Real Poltergeist Cases: The Best Documented Hauntings

A real poltergeist case is one where the disturbances were written down at the time, seen by more than one person, and looked at by someone outside the family. That is all “real” can mean here. It does not mean a ghost was proven. No poltergeist case has ever been proven to be paranormal. Some have been proven to be fraud. The rest are cases where trained people looked hard and could not explain everything they saw.

The ten cases below are the ones with the best paper trail. Each links to a full page on this site.

How investigators rule out fraud and natural causes

The first suspect is always a person. Poltergeist activity tends to gather around one member of the household. Investigators call this the focus person. Most often it is a child or teenager under stress. So the first test is simple. Does anything happen when that person is watched, searched, or out of the house? In case after case, activity stops when the focus person is closely observed, or happens only when no one is looking.

The second suspect is the building. Knocking can come from water pipes as they heat and cool. Old timber creaks as the temperature drops. Settling foundations, traffic and passing trains can shake a house. The researcher G. W. Lambert argued that underground water could cause many reported cases. Some researchers have also linked infrasound, sound too low to hear, to feelings of dread in old buildings.

Good investigators log every event with the time and who was present. They seal rooms, mark the positions of objects, and set up cameras. A case is only interesting when events happen with the focus person in plain view and under control. Very few cases reach that bar.

Real poltergeist cases

The Drummer of Tedworth (1661 to 1663)

In 1661 the magistrate John Mompesson had a vagrant drummer named William Drury arrested in Tedworth, now Tidworth, in Wiltshire. The drum was taken to Mompesson’s house. Soon there was drumming and knocking at night. Beds shook and the children were plagued. The clergyman Joseph Glanvill stayed in 1663 and heard scratching under the children’s bed. He printed the case in Saducismus Triumphatus. Skeptics such as Charles Mackay blamed Drury’s friends. The writer Addington Bruce blamed the Mompesson children and noted Glanvill spent only one night. Read the full case.

The Epworth Rectory (1716 to 1717)

The rectory at Epworth in Lincolnshire was home to the Reverend Samuel Wesley and his family, including the young John Wesley, later a founder of Methodism. From December 1716 to January 1717 the family heard knocks, groans and footsteps. The children named the spirit Old Jeffrey. Letters written by family members at the time survive, which makes the case rare. Addington Bruce thought Hetty Wesley was the cause and that memory had swollen the story. Trevor Hall later offered natural explanations. Read the full case.

The Cock Lane Ghost (1762)

In a house on Cock Lane near Smithfield in London, knocks and scratches began around eleven-year-old Elizabeth Parsons. Crowds came to hear “Scratching Fanny” answer questions. Samuel Johnson sat on a committee that watched a séance on 1 February 1762. It found the girl had some art of making the noise. She was later caught with a small piece of wood. Her father Richard Parsons and others were convicted of conspiracy in July 1762. Parsons stood in the pillory. This is the clearest proven fraud on the list. Read the full case.

The Bell Witch (1817 to 1821)

On the Bell farm near what is now Adams, Tennessee, the family of John Bell reported knocks, scratching, and later a voice they called Kate. Much of it centred on his daughter Betsy. John Bell died in December 1820, and legend blames the spirit. Almost all the detail comes from Martin Ingram’s book of 1894, written after the witnesses had died. Researchers Brian Dunning and Ben Radford found no reliable records from the time. They also found no proof of the famous visit by Andrew Jackson. Joe Nickell suggested Betsy may have faked it. Read the full case.

The Great Amherst Mystery (1878 to 1879)

In Amherst, Nova Scotia, eighteen-year-old Esther Cox lived with her married sister’s family. Knocks, flying objects and small fires broke out around her. Words were said to appear scratched on a wall. The actor Walter Hubbell lodged in the house in 1879 and wrote a popular book. Esther was later convicted of arson after a barn burned and served one month of a four-month sentence. The activity then stopped. Walter Franklin Prince argued in 1919 that she did it herself in a dissociated state. Read the full case.

