This Month in History - Orson Welles' War of the Worlds
In the month of October, on the 30th, in 1938, Orson Welles devised one of the most brilliant and notorious moments in broadcasting history with his radio adaptation of H.G. Wells' The War of the Worlds. The on air delivery came across as a series of simulated, increasingly frantic breaking news bulletins that interrupted seemingly ordinary dance music. The live performance detailed a Martian invasion originating in Grover's Mill, New Jersey. This innovative format completely fooled unsuspecting listeners who had tuned in late and missed the opening disclaimers. As fake actor reporters screamed over the airwaves about toxic gas and towering alien war machines, a wave of genuine panic rippled through communities, prompting terrified citizens to jam police phone lines and flee their homes. However, later historical accounts suggest the scale of the public hysteria was somewhat exaggerated by contemporary newspapers, the broadcast permanently cemented the twenty-three-year-old Welles as a theatrical genius and forever altered the public's understanding of the immense, persuasive power of mass media.
History of Poltergeists
Poltergeists can be really bothersome spirits. Rather than just appearing out of the corner of our eyes or leaving a dime on the windowsill or unmaking the bed, they usually play pranks and enjoy scaring people. Poltergeist stories are always tough to believe because the activity is so intense, it's hard to believe. But even more fascinating are the evolving theories about what is behind the phenomenon. On this episode, we're traveling through centuries of strange disturbances, terrified families, baffled investigators, and some of the most famous poltergeist accounts in history. We'll explore the stories, examine the evidence, and follow the changing theories about what — or who — might be responsible for things that move when no one touches them. Because the history of the poltergeist isn't just a history of things that go bump in the night. It's also a history of how we try to explain the things that frighten us most. So turn down the lights, settle in, and keep an ear out for any unexplained noises nearby. Because this time, when something goes bump in the night, we're going to ask a different question. What if it isn't a ghost?
Imagine that you're home alone. It's late. The house is quiet. Everyone is asleep, and there's nothing to disturb the stillness. Then you hear a knock. **[Pause.]** You get up to investigate, but there's no one there. You return to bed. Another knock. This time, it comes from inside the room. And then, without warning, a chair scrapes across the floor. Something crashes in the next room. A picture flies off the wall. And somewhere in the darkness, an unseen presence seems determined to make itself known. What would you think? Would you believe your home was haunted? Would you suspect a mischievous spirit, an angry ghost, or perhaps something far more sinister? For centuries, people have reported encounters with forces they couldn't explain. Objects have allegedly flown through the air. Furniture has overturned. Walls have echoed with mysterious pounding. And ordinary homes have become the settings for extraordinary stories. These disturbances have come to be known as **poltergeist activity** — from the German words for *noisy* and *spirit*. But here's where things get interesting. What if the source of these disturbances wasn't a spirit at all? In centuries past, people might have blamed the Devil, accused a witch, or believed that a restless soul was reaching out from beyond the grave. As the world changed, so did the explanations. Some investigators began to wonder whether these strange events might somehow be connected to the living — perhaps even to a particular person at the center of the activity. And that raises a question almost as unsettling as the phenomenon itself. What if the thing making the noise isn't dead?**[SFX: A sudden, sharp knock.]**
Explanations for poltergeist activity have changed through the years. In the beginning, people blamed the activity on the Devil. Then during the Age of Spiritualism in the nineteenth century, people developed a growing fascination with spirits, séances, spiritualism, and the possibility that the dead could physically affect the living and so a poltergeist was a spirit. Moving into a more modern era in the 1960s and 1970s, individuals like Hanz Holzer and the Warrens became paranormal investigators and captured the phenomenon on camera and in recordings and began to ask themselves if these things were hoaxes or was this just inexplicable activity. And now with our scientific gadgets and psychological studies, theories about poltergeists being entirely connected to the living have become the standard explanation.
The Glenluce Devil
This is thought to be the first well known poltergeist case and occurred in Scotland between 1654 and 1656. The disturbance targeted the Gilbert Campbell family. Campbell was a weaver who was approached by a beggar named Alexander Agnew asking for alms. Campbell refused to give the man anything and Agnew spit out a curse upon the family. Shortly thereafter, the family experienced rocks and stones being violently thrown against the front door, roof, windows, and walls of the house. Household items and furniture moved or levitated on their own, including a butcher's knife flying off the kitchen table. Beds caught fire on their own. The Campbell's 10-year-old daughter, Jennet, experienced supernatural encounters at a nearby well, and family members reported hearing an invisible child's voice. Scottish mathematician and demonologist George Sinclair wrote of the incident in his 1685 book "Satan's Invisible World Discovered" after Campbell's son Thomas shared it with him. People believe that Thomas produced the phenomena fraudulently himself because he was a philosophy student. Apparently, the beggar, Agnew, was known as the Jock of Broad Scotland and he was the first person in Scottish history to publicly deny the existence of God and be hanged for blasphemy. So could this just have been a hoax?
