This is written rather like a story?
Joking Ghost is Making Boy’s Life a Misery.
From a New York Correspondent.
A mysterious, unseen knocker has disrupted the home and school life of 11-year-old Loros Elledge. The phenomenon has persisted for six months, and doctors and police are still completely baffled.
Three knocks, “louder than any human fist could make,” haunt Loros anywhere, at any time, and in the presence of all sorts of witnesses. The first shock came on July 12, 1940, when three terrific knocks startled Mr and Mrs Loros Elledge from their sleep. Only the arm of the law would pound so imperiously, thought Mr Elledge, as he hastily threw open his front door. But no sheriff, no policeman, nobody at all greeted his sleepy eyes. The little sawmill town of Trumann, Arkansas, slept peacefully.
Mr Elledge, though he had never heard of such a thing, was in the awful presence of a “poltergeist” (practical-joking ghost). Poltergeists can be heard and felt but nobody ever sees them, which is one of the reasons why science takes these manifestations more seriously than other ghost-hauntings. They may not be supernatural at all but merely the working of an undiscovered natural force.
Profoundly puzzled, the Elledges searched the inside of their house but found nothing to account for the thumps. Their four children were sound asleep, including Loros, jun., an eleven-year-old healthy youngster who would not have slept at all that night had he known that it was to be a personal haunting for just him, nobody else. The poltergeist has been with Loros ever since. His classmates at school taunt him about having a ghost, but when they pull away and whisper, that hurts.
Several mornings after that most mysterious knocking, as Mrs Elledge and little Loros were standing in the kitchen, those same three resounding thumps came from the wall close to the boy’s head. Both jumped and ran around to see who was in the room on the other side of the wall – but nobody was there. Loros thought it was funny, but his mother considered it worse than that, in fact, “spooky.”
Mr Elledge, returning with his mind full of the business of operating a “rolling store” in the delta district around Trumann, dismissed it as probably expansion noises. He was just mentioning that they must not be superstitious like hill-billies, when something in th ehouse went crack! crack! crack! They made a rush for the room in which little Loros had recently retired and found the youngster sitting up pop-eyed. “Did you make that noise?” “No, dad, it came out of the wall right there,” the boy answered, pointing to a spot near his pillow. “Then lie down just the way you were and keep quiet,” commanded Mr Loros.
For about twenty minutes the parents and their son stared at each other in silence. Then, just as Mr Elledge was observing that this was one of those miracles that never happen when he is around, it did happen. The same three knocks from the same place! “We’ll get to the bottom of this monkey business,” prophesised Mr Elledge. So saying, he placed mattress, bedclothes, boy and all in the middle of the floor in such a way that Loros’s head was equally distant from all four walls. “Now let’s see if he can do it again,” murmured the father. “I am not doing anything,” protested the boy, vaguely conscious that this strange thing might be pinned on him. “Very well, see that you don’t!” was the paternal reply.
Another half-hour of mutual staring passed. Then just as the child’s eyes started to close, three vehement thumps came up out of the floor from a spot directly under his head. The psychic investigation was adjourned for the night, but it was continued on the following days. Loros was made to sleep in all rooms of the house and under various conditions, but invariably the knocks issued from the surface and always nearest to his head. Whether he was awake or sleeping seemed to make little difference, and he said he had no idea when they were coming. Once the raps came from the side of an empty trunk, and a queer feature was that whatever the surface from which the sound issued, it was always the same. The boy was sent for visits to relatives at varying distances, but the knocks always came and went with him.
The family doctor was called in but found him “sound as an old-fashioned gold dollar.” There was nothing the matter with his head, according to the teacher who gave him A’s and B’s in the sixth grade. Next, they appealed to the law, in the person of Chief of Police Edgar Sullins, who inspected the premises carefully and posted constables outside to watch all sides of the house while he sat at Loros’s bedside. The knocks came, three at a time, at five-minute intervals, beginning at 7.55 p.m. and ending at 8.10. Chief Sullins gave the poltergeist’s work the following testimonial: “The knocks were louder than any human fist could have made. They were heard outdoors, half a block away.”
However, like the others, the chief didn’t do anything about it. Here was a disturbance of the peace, but you can’t lock up a ghost, especially one that nobody can see. After that the news was out, and neighbours, sometimes twenty at a time, came to investigate, with cynical grins, for they a hard-headed lot, but they went away scratchcing puzzled heads. The weird knocks got into the papers which brought advice from far and near. The town became poltergeist-conscious. It learned that this is an old phenomenon whose behaviour has been strangely consistent in various times and places. The most prominent household ever haunted by a poltergeist was that of Wesley, founder of Methodism, at Epworth, England, in 1716.
To the boys of Trumann, Loros was a nine-day wonder and then the taunting and teasing began. Almost invariably poltergeist manifestations are connected with some very young person, usually a girl. The boys discovered this fact and told Loros that he had a girl ghost which made it extra-embarrassing for a he-boy. So far Loros’s poltergeist has shown no signs of getting rough; but twice from the wall, lately, along with the triple knocks have come cries like those of a baby or cat.
Some persons offered suggestions for making the invisible nuisance leave the premises. One wrote that it was undoubtedly an “uneasy spirit” and that if the next time it knocked someone would respectfully ask what it wanted, the spirit would say what was on its mind and go away. Mr Elledge, willing to try most anything, followed instructions but the poltergeist failed to co-operate.
Sometimes when the knocks wake Loros up, he can be heard asking reproachfully: “Aw, what do you want?” An old lady, writing from Pennsylvania, enclosed a cabalistic message, which had been in their family and used as a poltergeist-deterrent for generations, without a single failure. That proved to be a dud too. The poltergeist just didn’t seem to understand. And so the mystery goes on, baffling all investigators.
The World’s News (Sydney), 25th January 1941.