It's so refreshing to watch something that isn't a hammed-up 'paranormal extravaganza' - but this is 1965 and not 2020. People just recount their stories while sitting in their living rooms. There are no silly reconstructions and no screaming. ARG Owen stays overnight in one of the houses and literally nothing happens.
Presenter:
Do you believe in ghosts? No? Well perhaps not. But then a week ago, neither did
the Howells family, who live in this house in Rhondda [jump in film]... Martia, 20, her
25 year old husband David, and their two young children, are convinced that the
house has been invaded by a poltergeist. Mrs Howells describes what’s happened,
on Monday afternoon.
Mrs Howells:
Well it was about five o’clock in the evening and I’d just poured my little
girl a cup of tea in my mother’s room. I went up back to the kitchen, as I came
up this bottle came flying towards me.
And of course I shut the door to protect myself. I opened it again and I seen
this other bottle. So I just picked up the children and ran out the house. As I
ran out my husband was coming down the street here, and he ran straight in the
house, and by the time he got in the there all of the place was turned upside
down.
Dr George
Owens (Trinity College Cambridge): A strange word, ‘poltergeist’ – it comes
from old German folklore. It means a noisy spirit. In fact it’s just one of the
many European words for ‘things that go bump in the night’. Our ancestors thought
of the poltergeist as something just akin to the spirits of nature that haunt
meadow and field and make noises in the mines. In fact their idea of the
poltergeist was very like that of the modern child’s conception of an elf or
goblin.
In one very famous case 300 years ago – in the house of John
Mompesson, the squire of Tidworth, on Salisbury Plain, people heard the beating
of a drum. “For an hour together it would beat Roundheads and Cuckolds, and
several other points of war, as well as any drummer. After this they would hear
a scratching under the children’s beds, as if by something that had iron
talons.”
Voiceover:
It would turn with mighty violence and applied itself wholly to my youngest
children, whose bedsteads it would beat, when there has been many of strangers as
well as ourselves present in the room, that we did expect that at every blow expect
they would have fallen into pieces. Then it will run under the bedsteads and scratch,
as if it had iron talons. And then heave up the children and the bed, and
follow them from room to room, and come to none else but them.
ARGO: In 1695
on this site where the Divinity School now stands, there was a house where a
poltergeist was raging. ‘There came by Mr Isaac Newton, a very learned man,
fellow of Trinity College, and seeing several scholars about the door – “Oh ye
fools” says he, “Will you never have any witch? Know ye not that all such
things are mere cheats and impostures? Fie Fie, go home for shame!” And he
would not go in.’
Superstition had to give way to scepticism.
Scepticism seems natural in these scientific times, symbolised so well by the sweeping
curves of the great dome of New Hall, calculated I sincerely trust according to
Newtonian mechanics to withstand the pull of gravity. But do the scientists
really know all the forces that there are in nature? When I was young they admitted
of only two: magnetism and gravity. Now they tell us there are two more: the
atomic forces of the strong and the weak interaction. All this must I think make
the layman ask – is this the lot, or are there not other powers at work in the
universe?
But the scientists are right in requiring us only to believe in
things for which there is real evidence. Evidence on poltergeists has not been
easy to collect. For the reason that poltergeist outbreaks actually occur far
more rarely than even the uncommon crime of murder. But statistics do disclose
two odd and curious facts. It seems that in every afflicted household the
strange happenings tend to be mysteriously connected with just one member of
the family. This person is usually a young person, someone in the age group 11
years up to 21 years old. And here perhaps we ought to pause for thought. Perhaps
it really is all trickery. Perhaps it really is the type of mischief that a
young lad - like that - might be wanting to get up to. However, what of this
housewife, 22 year old Martia Howells of Swansea. She seems to me to be a most
sincere and truthful witness.
Mrs Howells:
It was about three days after we moved into Rhondda Street, my husband and I
went to bed, and we woke up feeling as if somebody was choking us. My husband he
opened the windows and went downstairs to see if any gas had been left on, but nothing
like that had happened. So we went to bed, we thought no more of that. Then my
husband always locks the doors before going to bed, and one night I had to go
downstairs and the door was open. So I locked it, went back to bed and told him
he didn’t lock the door, but he said he had. Then when we went downstairs in
the morning the door was open again. These things happen over a period of months.