The Drummer of Tedworth
William Drury was a traveling drummer in the 1660s. He crossed paths with landowner John Mompesson who had his drum confiscated and saw to it he was prosecuted for collecting money under false pretenses. Shortly thereafter, the Mompesson household experienced mysterious drumming, scratching, knocking, moving objects, and other disturbances. This lasted from 1661 to 1663. Clergyman Joseph Glanvill visited the house in 1663 to investigate and he publicized the case, claiming he himself heard strange scratching noises under a bed in the children's room. John Wesley even made reference to the Drummer at Tedworth in his journal writing, "The famous instance of this, which has been spread far and wide, was the drumming in Mr Mompesson's house at Tedworth; who, it was said, acknowledged, 'It was all a trick, and that he had found out the whole contrivance.' Not so, my eldest brother, then at Christ Church, Oxon, inquired of Mr Mompesson, his fellow collegian, 'Whether his father had acknowledged this or not.' He answered, 'The resort of gentlemen to my father's house was so great, he could not bear the expense. He therefore took no pains to confute the report, that he had found out the cheat: although he and I, and all the family knew the account which was published, to be punctually true.'" Most people blame the children as the agents of the phenomenon.
The Epworth Poltergeist
The Epworth Rectory poltergeist was known as "Old Jeffrey" and began on December 1, 1716. This lasted for several months in the home of Reverend Samuel Wesley and his wife Susanna. Their family experienced knockings, heavy footsteps, and scratching sounds moving from room to room, frequently centered around the nursery and attic. Objects moved on their own like overturned chairs, spinning handmills, and beds shook and levitated (including Emily Wesley's bed). The invisible entity reacting violently—producing loud bangs and crashes—whenever prayers were offered for King George I. The nickname of Old Jeffrey was created by the family's daughter Mehetabel ("Hetty") after a former man who had died on the property. Family letters and diaries helped preserve the account, making it an important early haunting case. The Reverend initially thought it was rats and the house settling, but eventually was convinced it was supernatural and his son John Wesley always believed it was spirits and it enhanced his belief in the spirit world. Modern theories believe Hetty was pulling pranks or stress on the family caused them to imagine things.
Poltergeist of Slawensik Castle
Slawensik Castle no longer stands but at one time it was in the Kingdom of Prussia. This story about it dates to 1806. Prince Friedrich Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen was a Prussian general and had been the resident of Slawensik Castle at the time of our story, but he had been captured by Napoleon's army during the Battle of Jena. His army had nearly been destroyed by Napoleon during that battle. Napoleon decided to keep the Prince as a Prisoner of War while he decided how best to use the man. Should he ransom the Prince or use him as a political pawn? The Prince's right-hand-man was Augustus Hahn and he had been captured too. The army gave him parole. The Prince asked his councillor, Hahn, to go to the castle and protect it. Hahn asked his old friend Charles Kern, whom had also been at The Battle of Jena, to join him at this big castle in the middle of nowhere. The two men would not be alone. There would be a couple of footmen to serve the men and the caretaker, Frau Knittel, would be there with her son. Hahn and Kern would arrive at the castle on November 19, 1806.
Things went well for the first two days of the stay. The men enjoyed intellectual conversation and good food. I imagine they discussed what happened at the Battle of Jena, also. The peace of the castle would change on the third day. What occurred first could simply be relegated to the condition of an old castle if not for all the events that would ensue. This first disturbance would be a large quantity of limestone breaking free from the ceiling and falling upon the men below. The men checked the ceiling and found no cracks or weakness on the ceiling. As they checked out the ceiling, some more limestone fell from the ceiling. Again, they saw no damage that could have lead to this happening. So where was this limestone coming from? Kern grabbed a couple of pieces of the limestone and he remarked that they felt strangely cold. If he didn't know better, he would think they had come from outside. The men finally went to sleep.
