For the film series, see Poltergeist film series. For the TV series, see: The Legacy

(German for noisy ghost) is a term for a supposed spirit or ghost that manifests by moving and influencing inanimate objects (rather than through visible presence or vocalization). Stories featuring poltergeists typically focus heavily on raps, thumps, knocks, footsteps, and bed-shaking, all without a discernable point of origin or physical reason for occurrence. Many accounts of poltergeist activity detail objects being thrown about the room, furniture being moved, and even people being levitated. A few poltergeists have even been known to speak (The Bell Witch, 1817; Gef the Talking Mongoose, 1931). Most classic poltergeist stories originate in England, though the word itself is German.

Poltergeist phenomena are a focus of study within parapsychology. Parapsychologists define poltergeist activity as a type of uncontrolled psychokinesis. Recurrent Spontaneous Psychokinesis (RSPK) is a phrase suggested by parapsychologist William G. Roll to denote poltergeist phenomena.

Poltergeist activity tends to occur around a single person called an agent or a focus. Focuses are often, but not limited to, pubescent children. Almost seventy years of research by the Rhine Research Center (Raleigh-Durham, NC USA) has led to the hypothesis among parapsychologists that the "poltergeist effect" is a form of psychokinesis generated by a living human mind (that of the agent). According to researchers at the Rhine Center, the "poltergeist effect" is the outward manifestation of psychological trauma. Skeptics believe that the phenomena are hoaxes perpetrated by the agent. Indeed, many poltergeist agents have been caught by investigators in the act of throwing objects. A few of them later confessed to faking. However, parapsychologists investigating poltergeists think that most occurrences are real, and the agents cheat only when they are subsequently caught cheating. The longevity and consistency between poltergeist stories (the earliest one details the raining of stones and bed shaking in ancient Egypt) has left the matter open for debate within the parapsychology community.

Another version of the poltergeist is the "wrath version." When a person dies in a powerful rage at the time of death, that person is believed by some to come back to fulfill that vengeance. In some cases, the vengeance is too strong to let go or forgive, and the metaphysical ghost becomes a poltergeist, in which the newly formed ghost can affect solid objects, and in some cases are deadly. According to yet another opinion, ghosts and poltergeists are "recordings." When there is a powerful emotion, sometimes at death and sometimes not, a recording is believed to be embedded into the fabric of time, and this recording will continue to play over and over again until the energy embedded disperses.

Some people theorize that poltergeists are caused by the Hutchison effect.

William Roll, Hans Bender and Harry Price are perhaps three of the most famous poltergeist investigators in the annals of parapsychology. Harry Price investigated Borley Rectory which is widely regarded as "the most haunted house in England."

Some scientists propose that all poltergeist activity that they cannot trace to fraud has an explained physical explanation such as static magnetic/electric fields, ultra and infra sound, static electric charging and ionised air. In some cases such as the Rosenheim poltergeist case, the physicist F. Karger from the Max-Planck-Institut für Plasmaphysik and G. Zicha from the Technical University of Munich found neither none of these effects present, and psi proponents claim that no evidence of fraud was ever found, even after a sustained investigation from the police force and CID, though criminologist Herbert Schäfer quotes a detective watching the agent pushing a lamp when she thought nobody was looking.

But according to the two physicists this did not rule out what they called "short duration forces" or the case that the effects that they were looking for were not constant, but only happening at the time of the phenomena, which was witnessed by Hans Bender, the police force, the CID, reporters, and the physicists present and the phenomena such as the rotation of a picture and swinging lamps were captured on video (which was one of the first times any poltergeist activity has been captured on film) and strange sounds that sounded electrical in origin were recorded. The claims were aired in a documentary in 1975 in a series called "Leap in the Dark".

Famous alleged poltergeist infestations

Although poltergeist stories date back to the first century, most evidence to support the existence of poltergeists is anecdotal. Indeed, many of the stories below have several versions and/or inconsistencies.