Then one afternoon I was having tea with my mother in her room, and it was on
the Monday, and she said that she had to go across the shop, so I said alright I
said I’m going back to my room now to do a bit of work. So as I went out the
children come down the passage behind me, and I opened the door of my room, and
I seen a bottle rise off the mantelpiece. I thought I was seeing things. I seen
the bottle coming towards me so I shut the door to protect myself, and the
bottle smashed against the back of the door. So I opened the door again, and I seen
another bottle rising off the mantelpiece. So I just shut the door and picked
up my children, and went and waited on the doorstep for my mother to come home. So she came back and I told her what had happened. So she said to me, ‘Don’t be
so daft,’ she said. So we went back into the room and by that time all my
furniture was upside down. So I waited on the doorstep again until my husband
came home from work, and well we didn’t say nothing about it to anybody, we
just cleaned up the mess.
So then Tuesday, nothing happened strange at all. It
was on the Wednesday when my little girl was in nursery school. It was about five
to three, my mother was out in my room so I said to her that I’d better go out
and find one and catch the bus. So she said alright I’ll get the knitting from
my room and come back in here with the baby. Alright, I said. So I went to get
the bus for school, and when I come back my mother was on the doorstep so I
asked her what was the matter and she said the same things had happened again.
That all my furniture was upside down. So we both went in to have a look, so I
could see that my room was in the same kind of a mess, so we went out the back
kitchen to see if anything had been touched out there. Well that was alright, nothing
had been touched. So we went back, we went upstairs then to see if anything had
been touched upstairs. And upstairs was alright. So I said come on wait on the
doorstep for my husband to come home again. So we waited, we didn’t hear no sound
of anything at all.
So when he came home I said that my room was in the same
kind of mess. And then we went on to the kitchen, and my gas stove was all
turned up, well we didn’t hear any sound of anything. Then we went upstairs to
go to see if the bedrooms were alright, and we couldn’t open the bedroom door.
So my husband said that he thinks that we better call the police. So I told
him, I was crying and I said, we better not call the police because we couldn’t
tell them our furniture was flying about by itself! Well anyway he called the
police and the police had to force the bedroom door to get in. And my big
double bed was on top of the baby’s cot behind the door. And well he always used
to go to bed in the afternoon and I don’t know why I didn’t put him then. And
if he’d have been in it he would have been killed.
ARGO: I don’t
think there was any trickery there. But we can do better than this. At Sauchie
in Scotland, a few years back, a little girl of 11 years old, Virginia
Campbell, was the centre of intense poltergeist activity observed by many reliable
witnesses, including the family physician, Dr William Logan. He was called into
the case because at school her teacher had seen a desk rise and float about 2
inches above the ground. Dr Logan recalls some of his experiences of five years
ago.
Dr Logan: My
first involvement with the Virginia Campbell poltergeist was in the evening of
Saturday 26th of November 1961. I was called to the house because of
the incidents and happenings that had been taking there during that night, and
as it turned out, on previous nights. When I arrived at the house the
householders were in a state of excitement and tension, and informed me that
there had been knockings and noises and pieces of furniture being moved, and
that something odd was going on. So I went up to see the child, who was lying
in bed looking fairly relaxed despite all this commotion that had been going
on, and I asked her to try and forget as much as possible that I was in the
room beside her. After I had been in the room for about, oh, ten or fifteen
minutes, I noticed that one of the pillows beside Virginia was beginning to
move in a rather unusual fashion. If you can imagine Virginia lying with her head
on this pillow here, and another pillow beside her, and this pillow started to turn
in a rotatory fashion, thus. In addition I noticed round about the same time or
shortly afterwards, that there was an impression or indentation beginning to
occur as if something was either pulling from inside or pushing, but there was
no obvious physical force bringing this movement about.
I checked thoroughly that Virginia herself was in no position
to bring about these odd movements, both by observation and by checking her
position of her hands and feet. Furthermore there was no other person close enough
to Virginia or the pillow to bring this about. I waited for a little while, and
only one other phenomenon occurred and this was a puckering of the bedclothes.
Now again, if you can try and imagine this piece of cloth as part of the
coverlet on Virginia’s bed, the bedclothes appeared to be pulled up and pulled
towards Virginia, as if some force was trying to pull this coverlet. One of the
noises was a very characteristic sawing sound (he draws his fingernail over the
material several times). The other noise that was present was a knocking,
tapping noise similar to this (he flicks the arm of the chair repeatedly, fast).