The next day, the two men again checked the ceiling and readied the servants to do some repairs. Only no repairs were needed. The ceiling was fine. And yet again, that evening, limestone rained down again and this was accompanied by the sound of heavy blows. Then pieces of the lime started to pelt the men as though they were being thrown. The men retreated to their rooms, but could not sleep that evening because of the loud rapping on the walls and doors. Both men thought the other was trying to scare him. Hahn decided to write everything down in his journal. He was a practical man, not given to superstition and he was convinced there was a good explanation. On the fifth night, there were again loud banging noises from the top floors of the castle, so the caretaker's son joined Kern in investigating the rooms. They found nothing. Hahn and Kern were awakened during the night from what sounded like disembodied slippered feet moving across the floors of their rooms. When they both lit candles, they found they were the only ones in their rooms. The sound of a walking stick could be heard tapping in the hallways. By the sixth evening, the group staying in the castle had to admit that something supernatural was taking place. They tried to debunk the sounds and falling lime as best they could. They could find no natural reason for the disturbances. And then, stuff started flying around. Candlesticks flew across rooms, padlocks came loose on their own and then knives, forks, brushes, soap and other items became airborne.
This all continued for three weeks and other people were asked to come and witness the phenomenon. Then Kern saw something in a mirror that made his blood run cold. Hahn found him in his room completely pale and transfixed, staring at a mirror. He shook Kern and when he collected himself, he told Hahn that he had seen a female figure all swathed in white staring out of the mirror at him. He claimed the woman was a spirit because he could see his own reflection behind the woman. He said the woman was elderly. Hahn looked into the mirror and demanded that the woman show herself. She did not. Another evening, Hahn was about to shave when the soapbox, razor, brush, and soap flew at him and fell at his feet. When he tried to sleep he was awakened by the heavy noises, and once it seemed as if someone had sprinkled water on him while he lay in bed, although he could find no water.
After a month, the story of the poltergeist experiences spread abroad. Two Bavarian officers, Lieutenant Nagerle and Captain Cornet. decided to visit the castle, o they could prove that the stories they were hearing were not true. Nagerle decided to spend the night in the room with the mirror that housed the spirit of the elderly woman. The officer hadn't been in the room long before Hahn and Kern heard him cursing and the sound of a saber whacking things. They opened the door and saw Nagerle running around the room waving his saber around. They managed to calm him down and get him out of the room. He explained that something he couldn't see had begun to pelt him with items in the room. He was a huge skeptic and could not explain what had happened to him. He was both fearful and angry. He thought that Hahn and Kern were tricking him and the other officer. But as he accused the men of fooling him, Captain Cornet said the men had never left his sight.
As the men stood talking, a lead ball rose into the air and hit Hahn in the chest. He was not hurt, but the men were startled once again. Then the poltergeist activity started up again with drinking glasses jumping off stands and disembodied footsteps being heard. After a glass slammed into a wall, the men ran outside. Hahn and Kern looked at the officers and asked, "Do you believe us now?" The officers left and Hahn and Kern continued to stay on for some reason. On another evening, Hahn wrote that their servant John and Kern had both witnessed a jug of beer slowly lift to a height of about three feet and pour into a glass until it was half full. The jug was then gently replaced and the glass lifted and emptied as if by some invisible specter. John exclaimed in terrified surprise, "Lord Jesus! It swallows!" The glass was quietly replaced. The men checked the floor to see if any liquid was there. It would seem that this spirit that was unseen could actually drink. And that leaves me with a bunch of questions. Hahn and Kern both started to suffer from sleep deprivation. Hahn begged the spirit to leave them alone for one night and a peace seemed to settle on the castle. But it didn't last long as a bowl full of water was dumped on Hahn as he slept. And then, the phenomenon just stopped. No other strange things happened. Kern left to go home and Hahn stayed on for 6 more months until the Prince was freed and came home. Then Hahn went home. He concluded his journal on November 19, 1808, two years after he started it. He wrote, "I have described these events exactly as I heard and saw them; from beginning to end I observed them with the most entire self-possesion...yet the whole thing remains to me perfectly inexplicable." Twenty years after that, he published his journal. It became a sensation in Germany.
The Bell Witch
This is probably the most famous poltergeist case in America. We've covered it in our Witches in America episode. The phenomenon started in 1817 in Adams, Tennessee and is the only story said to document a death caused by supernatural causes or by a supernatural entity. It actually says that on the death certificate! This was a poltergeist that tormented a Tennessee pioneer family by the name of Bell and the activity continued until 1821, but many believe that the hauntings related to this witch continue to the present day. The Bell Family was headed by John Bell. It was his daughter Betsy who was first attacked by this entity. She was tormented by being physically attacked and then the house started experiencing things that were poltergeist-like. There was knocking on the walls and disembodied voices. The entire family experienced all of these unexplained events, but they told no one. It was not long before neighbors started experiencing them as well. Eventually, the witch identified herself as someone named Kate and she promised to kill John Bell. And eventually it seemed that she did because John did die in 1820 at the age of 70. Now, many people claim he had a neurological disorder that wasn't understood back then, but people who have visited the Bell Witch Cave claim that this entity is still hanging around.
