesn’t recall ever being in such an exhausted state before in his life, and immediately began to drift off to sleep.

He tells of suddenly experiencing the sensation that he was sinking through the couch. He opened his eyes and was shocked to be looking up at the ceiling, just a few inches from his face. He realized that he was falling, but very slowly—he wasn’t sure how he got up there to begin with. He tried to turn himself around to face the floor. He got about half turned and looked down. This was when he discovered he wasn’t even in his apartment!

Below him, on the floor, was a blow-up mattress with some big guy sleeping on it. He didn’t recognize the man, but he was distinctive, being a very big guy with long hair, possibly Samoan or some other type of Pacific Islander heritage. I’m out of my body, he thought to himself. At that moment, he felt himself fly back up through the floor, the couch, and into his body, like the snap of a rubber band.

At first, he just assumed that he’d experienced a really bizarre dream, brought on by his extremely exhausted state … until the next morning when he went to leave for work. He almost had a heart attack when, coming out of the apartment, he ran into the big Samoan man he had seen sleeping on the blowup mattress. He had not seen the man before hand and had originally thought he was just a figment of his imagination. Now the guy was standing right here in the flesh!

It turned out the big guy was spending the night with a friend and that’s why he had been on the blowup mattress in a spare bedroom. It was at this point that Tyler had to seriously take into consideration that he had, indeed, inadvertently slipped away from his body for a few seconds.

Personally, I don’t condone that one should try to experiment with this stuff on purpose. The story of the evil presence waiting there on the astral plane should serve as warning enough to those who might be curious. I don’t know what to actually think about this particular phenomenon. Of course, I do believe that we all have a spirit that inhabits this mortal house of clay. So, it’s not too far of a stretch for me to think that under the right circumstances we could find ourselves straying a little from our physical body.

But as far as I’m concerned, I’m only planning on my spirit taking a leave of absence from my body once, thank you.

If you are enjoying my blog, please consider signing up for my FREE Newsletter

 If you have a personal story of the paranormal or an adventure that you would like me to share on my blog please contact me at
bradylongmore@gmail.com I'd love to hear your story. You can remain anonymous if you wish.

The images in this blog post were obtained through Google. The author does not own these images and takes no credit for them. No copyright infringement was intended. 

A Haunting in Maryland: If These Walls Could Talk

This week’s true paranormal story comes to us from my friend, Thomas. It takes place in Maryland, over a period of about fifteen years. The story, in an almost classic style, begins with a recurring nightmare.

Through much of the 1980s Thomas had a recurring dream that he was living in an older home. In this dream there was a feeling or sense that the walls of the house were to be avoided. One was to avoid touching or rubbing up against the walls. Even pushing furniture up against the walls was a bad idea. This was because the walls were infested with the spirits of the evil dead. Nothing ever happened in the dream; there was just a sense that the walls were evil.

Sounds like a typical, demented nightmare—I’ve had similar dreams myself—except for the fact that this particular dream persisted throughout most of the 80s for Thomas. That’s something that I would not consider normal if it were happening to me.

In 1992 Thomas found himself renting the second story of an older home, constructed in the 1840s. The home had been renovated some years prior into a rental unit. He recalls that there was a stairway on his floor with a landing that led to an attic door. The door was actually boarded up and also had bars installed across it. He began to feel like something might be wrong with the house when his bluetick coonhound started wandering up the landing to just stare in quizzical fascination at this off-limits door. Was this the house of his recurring dream with the infested walls?

His suspicions were confirmed one night while he was watching TV in the living room. For seemingly no reason the ornamental plaster medallion, mounted above the fireplace, fell off the wall, all by itself. But it didn’t just fall off the wall. It practically sailed across the room, assuming an impossible trajectory, and crashing to the floor! Thomas climbed up to where it had been solidly attached just moments before. He looked for anything that might explain this strange occurrence. No explanation was to be found, and it was at that moment, he suddenly realized that he was actually living in his nightmare house!

