There’s a Ghost at Work.
By Jim Hazelwood.
The strange outbreak of falling, flying, cascading objects continued to beset the embattled offices of George H Wheeler today. Items moved on an average of 5 to 10 minutes. For example: A large can of coffee dropped from a cupboard and spilled on the contents on the floor. Five light bulbs apparently unscrewed out of the ceiling and smashed to the floor. A metal foot pedal and cord for a dictaphone machine flew out of a cabinet. A small metal cabinet fell off a larger cabinet. A door whose hinges had been removed and which rested against the wall at a 30-degree angle, crashed to the floor. The situation defies the senses, defies the sciences – and almost defies telling.
Two physicists armed with ion detection equipment were at the haunted site today. They were unable to detect any radiation as objects continued to tumble about. The physicists were Don Honey, of the state department of public health, and Bob Hanzel, of the Alameda County Health Department. And they, too, were baffled.
Whatever the explanation, the mysterious happenings forced Henry Wheeler and his staff of four to move out of their old offices in the Medical Building at 1904 Franklin St.
And what happened in their new offices in the same building today? A plate flew off a typewriter. Four springs of the typewriter were mysteriously damaged. A cover jumped off another typewriter and out the window.
For a week now, the business office has been haunted by a force, either natural or supernatural, which has been doing things beyond human understanding. Objects made of plastic, glass, porcelain and metal have been hurled around the three-room office with fantastic regularity. All eight of the heavy desk telephones in the three rooms have floated into the air and crashed to the floor. Some of them have done it so often, the office staff is getting tired of picking them up.
The victims of this capricious poltergeist are certified shorthand reporter George H Wheeler, his wife Zola, and their staff of four. The company operates in a three-room office on the third floor of the Medical Building, 1904 Franklin St. The staff is responsible for doing court reporting and transcribing in all of the Alameda County Municipal Courts outside Oakland.
Yesterday, the levitating objects in Wheeler’s office flew so frequently they almost made a shambles of the place. A porcelain cup flew off Mrs Wheeler’s desk, rose 12 feet into the air and hit the ceiling, leaving a brown stain there. A metal typewriter top lying on a desk, flew sideways and struck the wall, leaving a dent in the wood. Ashtrays floated into the air and dropped to the floor. A metal letter-weighing scale flew across the room. Wheeler’s Rotary Club oath which was framed and covered with glass, sailed off the wall and landed eight feet across the room. There were no perceptible earthquakes or man-made vibrations near the building in all this time.
Yesterday, the staff complained to Mrs Kathleen Sterns, the building manager. Mrs Sterns called the police in the hope that they could find a cause for the disturbances. Officer Charles Nye answered incredulously as the office staff told their story. Nothing was happening at the moment, so Officer Nye looked around. He went into the tiny cubby-hole where the office staff keeps coffee-making equipment, flower vases and other paraphenalia. Officer Nye noticed a large glass water pitcher, partly filled with water, and a thick porcelain flower vase sitting near the edge of the shelf. “I wanted to make certain that no small vibration could tumble them over, so I pushed them right back against the wall,” he said. The officer then went into another room and began talking to the office staff again. As he talked, there was a crash and they all stepped into the room with the cupboard. Both the water pitcher and the vase lay in little pieces on the floor while the liquid from the pitcher spread over the linoleum. “They would have had to go around a corner to get where they fell,” Officer Nye said.
During the next few minutes, the baffled officer stood in the office while at least six other objects moved. A Tribune reporter was on the scene a few minutes later. As he stood by the open door a metal cabinet toppled over in an empty room. An ashtray fell to the floor and several phones crashed down at intervals of about five to 10 minutes each. Tribune photographer Jim Edelen was next on the scene. He asked John Orfanides of 445 40th St, one of the company’s transcribers, to pose with the smashed crockery. They were the only two in the room. After the picture was taken, the two were just leaving when they heard a thump behind them. A large jar of coffee cream substitute had flown out of the closet and crashed amid the debris they had just photographed. It too, apparently winged its way around a corner to land where it did. Edelen gulped and took a second picture of the spot, this time with the floor sprayed with white powder.