Willington Mill Poltergeist
Poltergeist activity started for the Proctor family in the 1830s in Northumberland, England and lasted until the 1840s. These were Quakers who moved into the building in 1831 in the close-knit industrial community of Willington that sat near a small stream, known as Willington Gut, that emptied into the River Tyne. Joseph Proctor documented the activity in his journal and this was published in the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research. The family's nursemaid was the first to report weird stuff and she was so unnerved that she quit. Activity included unexplained noises like pattering footsteps on the third floor, heavy thumping, coughing, and groaning coming from empty rooms. The kitchen chairs would move cabinets would open on their own and the beds shook violently. A room on the third floor had the most phenomenon and they called it the Disturbed Room. Now the strange thing is that the room had been sealed up before the Proctors moved in, They found it full of dust and undisturbed by anything, including mice. The windows were boarded up, as was the fireplace. There was no access to the room except the door and the Proctors didn't use the room. No one knows who sealed it up or why. Proctor wrote in 1835, "My wife and I were informed by our cousin Unthanks [who had lived in the house previously] that they understood that the house, and that room in particular in which the noises now occurred, was said to be haunted before they entered it in 1806, but that nothing they knew of had been heard during their occupancy of 25 years." By 1847 the Proctors had had enough and left the house. No one has come up with a reasonable explanation. The children had things happen to them when the eldest was only two.
Stratford Poltergeist
The Phelps Mansion in Stratford, Connecticut became famous because of its connection to the Stratford Poltergeist. This is a poltergeist case that has intrigued people for decades and was never fully debunked. The Phelps Mansion was built for a sea captain named George R. Dowell and his wife Eliza by Eliza's father General Matthias Nicoll in 1826. This was a three-story Greek Revival home designed with a center hallway that was reminiscent of the main deck of his clipper ship. Twin staircases lead to the second floor and the interior was decorated with chandeliers, molded plaster work and carved wood paneling. The Captain died shortly after moving into the house in 1829. Eliza would live until 1851, but she sold the mansion to Reverend Eliakim Phelps in 1848.
Dr. Phelps was well known in religious circles and was seen as somewhat unusual in his thinking, often expressing an interest in mysticism, mesmerism and later, in the growing Spiritualist movement in America. He devoted most of his time to reading and exploring his unique interests. Phelps was definitely outside of the norm when it came to Presbyterian clergymen. On March 4, 1850, an old friend of Eliakim’s came calling on him at Elm Street, and after dinner and conversation, they apparently decided to try a seance. They apparently heard “intermittent, disorganized rappings” but nothing else. On Sunday, March 10, 1850, the family returned from church to find all the doors standing open and the family’s belongings were strewn across the floor. In one bedroom, chillingly, Mrs. Phelps’ nightgown was laid out on a bed, sleeves crossed over the chest in imitation of a corpse and stockings at the bottom. Nothing appeared to be stolen — his gold watch and the family silver were in view and undisturbed — so they straightened the house and Eliakim sent the family back to church for afternoon services. Meanwhile, he lurked in the upstairs of the house, waiting for the burglars to return. He heard nothing, and then crept downstairs and saw that the dining room was filled with eleven women, some kneeling, some standing, some holding Bibles, and all completely still: all of them seemed focused on a tiny demonic figure suspended by a cord in the center of the room.
The figures were made by stuffing rags and other materials into the family’s clothing. An account of the event published in the New Haven Journal said, “From this time on the rooms were closely watched, and the figures appeared every few days when no human being could have entered the room. They were constructed and arranged, I am convinced, by no visible power. The clothing from the figures were made was somehow gathered from all parts of the house, in spite of a strict watch. In all about 30 figures were constructed during the haunt.” Other events occurred during the next 6 months, such as objects moving through the air, family members being carried or pinched and slapped by invisible forces, windows breaking (some 71 windows broke, which seems like an appalling amount of money for repairs if it was a hoax), food appearing and being flung at family members, and loud rappings, knockings, and cries. In one incident, an umbrella leaped into the air and flew some 25 feet away, and smaller objects would fly from locations without any visible force to fling them.
