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He was just a boy.
Yet, strange phenomena kept happening in that Palm Bay home all those years ago. He could've suppressed it. He could've ignored it.
But he didn't.
Instead of fearing the unknown, his mom advised him to read up on the subject and educate himself on the spirit world. And so began his life's calling.
In 2008, Talley founded the Space Coast Paranormal Society with the intent to debunk or explain the paranormal activity as well as rule out natural causes.
"I set it up to help people because I know what it's like to have stuff happen to you," the 27-year-old Melbourne man said. "For me, it's helping people understand what's going on, helping people feel better."
Fellow member Ben Cameron recalls "feeling" spirits around him when he was younger. He believes they were members of his family who had died and wanted to guide him through life.
"There are certain things," he explained, "that just call out to me and say, 'Hey, I'm here. Come find me.'"
The group has grown from a few members to about 15. In its early days — say 2012 — group meetings were held at Starbucks or Burger King, according to second-in-command Jesse Winterbottom of Jupiter.
The 31-year-old ship captain, who spends half the year at sea, grew up in Hawaii listening to ghost stories "like you wouldn't believe," he said. "Hawaii is a very spiritual place. They believe in the legends and spirits.
"If there's a haunted house, I'm usually the first one to go in the door."
That *other* paranormal group
According to its Facebook page, the mission of the paranormal society is this: "The Space Coast Paranormal Society is a not-for-profit organization that strives to provide objective and non-biased means of investigating paranormal phenomenon through research and scientific means to document, validate, and educate findings to clients."
But it's not to be confused by the Space Coast Ghostbusters, a costuming/prop building group modeled after characters from the "Ghostbusters" movies. The description on their Facebook page is taken right from the original 1984 comedy: "Are you troubled by strange noises in the night? Do you experience feelings of dread in your basement or attic? Have you or your family actually seen a spook, specter or ghost? If the answer is yes, then don't wait another minute."
It goes on to disclose the SCG are not actual paranormal investigators or eliminators.
One group seeks to debunk paranormal activity, and the other makes appearances at special events or nonprofit functions.
How it works
Talley said clients who contact the group are asked a series of questions. (For those interested in learning how to become a paranormal investigator, these are the guys to call.)
For example, if somebody says they feel like they're being watched or they see things, the SCPS will investigate. Live in a haunted house? Talley, Cameron and Winterbottom will check it out. They have equipment that's somewhat like the props used in the "Ghostbusters" flicks.
Talley attributes the group's peak time in October to Halloween, but says the group acquires one to two cases a week.
A recent case involved Belle Woods of Palm Bay. The 18-year-old said she moved into her apartment in December. Soon after, she said, strange things started to happen.
"Out of the blue, stuff was moving, my doors were opening and closing," she recalled. Her oven was mysteriously turned on high while she was at work all day, she claimed.
"It's really against my religion," she said. "I was raised thinking that crap was fake."
Before contacting the SCPS, Woods voiced her complaints to the apartment complex staff. She sought therapy from a psychiatrist, who, she said, told her she wasn't crazy.
Woods eventually bought sage to ward off the evil spirits. But waving around the herbs in her apartment didn't stop the paranormal phenomena. In fact, she said, it made things worse.
"As soon as I started burning sage, I said (to the spirit), 'Whoever's in here, you need to leave!'"
All of a sudden, the door slammed shut, and then the loaf of bread that was on top of the fridge fell toward her. "It was like someone threw it at me," she said. Dumbstruck, she asked herself, "How did this happen?"
Critics and nonbelievers
Cases like these fuel the SCPS, which operates on a volunteer basis. Their services have always been free.
Winterbottom's no stranger to the "nonbelievers" and welcomes criticism.
"The way I look at it, the skeptics keep us on our toes," he said. "If everybody believed in what we investigated in, we would be out of a job."
Said Cameron: "Everyone expects us to go in and find evidence, but that doesn't happen in every case. ... So much stuff can be doctored and everything, but we go in, we do all raw video."
The group cites expectations made popular by reality TV's "Ghost Hunters" on SyFy or "Ghost Adventures" on Travel Channel. The spotlight on ghost hunting, they say, certainly has its pros and cons.
"They help bring awareness that there are people willing to investigate the paranormal side," Cameron said, "but at the same time, they hurt it."
"The TV shows make us want to bang our heads against the wall when we watch it," said Winterbottom, referring to the escalated drama associated with reality programming. "I'm like, come on. Really?"
Fooling the group is hard to do, too.
Before Talley began his current job working at a medical company, he worked in photo labs for several years.
"I have pretty good experience when it comes to photographic/video evidence," he said. "We have someone who works with radio waves, and we have a teacher on the team, so if there's a case that involves a kid, we can bring her in."
In his experiences with the SCPS, Cameron, a student, said he wants to help the clients and the spirits find closure.
"There are times we get to them when they're crying or when they're angry," he said of the paranormal activity. "We want to help them cross."
That free-spirited thinking has subjected him and the others to skepticism.
"We had to call in a priest to do an exorcism," Cameron said, "and the priest questioned my religious beliefs."
He's not Christian, but, "in our line of work, we have to be open to our clients' religious beliefs."
SCPS visited Woods' apartment in January. Armed with their equipment that detects paranormal activity, they attempted to make contact with the spirit.
"We came up with a theory that this person may have possibly been shot, a homicide," Cameron said. Talley added the spirits occasionally ID themselves by name.
During their investigation, which normally occurs about 1 a.m. Friday and Saturday nights, "we saw shadows," Woods said. "We saw something go back and forth between the kitchen. It was very, very uncomfortable and very creepy to see this happening.
"At one point, they made the spirit very angry so the spirit would follow them," she added. "It actually worked."
An entity can be heard on the SCPS' digital recording device: "Get out! Get out!" (The group has similar recordings from other cases, too. The paranormal society shared audio clips with FLORIDA TODAY. Hear them on floridatoday.com.)
Woods believes the SCPS reasoned with the spirit — because they were able to explain to it that the paranormal activity was scaring Woods and making her life uncomfortable. The spirit supposedly has backed off.
"I think someone finally heard him, and he was finally happy with that," she said.
For Talley, explaining the unexplainable is a job well done, the mission statement of the SCPS. Don't mind what he calls the Hollywood exaggeration of Bibles, crosses, holy water ... "Whatever (the clients) hold true to is whatever is going to get rid of what's there," he said.
While there's closure for Woods, Talley will never know about that spirit that haunted him when he was 7.
"I've always wanted to go back to that house," he said, "but someone else lives there now."
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