Odd Behaviour of Poltergeists

      A curious conclusion has been reached by researchers investigation poltergeists, the spirits which traditionally cause 'bumps in the night'. It seems that they prefer to operate when young children or teenagers are present.

      Their name is a combination of the German words 'Polter' (noise or racket) and 'Geist' (spirit). They are reputed to send objects flying across rooms, shatter pottery and make weird noises after dark.

      In November 1967 a German lawyer, Herr Adam, was practicing in the Bavarian town of Rosenheim, when all sorts of inexplicable happenings occurred.

      Herr Adam was a respected member of the community with little knowledge of the supernatural. Suddenly light-bulbs in his office began to shatter, lampshades fell off and all four telephone lines rang without reason.

      Baffled, he called in technical experts who installed a recording device to check the electricity supply. At times it showed such surges in the current that the needle ripped the graph paper--but not once did the power overload blow a fuse.

      So Herr Adam had recourse to Professor Hans Bender, an expert in parapsychology, specializing in telepathy, clairvoyance and extra-sensory perception. Bender set traps to see if the incidents were the work of a hoaxer, but all proved negative.

      After interviewing all available witnesses, he suggested that the events might have been connected with poltergeists, and attention focused on Herr Adam's clerk, a 19-year-old girl named Anne-Marie. A check on dates showed that the events began about the same time as Anne-Marie began working in the office. They stopped while she was away briefly and resumed upon her return. When Herr Adam, with this knowledge, said to her, 'Now all we need is for the pictures on the wall to move', the pictures indeed did just that.

      Anne-Marie was tested by doctors and psychologists who found nothing unusual. Attempts to induce psychokinesis, the ability to move objects by concentration, all proved futile. All that is known for certain is that the vents ceased when Anne-Marie left the office and took another job. It was reported that the disruptions continued at her next office but only in a minor way.

      Another poltergeists case began on February 3, 1958, in the house of James Herrmann, Seaford, Long Island, only 25 miles from New York. There were two children in the Herrmann family--Lucille, aged 13, and James 12.

Holy water spirit

      The phenomena began when a bottle of holy water with a screw cap became unstoppered and the contents split out on a bedroom floor. In the bathroom, a similarly capped bottle of shampoo also split, as did a bottle of medicine and other bottles down in the kitchen and basement.

      While cleaning his teeth in the bathroom, Mr. Herrmann clearly saw a bottle of medicine slide 18 in. across a level ledge and smash into the hand-basin. No human hand had been near the bottle and there was nothing in the bathroom that could have propelled it.

Something weird

      A skeptical but polite police officer, James Hughes, was called to the house and interviewed the family. While he sat with them in the living-room, more bottles began to pop their caps. Hughes returned to his police station with the report that 'something weird' was happening at the Herrmann's', and a detective, Joseph Tozzi, joined the case.

      Even today, says Tozzi, he does not believe in the supernatural, but he can offer no explanation for what he saw.

      On one occasion, he was at the house when a porcelain figure flew across the dining-room and smashed against a desk. The strain proved too much for the Herrmanns and they went to stay with relatives, taking the two children with them. Nothing happened while they were away, but on the night of their return another glass bowl flew into the air and smashed.

      Neither the Rosenheim nor the Seaford events cam be explained. They are just part of the unfathomable that makes human lives more fascinating.