At one point shortly after the haunting began, Mrs. Phelps begged her husband to find someone to help, so he enjoined his friend Rev John Mitchell to investigate. Mitchell decided that it must be the children having a prank, so he locked them away in the house. However, the disturbances continued, and he witnessed moving objects, among other activities, such as seeing objects appear and drop out of the air, and this convinced him that it could not be a hoax or prank. Investigators, spiritualists, and journalists began to turn up at the house to document and attempt to prove/disprove the events. No witnesses or investigators were ever able to determine a human perpetrator of the events. These included Eliakim’s son Austin and Eliakim’s brother Abner, both of whom were sober, well-thought-of professional men in the Boston environs who were none too pleased about the family notoriety and had every reason to debunk the haunting. They heard pounding on the front door that they could not ascertain the source of, despite waiting on either side of it — the pounding occurred on the door between them, with no visible source.
Anna, the 17-year-old, was pinched and slapped, generally in view of the family, bruises and welts appearing on her arms and face. Henry, the 12-year-old, got the worst of it, apparently: he was pelted by stones while driving with his stepfather, he was carried across a room by something invisible and dropped on the floor, was thrown into a cistern of water, and several times vanished, once found in a hay mound unconscious, once found outside, tied up and suspended from a tree, and once found stuffed into the shelf of a closet with a rope around his neck.
Eliakim had apparently made attempts to communicate with the spirits perpetrating these events early on, but shut those attempts down because the communications had been so blasphemous and offensive. No transcripts were published, so we only have his word for it, and the word of his friend Mitchell, who also attempted communication. The entities apparently occasionally left Bibles open to significant passages, scrawled symbols on walls, and then, in a dramatic turn, began dropping written messages on the family, generally signed “by Sam Slick, Beelzebub, or H.P. Devil. One that fluttered into existence at Mrs. Phelp’s tea party said, ‘Sir Sambo’s compliments and begs the laddyes to accept as a token of esteem.'” Now, desperate for information that the spirits had been unwilling to provide, Dr. Phelps agreed reluctantly to perform another seance in the house. This time, communication was easily resolved and the spirit claimed to be a soul in hell, enduring torment for the sins he had committed in life. Dr. Phelps asked the spirit what he could do to help and using the knocking code, the ghost asked that Phelps bring him a piece of pumpkin pie. Thinking that he had been misunderstood, he asked again and this time the spirit asked for a glass of gin. Finally, Phelps asked why the spirit was causing such a disturbance in the house and the spirit replied: "For fun."
Then, the spirit further detailed its history, claiming to be a law clerk who had done some financial work for Mrs. Phelps. He confessed that he had committed fraud and had been sent to hell when he died. He did not explain why he was haunting the Phelps home though. Eerily, Dr. Phelps later made a visit to the Philadelphia law firm where the spirit claimed to have been employed and he examined the papers in question. It turned out that a fraud had been committed and that it had been serious enough to warrant the man’s prosecution, had he lived until his arrest and trial. Later on though, Phelps would change his position about the identity of the ghost and would feel that he had been tricked using the fraudulent papers. It is unknown what made him change from his original position. He simply stated that: "I am convinced that the communications are wholly worthless, in that they are frequently false, contradictory and nonsensical.." The Phelps family had gone through just about all they could take.
After months of madness in the house, they decided to abandon the place and move back to Philadelphia. They would at least winter there and see how things looked in the spring. Following this decision, Dr. Phelps was in his office one night and a paper suddenly came from nowhere and fluttered down onto his desk. The message asked how soon the family would be leaving the house? On a nearby paper, Dr. Phelps scratched the words "October 1" and by that day, they had departed. Phelps sent his wife and family ahead of him to Philadelphia and he remained briefly in Stratford to put his affairs in order. During this period, the house was quiet and still. The spirits had apparently departed with the Phelps family. However, they did not accompany them to Philadelphia. The haunting seemed to be over at last. But was it? The Phelps family spent the winter and spring in the city and they returned to Stratford in the early summer days of 1851. The house was calm and still and over the course of the next eight years, nothing out of the ordinary occurred there. The supernatural forces, whether spiritual or man-made, seemed to have resolved themselves. According to some accounts, they stayed in the house until 1859, when Phelps sold it to Moses Beach, though they were clearly in Philadelphia in October 1858 when Mrs. Phelps died — possibly Eliakim had taken her to Philadelphia for treatment.