The first clue that something was amiss in the court reporter’s office came about a week ago – the staff isn’t sure what day – when the electric typewriters began acting up. Bob Goosey, sales representative for the firm which services the Wheeler typewriters, explained what happened. “Electrical typewriters have 43 little springs beneath the keys to return them to the proper place after they have been depressed,” he said. “There is very little strain on them and usually they last the life of the typewriter. All of a sudden, the springs in Mr Wheeler’s typewriters began going haywire. They seemed to be disintegrating right before our eyes, even when the machines weren’t plugged in. Within three days we had used up 100 springs and wiped out the whole Bay Area supply. It just couldn’t happen, but it did.”
Oakland Tribune, June 16th, 1964.
‘Poltergeist’ at Work in Oakland.
Oakland. George H. Wheeler knows what a poltergeist is and he is eager to talk about it. He called police Monday to witness some strange physical phenomena, like the activity of a poltergeist, a German word meaning “noisy ghost.” When police arrived at Wheeler’s three-room suite in a medical building everything looked normal. Then suddenly from the adjoining room came a crash. They looked in and saw a broken glass water pitcher and vase lying on the floor – seven feet from a shelf in the closet where they had stood. A few minutes later as they walked away another shattering sound came from the room. This time picture frames had fallen from the walls and a jar had jumped from the closet shelf and was smashed on the floor.
Before the police were called Wheeler, a court reporter, said he had been contending with electric typewriters that couldn’t run, dancing coffee cups, jiggling telephones and popping light globes. The city electric inspector has checked the office to determine if there is a connection between the “poltergeists” and the fact that the office was once used as an X-ray laboratory.
Petaluma Argus Courier, 16th June 1964.
‘The Ghost’ baffles cop, profs.
Spook strikes again as probers crowd ‘haunted office’.
By Jim Hazelwood.
Oakland’s case of the truculent spirit took a dramatic turn overnight as the offices of Court Reporter George Wheeler were transformed in a soggy shambles. The ‘ghost’ which has been haunting Wheeler’s offices on the third floor of the Medical Building at 1904 Franklin St. by hurling small objects around the room, struck again today with devastating swiftness.
In one office a water cooler was turned over and smashed, flooding the floor. The incident occurred while Cal Bowles, 74 Diablo View, Orinda, one of Wheeler’s employees, was talking on the telephone in another room. Bowles said there was apparently no one in the room when the water cooler overturned.
An eight-foot-tall wooden stationery cabinet in another room toppled forward during the night, littering the floor with office supplies. A wooden counter, used for miscellaneous supplies, also overturned in the same room as the water cooler.
The bizarre scene in Wheeler’s office today included police taking fingerprints, a professional magician, an occultist from San Francisco burning incense, and a Stanford professor who delves into parapsychology as a hobby. The occultist, a young man about 20, sat in a semi-trance, burning incense from small brass pots which appeared to be of oriental manufacture. He refused to give his name.
Dr Arthur Hastings, a speech professor at Stanford, began a step-by-step investigation of the phenomena which have plagued two floors of the building for more than a week. He said the weird happenings “apparently have a pattern,” but added that it is too early to draw any conclusions.
Cas Boxley, a professional magician, began an examination of the premises to see if the occurrences could have been caused by magic tricks. Boxley said he had just come to the Bay Area yesterday from Seattle where he had been performing.
The “ghost” increased its activities yesterday, hurling objects with frightening frequency. The poltergeist, or whatever it is, smashed light bulbs and fixtures, hurled a metal cabinet on the floor twice, knocked phones off desks and caused so many objects to fly through the air that observers lost count. These objects included a large electric coffee urn which jumped off a table, crossed the room and fell to the floor without spilling a drop. The plastic and metal top of a typewriter sailed out a second story window of the building and struck the roof of a car parked on the street. A 30-pound typewriter jumped off a table and fell to the floor.
