State of the Unknown | Exploring Paranormal Stories and Dark American Folklore
Hosted by Robert Barber, State of the Unknown is a documentary-style podcast exploring urban legends, paranormal stories, and unsolved mysteries buried across America.
From haunted hotels and forest disappearances to ghost towns and forbidden folklore, each episode dives deep into the eerie, the forgotten, and the unexplained—brought to life with immersive sound and cinematic storytelling.
If you believe some places remember… and some stories were never meant to be solved, this show is for you.
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State of the Unknown | Exploring Paranormal Stories and Dark American Folklore
The House That Remembers: Uncovering the Conjuring House’s Hidden Origins
The weathered farmhouse on Round Top Road in rural Rhode Island holds secrets far deeper than what you've seen on screen. Before the Warrens arrived, before the Perron family's terrifying encounters, and long before Hollywood transformed it into the centerpiece of a horror franchise, this colonial-era home already carried whispers of something unsettled.
Join host Robert Barber as our journey through the true origins of the Conjuring House reveals a complex tapestry of historical fact, local folklore, and the powerful force of belief. Built in the 1730s when Rhode Island was still a colony, this modest structure witnessed generations of hardship, loss, and unexplained occurrences that gradually coalesced into legend. The name most entwined with the property's supernatural reputation—Bathsheba Sherman—belonged to a real woman whose actual life bears little resemblance to the malevolent witch portrayed in popular culture.
The transformation from weathered farmhouse to America's most infamous haunted house accelerated when the Perron family arrived in 1971. Their experiences—doors opening on their own, mysterious cold spots, whispered voices, and increasingly frightening physical encounters—drew paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren to the property in 1973. What they claimed to uncover would eventually spawn books, films, and a cultural phenomenon, but the truth remains more nuanced and perhaps more unsettling than the dramatized version.
Was the Conjuring House truly haunted by vengeful spirits? Or could other explanations—environmental factors, psychology, or the power of suggestion—account for what happened within those walls? And what does our enduring fascination with this property reveal about our relationship with history, tragedy, and the unexplained?
Maybe what makes certain places feel haunted isn't just what happened there, but how we remember it, how we fill the silences with stories that help us make sense of loss and fear. The Conjuring House continues to captivate because it resists simple explanation. It challenges us to question not just what we believe about the supernatural, but why we believe it.
Listen now to explore the forgotten history behind America's most haunted home—where fact and folklore intertwine, where death and memory linger, and where sometimes the most haunting presence is the past itself.
##References in the Show##
Episode 3 - Mercy Brown | Rhode Island’s Last American Vampire https://www.buzzsprout.com/2465685/episodes/17010280-mercy-brown-rhode-island-s-last-american-vampire-fact-or-folklore
##Sound FX Credits##
Horror Ambiance by TheSoundFXGuy_YT -- https://freesound.org/s/534221/ -- License: Attribution 4.0
Drone Wave 6 by Erokia -- https://freesound.org/s/797855/ -- License: Attribution NonCommercial 4.0
Tranquil Harmony (Calm Piano and Ambient Sounds for Relaxa
State of the Unknown is a documentary-style podcast tracing the haunted highways, forgotten folklore, and unexplained phenomena across America’s 50 states.
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Some stories don’t stay buried.
We go looking anyway.
In 1971, a family moved into a crooked old house in rural Rhode Island. What they were looking for was peace. What they found became legend. Doors slammed, shadows moved, voices whispered through the walls. Their story launched a franchise, a ghost-hunting pilgrimage, a pop culture phenomenon. But no one ever asked the real question why that house? Why them? Why did it start at all? The answer may lie in a curse older than the haunting, in a name nearly erased, in a legend that waited long before the first scream. This is what happened before the haunting. This is the haunting that launched a universe. But today we're not starting with the seance. We're going back before the investigators, before the possessions, to ask the question buried beneath the folklore what happened before the haunting, and did the legend begin long before the first door ever slammed? I'm your host, robert Barber, and today we trace the roots of the Conjuring House, from its forgotten tragedies to the myth that took hold. This is the story before the parents, before the screams, before the world believed. This is State of the Unknown.