Apparently, there were no other reports of supernatural occurrences until it was a nursing home, at which time some staff reported strange noises and other odd occurrences,. Inevitably, Ed and Lorraine Warren investigated the house. Supernatural theories for the Phelps haunting range from spirits raised by Eliakim’s seance to the two eldest stepchildren, Anna and Henry, being conduits for paranormal energies, to there being a ghost involved, either a murdered peddler or a woman murdered for being a witch. Spiritualist and psychic investigator Andrew Jackson Davis came to Stratford and asserted his belief in the genuineness of the activity. He stated that the outbreak was caused by “vital radiations” from Henry and Anna and that when the “magnetism” was at its strongest, objects were attracted to the two of them. He also believed that they could radiate a sort of “electricity” as well, which would propel objects away from them. The non-supernatural theories tend to focus on Henry as the prankster, or on Anna and Henry as teaming up for the hoax.
The Great Amherst Mystery
This poltergeist occurred in Amherst, Nova Scotia, Canada starting in 1878 and ending in 1879. This is among Canada's best-known nineteenth-century poltergeist cases and helped establish the pattern of activity focused on one person.The disturbances centered on Esther Cox, a young woman living with relatives. Witnesses claimed that objects moved or flew through rooms, mysterious noises erupted, fires appeared, and threatening messages were associated with the activity. Everything seemed to begin for 18-year-old Esther Cox after she survived a traumatic carriage ride and threat by local man Bob McNeel. Strange phenomena began inside the crowded cottage Esther shared with her sister Olive Teed's family on Princess Street that included loud knocking sounds, flying objects, self-moving furniture, spontaneous fires, disembodied voices, and physical attacks (such as pins being driven into her skin or a knife thrown at her). There was even a disturbing message scratched above Esther's bed that read, "Esther Cox, You Are Mine to Kill." Newspapers from as far away as New York documented the events. Actor and showman Walter Hubbell lived with the family in 1879, documented the events, and wrote the popular 1888 book "The Great Amherst Mystery," concluding the forces were supernatural. Esther was later convicted of arson for setting a fire in a boss's barn in 1879. She served a brief jail sentence, after which the paranormal activity largely stopped. She later married and lived out her life without further incidents. Skeptics and modern analysts attribute the case to a trauma-induced crisis, attention-seeking, or teenage prank/poltergeist hysteria.
Borley Rectory
The poltergeist activity at Borley Rectory began in the 1920s. Harry Price became deeply involved in the haunting at Borley Rectory in Essex. It captured his lifelong obsession. He first visited the location in 1929 after hearing about the phantom of a nun appearing in the garden at the house. Other reports included disembodied footsteps, various apparitions, including the man who built the rectory, and ghost lights. He asked a local for directions and the man said, "Oh, you mean the most haunted house in England?" Price would name his first volume about Borley Rectory just that, "The Most Haunted House in England," which was published in 1940. He lived at the rectory for a year in the late 1930s. Many believe that the wife of Rev. Lionel Foyster, who lived at the rectory from 1930 to 1935, had faked the paranormal activity that Price was following up on and members of SPR claimed that Price faked phenomenon while he lived at the house. Their later studies came to the conclusion that any weirdness was caused by natural things like rats. The place eventually burned down.
The Seaford Poltergeist
The Seaford Poltergeist served as inspiration for the movie Poltergeist. These events happened to the Hermann family and began in February of 1958 in Seaford, New York. Phenomena included bottle caps that popped off spontaneously, liquids (such as bleach, holy water, and shampoo) spilled or sprayed by themselves and heavy objects like bookshelves, figurines, and a bronze horse shifted or flew through the air. To add credence to the stories, Nassau County police officers, local journalists, and neighbors personally observed items move or shatter while all family members were accounted for. It is thought that the teenaged son may have been manifesting the activity.
Beck House Poltergeist
This poltergeist case took place in 1962, at 2910 N. Delaware St. in Indianpolis. Renotah Beck, 32, a local restaurant operator who was born in Vienna, moved into the then four-bedroom, two-bathroom home, built in 1900 in the Mapleton/Fall Creek area. The house is less than two blocks from the current Indianapolis Children’s Museum She was not alone. Her elderly German diabetic mother, Lina Gemmecke, 61, and daughter Linda, 13, joined her. Renate was recently divorced, and this was a new beginning. It was a stable place to raise her daughter, care for her mother, and get on with her life. That was the plan anyway, but sometimes life is what happens while you’re making other plans. On a Sunday in March of 1962, a few minutes after 10 p.m., it started. A heavy German beer stein lifted from the kitchen sink, sailed through the air, and exploded upon the floor. Shortly after, the family heard a loud crash from upstairs. When the family returned from an overnight hotel stay around 1:30 p.m. the next day, they hoped the previous night’s events were behind them. They weren’t! Again, crystal glass objects started exploding and a cup of hot coffee shot through the air toward Renate’s mother, narrowly missing her.
