John Gold cables this week’s spookiest story.
Do I believe in ghosts? Well I’m not so sure now…
New York, Thursday.
I spent last evening in New York’s “haunted house” and – so help me – the “ghost” walked. Within the space of half an hour I – Saw an object fly clear across an empty room and strike a wall; Heard a heavy flower bowl crash into a corner cupboard in another room; Listened to a large bookcase clatter to the ground in the apparently unoccupied section of the basement.
The scene of all this disturbance, number 1,638, Redwood Path, Seaford, Long Island, is a typical American suburban house, hardly the sort of home you would choose for a poltergeist. Inside and out there is little to distinguish it from the scores of other homes on the new estate. Nor is there much to distinguish its occupants – the Herrmanns – from their suburban neighbours. Mr Herrmann, tall, dark, in his early forties, regularly catches the early train for the 35-miles journey to his office in the city. His brunette wife Lucille, who was once a nurse, now stays at home to take care of their two children, James, aged 12, and Lucille, aged 13.
The police assigned a detective to the case of the Herrmann house. But the luckless detective was no more successful in laying the persistent ghost than had been a team of building inspectors, several electricians, a priest, a university psychologist and a water diviner, all of whom tried. Then I had my chance. Mrs Herrmann stepped into the kitchen to fetch me a cup of coffee. From the basement playroom the noisy beat of rock ‘n roll was coming from James’s radio. Sunlight was still streaming in through the windows. No house ever seemed less haunted.
Suddenly, as I looked into the empty living-room from my seat in the dinette, a photographic flash bulb which had been standing on a table just out of sight sailed 12ft across the room, hit a wall, ricocheted against a curtain, and fell to the floor. WHERE WAS JAMES? When he spoke to us seconds later he was in the basement. Then there was a crash in the dinette. When we reached the room the flower bowl, which had stood on the dining table, lay in a corner. WHERE WAS JAMES? When he spoke to us seconds later he was in the bathroom.
Mrs Herrmann went to call the police. As she did so there was another deafening crash, this time from the basement. A loaded bookcase, weighing more than a hundred-weight, had toppled over on its face. WHERE WAS JAMES? When he spoke to us seconds later he was in another room. Detective Tozzi, a little balding dark-haired man, called and took down a full report of the evening’s events. He filed it away in a briefcase containing a catalogue of similar happenings covering 110 pages.
For weeks past in the Hermann household tops have been flying off bottles and self-propelled objects, including a gramophone, a sugar bowl, a school globe, dishes, several statuettes and a Madonna have crashed against walls and smashed. Said Mrs Herrmann: “Ghosts? Somehow I still find it pretty difficult to believe in ghosts. But I am not sure… I have been getting quite an education recently.”
Manchester Evening News, 6th March 1958.
Junior Observer.
When the sugar bowl took off and hit the floor.
I hope none of you are of a nervous disposition because, this week, I want to tell you a true story about poltergeists. It is taken from an excellent book entitled “Poltergeists: Hauntings and the Haunted” by David G. Knight and it is called “The Seaford Disturbances.” So if you are ready, read on…
Poltergeists can affect anyone, anywhere, but probably the last place anyone expected a full-blown invasion was James Herrmann’s modest six-room house in suburban Seaford, Long Island, America. Yet this quiet home turned out to be the scene of perhaps the best-known of all modern poltergeist disturbances. In all, there were 67 separate events and they took place in 1958, lasting a little more than a month. The phenomena began on Monday, February 3, of that year, at 3.30 p.m. The two Herrmann children, 12-year-old James Junior and 13-year-old Lucille, had just come home from school. Jimmy went upstairs to his room and discovered that a ceramic doll and a plastic ship model on his dresser were broken, it looked as if the doll had somehow smashed against the model. Puzzled, Jimmy reported the damage to his mother, who then searched the other rooms. She found that a small bottle of holy water was lying on its side, the cap off and the water running, on her dresser.
Up to this time, no noise had been heard, but during the next 45 minutes, a series of bottle-poppings was heard in various parts of the house. In the bathroom, kitchen and cellar, bottles were found lying on their side with the liquid running all over the floor. In the cellar, Jimmy and his mother actually saw a half-gallon bottle of bleach sail halfway across the basement and smash against the wall. When Mrs Herrmann told her husband, he left his job and rushed home. He thought some chemical reaction had forced the bottles to open but when he examined them, it seemed impossible that this could have happened without the neck shattering as well – and all the necks of the bottles were intact. Plus, the tops were the screw-on type which required a number of turns before they could be removed.
