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Tatum House

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Kay and Jim Tatum

Kay and Jim Tatum

Case File: The Tatum House
Location: Marietta, Georgia
Date: January 1986 to 1988
Description: The Tatum House is a two-story, contemporary-style house. It is located in Marietta, Georgia, a suburb of Atlanta.

Still from "Unsolved Mysteries" episode reenacting the ghost man seen by Kay

Still from "Unsolved Mysteries" episode reenacting the ghost man seen by Kay

Kay's angel bell

Kay's angel bell

Case

History: James "Jim" and Katherine "Kay" Tatum have always considered themselves stable, rational people. He was a career U.S. Army officer, and she was an accountant. In 1985, they built a house in the new Kolb Ridge Court housing development in a quiet suburb of Marietta, Georgia, near Atlanta. They planned to retire there. But five months after they moved in, they began to experience unusual events that forced them to put their house up for sale.
One night in January 1986, at around 2:30am, Kay woke from a restless sleep. Not wanting to disturb Jim, she left their bedroom and went to the hall bathroom. Once inside, she sensed a strange presence. She turned around and saw a man walking past the open doorway towards the stairs. Thinking it was Jim, she said, "Jim, I'm in here." She followed him down the hallway and called to him several times. When she reached the top of the stairs, he was gone. She went back into their bedroom and found Jim asleep in bed.
Kay thought a burglar was in their house. Jim grabbed his gun and searched the home. He checked the doors and windows, but they were locked. He found no signs of forced entry or evidence that anyone else had been there. He wondered if Kay had imagined the man.
As the night passed into dawn, Kay lay awake and wondered. She was fearful and perplexed about what had happened. While tossing and turning, she suddenly remembered that she had heard no sound when the man passed her. She described him as a solid figure with a slightly tilted head. He wore a long overcoat and a floppy hat over his face. He swung his arms lightly as he briskly walked by. She believed he was "not human." She could not think of a rational explanation for her sighting.
After Kay's first experience, two months passed without incident. Then, one night in March, Jim was repairing a ladder that led up to their attic. He planned to bolt a board to the bottom of the ladder to prevent it from digging into the hallway carpet. However, his work was interrupted when Kay called him for dinner. He unplugged his power drill and leaned it against the wall. The drill was old, and he thought it would be dangerous to leave it plugged in.
That evening, Jim watched a movie while Kay went upstairs to read. An hour later, she heard the drill outside her room. It sounded like someone was playing with it and turning it on and off. She thought Jim was teasing her about seeing a ghost, so she ignored the noise. Eventually, she went into the hallway. It was empty. The drill was unplugged and propped against the wall. She reached down and felt the drill. It was ice cold and had not been turned on.
Frightened, Kay had Jim come upstairs, but they could not find an explanation for what she had heard. Her experiences confused him. He knew something was happening because she was very level-headed, and she was truly frightened. She was convinced something unexplained was happening in their house.
No incidents occurred for several weeks, so Kay thought things had finally returned to normal. Then, one night, while watching TV alone in their bedroom, she heard what sounded like static electricity in the middle of the room. She described it as "a popping in the air." She turned off the TV to find the noise's source. As she walked around the room, the noise seemed to move toward her. She backed into a corner, and the noise went up to her face. She "ducked" under it and ran downstairs to get Jim. She had him check the room, but the noise was gone.
A few days later, Jim and Kay left on a two-month vacation. After they returned, they had no strange incidents for several weeks. Then, as they prepared for a trip to Florida, Kay had her first physical encounter with the "entity." That night, as she was putting a casserole in the microwave, she felt two distinct tugs on the bottom of her blouse. She turned around, thinking it was Jim, but he was outside.
The occurrences seemed to center around Kay. She often felt cold spots in the upstairs hallway and one of the guest bedrooms. She felt the hair stand on the back of her neck when she entered the room. She almost felt like she was infringing upon someone else's room. She felt uncomfortable and did not like to linger in it.
In February 1988, Jim finally had his first experience. It involved a small angel bell in their second guest bedroom. He had a habit of waking hours before Kay and going to the family room to read the newspaper. The family room was far from their bedroom, so it was difficult for him to hear her if she called for him. Instead, they decided she would ring the bell if she needed him upstairs.