He took the dream and the flying medallion as a warning and moved out of the place, having only lived in the old house for three months. Years later, just by chance, he actually bumped into a man who’s grandparents had purchased the house some many years before and had renovated the place.

Remember how Thomas’s dream included the idea that the walls were infested with the evil dead? Well, according to the grandson, when the house was being renovated, four complete human skeletons were found hidden inside the DANG WALLS! I know, I know! How creepy is that?

The bodies were never identified, I guess. The house was close to the old Mason-Dixon Line, and the working theory is the bodies must have been the murdered remains of a small group of runaway slaves. But, nobody really knows for sure.

What do you think about dreams? Was Thomas warned ten years before to stay clear of this particular house? If so, where do dreams like this come from? Is there a higher intelligence reaching out and trying to warn us, or does the dream somehow come from within our own minds? Perhaps, through and extra-sensory ability that we possess but are mostly unaware of?

Whatever the case, I think I might start paying a little closer attention to my own dreams for now on.

If you are enjoying my blog, please consider signing up for my FREE Newsletter

 If you have a personal story of the paranormal or an adventure that you would like me to share on my blog please contact me at
bradylongmore@gmail.com I'd love to hear your story. You can remain anonymous if you wish.

The images in this blog post were obtained through Google. The author does not own these images and takes no credit for them. No copyright infringement was intended. 

A Haunting in Idaho 5: The Possessed Toy

This week’s true story of the paranormal was submitted by a friend of mine, who wishes to remain anonymous, so for this story I will refer to him as David.

The incident that was relayed to me took place approximately in the year 1981 in the Iona, Idaho area while David was playing at the home of a childhood friend. The boys would have been right around ten years old. David’s friend had a handheld electronic game that was extremely popular at the time called Merlin by Parker Brothers. Many of you that are around my age or older, probably remember the game and the TV commercials that advertised it.

At some point while playing with the game, the boys became bored and set it aside to just talk about whatever it is a couple of young lads might discuss. At some point, David—and for no particular reason—decided to punch in the number 666 into the keypad on the Merlin game. I imagine that whatever conversation they were having may have lead to this decision. The game did not respond, however.

Not to be one to give up quite so easily, David tried once again to feed the biblical number into the device. Again, Merlin was having none of it, and remained silent to this input from the young boy. David says that he made a few more attempts, not really knowing what he was thinking or why he would try such a thing. Each time he tried this, the little machine gave zero response.

His friend, growing nervous—apparently a smarter kid than David—started asking for the game, saying that he wanted to put it away. But before handing the Merlin over to his friend, David gave it one more attempt, punching the infamous number into the game, expecting the same results as before.
This time however, and for no apparent reason—I like to think it might have been the sixth attempt—the Merlin suddenly came to life in a flurry of beeps, screeches, and high-pitched tones. It lasted a few seconds, and in David’s own words, it seemed as if the game were somehow screaming directly at him in anger and rage.

When the Merlin fell silent again David and his friend were very afraid. And although the game shook in his trembling fingers, David just had to know, so he punched in the three sixes a final time. The game remained silent. The boys looked at each other, eyes the size of teacups, each feeling that what they had just experienced was something that went beyond just a coincidental malfunction of a toy.

Not having any more of it, David’s friend took the Merlin from him and went to put it away.
To this day, the memory remains with David as a terrifying and vivid reminder that it is definitely not wise to play around with such things. The moral of the story:

Toying around with The Number of The Beast is no game.

If you are enjoying my blog, please consider signing up for my FREE Newsletter

Images obtained through Google Images and are not my own.

 If you have a personal story of the paranormal that you would like me to share on my blog please contact me at
bradylongmore@gmail.com I'd love to hear your story. You can remain anonymous if you wish. 

Facing My Own Demons Through Writing

Why did I take on such dark themes when I wrote my novel, The Summoning? This is a question that has been asked of me by readers, and well ... I've  even asked myself this question a time or two. Many who know me are surprised by my exploration into such a thing as the demonic. To be perfectly honest, when I began writing the book I hadn't intended to go in that direction, and was a bit surprised myself.