Speaker 1:The House Sits on Round Top Road, just outside Harrisville, rhode Island, a modest farmhouse weathered by centuries of wind and seasons. Two stories, slanted roof, surrounded by fieldstone walls and sloping grass that dips into the tree line. There is nothing theatrical about it, and yet it became one of the most infamous haunted houses in America. Before the movies, before the investigators, before the screams and recordings and headlines, there was just the land and the people who lived on it. The house dates back to the 1730s, built when Rhode Island was still a colony, before the Revolution, before electricity, in a time when death came easily and most families buried their dead within walking distance. The original deed was tied to the Richardson family. Over the next two centuries, ownership passed through at least eight generations. These were farming families, working class and mostly self-sufficient, the kind of people who lived quiet lives and left few written records. The house saw births and deaths, just like any old homestead, but some of those deaths become the root of local legend. A few were recorded in town archives, others became oral history passed down by neighbors. There are accounts of a child drowning in a nearby creek, of a man found frozen in a field, of another hanging in the barn. These are not unusual fates for rural New England. In the 18th and 19th centuries, life was often short, winters were hard, medical care was limited or even non-existent, and isolation was a fact of life, but over time these stories collected weight. One name appears more often than most Bathsheba Sherman. She did not live in the house itself, but nearby Census records from the mid-1800s list her as Bathsheba Thayer, born in 1812, lists her as Bathsheba Thayer, born in 1812, later married to Judson Sherman. They had a son. Local death records confirm Bathsheba died in 1885 and is buried in the nearby Harrisville Cemetery.
Speaker 1:In the decades following her death, bathsheba became the focus of local folklore. Her death Bathsheba became the focus of local folklore. Some claimed she was cruel to farmhands. Others said she was suspected in the death of an infant, a charge that was never brought to court. No trial record exists. No formal accusation was documented, but the rumor persisted. By the 20th century her name had become entangled with the house, not through documented history, but through belief, a belief that whatever misfortunes befell the property had roots in something older, something unresolved.
Speaker 1:It's worth noting that not all owners of the house reported strange activity. Some families lived there without incident. Others described odd occurrences doors opening on their own, cold spots, strange sounds. Whether these were natural creaks of an old structure or something else was never settled. What is clear is this by the time the Perron family arrived in 1971, the house already carried a reputation, not a national one, not even statewide, but among locals it was known, Known as old, as quiet, as heavy. Whether that weight came from tragedy, from age or from stories repeated long enough to seem true, that depends on who you ask. And in Harrisville history doesn't always stay buried.
Speaker 1:Life in 18th and 19th century Rhode Island was hard. Even in the best seasons, families lived off the land with little room for error. A failed crop, a harsh winter or a sudden illness could shift the future of a household overnight. Death was intimate. It happened in the home, in the barn, in the fields. There were no funeral homes, no formal grief counseling. Children died, young Mothers died in childbirth, people were buried on their own land in small family plots marked by simple stones or nothing at all.
Speaker 1:In that kind of world, stories filled the gaps. When death came unexpectedly or cruelly, people looked for meaning and in tight-knit, isolated communities that meaning often narrowed to blame. Bathsheba Sherman lived in that world. What little we know comes from public records. She was born Bathsheba Thayer, married Judson Sherman and had at least one documented child. And had at least one documented child. The family lived on a nearby farm, not in the Conjuring House itself. By all legal accounts she died of natural causes in 1885.
Speaker 1:But sometime after her death her name became myth. One persistent rumor claimed that she had murdered an infant in her care, that the child was found with a puncture wound to the skull. No charges were filed, no arrest, no surviving documentation supporting the claim. But the story, the story lived on. The story lived on.
Speaker 1:Folklore doesn't need evidence, it needs repetition. And Bathsheba, stern and reclusive by some accounts, became the perfect target. A woman who outlived most of her peers, a woman without the warmth people expected, a woman who aged alone. In rural 19th century New England that was sometimes enough. By the mid-20th century, as ghost stories grew around the old farmhouse, bathshima's name reappeared, not in newspapers or archives, but in campfire stories, in whispers between locals. She was no longer just a name on a gravestone, she had become the source, the explanation, the legend. Her grave still stands in the Harrisville Cemetery. The stone is weathered but intact. Occasionally it's found toppled or defaced, a reminder of how real lives can be twisted by story.
Speaker 1:There is no confirmed link between Bathsheba Sherman and any alleged haunting. What exists is proximity A real woman who lived and died near a house that would later be called Cursed, but once her name was spoken enough times in the same breath as the house, it stuck. Rhode Island has seen this before. In 1892, just 20 miles from Harrisville, a girl named Mercy Brown was exhumed by her neighbors. Her body was found unusually well-preserved. Her heart was burned and her ashes fed to her dying brother a desperate act by people who believed she was a vampire. We actually did an episode on Mercy Brown, which is one of my personal favorites. If you haven't listened to it, I highly recommend it if you're interested in early American folk superstition. I placed the link to that episode in the show notes. That fear, too, came from loss, from grief looking for form, for meaning, and when the parents moved in they would be told that story not as theory, not as speculation, but as truth, because when fear takes root in a place, it grows fast.
