SABIC Innovative Plastics

The SABIC Innovative Plastics facility in Selkirk, New York occupies a location with a complicated and layered history that encompasses both the development of American industrial manufacturing and the residue of profound personal violence that allegedly occurred within the property during an earlier era. The building's current identity as a modern plastics manufacturing facility masks an earlier history connected to a previous ownership and occupation that appears to have been marked by tragedy and moral transgression of extraordinary severity. Originally known as GE Plastics before its acquisition by SABIC, the facility represents one node within a broader network of chemical and polymer manufacturing that developed in the Hudson River Valley region during the twentieth century. Yet beneath this contemporary industrial function lies the memory of a much earlier occupation of the same property—Becker Farm, a nineteenth-century agricultural operation that would become associated with paranormal manifestation and documented accounts of violent death.

The Becker Farm period of the property's history represents the point at which alleged violence occurred and the paranormal consequences apparently began. According to accounts that have circulated within local folklore and paranormal documentation, the property was owned during this earlier period by a man identified only as Mr. Becker, a farmer whose character and actions resulted in multiple deaths and the creation of paranormal disturbances that have persisted for over a century. The narrative associated with Becker describes a man capable of extraordinary violence and cruelty, violence apparently directed against people occupying subordinate positions within the household hierarchy.

One particularly horrific account suggests that Mr. Becker pushed a slave down a staircase within the house—an act of violence motivated by racism and exploitation, occurring within a location designed for domestic residence. The death resulting from this violent act appears to have created the first layer of paranormal manifestation at the property. The trauma of this murder, the sudden violent death of a person whose fundamental humanity was denied by the social structures within which he lived, appears to have bound his spirit to the location where his life was violently terminated.

The violence did not end with this act. According to the accounts, Mr. Becker proceeded to murder his own wife—his legal spouse and household partner—killing her apparently within the second floor of the house where they had shared domestic life. The act of murdering one's spouse represents a profound violation of intimate relationship and domestic trust, and the violence appears to have been of such brutality or carried such emotional weight that it too created paranormal consequences. The ghost of Mrs. Becker, the murdered wife, appears to be present at the location, her spirit seemingly unable to escape from the space where her life was violently terminated by the man to whom she was bound in legal marriage.

Having committed these murders, Mr. Becker apparently concluded his own life through the act of hanging—a suicide occurring in the basement of the same structure that had witnessed his violent acts against others. His decision to end his own existence, occurring in the basement location away from the public view offered by other parts of the building, created the final layer of the property's paranormal history. The man who had perpetrated violence against others ultimately directed lethal violence against himself, his suicide occurring in the privacy of the basement space.

The paranormal manifestations at the SABIC facility and the location of the former Becker Farm appear to be concentrated within the basement area where Mr. Becker's suicide occurred. This location has become the focal point of paranormal activity and investigation. The basement, functioning as a storage and utility space within the modern industrial facility, maintains the associations and energetic imprints from the violent deaths that occurred during the Becker Farm period.

The most distinctive paranormal phenomena reported at the facility involve lights that flicker and turn on and off without obvious electrical cause. These lights, described as turning on and off in the basement with a pattern that suggests intelligent agency rather than electrical malfunction, appear to respond to the presence of living observers. Motion detectors within the facility appear to activate in sequence as if tracking the movement of an invisible presence walking through the building—a phenomenon that suggests something with physical form or at least with the capacity to interact with motion-detection systems designed to register human movement.

Additional paranormal manifestation at the location involves phantom odors—specifically, the scent of perfume emanating from the second floor of the building where Mrs. Becker was allegedly murdered. This particular form of paranormal manifestation—the appearance of a distinctive scent lacking any identifiable source—suggests either a residual energy imprint from the past or an active attempt at communication or presence by the ghost of the murdered woman. The persistence of a particular scent associated with a particular location and a particular tragedy represents one of the more unusual categories of paranormal manifestation.

The facility's evolution from Becker Farm to GE Plastics to SABIC Innovative Plastics represents a transformation from agricultural to industrial use, from nineteenth-century domestic violence to contemporary chemical manufacturing. Yet the paranormal manifestations appear to have persisted through these transformations, suggesting that the trauma and violence associated with the location have created a lasting imprint that industrial development and corporate ownership cannot erase. The basement space, where Mr. Becker hanged himself and where the majority of paranormal activity is concentrated, appears to maintain a direct connection to the violent past despite the massive industrial transformation that has otherwise occurred above it.