The poltergeist apparently tired of confining his activities to the Wheelers’ suite of three offices yesterday, and began to expand his scope of operations. He moved down to the second floor where Ralph and Jeanetta Ryan run an insurance engineering service. It was their typewriter which fell and a number of coffee cups were broken in their office. Their phone hurtled off a desk and was broken.
In another office on the second floor, dental technician Frank Bacigalupi was mixing some paste. Suddenly, an asbestos board loose from the nails holding it to the wall and fell at his elbow. Into this hail of falling and flying objects yesterday stepped Irv Dickey of 1503 Shattuck Ave, Berkeley.
Expert Irv Dickey comes on the scene.
Dickey is a former president of the California Society for Psychical Study and well acquainted with the poltergeist phenomenon. “It would be a classic poltergeist case except for one thing,” he said. “When the poltergeist phenomenon occurs, it is usually in the presence of an adolescent child. If the child is removed from the location, the phenomenon stops. In this case, there doesn’t seem to be a child involved.”
Dickey has seen at least one other poltergeist phenomenon in this area. In 1957, the home of the Gomez family in Clayton was the scene of cutlery moving around and rocks crashing through the window. “There are three or four well-documented cases in the U.S. every year,” he said. “We have no explanation as to how it happens. We only know that it does.” Dickey said poltergeists, which is a German noise meaning “noisy ghosts,” have been appearing for centuries. “Poltergeist cases are probably the best documented of this type of phenomena,” he said. “There is extensive literature on them.” He said the children who apparently caused objects to fly in previous cases were not aware of what they were doing. “Usually they were scared to death,” he said. “But as soon as they were removed from the scene, the phenomena stopped.”
George and Zolo Wheeler, who run the office, and their staff of four, are beginning to look haggard as the unseen devils pursue them. Wheeler says he has suffered hundreds of dollars in lost time due to the disruption.
Dickey said, however, that there has never been a case where anyone was injured by a poltergeist. In fact, the falling objects usually choose an empty room to perform their self-levitating stunt. Also, Dickey said, no one ever sees the object begin its flight, although they often see them land.
Tribune photographers stood poised in Wheeler’s office most of the day. Objects crashed in adjacent rooms but none would move in front of the lens. A Tribune reporter was standing in a doorway to a room when a metal card index case flew eight feet and struck the floor. He had placed it on top of a metal filing cabinet about five minutes earlier. One of Wheeler’s employees was making a telephone call in another room when a dictaphone pedal detached from the recording machine, flew out of a cabinet and thumped into a wall.
Two physicists with an instrument for detecting radiation went over the nine-story building thoroughly yesterday. When they had finished, they had only one comment to make. “We don’t know what’s causing all this,” they said. “But we can tell you for sure that it isn’t radiation. We couldn’t find a trace of it in the building.”
Oakland Tribune, June 17th 1964.
Prober’s Report: “It’s a real ghost”.
Office goblin is “genuine”, Prof assert.
By Jim Hazelwood.
A Stanford University professor has pronounced the weird happenings in the offices of Oakland court reporter George Wheeler “a genuine case of the poltergeist phenomenon.” Dr Arthur Hastings, who spent all day yesterday in the office building at 1904 Franklin St., said the fantastic destruction which has been taking place there cannot be explained in any other way. Some person, usually an adolescent, is the unwitting cause of things inexplicably moving about in the classic poltergeist case. That person without knowing it moves objects near him, not by physical means but through some unknown force, Dr. Hastings said. The phenomenon stops when the person leaves.
Dr. Hastings is an expert in parapsychology, the investigation of inexplicable physical phenomena. He said his observations and conclusions about the strange happenings here will be forwarded to the Parapsychology Laboratory at Duke University. Dr Hastings is also a trained magician who holds a membership in the International Brotherhood of Magicians. Although he is normally an assistant professor of speech at Stanford, he studies parapsychology as a sideline.
