It’s hard to believe in the supernatural, especially when more than half of the population will go their entire lives without having an experience with the other worldly. For some researchers, however, the ability of the afterlife to manifest itself is a very real thing. A select group of researchers believe that an event so large and traumatizing can leave a lasting imprint on its surroundings, echoing the sounds of that event for many years to come. So what’s more traumatizing than two dozen screaming kids running for their lives from a flock of angry, murderous birds?
Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds is one of the most recognized horror films of all time, even 50 years later. The movie is a cult phenomenon and has been included in a number of “Best Of” lists, most noticeably the American Film Institutes Top 100. The Birds is undeniably a classic, both for its innovations in film making and for its unintentional comedically challenged bits.
The most famous scene from The Birds is the Potter School House scene. In this scene, Melanie (played by Tippi Hedren) goes to a local elementary school to pick up her friend’s daughter, Cathy. At this moment the school is evacuated and the fleeing students are attacked and preyed upon by a huge flock of nasty crows.
Before filming, The Potter School House was an actual school house in California which doubled as a community center on the second floor. Eventually the economy of the small town crumbled, and after Hitchcock had finished filming, the house was purchased by Leah Taylor and turned into a private residence. And this is when things start to get creepy…
When the establishment was purchased by the Taylor estate, it was in poor shape – with boarded up windows, crumbling walls, and even furniture covered in bird droppings (of course!). Long after moving in Leah Taylor and her family started experiencing strange, unexplained occurrences. These instances included disembodied voices, the sound of children’s laughter in a house with no children, and footsteps and banging happening throughout the house. Taylor herself has been quoted as hearing a voice scream “It’s Sunday morning!” early one day.
Whether the old, creepy looking house is really haunted remains to be seen. Maybe the noises come from interested tourists flocking to a popular horror film location. Maybe the noises are the act of real manifesting spirits. Whatever the case may be, one day Leah and her family could hear childish voices, happily singing the tune “Risseldy, rosseldy, hey bambassity, nickety, nackety, etrical quality, illowby, wallowby, mow, mow, mow.”
ORIGINAL SOURCE MATERIAL: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/08/school-house-the-birds_n_4065354.html (also includes pictures of how the house looks today)