On that second night they notified the Indianapolis Police Dept. (their second call). The first call was to a family friend, Emil Nosedo, a respected Indianapolis businessman who operated the city’s Sheffield Inn. He would be over the next day. Sgt. John Mullin arrived at the house. He surmised it was the result of pranks. His theory: a pellet gun or a hi-fi stereo either in the home or area, emitting sound waves shattering the glass. The Becks scratched their heads over that summation. Patrolman Ray Patton came over that night. And relatively soon, the newspapers caught wind and the house quickly became a sightseeing tour. Nightly events began to add up, often experienced by the police department. These events included:
Rapping from upstairs when the family was downstairs.
One officer hearing a crash from upstairs, and when investigated found a crystal swan lying shattered below a shelf in daughter Linda’s bedroom.
Phantom bites, punctures and bruising appearing on all three of the women, but especially the youngest daughter. Renate’s mother, Lina, claimed she had been choked.
Renate’s purse, with $125 inside, disappeared. It eventually reappeared on March 25 at the feet of her elderly mother, and with $80 missing. Hmm?
Private investigations from Emil Nosedo and his wife cataloged a variety of poltergeist phenomena, including feathers being ripped from pillows and heavy furniture moved of its own accord. They also reported sitting in the dark of the kitchen (sounds like a seance to me… bad, bad move!) when noises from the dining room brought them to discover silverware ( knives) arranged on the floor in the shape of a cross. Strange activity continued for 16 days. Then… somewhat of a breakthrough: officers claimed to have witnessed Renate’s mother throwing objects. She was arrested and charged with making a false report. Maybe she had thrown some things, yet her daughter defended her actions, claiming she had been having a “nervous” attack due to her diabetes and all the strange things happening. On a footnote, there were a lot of occurrences, it would seem, for which the grandmother could not have been responsible. But this was a lot of activity for the grandmother to be in charge of. Was the teenage daughter causing the poltergiest? Neighbors claimed the family fought a lot and very noisily. There was an exorcism for the house and Grandmother Lina went back to Germany and all activity seemed to stop on March 22, 1962.
Poltergeist on Nashville's 9th Avenue
This account is shared in the book "Haunted Nashville" written by Frankie and Kim Meredith Harris in 2009. They founded Nashville Ghost Tours. (pg. 73)
The Black Monk of Pontefract
This poltergeist haunted 30 East Drive in Pontefract, West Yorkshire in England and is said to be the most violent poltergeist in history. The location was a council house and the activity started in 1966 and lasted until the early 1970s. The Pritchard family had moved in and although the street was quiet and the house was unremarkable, the family noticed strange disturbances almost immediately. Small objects disappeared and moved on their own. Big pieces of furniture moved on their own and banging noises were heard all over the house. Things began to escalate. A hostile disembodied voice started to be heard. It issued threats. Family members were mocked. The voice eventually identified itself as being a monk who had been executed centuries ago. The Pritchard's teenaged daughter was scratched and pushed. Police were called and they claimed to witness unexplained things. One officer was struck by a flying object. Journalists caught wind of the story and began reporting on it. The house was checked for bad wiring or structural problems. Clergy tried blessing the house, but only had objects thrown at them. The Pritchards eventually fled the council house. Skeptics claimed that the teenage children of the Pritchards caused the manifestations through psychokinesis, but the Black Monk seemed to act independently of the children's presence.
The Rosenheim Poltergeist
This poltergeist was unique in that it took place in the law offices of attorney Sigmund Adam in Rosenheim, Bavaria, Germany, starting in late 1967. So we don't have a residence here. The activity consisted of multiple phones ringing simultaneously, and thousands of outgoing calls were logged to the speaking clock service (sometimes six per minute), which technicians noted was mechanically impossible on rotary dial systems. The electrical system seemed to be hacked by the poltergeist as fluorescent tubes flickered, swung, shattered, or burned out rapidly, and power grid engineers recorded massive electrical surges that did not trip standard fuses. A 400-pound filing cabinet slid across the floor without damaging the linoleum beneath and desk drawers opened on their own. Investigators took note that the office secretary was a 19-year-old woman named Annemarie Schaberl. Activity reportedly stopped when she left the office or went on vacation. The men who investigated were German parapsychologist Hans Bender and Max Planck Institute physicists Friedbert Karger and Gerhard Zicha. Bender attributed the occurrences to Recurrent Spontaneous Psychokinesis (RSPK)—an unconscious psychic or telekinetic output driven by emotional stress. Some police suspected intentional manipulation and others thought there was mechanical trickery. The activity did cease when Annemarie left her position in early 1968.