After a short while we decided to go home thinking that perhaps Virginia would
settle down and go to sleep once we had left. Just as we were going out the
door a very unusual thing happened. Or it seemed unusual at the time. That was
that the noises, the knockings, seemed to take on a character, in that they
became extremely hurried and agitated, as if something was trying to get us to
stay in the room or attract the attention to the child in the bed. The noises
became as I said agitated, something like this (he flicks faster). And that is
the end of my own personal contact with these phenomena, but I have been given
permission to read extracts from a diary that I suggested a close relative of the
child should keep, shortly after the events started.
She noted down very carefully in her own words – by the way,
this, erm, diary has never been published or read in any form before to the
public, erm, and she was very kind in allowing me to read some extracts from it
tonight.
I would like to read the first the description of the first
night on which the phenomena started. It’s dated Tuesday 22nd of
November 1960. At about 10.30 pm Margaret and Virginia were lying in bed. There
was a noise like a ball bouncing on the floor. I looked under the beds in the
room but couldn’t see anything. No sooner had I left the room when it started
again. Margaret and Virgina went downstairs thinking that perhaps a mouse was
under the bed, for a brush. The thing seemed to follow them down the stairs.
Her friend had just been visiting the house, and after he left,
I quote: ‘An apple jumped out of the dish. Virginia ate it. I went away to the
phone. Virginia was in the house with dad. He said while I was away an apple
came out of the dish three times. The pot came off the cabinet and hit Virginia
on the nose. It settled on the chair just before I came back.’
Again we read: ‘A piece of chocolate jumped off the sideboard.
Also a pencil. A brillo pad came out of the kitchen into the living room. The
light went on twice. Virginia was using the cleaner. It went off and the rubber
flew off the handle. There was a knocking under the table. Virginia gave three
knocks. Then there were three knocks back.’
Later she says: ‘Nothing happened this day. There was
knocking on the table at dinner time. Someone was punching the girls in bed.’
And on another occasion: ‘The top of the hot water bag was open,
and there was scraping… The girls were getting pinched sore… Virginia’s leg was
getting tickled. There has been writing on the girls faces for the past three nights…
Virginia’s lips went bright red three times, and there was a noise like a ball
bouncing.’
Incidentally this ‘bright red’ description, really, as far as
I can make out, what she really intended to express, was that Virginia’s lips
appeared to glow bright red, and this she saw herself.
‘The bed cover turned red. It was a green cover. There was a
noise like somebody walking across the floor… There was knocking on the bed,
also on the mattress.’
And on occasions she writes ‘All went well during the past two
weeks’. And she goes on again, ‘there was a lot of knocking on the bed this
morning. Virginia was getting nipped.’
Until we get to the last statement in the book, in which she
simply states , it’s dated Sunday 23rd of April 1961: ‘There was a
knocking on the cupboard door.’
ARGO: The
Sauchie poltergeist case is to my mind a wonderfully diagnostic one. A living
person, Virginia Campbell, was for some weeks at no wish of her own, the centre
of a mysterious force. This force was fitful and capricious; sometimes it moved
solid objects. At other times it produced strange sounds. Here is a tape
recording made by Dr Logan. (A shriek. Four fast knocks. Five knocks. Three knocks.)
But, unlike the good people of Tidworth, I do not think that
it was a demon or a goblin or yet a disembodied spirit. I think it was a force.
A force admittedly unknown to orthodox science, but yet a force proceeding in
some way from Virginia herself. Until recently, in fact until two weeks ago, I
thought of the Sauchie poltergeist case as the very pattern and type of all
poltergeist cases. Now I have to tell you that I am beginning to think that
there may be yet another kind of case of this sort: in some ways different, and
in some ways akin to the old notion of the haunted house. And so I am going to
ask you to come with me (in spirit of course!) to North Fleet in Kent.
This is 16 Waterdales, Northfleet Kent. Built about 30 years
ago, it seems a perfectly normal house, and not the kind we would expect to be
haunted. But four years ago a young couple, Mr and Mrs Maxstead, moved in.
