Jonesville. Va., Dec. 23-
‘Bouncing Bed’ and Girl Who Continue to Quiver and Quake Despite Change in Quarters Baffle University Professors.
A change in quarters for 9-year-old Bertha Marie Sybert, failed to interrupt or shed any light on the mystery of the “bouncing bed,” which has intrigued residents of this south-west Virginia mountain community and baffled two University of Texas professors. Robert Sybert, Bertha’s father, disclosed an experiment to determine whether music had any effect on the strange quiverings proved futile.
Sybert said he took his daughter from the three-room cabin where she lived with his mother, to a home a mile away and put the child to bed. A neighbour picked up a guitar and began playing sacred music. “Suddenly,” Sybert said, “Bertha and the bed began bouncing just like at home.” The musician changed to a ragtime tune, but Bertha and the bed bounced on.
Dr Axel Brett, professor of philosophy at Tennessee, and Dr George Haslerud, psychology professor, continued their investigation of the phenomenon far into the night in Bertha’s room, crowded with curious spectators, many of whom lingered on through the night to witness the day-break occurrence of the gyrations. The Tennessee professors heard scratching noises and saw the bed bounce in response to Bertha’s mumbled “scratch louder and shake bigger.” Drs Brett and Haslerud withheld comment on the case except to call it “really peculiar.”
Bertha’s grandmother, Mrs Rebecca Jane Sybert, 71, has threatened to leave the cabin because of the nocturnal affair which friends said “upset her something awful.” Mrs Sybert sleeps with Bertha. Sybert said “the ghost failed to appear” when a Bible was placed under Bertha’s head two weeks ago, but that except for that one night she “has bounced every night” for over a month. Mrs Sybert attributes the queer gyrations of Bertha’s bed after the child retires, to “witchery.”
Doctors, lawyers, merchants, Bertha’s school teacher and a minister have sought an answer to the riddle but without results.
Borger Daily Herald, 23rd December 1938.