Follow this link for more information on the Bothell Hell House case: https://demonsinseattle.com/
Bio
Keith Linder is an IT professional – holding over four certifications in Information Technology and Project Management. Hobbies are fishing, sports, football, basketball, the outdoors, movies, sci/fi, proud geek of just about anything dealing with technology. In 2012 my girlfriend and I moved into a house, right outside of Seattle. The phenomena we witnessed while there would change our lives forever. I’m now living between two realities now.
https://demonsinseattle.com/about-us/
Keith Linder, Bestselling Author
- The Bothell Hell House – Poltergeist of Washington State
- Attachments – Poltergeist of Washington State Part Two
- Poltergeist – The Night Side of Physics.
There is something about the Keith Linder case (also known as the “Bothell Hell House” and “Demons in Seattle”) that really disturbs me. It’s so well documented that you can find extensive explanations of every aspect of the activity online. There are documentaries, interviews, podcasts, web pages, social media sites, three books on Amazon, and a YouTube channel dedicated to everything that happened during and after Keith’s case. In fact, there is so much data, analysis, and information that one can quickly become overwhelmed.
The activity itself is overwhelming, ranging from your typical haunting–EVP, EMF anomalies, shadow people, voices, and apparitions–to the utterly bizarre: actual heartbeats in the mattress, succubi that won’t let the victim sleep, demonic graffiti, burning Bibles, and extreme poltergeist activity that regularly knocked over heavy furniture and rearranged chairs, ‘disappeared’ cameras, crosses, and household objects, and even, at one point, moving a chair upstairs and on top of Keith’s desk. Most upsetting, it appears that one of the tenants of the house committed suicide as a direct result of the personal chaos she experienced while living in the Bothell house.
Keith has listed, categorized, studied, written about, and examined all of the above–and much more that I did not mention–with such meticulous attention to detail that there is nothing I can add by way of my role as a paranormal investigator. I was not there, and I cannot, post-mortem, offer any new explanations that Keith has not already considered. In fact, every time something occurs to me and I ask him if he has considered X, he answers that not only has he considered X, but Y and Z, as well. My point: I cannot and will not attempt a new angle or spend time attempting to convince a reader of the reality of what Keith said he experienced. You either believe him, or you do not. If you believe him, then you can only wonder at how he manages his life and survives psychologically and spiritually. If you do not, then he is one impressive opportunist who has invested all his time and energy into creating and maintaining a seriously complex hoax. I don’t see any motivation for such trickery, and it’s clear in his first book that the damage these forces have inflicted cost him a significant amount of money in repairs and replacements of missing (and often expensive) items, in addition to the time and labor of fixing what was broken and repainting damaged and defaced walls. His irritation is palpable.
I have pondered my course of action here for a long time. I read Keith’s first two books and am starting the third. I watched all the videos, the documentary, and reviewed the supporting data. I am disturbed and confused by it all. I rarely suffer from writer’s block, but I have felt paralyzed with this case, not knowing what to make of it nor how to write about it; and yet, it feels like I need to say something beyond “I believe it” or “I don’t believe it”. Let me start here.
Keith’s activity feels utterly chaotic, without a cohesive narrative. There are Native American elements (the upside-down man painted in his office), EVP with Irish accents harking back to Irish settlements in the Bothell area, apparitions of a woman who lived in the house and died tragically by suicide, evidence of demonic activity and oppression, in addition to classic poltergeist activity (which, I should say, strikes Keith as belonging to the category of the demonic). The activity was both intelligent and residual. If ever there was a potpourri of paranormal phenomena, this is it. And that is a hallmark of the demonic–the deliberate creation of confusion, the delight in creating chaos, the impossibility of stitching together a story that explains why all this is happening. There is no particular reason that Keith’s house should have been the locus of such bizarre and threatening phenomena, and that fact alone is disconcerting. Keith’s very dedication to arriving at the truth and researching the possible causes of his experiences was used against him, as if he were suffering punishment for attempting to document his ongoing torture.
This strikes at the heart of two issues that consume me: how much can we know about non-material or immaterial phenomena, and how does our consciousness interact with spirits of the dead, or with nonhuman entities that we do not understand at all? Do we feed these entities with our own curiosity, empower them with our attempts at communication? Should we tread very carefully when seeking knowledge about phenomena that uses our psychology and manipulates our emotions? I wonder if ignorance is bliss. And yet, that attitude is the exact opposite of my personality and negates my most basic drive: to figure it out. It is interesting, however, that the more I attempt to “figure something out”, the less I feel that I actually understand. There may be no answer here, or no answer that the Universe is willing to share.
That doesn’t stop Keith from trying, nor does it keep Kirsten away from haunted hospitals and endless reading on the topic of all things bizarre and unexplained.
As of today’s writing, Keith shared with me a couple of bizarre text messages from “Christine”, a friend of his who did NOT send these messages, even though they came from her phone (see below). This is yet another random occurrence without any particular context, reason, or purpose other than to confuse, disorient, and call attention to itself. We do not know who sent these messages, since it was not Christine and no one else had access to her phone. Keith notes that “13” is the number that results when you add up the numbers in his address, although that could be a coincidence.
There are spirits who act out with the sole intention of calling attention to themselves in order to remind the target that they have not forgotten about him and are still on the lookout. I have to assume that the more attention they receive for such antics, the more they will bother, torment, or annoy the victim. Could Keith just say no to these mysterious forces? Of course; would that end all the abuse?
I believe that we are co-creators of our reality–we have a certain amount of free will to adjust or modify our path, but there is something else, vastly larger than human consciousness, that has set forth for us certain parameters, limitations, and patterns that are difficult to break. If you are born into poverty in a social system that does not allow for upward mobility and does not provide economic opportunities, then your free will is limited by your socio-economic circumstances. If you receive a terminal diagnosis, you can respond and react to that in a variety of ways, but you can’t will cancer to disappear. Keith could ‘just say no’ and refuse to engage with the entities that he might have unwittingly encouraged; but perhaps this ongoing activity is something fate threw his way, or God, if you will, as part of the unalterable circumstances of his life; in other words, this is his test, and there is little he can do about that.
I know from personal experience that ignoring bizarre phenomena in your home does not stop it from happening. I know that you can pretend you don’t see the shadow person, don’t feel the hand on your arm, don’t hear your name called out in the middle of the night, or refuse to acknowledge the palpable sense of evil in a downstairs room where you no longer feel welcome. None of that stops it. If something–whatever you wish to call it–decides that it wishes to communicate with you, it will continue to find ways to do so. It might even send you a nonsensical text from another dimension, asking you to meet it in Room 13.
Much more to come on this . . . .
Yours in paranormality,
Kirsten A. Thorne, PhD
International Society for Paranormal Research 