This was only the start of the Herrmann’s troubles. That Thursday, almost the same thing happened at the same time, and on Friday, Jimmy was alone in the house when the cap on a bottle of ammonia in the cabinet under the sink became unscrewed and the liquid spilled. Mr Herrmann actually suspected young Jimmy might be the culprit, but, on Sunday, when nine separate incidents took place, Jimmy was in the room with the rest of the family. Still not convinced, however, Herrmann confronted his son at the door of the bathroom. Jimmy, still at the sink, kept protesting he had nothing to do with the bottle-poppings. On a formica table between them, stood two bottles of shampoo which had spilled just a few minutes before; as Herrmann and Jimmy talked, the father was astonished to see both bottles begin to move. He later testified that Jimmy “froze” where he was and it was this incident that really convinced Herrmann that something really unusual was going on.
He went directly to the phone and called the Nassau County Police Department. Although they regarded it as a wild tale, an officer was sent to investigate. Patrolman James Hughes arrived at th ehouse and he didn’t have long to wait for the poltergeist action. He was sitting in the living room with the entire family when a noise was heard in the bathroom. Hughes, who had already inspected the bathroom, was amazed to find that the bottle of shampoo, which he had seen standing on the table, had overturned.
Three days later, the bottle of holy water was again found upturned. But this time, as Lucille cleared up the water, she found it warm to the touch. That same evening, a little before 8 pm, the poltergeist activity took a more exciting turn. Mrs Herrmann’s cousin, Marie Murtha, was watching television with the children when she saw a porcelain figure on the end table begin to “wiggle… like a worm cut in pieces.” It flew up into the air then crashed onto the rug unbroken.
The incidents went on – five events took place on Sunday including Jimmy’s night lamp being knocked to the floor and the bulb broken, and two disturbances during the first part of the next week. All this while, police were trying to figure out some physical cause for the disturbances. Thinking they might be caused by high-frequency radio waves they even questioned a man in the area who had a “ham” radio licence but it turned out he had not used his set for years. A lighting company was summoned to check the house’s wiring, fuse panels, and ground cables for possible faulty electrical emissions, but everything was in order.
And the disturbances got worse. A sugar bowl took off from the dining room table and struck the floor – this happened while detectives were there; an ink bottle lost its screw cap and sailed toward the front door spilling ink on the chair, floor and wallpaper. The police got a call from a woman who said she had experienced similar type of trouble but it had disappeared when a turbine-type chimney cap had been installed to prevent heavy wind downdrafts into the fireplace. The same thing was installed in the Herrmann’s home but no sooner had they completed the job than the phenomena began again.
Eventually the poltergeist became braver and started moving things like heavy bookcases and dressers. At one time, the bookcase was found tightly wedged upside down between the radiator and the bed in Jimmy’s room. Then, mysteriously, all major disturbances suddenly ceased for three days and theories ranging from changes in the water level below ground causing the disturbances, to checking to see if any correlation could be found between the take offs of jet aircraft and the incidents – but to no avail. Everything around the house seemed to be in order.
During the late afternoon and evening of Sunday, March 2, a series of fresh incidents broke out. Even when the children were put to bed, more things happened in the unhappy household. Loud crashes from Jimmy’s room revealed that the picture over his bed had fallen to the floor. Later another crash brought Mr Herrmann to his son’s room again, in time to see the night table twist about 90 degrees and topple over. Any doubts Herrmann might have had about his son’s guilt vanished when he switched on th elight and found how frightened Jimmy was.
Two parapsychologists, who had been in and out of the house for days during the manifestations, were both present during the finale of the case. On Sunday, March 9, both children were in bed and one of the researchers was talking to Mr Herrmann in the dining room when they heard an enormous thump from the direction of the boy’s room. A search was made but nothing was found. About 45 minutes later the same thing happened, but, again, nothing was found. Yet the sound could not be reproduced by striking various walls – the researchers tried but failed to get the correct tone. The next evening the poppers were at it again and bottles all over th ehouse spilled their contents. But then, as suddenly as it began, the disturbances ended.
Years later, Mr Herrmann was quoted as believing a new theory. He was reportedly convinced that some kind of radio ray from a submarine navigation station off the coast had somehow caused the phenomena, but he admitted: “Whenever I hear a creak, I don’t always tell the wife about it. But, even now, I’m not completely sure that it’s over.” The parapsychologists, however, dismissed the submarine theory. Having ruled out fraud, psychological aberrations, and purely physical causes, they decided poltergeists were the only answer.
What do you think?
Compiled by Georgie Murray.
Ballymena Observer, 16th April 1981.