Haunted house.
Mysterious noises.
Policemen puzzled.
Melbourne, This Day.
Extraordinary rappings, concussions and explosions have been occurring ina house at Brunswick for the past three weeks, and have been puzzling all the neighbourhood. The police have slept on the premises, and during their stay the mysterious and violent knocking on the windows and ceiling was heard. Sixteen policemen confess their inability to solve the mystery.
The Evening Mail (Fremantle, WA.) 23rd May 1908.
The Mystery Solved.
Melbourne, Monday.
It has been ascertained the mysterious noises and rumblings were caused by some person firing from an air rifle electrically charged globules.
On Saturday and Sunday the house was visited by a large number of people who wished to investigate the mystery.
The Murchison Times and Day Dawn Gazette (Cue, WA), 26th May 1908.
The Brunswick Mystery.
The Brunswick police had nothing fresh to report on Monday evening in connection with the mysterious noises which have been annoying the family of Mr William Stein, of 41 Albert-street, Brunswick, for some weeks past. The police stated that their attention had been withdrawn from the matter, as they considered that the sounds had been satisfactorily accounted for by the theory of gas explosions in the street mains.
The occupants of the house, however, scout the idea, and are firmly of opinion that the noises are caused by human agency. The efforts of the police have failed to discover any person responsible for the noises, although they watched the place for many nights, concealing themselves between the roof and the ceilng and in various places about the house where the noises appeared to come from.
Miss Stein said, in the course of an interview: “The rattling of the windows sounds just as if someone were rapping his knuckle against it, and one night he put his fist through it. At any rate, the window was broken. The loud noise follows the rattling of the windows, and it sounds as if someone had run a battering ram against the wall. The noise appears to come from the rear part of a side wall, which can be reached through the backyards of adjoining houses, which do not run as far back as this house.”
The ceilings of some of the rooms have been badly cracked by the mysterious agency, and in the west wall of the house, which is built of brick in one story, a large crack is to be seen at the side of the front verandah. So intolerable has the nuisance become that the family contemplate vacating th ehouse, although until a few months ago they have lived there in comfort for more than thirteen years.
The Mercury (Hobart, Tas.) 28th May 1908.