• The Bell Witch (1817)
• Eleonore Zugun - The 'Poltergeist Girl' (1926)
• The Haunting of The Fox sisters (1848) - arguably one of the most famous, as it started the Spiritualism movement.
• The Borley Rectory phenomena (1929)
• The Rosenheim Poltergeist (1967) ^*
• The Enfield Poltergeist (1977)
• The Mackenzie Poltergeist (fairly recent) - Famed for haunting Greyfriars church yard, Edinburgh, UK
• The Canneto di Caronia fires poltergeist (fairly recent (2004 - 2005)) - Famed for defying all attempts at a scientific explanation, Sicily, Italy ^*.
• The Entity Case is one of the best-documented and most harrowing poltergeist phenomena. It took place in Culver City, California in the early 70s and evolved around a single mother of three named Carlotta Moran who was being repeatedly raped (even in front of her family) by an invisible entity and his two helpers over the course of several years. Even after moving away to Texas the attacks would still occur, if less frequently. Eventually they fully subsided. These events were made into a movie named The Entity in 1981.

Although some parapsychologists suggest that poltergeists could be a form of recurrent PK, there is very little evidence for PK recorded on film or witnessed by objective parties. There are famous cases where the activity was seen by several people, but fraud has not been ruled out.

Poltergeists in fiction

Both the name and concept of the poltergeist became famous to modern audiences by the Poltergeist movies and the subsequent TV series The Legacy. The first Poltergeist movie actually gave an excellent depiction (during the first half of the film) of a "typical" poltergeist infestation, right down to the depiction of the focus as a prepubescent girl.

There is a poltergeist named Peeves in the Harry Potter books. Peeves, however, does not conform to the classic definition of a poltergeist. The fact that he manifests visually would seem to indicate that he is something similar to a ghost, though J. K. Rowling has stated that a poltergeist is not the ghost of any person who has ever lived. Perhaps she intended Peeves to be more of a literal translation of the word poltergeist, as Peeves is quite noisy and mischievous. However, it is also possible that Harry and other students can perceive Peeves because they are Wizards, and that he would be still invisible to Muggles. It is also interesting to note that Peeves appears in color, where the other ghosts at the school appear as white, misty figures.

The Terry Pratchett Discworld novel A Hat Full of Sky features an "ondageist" named Oswald. This is the opposite of a poltergeist: a spirit obsessed with cleaning and tidying.

On October 20, 1942, the old time radio show Lights Out featured a story called "Poltergeist" in which a trio of girls experience horrific, unexplained assaults from flying stones after one walks over a grave.

On Tuesday, November 15th, 2005, Supernatural aired a show involving a multiple haunting in the old house of Dean and Sam. The owner of the house would claim there were rats in the house, but never actually saw them, only heard scratching and rustling noises. The poltergeist in the house flung knives, opened baby cribs and fridges, and claims the hand of a repairman trying to fix the garberator.

Some Castlevania games feature a few poltergeist phenomena. For example, certain furnitures may suddenly spring to life and attack (some of these furnitures are named Ouija Table). Another case is the enemy Alastor, where a giant sword floats around in the air, wielded by an occasionally visible, invulnerable spirit.

The popular Ju-on series of horror films in Japan and the Americanized version The Grudge, feature poltergeist elements including the replaying of the tragedy, and the violent nature of the ghosts.

The 2002 novel, The Bishop in the West Wing, written by Catholic priest and author Andrew M. Greeley, includes a poltergeist as a central feature of the story.

See also

• Haunted Hollywood
• Stigmatized property

External links

• Haunted Ontario - Founded in 1996 by Bob Milne, Haunted Ontario chronicles the ghosts, spirits, spooks, and poltergeists said to haunt Canada's most populated province.
• Spirit Searchers - the UK's leading paranormal investigators
• Dehaunting Techniques
• www.GhostFinders.co.uk
• Paranormal Animal Research Group
• Rhine Research Center
• International Journal of Parapsychology
• Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research
• Skeptic's Dictionary
• Ufopsi
• Haunted People - Poltergeist Girls Articles on Mysterious People Website
• The Harry Price Website Articles on Eleonore Zugun, Borley Rectory, Gef the Talking Mongoose and the Battersea Poltergeist
• ^* The Entity Case
• Poltergeist The Legacy