“Things have happened here which could not be done by trickery,” he said. Dr Hastings works closely with the Parapsychology Laboratory at Duke University, which has spent many years investigating unnatural phenomena. He will forward a report to them immediately on the amazing events which have occurred for about 10 days on two floors of the Medical Building. “The events here are quite inexplicable, but similar to things which have happened in the past,” he said. “Normal physical causes can be eliminated.” He referred to the seemingly supernatural series of flying and falling objects which occurred in six offices and two stairwells of the building.
The ghostly events came to a crashing crescendo yesterday morning which practically wrecked the office. A water cooler tipped over in an apparently vacant office, soaking the floor and spraying it with flying glass. While Cal Bowles of 74 Diablo View, Orinda, one of Wheeler’s employees, went for help, a six-foot long wooden counter filled with papers, tumbled on its back in the same room. An eight-foot high wooden stationery case in an adjoining room fell forward with a terrifying crash, scattering paper and office supplies across the floor. Then the spooky events which have been haunting the building abruptly ceased.
Dr Hastings stood amid the wreckage on the floor of Wheeler’s office and predicted that the phenomenon will not return. “This is usually the pattern with the poltergeist phenomena,” Dr Hastings said. “They start slowly, build up to a climax, and then stop altogether. I don’t think we’ll see any more of these occurrences, unless they’re caused by pranksters. Of course, I could be wrong.”
Dr Hastings talked extensively with Wheeler and his staff and made a careful examination of the premises. He also conferred at length with this reporter, who was on the scene during many of the mysterious happenings on Monday and Tuesday. A crude log, kept by myself, noting the time of each occurrence Tuesday morning, was included verbatim in his notes.
The series of events which have wrecked Wheeler’s offices and caused depredations in the offices on the floor below him, have strained the credulity of everyone who was in the vicinity when they happened. Objects ranging in size from porcelain cups to a large electric coffee urn have shot across the rooms or into the air. A 30-pound typewriter leaped off a table in an empty room and fell to the floor. A two-pound can of coffee, a large glass water pitcher, a flower vase, an electric light globe and a can of spray wax have all come hurtling unexpectedly out of a closet used as a cupboard.
The stairwells of the Medical Building are all equipped with two-bulb light fixtures covered by heavy glass reflectors which are bolted in place. On many occasions the reflectors had apparently unbolted themselves and gone crashing in pieces to the next stair landing below. Then the naked light globes unscrewed themselves and fell tinkling onto the marble steps. In each case, the light globe was actually unscrewed from its socket because the bases were also found on the steps. On at least one occasion a Tribune reporter and photographer were descending the steps from above while a television cameraman was walking up from the flight below, when this phenomenon occurred. The light reflector in the stairwell between the third and second floor shattered. The Tribune men and the television man were staring at each other from both ends of the stairway within seconds. The hallways were empty on both floors.
The occurrences became so frequent Tuesday morning that there was a new phenomenon every five minutes for more than an hour. Strange as these ghostly events may seem, Dr Hastings says they are by no means unknown to science. “There are about a dozen cases a year in the United States of this type of phenomenon,” he said. “Some of the situations here fit into the same pattern as the others.” Dr Hastings ruled out any theory that the objects were caused to fly or tip over by natural means. “I doubt that any physical causes will be found for these happenings,” he said. “There is nothing that radiation or magnetic forces could do to cause them. The building is not shifting or vibrating. It’s not a hoax. It’s not anybody trying to pull practical jokes to get people out of their offices.”
Dr Hastings said his investigations showed that at least some of the objects moved while no one was near them. “Also, there have been several cases where people could not have pushed things over by natural means.” Dr Hastings said this is the first time he has ever heard of a poltergeist case taking place in an office. Usually they occur in private homes, he said. Dr Hastings makes no attempt to explain the physical mechanism of the phenomena which have dogged the offices. “It is possible that there is some sort of physical force of which we are not aware,” he said. “But so far, these events are quite inexplicable.”