In the beginning, my intention was to just write an old-fashioned, creepy ghost story. But, as a discovery writer--someone who basically makes up the story as they go--I soon found myself exploring much darker themes and subject matter than I had originally intended to. I ended up writing scenes that, quite honestly, were disquieting even to myself, and several times I wondered why I felt the compulsion to go in that particular direction.

After mulling this over and allowing the question to percolate in the back of my mind for a while, I think I can finally answer this question. But to answer it sufficiently, I think I need to relate a little story. A true story from my own childhood.

When I was about ten, maybe eleven years old, my friend, Danny, invited me over to spend the night at his house. He had just purchased a new pup tent and wanted to give it a try. We pitched the tiny, triangular, nylon shelter in his backyard, and unrolled our sleeping bags. Under a velvet summer sky, bejeweled by a billion gleaming stars, we settled into our bags. And with the chirruping of nearby crickets providing the perfect soundtrack, we began one of the most ancient rituals since the beginning of boydom: telling ghost stories.

Now keep in mind, we were only ten years old. At the time, the scariest story in my entire repertoire was the one where the boyfriend goes to let his girl out of the car after their date, and finds a bloody hook hanging on the door handle. Well, after a little bit of this, Danny's mom came out to check on us one last time, before turning in for the night herself. She asked us what we were doing, and when we told her, her eyes grew large and she said, "Do you guys want to hear a true scary story that happened to my grandpa?"

"Well, yeah!"

This grown, adult woman, mother of little children, then proceeded to fill our innocent minds with a tale of evil spirits manifesting themselves and demonic entities paying a horrifying visit to her grandfather as he slept in his bed one night. I'm talking real Exorcist stuff here! When she was finished with her terrifying tale, she abruptly wished us a good night and left. At the time, my little, ten-year-old brain had no comprehension of demons or evil spirits. To me, the devil was this insubstantial, cartoonish guy with a pitch fork and a goatee that whispered in your ear, and tried to make you sneak a cookie out of your mom's cookie jar.

I remember laying there in the dark, absolutely horrified by what I had just been told. In fact, I fully expected a pale, leering face to materialize in the empty space above me at any second. After that, the unnerving concept of receiving an unwanted visitation from demons or evil spirits stuck with me ... for years. I dreaded nights and bedtime. Almost every night, I went to my bedroom like a condemned man to the gas chamber, certain in the knowledge that THIS would be it. This would be the night they would come.

One night, the terror was enough that I felt compelled to go to my father--as ashamed as I was--and tell him about this consuming fear. I told him that I was afraid that evil spirits were going to visit me. I'll never forget my dad's reply as he sat in his green and gold plaid chair, most likely missing the ten o' clock local news broadcast.

I shared with him how the fear of evil spirits appearing to me was dominating my thoughts lately. "I just can't stop thinking about evils spirits coming to me," I said.

He looked at me and said, "Well, if you keep thinking about it so much, they probably will."

I'll never forget how those words thundered into my soul like the very clap of doom. My legs barely had the strength to carry me up the stairs to my room, where Satan, himself, surely sat waiting for my arrival.

Fortunately, Satan or his denizens never manifested themselves to me, and as time wore on, my fears abated. But my belief in the existence of these beings never faded. Having a strong religious upbringing, the reality of the dark side was an ever present reality to me.

My guess is, that this period of time in my childhood left a deeper scar than I realized--those things still frighten me. I think that as I set out to write something scary, my subconscious dredged up out of my psyche the need to face my old fear. I think that through writing about these things I was, in a sort of cathartic way, confronting the past. Perhaps, as the protagonists in my novel battled the forces of evil, in some way, so was I.

I offer this up as an explanation for understanding, not as an excuse or an apology. I'm proud of The Summoning and how it turned out. I know there will be people who read it that will be disturbed by some of the subject matter--it's a horror novel, it's meant to be disturbing. But it's also not just a horror story. It's a romance too. It's about the power of love, friendship, and loyalty in the face of evil. I'm confident that people who read the novel will come away from the experience satisfied.

And yeah ... maybe a little disturbed too.