Speaker 1:In January 1971, the Perron family arrived at the farmhouse on Round Top Road Roger and Carolyn and their five daughters. They were looking for more space, more nature and a place to settle long-term. The house was large and old, with history in its bones. The house was large and old, with history in its bones. It was also affordable suspiciously so. But the parents didn't ask many questions. They were eager and that house felt like a new beginning. It didn't stay that way for long.
Speaker 1:From the beginning the family began to report strange occurrences Doors opening and closing by themselves, cold spots, objects vanishing and reappearing. The girls spoke of shadows, whispers and a lingering sense of being watched. Some of these claims were echoed by more than one family member. Carolyn Perrin reported waking with bruises. She couldn't explain. She said she would sometimes smell rotting flesh and hear noises as if someone were sweeping the floors when no one else was there.
Speaker 1:Over time her health declined. She became increasingly isolated, disturbed by what she believed was a growing presence in the house. Roger Perrin remained skeptical but admitted to experiencing oddities Tools disappearing and reappearing. In his workshop there were drafts with no apparent source. The family began sleeping with the lights on. Some of the daughters would huddle together at night, afraid to sleep alone. Not every member of the family experienced the same things. Some were more sensitive than others, but the emotional strain mounted. The family reported that what began as strange, seemingly isolated events gradually intensified as strange, seemingly isolated events gradually intensified. In her own later writings, daughter Andrea Perrin described more dramatic experiences claims of being attacked, beds shaking, even the suggestion of possession. These events, however, have never been independently verified and are documented primarily through her memoirs and interviews.
Speaker 1:As the disturbances escalated, carolyn began to investigate the house's past. She uncovered stories of deaths on the property, including drownings, suicides and supposed tragedies. She also heard tales of Bathsheba Sherman, the woman accused in legend of having cursed the land. Neighbors and locals told the Perrons the house was haunted. Some pointed directly to Bathsheba. The story was known in the community, if not universally believed, and for the Perrons it became a framework for the chaos they were living.
Speaker 1:Eventually, desperate for help, they contacted Ed and Lorraine Warren, a pair of self-proclaimed paranormal investigators who were gaining notoriety across the region. But before their arrival it was just the Perrons A family trying to make sense of a house that seemed to resist peace, a family caught in the tightening grip of belief, a family that, by their own account, would never be the same. The Warrens came to Harrisville in 1973. They were already known in the Northeast, part spiritual advisors, part investigators and part performers Ed, a self-taught demonologist. Lorraine, a clairvoyant who said she could see what others could not. The Perrons welcomed them, not because they believed everything the Warrens claimed, but because they needed help and no one else was offering any.
Speaker 1:The Warrens conducted interviews. They walked the property. Lorraine claimed to sense a dark force, something oppressive and ancient. They believed it was not just a haunting but a spiritual infestation. They held seances hoping to make contact. According to the Perrons, these sessions sometimes made things worse. Andrea Perron described one incident where her mother was thrown across the room. No photographs, video recordings or third-party witnesses have ever confirmed this event. The Warrens pointed to Bathsheba as the spirit behind the activity. They suggested she had practiced witchcraft and cursed the land. These ideas, while popularized by later books and films, originated from their own interpretations and were not supported by historical evidence.
Speaker 1:Their involvement was not universally welcomed. Some neighbors were skeptical. Roger Perrin reportedly asked the Warrens to leave after a particularly upsetting session. The family, under immense stress, had reached their breaking point. The Warrens moved on. The parents stayed, enduring what they described as years of intermittent activity until they left the house in 1980. No formal investigation ever confirmed paranormal activity. No hard evidence was collected, but the story persisted because the Perrons believed it, because their experiences left a mark and eventually the house itself would become myth, not through proof but through retelling. Not because it was solved but because it remained unresolved.