Blow-by-Blow Account of a Spook in Action.
The following unusual document is the logbook of a poltergeist’s progress. Tribune reporter Jim Hazelwood was the first newsman on the scene Monday when police first investigated the mysterious events at 1904 Franklin St. Hazelwood watched and reported numerous flying and toppling objects in the third-floor office of court reporter George Wheeler on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Tuesday morning he kept a logbook of the occurrences for an hour until he became too busy to continue.
Here are the entries, describing happenings which have been called a “genuine poltergeist phenomena” by Dr Arthur Hastings of Stanford University:
10.30 a.m. … Metal dictaphone foot pedal with cord wrapped around it flew out of cabinet, striking wooden counter and falling to floor. Bob Caya of Mr Wheeler’s office was in the room, but was talking on telephone and had back to cabinet.
10.35 a.m. Light bulb broke in stairwell between third and fourth floors. Base of bulb was on the stairs with glass, indicating it had been unscrewed. No footsteps heard or anyone in hallways. Learned within minutes that a metal top had flown off a typewriter downstairs and four springs damaged.
10.40 a.m. Heard noise in Mr Wheeler’s office which was vacant. Discovered can of liquid wax on floor, about eight feet from cupboard where it is kept.
10.45 a.m. Loud noise in vacant office where water cooler kept. Rushed in immediately to find metal cup container lying on floor approximately 10 feet from cooler. Paper cups strewn around floor. No chance for anyone to leave room without being seen by me.
10.50 a.m. Door which had been removed from hinges previous day to permit moving desks, suddenly toppled over with loud crash. Earlier observed it to be propped against a wall corner at about a 30-degree angle.
11.05 a.m. Standing in office doorway. Metal card index file about three feet behind me landed on floor with loud bang. It had been sitting on a metal filing case where I had placed it earlier. No one in room. First thing I did on entering office that morning had been to place the index metal box on top of the filing case to see if it would fall. It did.
11.10 a.m. Metal and plastic top of a typewriter flew out the open window of office directly beneath us and clattered to the street below where Dr. F. J. Stryble was walking. Dr. Stryble returned the typewriter top to us.
11.13 a.m. Arrival of two health physicists with equipment for testing radiation. They found none.
11.20 a.m. A two-pound can of coffee flew out of the aforementioned cupboard and landed about 10 feet from the shelves in Mr Wheeler’s office. Plastic top of can came loose and about a handful of coffee spilled. Can was almost full. I was first in room. No one there.
Oakland Tribune, 18th June 1964.
Ghost Proves Big Headache – Makes Heads Throb.
Oakland (AP) – Newsmen complained of headaches and an electrician suspected a prankster after checking out reports of a noisy ghost Tuesday. “Somebody is unscrewing everything. And it’s no poltergeist,” said James L. Ambrossi, electrical inspector for the city of Oakland.
But half a dozen reporters said their heads were throbbing after they and the inspector had a first-hand look at the medical building which George H. Wheeler and his wife say has been spooked for days. Wheeler, a court reporter, moved his office from the third to the second floor to escape spirited goings-on which he says includes: Typewriter covers that fly out of windows, light fixtures that crash to the floor, coffee cans that topple from closets, and a water cooler that vibrates unnervingly. The spooky behaviour indicates a poltergeist, a German word for noisy ghost.
But Ambrossi has other ideas. “A kook is at large,” he said. “This building’s in good shape.” However, building agent Jack Banker is not convinced, and has ordered a thorough inspection of the 15-storey structure. Since Wheeler reported the zany doings, five other persons in the building have been affected by ghostly jitters. Wheeler said he may not be able to transcribe his trial notes if the funny business continues.
San Bernadino Sun, 18th June 1964.
The Poltergeist Mystery.
Ghosts too smart, won’t pose for photographers.
By Jim Hazelwood.
