About this episode

This episode explores the haunted history of Saltair on the Great Salt Lake, including ghostly encounters and the story of Saltair Sally.

On the shore of Utah's Great Salt Lake sits a concert venue with a strange problem: it seems to have inherited more than a century of history that didn't actually happen there. The original Saltair burned. Its replacement burned, burned again, and was eventually destroyed by arson. The third Saltair was built a mile away—then the lake rose and flooded it. Today, employees report phantom footsteps, children laughing in empty rooms, a woman staring across the salt flats, and a uniformed man watching from an upper railing. But Saltair's strangest story belongs to a twenty-year-old woman whose remains were discovered nearby in 2000. For twelve years she was known only as Saltair Sally, until investigators realized that her extraordinarily long hair had been quietly recording where she'd lived. Tonight, we explore the monsters, ghosts, fires and strange history of the Great Salt Lake... and how science finally gave Saltair Sally her real name: Nikole Kristina Bakoles.

Topics covered

• haunted history
• Great Salt Lake
• Saltair
• ghost stories
• unsolved mysteries
• arson
• forensic science

Keywords

• Saltair
• Great Salt Lake
• haunted places
• ghosts
• Nikole Kristina Bakoles
• arson
• history
• Utah
• mystery
• forensics

Mentioned in this episode

Places: Great Salt Lake, Saltair, Utah

More episodes of Haunted American History

• The Curse That Erased the Hayden Family: The Hayden House (Vermont) · September 9, 2026 · 20 min
• The Ghost Story That Changed With The Building : The Everett Mansion (Vermont) · September 8, 2026 · 22 min
• The House That Became Hill House Anyway: Jennings Hall (Vermont) · September 7, 2026 · 23 min
• The Devil's Not on Trial: The Fall River Murders (Massachusetts) · September 6, 2026 · 17 min
• The Murder Blamed on Witches: Jeannette DePalma (New Jersey) · September 5, 2026 · 23 min
• The Boy Who Never Made the Bus: Macin Smith (Utah) · September 4, 2026 · 25 min

Explore listener stats, chart rankings, contacts and more on the Haunted American History podcast page.