One morning, Jim heard the bell ring. He went upstairs and discovered Kay asleep in bed. He entered the guest room and found the bell in its usual spot. When she woke later, he told her about what he had heard. She denied ringing the bell. He figured that he had heard something other than the bell.
A few days later, the bell rang again. When Jim reached the top of the stairs, the ringing stopped. He looked in the guest room, and the bell was still there. When he started walking down the stairs, the bell rang again. After the third time this happened, he and Kay created a code to outwit the entity. He would only come upstairs if she rang the bell three times.
Then, one morning, the bell rang three times. Jim thought it was Kay because it was their signal. But when he came upstairs, she was sound asleep. He went into the guest room and looked at the bell. When he turned around and left the room, the bell rang again. At that point, the hair stood on his neck, and he was frightened. He finally understood how Kay felt.
Jim told Kay that he would not respond to the bell anymore. The bell has not rung since. He found no rational explanation for his experience. It was a turning point for him because it made him realize there were unexplained things in this world.
For four months, the entity remained dormant. Then, one night in May, Kay went upstairs to read. While lying in bed, she heard coins dropping into a bowl. Jim had a wooden bowl in their room where he put his pocket change. She assumed it was him. But when she turned towards the bowl, he was not there. She ran downstairs and got him, but the sound stopped once they got back upstairs.
Kay believed the entity enjoyed teasing her and Jim. She noticed that the entity stops whenever she is alert and looking for something to happen. But whenever she forgets about it or is engrossed in something else, it starts up again.
Late one evening, Jim was downstairs while Kay got ready for bed. When she turned off her bedside lamp, she heard her water glass and tray move on her nightstand. When she did not turn to look at it, a pack of Tums started dropping onto the tray one at a time. Once she turned around and paid attention to the noises, they stopped.
One week, Jim and Kay swapped houses with another couple. Three nights into their stay, the couple was jarred awake in the guest bedroom by a loud, persistent ringing. It was from an electric alarm clock in the main bedroom. They examined the clock but could not figure out why it went off. They also could not understand why it went off only once, three days after they had arrived.
Jim and Kay feel that their home is no longer their own. They have decided to move, leaving the entity to live there alone.
Background: Jim and Kay's house is on an old homestead. On June 22, 1864, a Civil War battle, the Battle of Kolb's Farm, was fought nearby. A few days later, on June 27, the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain occurred nearby. Between the two battles, there were over 5,000 casualties.
Investigations: Experts believe that Jim and Kay were the victims of poltergeist activity. Some experts believe such activity is caused by psychokinesis, a hidden psychic power in a person's mind that unconsciously moves objects through space.
Jim and Kay asked parapsychologist Dr. William Roll for help. He visited the house to interpret the events and determine the reason behind their experiences. He did not know if a ghost was haunting the house or if something else, like psychokinesis, was occurring. He notes that many people have had psychic experiences. He theorizes that residual memories can be transferred to physical objects and then triggered by ordinary people.
Dr. Roll notes that many haunting cases are not very striking but are still disturbing to the family. The events may be trivial, but they can deeply upset the family because they do not fit into the family's picture of the world. He notes that the image of the physical world, particularly of our home, is intricately related to who we picture ourselves as being.
Extra Notes:

  • This case first aired on the October 26, 1988 Halloween episode of Unsolved Mysteries along with The Queen Mary, Tallman House, and General Wayne Inn.
  • Jim and Kay asked that Unsolved Mysteries not show the outside of their house as they were trying to sell it. However, they allowed the show to film inside.
  • It was described in greater detail in the book Haunted America by Michael Norman and Beth Scott.
  • Some sources state that Jim and Kay both woke up to go to the bathroom when she saw the man, and one month passed between the first and second incidents.

Results: Unsolved. In 1993, Jim and Kay moved to Winter Springs, Florida. Sadly, on March 14, 2001, Kay passed away at the age of seventy-three, and in January 2005, Jim passed away at the age of eighty-two.
Others near Jim and Kay's home have also experienced supernatural events. On the night of October 8, 2007, a father and son were driving through Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield when they saw a Union Army cavalry officer on a horse. The father stopped the car, and the soldier and horse passed right in front of them. The soldier and horse then went across the road, through a fence, and disappeared.
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