Ghost watching would be fun if it weren’t so destructive, and if ghosts weren’t so much smarter than people. Last week I spent three unforgettable days in the offices of Oakland court reporter George Wheeler at 1904 Franklin St., watching a poltergeist at work. A poltergeist, I soon learned, is a mischievous sort of spirit with the uncanny ability to throw objects around a room, tip things over, and generally behave like a naughty child run amok.
The people who study parapsychology tell us that the poltergeist is apparently set in motion inadvertently by an adolescent with a grudge. Although he is unaware of his powers, his subconscious mind is somehow able to vent its wrath in this mysterious manner. All of this would be perfectly ridiculous and unbelievable, except that it happens. According to Dr Arthur Hastings of Stanford University, it happens about 15 times a year in the U.S. alone.
Dr Hastings has thoroughly investigated the Oakland case and called it a “genuine” poltergeist phenomenon. I became the first reporter ever to witness the shenanigans of a poltergeist when I was dispatched to Wheeler’s office last Monday afternoon. A somewhat incredulous city editor had sent me to investigate a police call that “things were jumping around” in the office. When I reached the office, Mrs Zolo Wheeler, who is also a court reporter, showed me a pile of debris outside a cupboard where they keep coffee making equipment.
Officer Charles Nye, who had arrived about 20 minutes earlier, solemnly told me he had pushed a large glass pitcher containing water, and an empty flower vase to the back of the shelf. Now they lay in fragments on the office floor, apparently after travelling about six feet and making a 90 degree turn in mid-air. “No one was in the room when it happened,” he asserted. Within minutes, an ashtray leaped from a desk and several telephones crashed to the floor. This continued all day Monday until about 4 p.m. It started again Tuesday morning and continued throughout the day. Between the hours of 10.30 a.m. and 11.30 a.m. Tuesday, there was some kind of a weird occurrence every five minutes.
The most frustrating part of watching a poltergeist in action is trying to see the moving objects begin their flight. We were anxious, of course, to try to photograph something in mid-air, but all our attempts were fruitless. The poltergeist displayed an uncanny ability to select something to move beyond our range of vision. We tried to outwit the crafty spook by placing a man in each room – only to have the light bulb on the stairs outside unscrew itself and come crashing down. This sounds like trickery, but experts say it is the classic poltergeist phenomenon. People seldom see the objects begin their flight.
On each occasion when heard the noise of a crashing object, we rushed into the room within seconds. There was no chance for a prankster to escape because the open doors were within our line of vision at all times. Objects moved in occupied rooms on several occasions, but almost always when the occupant’s back was turned. Only one person, typewriter sales representative Bob Goosey, of Hayward, is believed to have seen an object beginning to move. Goosey was standing in a doorway when a wooden cabinet containing papers pivoted around before his eyes and fell on its side.
The poltergeist seemed determined not to hurt anyone. Even when there was a person in the room, they were never struck by the flying objects.
What is this strange power which seemingly enables the human subconscious mind to manipulate objects with the strength of a grown man? No one knows, but the Oakland case is one of the best documented on record. Perhaps it will help science to blaze a trail in a field where we now know little more than savages understand about electricity.
Oakland Tribune, June 21st, 1964.
Spook Returns.
Things fly again in haunted office.
That poltergeist – or whatever it is – has returned. It paid another unwelcome visit yesterday to the third floor offices of court reporter George Wheeler at 1904 Franklin St. Following the same eerie and vexing pattern it had in the past, the spook smashed ashtrays on the floor, flung a stapler off a desk and fouled up typewriter springs.
The Wheelers had thought they were well rid of the nuisance on June 18, when it apparently gasped its last after a two-week rampage in which it made a shambles of the three-room office. But yesterday it all began again. Mrs Wheeler tried to prepare for it as soon as the first telltale signs showed up – springs in all three office typewriters broke. She started placing breakable objects on the floor. But no sooner had she set down a cup and turned her back than the cup hurtled eight feet across the room and shattered against a filing cabinet. About the same time, two glass ashtrays crashed to the floor and a stapler jumped from the desktop. “I don’t know what it is,” she said wearily, “but we’re sick and tired of it.”