The Seaford Poltergeist (1958)

From 3 February to 10 March 1958, bottles in the Herrmann home in Seaford, New York, kept losing their caps and spilling. Figures broke and objects moved. The events centred on twelve-year-old James Herrmann Jr. Detective Joseph Tozzi of the Nassau County Police was put on the case full time. J. Gaither Pratt and William Roll of Duke University logged 67 incidents. They thought some could be pranks but not all. Roll and Pratt coined the term recurrent spontaneous psychokinesis for this kind of case. Joe Nickell later argued that the boy’s tricks explained everything. Read the full case.

The Sauchie Poltergeist (1960)

From 22 November to 2 December 1960, knocks and moving objects followed eleven-year-old Virginia Campbell in Sauchie, Scotland. A linen chest rocked, a pillow turned, and her desk lid rose at school. The witnesses were strong. They included the minister, the Reverend T. W. Lund, two doctors, and her teacher Margaret Stewart. The mathematician A. R. G. Owen interviewed them and wrote Can We Explain the Poltergeist? in 1964. Owen rejected both trickery and Lambert’s underground water theory. He arrived after the events had ended, so his case rests on interviews. Read the full case.

The Miami Poltergeist (1966 to 1967)

At the Tropication Arts novelty warehouse in Miami, beer mugs, glasses and alligator ashtrays kept falling from shelves and breaking. The events centred on Julio Vasquez, a nineteen-year-old shipping clerk. William Roll and J. Gaither Pratt studied the case in January 1967. Roll watched Julio closely during events and judged that some could not be trickery. A police sergeant later claimed Julio confessed to using threads. Roll said the sergeant never examined the warehouse, and Julio denied it. Read the full case.

The Rosenheim Poltergeist (1967 to 1968)

In the law office of Sigmund Adam in Rosenheim, Bavaria, light bulbs swung and burst, fuses blew and the phone bill filled with calls to the speaking clock that staff denied making. The parapsychologist Hans Bender and physicists Friedbert Karger and Gerhard Zicha investigated. They linked the events to a young secretary, Annemarie Schaberl. The trouble stopped when she left. A 1970 book claimed nylon threads were used. Piet Hein Hoebens noted that Bender left out that a policeman had reported catching her cheating. Read the full case.

The Enfield Poltergeist (1977 to 1979)

At 284 Green Street in Enfield, north London, Peggy Hodgson and her children reported knocks, moving furniture and thrown toys from August 1977. The focus was eleven-year-old Janet. Maurice Grosse and Guy Lyon Playfair of the Society for Psychical Research believed some events were genuine. Fellow members Anita Gregory and John Beloff did not. A camera caught Janet bending spoons and trying to bend an iron bar. The girls admitted to some pranks. The magician Milbourne Christopher put it down to a clever girl. Read the full case.

What the cases tell us

Put side by side, the cases share a shape. One young person sits at the centre. Activity rises with attention and fades when that person leaves or is closely watched. Where fraud was looked for with care, it was often found. Believers point to the few events in Sauchie, Miami and Rosenheim that trained observers could not explain. Skeptics reply that the observers were not stage magicians and that no event has been repeated under controlled conditions. Both sides agree on one thing. The best evidence for poltergeists is still human testimony, and testimony is the hardest evidence to test.

Sources

• Enfield poltergeist (Wikipedia)
• Old Rectory, Epworth (Wikipedia)
• Bell Witch (Wikipedia)
• Rosenheim Poltergeist (Wikipedia)
• Drummer of Tedworth (Wikipedia)
• Cock Lane ghost (Wikipedia)
• Great Amherst Mystery (Wikipedia)
• Seaford poltergeist (Wikipedia)
• Seaford Poltergeist (SPR Psi Encyclopedia)
• Sauchie Poltergeist (SPR Psi Encyclopedia)
• Miami Poltergeist (SPR Psi Encyclopedia)