The Amityville Horror
There are many people who classify Amityville as a poltergeist case and they point the finger at the Lutz children as being responsible for the activity. In 1974, Ronald DeFeo Jr. Murdered six members of his family and shortly thereafter, on December 18, 1975, George and Kathy Lutz and their three children moved into the six-bedroom Dutch colonial home in Amityville, New York. They immediately experienced experience foul odors, strange noises, unexplained changes in temperature, apparitions, and other disturbing phenomena. They left after just 28 days. The story became an international sensation through the 1977 book and subsequent films. Ed and Lorraine Warren got involved and really amped up the story. The 2013 documentary "My Amityville Horror" focused on Daniel and he shared experiences that had no proof other than his word. Daniel had a reason to hoax stuff. He hated his stepfather George and he said, "I started destroying this guy’s world every opportunity that I walked into” and would “just do anything to get him” so that “we could go back home.”
The Enfield Poltergeist
This poltergeist is named for Enfield, North London, England and began in 1977. The Hodgson family moved into another council house - apparently these places like poltergeists - and then the loud knocks started and the furniture began to move and objects were thrown. Strange voices were heard and the children, Margaret and Janet, started to levitate. Paranormal investigators Maurice Grosse and Guy Lyon Playfair from the Society of Psychical Research spent considerable time examining the case and newspapers reported on it. Police were witness to the phenomenon. believed the haunting was genuine. Other researchers like Anita Gregory and John Beloff were unconvinced the poltergeist was real and the girls were caught faking some incidents, such as bending spoons or staging noise tricks for the media. Janet admitted that she did fake some stuff to test the investigators.
The Tina Resch Case
Tina Resch was a teenager that lived in Columbus, Ohio and she came to attention in 1984. The Resch home started experiencing physical disturbances that couldn't be explained. There were little things like clocks resetting themselves and objects moving on their own and then events got bigger. These heavier objects moving on their own were documented by Mike Harden and Fred Shannon of the Columbus Dispatch. Fred Shannon caught the infamous picture of a phone flying across Tina's body. The house's electrical was checked out and seemed normal. Tina was caught by a reporter moving a lamp herself, but some researchers have thought this was because she was tired of having everybody there and thought they would leave once they got what they came for. Many people believe that Tina did have psychokinesis and investigator Bill Roll claimed that he often saw objects in motion when he was alone with Tina. She was tested and really did seem to have some abilities.
Bromley Poltergeist
This poltergeist involved a series of violent and bizarre supernatural disturbances that began on April 26, 1973, in an allotment shed run by three retirees at the Grove Park allotments in Bromley, southeast Greater London. These men had formed The Kentish Garden Guild and were named Alfred Taylor, Tony Elms, and Clifford Jewiss. They sold gardening supplies from the shed. It was a modest little enterprise, run by the retirees mainly as a way of keeping active. On April 26, 1973, this shed began inspiring something considerably weirder than flowers or vegetables. The phenomena included powders, pellets, and bags of fertilizer hitting the ceiling or being strewn about. Heavy objects—including a 7-pound weight, a 14-pound weight, boxes of utensils, a garden fork, and weed killer bottles—flew or struck the men. Coffee was mysteriously replaced with fertilizer, and the building shook. Signs of the cross and numbers, letters, and a human face made from chemicals appeared on surfaces. The Society for Psychical Research sent out investigators Manfred Casser and Pauline Reynolds and they examined the site in October 1973 and June 1974 and personally witnessed flying tools, disappearing security bolts, and objects moving on their own. The activity stopped just as strangely and abruptly as it began, roughly a couple of years after it started, coinciding with the completion of new garages nearby.
When it comes to poltergeists, there is a distinction between the history of poltergeist beliefs and the history of poltergeist evidence. The first can be traced through folklore, religion, literature, and changing cultural attitudes. The second requires us to examine individual witnesses, original documents, investigations, and skeptical counterarguments. What if the history of the poltergeist is also the history of humanity's changing understanding of the human mind? Why do so many of these stories revolve around families, homes, and particular individuals? And then comes the really intriguing question: What will people a hundred years from now believe about these same accounts? Were any of these accounts about true paranormal activity? That is for you to decide!
(pg. 267)