Quite often when Mr and Mrs Maxtead were sitting downstairs in their sitting
room, which is beneath where I am now, they would hear the sound of footsteps crossing
the floor here in this room. Although in fact it was at the time absolutely
empty. Another thing which puzzled them a great deal was that a strange smell
permeated the house. An unpleasant chemical kind of smell, it came and went
mysteriously. But the Maxteads stuck it out despite all their troubles and
bewilderment until finally Mrs Maxwell [sic] saw a strange apparition. She awoke
in the middle of the night - in fact just about the time it is now! She saw
coming towards her what seemed to be the figure of a little girl about six years
old. But as the vision advanced, it grew strangely taller and taller until it
turned into a figure seen in profile and rather indistinct, but bending over
her in an uncanny kind of way. After this, not unnaturally, the Maxsteads
thought that enough was perhaps enough, and they moved out. But the house,
though empty, was not at peace, as Mrs Margaret Harrison, who lives next door, can
tell us.
Margaret
Harrison: The noise started off in the hall first, then it came like a – well you
can’t very well describe it, it was like a child’s ball falling down the
stairs. And it was, it was, a sound it was going (she smacks her hands four times)
like that all the way down the stairs, you know. And then it sort of shot, the
sound shot up into the bedroom to where I was, and it was like a scratching
noise, you know, under the bed. And it sort of, as if it was bonking up the
bed. But it wasn’t just in one part of the bed, you know it was all over
underneath. And it was sort of scratching all the time, you know, but it wasn’t
a sort of a clawing noise, it was like this all the time (she scrabbles about
continually with her fingers on the arm of the chair), you know, under the bed.
ARGO: Although Mrs
Harrison lives next door, her bedroom is in actual fact above the stairway of
number 16. After the Maxteads, Mr and Mrs Essex moved into the house. They too
were persecuted. They also heard footsteps in the bedroom when no one was
there. But also noise of furniture moving. They too had a strange smell seeping
through the house, but this time it was that of something old and musty rather
than something chemical. Then one night Mr Essex was awakened by a strange
whistling noise in his ears. He discovered his bed was being shaken. Indeed, it
was being lifted up. Beside the bed the weirdest of phantoms was forming
itself. It glowed with a pinkish orange light. It was transparent at the edges,
but queerest and most peculiar of all, it was in the form of a woman without a
head.
Well, I’ve spent now some six hours or so in the house at night.
Nothing has so far happened. But I propose to stay on here until dawn – hoping,
waiting for something to turn up.
ARGO: Well,
the dawn did come, and nothing happened to me. I was not unduly disappointed
because these things are notorious wayward and fitful. However Northfleet did
leave me with an unanswered question. Is it possible that sometimes a place and
the people in it can conspire together to generate a poltergeist energy? One
big question hangs over the whole subject – why is it that some people and not
others can be a centre for the poltergeist force? We know a little about this –
we know that they tend to be young, are more likely to be girls than boys. We
know that they are basically healthy, indeed rather intelligent but possibly a
trifle highly strung. Stress, it seems and emotional tension, can act as
triggers helping to set off the manifestation. But clearly this cannot possibly
be all, or otherwise poltergeists would afflict every home in the land. One
thing is certain: these stories have happy endings. The effects are
short-lived. Virginia Campbell today is a normal, happy and charming teenager.
What is the origin of the poltergeist force? I wish I knew. I
regret I cannot tell you. All I know is that it exists. Why has it stayed
unrecognised for so long? Perhaps it’s because of the great variability of poltergeist
cases. A milk bottle flew up, said Mrs Howells. An apple rose out of the dish,
said Dr Logan. There were noises galore at Sauchie, and yet everything happened
in complete silence at Swansea. Yet, where sounds did happen, it’s very striking
how similar they were – the scratchings and the bouncings: long ago at Tidworth,
and in our own time at Northfleet and in Scotland. I think myself, that
although its physics and its mode of application is mysterious and obscure, the
poltergeist force itself has its origin in living human beings, and not in
ghosts or hauntings. However, the Northfleet case remains very puzzling to me,
and something of an exception to my theoretical scheme. There the poltergeist
activity, the physical phenomena, were all it seems attached to the house and
not to the particular people in it. Just what influence it is and what awoke it
to activity at 16 Waterdales, and why it has brooded over the house these four
years past, is something that is going to remain for the time being, unknown.