Arthur Hastings, Stanford University expert on such phenomena, who investigated the Wheeler case, said he believes the “eye of the storm” has passed on and that only the weaker manifestations remain. “Often in cases like this one, there are sporadic incidents, but nothing to the extent that occurred before,” he said. “The major crisis is over.” The Wheelers hope so.
Oakland Tribune, 27th June 1964.
Fright of Franklin Street Gone Again.
The Franklin Street Fright is gone again, apparently gone for good, after paying another upsetting visit to the offices of court reporter George Wheeler. As its farewell performance it broke two ashtrays, shattered a cup, hurled a stapler to the floor and sprung the springs in three typewriters. All this happened between 4 and 5 p.m. Friday. Nothing has been heard from it since. Wheeler was in his office Saturday, but all was quiet.
Mr and Mrs Wheeler are not the least interested in seeing more of the spook’s manifestations. They had their fill during the two weeks in mid-June when a poltergeist, if that’s what it was, invaded their office at 1904 Franklin St. and pitched, tossed, hurled and heaved around the office just about every object not lashed down.
What may have been the spook’s last fling seems to bear out the appraisal of Arthur Hastings, Stanford University expert on the phenomenon, who said “the major crisis is over.”
Oakland Tribune, 28th June 1964.
Oakland ‘Ghost’ Changes His Story.
John Orfanides: did he or didn’t he? Only he and/or the poltergeist know for sure.
John Orfanides, a 20-year-old court record transcriber, said at a police press conference yesterday that he was a prankster responsible for the flying objects which have been bedevilling an Oakland office. But less than an hour later Orfanides told a Tribune reporter, in the presence of a witness, that he is not the culprit. He had not, as he told police, caused the ghostly happenings in the office of his employer, court reporter George Wheeler. “It was easier to admit it and have them (the police) off my back,” he said. “
“As far as we’re concerned,” Inspector Matt Roehl said when told of Orfanides’ change of mind, “the case is closed. He admitted he did it, explained how he did it, no charges will be filed and that’s that.” Orfanides’ admission and later denial were the latest twists in the bizarre haunting which has attracted nationwide attention.
The case first came to public notice June 15 when police were called to Wheeler’s office at 1904 Franklin St to investigate a complaint that “things were jumping around.” For three days, the three-room suite was visited by a series of weird happenings associated with poltergeists – mischievous, noisy ghosts.
Orfanides told The Tribune he went to Wheeler’s office to catch up on a little work. While he was there, he said, he spent several hours with Dr Arthur Hastings of Stanford, who is probing the case for the Duke University Institute of Parapsychology. Dr Hastings, who has been laboriously investigating the case for the past two weeks, said today he still thinks the case is “a genuine poltergeist phenomenon.” He said Orfanides could conceivably have caused some of the accidents by trickery, but there are still many that are not explained.
Orfanides said he left and took some work home with him, only to find Inspector Roehl there waiting for him. He accompanied the officer to the Hall of Justice, where they had a long, long talk. He said inspectors kept suggesting ways he could have caused things to fly and typewriters to break down in Wheeler’s office, and that he simply agreed with them. “I told them I threw everything,” he said. “I couldn’t think of any other way it could be done. I only offered one solution of my own. When they asked me how I knocked the telephones down, I told them I did it by pulling the cords.”
Police called the press conference, and Orfanides obligingly told reporters he made things fall off shelves, broke light bulbs and fixtures, overturned cabinets and a water cooler and disabled typewriters – all through sleight of hand. It was very simple, he said at the press conference, he did it when no one was looking.
“He’s a good transcriber,” Wheeler said yesterday. “I’m not filing any charges. He’ll be back on the job tomorrow.” The question is, will the poltergeist be back on the job too?
Oakland Tribune, 30th June 1964.