Speaker 1:Before they stepped into the Harrisville farmhouse, ed and Lorraine Warren had already built a name for themselves in the world of the paranormal. They weren't scientists or clergy, they weren't licensed psychologists, but they were persistent and they were visible. Ed Warren, a Navy veteran and former police officer, described himself as a self-taught demonologist. Police officer described himself as a self-taught demonologist. Lorraine claimed clairvoyant abilities from a young age, saying she could see auras and spirits. Others could not. Together they formed the New England Society for Psychic Research in 1952, the oldest ghost hunting group in the country at the time. They traveled across the United States investigating haunted houses, churches, cemeteries and historic sites. Their methods combined spiritual insight with Catholic ritual holy water prayers, relics. They kept recordings, photographs and case files. Some were compelling, others were later challenged.
Speaker 1:The Warrens gained national attention through high-profile cases the Amityville Horror, the Annabelle Doll and later the Snedeker family. They became fixtures on the lecture circuit, appearing at colleges, community centers and late-night radio programs. To some they were protectors, to others they were performers and to skeptics they were opportunists. But regardless of opinion, one thing is certain they shaped the way paranormal stories are told in America. When the Warrens entered a house, they didn't just investigate, they interpreted, they dramatized and often they left behind a legend. The Conjuring House was no exception. The story of the Perron family in the Harrisville farmhouse was reborn on the big screen.
Speaker 1:The Conjuring, directed by James Wan, was a critical and commercial success. It claimed to be quote based on the true case files of Ed and Lorraine Warren. But Hollywood is not history. The film portrayed a dramatized version of the Warrens' investigation. In it, bathsheba Sherman is presented as a Satan-worshipping witch who sacrificed her child to the devil and cursed all who would live on the land. These claims have no historical basis. There is no evidence that Bathsheba practiced witchcraft, no record of her cursing anyone and no documentation of her involvement in infant deaths beyond unsubstantiated rumors.
Speaker 1:In the movie, the Warrens perform a dramatic exorcism inside the house. In reality, there is no official record that an exorcism ever occurred. According to the Perrons, the Warrens conducted a seance, a spiritual communication, not a rite of Catholic expulsion. The church itself did not sanction the event. Other scenes, like Carol and Perron being levitated and hurled across the room, were based on Andrea Perrin's recollections but remain unverified by any outside source.
Speaker 1:The Conjuring amplified the legend. It introduced millions to the house, the family and the Warrens, but it also reshaped public perception, blurring the line between folklore, memory and entertainment. Today, the house remains a point of pilgrimage for the curious and the faithful. Its current owners have leaned into its reputation offering tours and overnight stays, and for some, that history is part of the draw. Not because it's proven, but because it's believed. Not because it's proven, but because it's believed.
Speaker 1:Since the Perrins left the farmhouse in 1980, the property has drawn a steady stream of ghost hunters, psychics and paranormal investigators, each hoping to document what others could only describe. Groups such as Ghost Adventures, kindred Spirits and Ghost Hunters have spent nights at the Harrisville house. Each arrived with equipment and skepticism. Each left with their own interpretation of what occurred. In their 2019 special Ghost Adventures focused heavily on the house's reputation, zach Baggins and his team reported disembodied voices, cold spots and shadowy figures. They claimed to experience physical symptoms headaches, nausea, a sense of oppression. Their audio and video recordings captured what they presented as unexplained phenomena, including electronic voice phenomena, or EVPs, and sudden battery drains. Baggins described the house as quote.
Speaker 1:The team from Ghost Hunters in a later investigation under Newcastle leadership took a more measured approach. They acknowledged strange sounds and temperature changes, but they did not declare the site definitively haunted. Their equipment registered minor anomalies but no strong repeatable evidence. They emphasized the psychological effects of suggestion and the atmospheric power of the home's long and layered history. Power of the home's long and layered history. Many regional teams have echoed similar patterns unexplained sounds, erratic equipment, readings and personal discomfort but to date no investigation has produced clear peer-reviewed evidence of supernatural activity. Still, the house has become a kind of testing ground for paranormal technology and beliefs. Some teams bring infrared cameras and REM pods. Others rely on traditional methods like seances, divining rods or asking questions into the silence, hoping for a knock and reply.
Speaker 1:Skeptics argue that the power of suggestion plays a major role. The house's reputation precedes it. The creaks of old wood and shifting air pressure can be interpreted as supernatural in the right state of mind, but for believers, the Conjuring House remains one of the most active sites they've ever studied. In recent years, the house had been open to the public under prior ownership, allowing structured investigations and overnight stays. Guests were invited to conduct their own amateur research. Footage from those sessions was frequently posted online, contributing to a growing archive of alleged phenomena. However, as of 2024, the house is no longer open to the public, access is limited and private investigations are no longer routine. Whether these are the signs of a true haunting or echoes of belief amplified by expectation, that's still debated. But the house continues to attract attention night after night, not because it explains itself, but because it doesn't, for a place as storied as the Conjuring House.
Speaker 1:Theories about what happened and why are nearly as numerous as the investigations themselves. Some look to the supernatural, others to psychology and the fragile line between fear and reality. One of the most persistent paranormal theories centers on residual energy, the idea that trauma, especially repeated over generations, can imprint itself on a location like a recording. In this view, the house doesn't host spirits so much as it replays events, footsteps, voices, moments of fear looping, endlessly, detached from any conscious entity. Now, I'll be honest, there's something about this idea that I find oddly poetic. Like the house is grieving in its own way, not malicious, just haunted by memory, like the rest of us, it makes me think about what we leave behind emotionally, not just in journals or photographs, but in the places that held our worst days. Maybe those impressions linger, maybe some walls do remember. Now, others believe in intelligent hauntings where spirits are aware, responsive and capable of interacting. Those who subscribe to this theory often point to the parents' experiences names being whispered, targeted physical contact and a sense of malevolence focused specifically on Carolyn Perrin. And if that's true, it makes me wonder what does a spirit actually want, and how long can anger or fear survive without a body to hold it? If something stays behind unfinished, what does it need to rest? Maybe the answers aren't dramatic. Maybe it's just the echo of someone needing to be heard.
Speaker 1:Now more extreme theories suggest the house was subject to demonic infestation, not just haunted but invaded. This is the explanation favored by the Warrens and the one dramatized in the Conjuring. It posits that a dark, non-human force sought to harm or possess those inside the home. This one's always been the hardest for me to wrap my head around, not because I rule it out completely, but because when everything becomes demonic, we risk losing the human story buried underneath. And sometimes that story the pain, the fear, the grief is scarier than any demon Because it's real.
Speaker 1:Skeptics offer a different kind of explanation environmental psychology. The house is old, with uneven flooring, poor lighting and drafty windows. It creaks, it groans. The floorboards shift with temperature. These natural elements, paired with a known reputation, can create a heightened state of suggestion where the mind fills in the gaps. Now, honestly, this makes a lot of sense to me.
Speaker 1:Belief is powerful and fear, once planted, tends to bloom fast in the dark, especially in a place where you already expect something to happen. The brain connects dots. It builds meanings from chaos. That doesn't make the fear less real, just differently real. Others point to mold, infrasound or carbon monoxide leaks as potential culprits. Low-frequency vibrations can induce anxiety, nausea and feelings of dread. Certain molds have been linked to hallucinations, and carbon monoxide poisoning can cause symptoms often attributed to the paranormal headaches, confusion, auditory and visual disturbances.
Speaker 1:If we're serious about finding real answers, maybe this is where we should start, in the corners of science, before we go reaching for the spectral. It's not as cinematic, for sure, but it's grounded, and sometimes the truth hides in very unglamorous places. Then there's the social theory that stories like this grow not just because of what people see or feel, but because of what they want to believe. Not just because of what people see or feel, but because of what they want to believe. The Conjuring House, by virtue of its history, has become a magnet for myth. People come with expectations, and expectations are powerful, and maybe that's the most unsettling thought of all, that belief itself has weight, that we go looking for ghosts and we actually bring them with us, that the scariest thing in any haunted house is us.
Speaker 1:Now, each theory offers a piece. None explain everything, and that, in its own way, is what keeps the legend alive. Some places are steeped in silence, others in stories. The Conjuring House has always had both. We've followed the trail through history, folklore, fear and belief. And though the story is tangled, one thing is clear this house became what it is, not just because of what happened, but because of how we remembered it. Maybe it's not haunted by spirits, maybe it's haunted by questions, the kind that linger, the kind we carry with us.
Speaker 1:If this episode stayed with you, follow the show now so you never miss what's next. And if you believe these stories deserve to be heard, leave a review. Just a line, just a few words. It helps more than you know. Want to go deeper? Visit stateoftheunknowncom. You'll find full episodes, show notes, blog posts for each episode and a place to submit a story of your own. And if you're on Facebook, come be part of the conversation. Share your theories, your questions or your own strange experiences in our private group. Just search for State of the Unknown Listeners, because this isn't just a podcast, it's a gathering of questions and the answers they're out there. Until next time. Remember what's buried doesn't always stay that way.
