American Hauntings: The True Stories behind Hollywood's Scariest Movies—from The Exorcist to The Conjuring: The True Stories behind Hollywood’s Scariest Movies—from The Exorcist to The Conjuring

by Robert Bartholomew

  Early on, Detective Tozzi was suspicious of the children’s involvement. He interviewed them and made it clear that if they were caught pranking, “it was a serious matter.”58 He interviewed them a second time, on February 20, when Tozzi’s suspicions were rekindled following an incident that occurred as the pair had entered the basement. Suddenly, as Tozzi wrote in his report, “a small metal horse that was on the cellar stair shelf struck that floor at the writer’s feet. . . . The writer accused James of having thrown this figure and interrogated him for quite some time.” He denied having any involvement with the disturbances.59 However, it is clear that the detective had broken one of the basic principles of police work: never become emotionally involved with your suspects. Tozzi had grown fond of the family. This was evident when police decided to “secretly” place fluorescent dust on some of the items that had been disturbed by the “poltergeist,” in expectation of shedding light on the mystery. This was a clever strategy, as several of the affected items had been tossed or tipped multiple times. It was ingenious. Yet, inexplicably, police told the family of their plan ahead of time, even to the point of telling them which bottles had been dusted, and cautioned them not to touch them!60 Detective Tozzi clearly failed to exercise good judgment. How else can one explain announcing the use of the fluorescent powder before it was used? This was not good police work, and it could be recounted in a police manual on how not to conduct an investigation! Tozzi’s actions fall somewhere between comical and absurd.

  Even from afar, Jimmy appeared guilty—at least to some newspapers that were situated near the house and could send reporters there to check on the proceedings firsthand, such as the Long Island Star-Journal. Near the height of the antics, on February 25, they appeared to subtly point the finger of suspicion at the boy with the headline “Son’s Favorite Victim of Seaford ‘Ghosts.’” The article noted that the supernatural force at Seaford appeared to “have a penchant for . . . James Herrmann Jr. They do their best work when he’s around.”

  At 4:40 p.m. a chest of drawers in young Jimmy’s bedroom overturned with a loud rumble and crash—for the second time in 24 hours Jimmy got to the room first. When the chest went Sunday Jimmy was in the room asleep.

  At 8:30 p.m. an ash tray in the living room flung itself five feet across the room . . . Nobody was around.

  [. . .]

  At 9 p.m. a world globe sitting on a 31-inch metal bookcase in Jimmy’s room picked itself up, flew across the bed in which Jimmy was sleeping, gained altitude to clear a 38-inch chest of drawers on the other side of the bed and then curved through two doorways to plop at the feet of a reporter sitting in the living room.

  At 9:15 p.m., with Jimmy again in bed, his metal bookcase went over with a thud.

  THE “GHOSTS” completed activities at eight minutes after midnight by dropping the picture of a Wild West scene from a wall in Jimmy’s bedroom. 61

  Despite recording 67 incidents, Roll and Pratt had not directly witnessed a single one. In concluding that psychic energy from James Jr. was most likely responsible, they were disregarding traditional views that such events were caused literally by noisy spirits or ghosts. Throughout all of recorded history, no one has provided definitive evidence for the existence of a ghost, noisy or otherwise; the same is true of claims that certain people can channel psychic energies in order to move objects. However, history is replete with examples of people who have been caught while claiming they could move objects using psychic energy. There is no reason to hypothesize the existence of unproven “psychic energies.” Near the end of the investigations, the family grew protective of little Jimmy, after suggestions that he might have been responsible. Despite their unreliability in court, the Herrmanns agreed to take a lie detector test to eliminate themselves as suspects, but Mr. Herrmann later changed his mind at the last minute. The reason he gave was that he feared it would be used to implicate Jimmy as the culprit. 62 The disturbances came to an abrupt end on March 10.

  An Epidemic of Poltergeists

  By April 1958, publicity for “Popper” appeared to have triggered an epidemic of poltergeist reports across the country,—or, at the least, an epidemic of reports of recent cases, some predating Seaford. According to the American Weekly magazine, in a house in Clayton, California, a fountain pen was reported to float down a hallway, even turning corners, while rocks supposedly dropped from the ceiling. In Resthaven, Illinois, a refrigerator was said to whistle, walls rumble, and saucers fly through the air by means of a poltergeist with a fetish for propelling fruits and vegetables. At a farmhouse near Hartsville, Missouri, a comb was seen to fly off a dresser top, while in Tulsa, Oklahoma, an electric carpet sweeper was said to roam a house without being plugged in, as if guided by an invisible hand.63 The Clayton and Tulsa outbreaks had begun the previous year, but the publicity associated with the Seaford case appears to have thrown more media attention to these and other reports, and in some instances it may have created new ones. It also drew more attention to the Duke University lab and the cases it was investigating.

  The mayhem associated with the haunted vacuum cleaner in Tulsa was hypothesized to be a rare electrical anomaly.64 The homeowner, Mr. C. A. Wilkinson, was adamant in his insistence that plugs were jumping out of the wall sockets, resulting in his fridge motor burning out—twice, no less—and damage to a $1,300 electric organ. A wall clock had fallen to the floor six times. Wilkinson went to great lengths to try to put an end to the pandemonium. “I thought maybe wire-mesh fence was picking up electricity somehow and sending it through the house,” he said, “so I took the fence down. Then I dug up all the water pipes in the back yard, but that didn’t help either.”65 One evening the inexplicable movement of tables and chairs had frightened the family. They fled the house and slept in their car. The most incredible incident was reported to have targeted the Wilkinsons’ daughter Shirley, who one night burst into her parents’ bedroom, claiming that while apparently fast asleep, she had awakened to find the carpet sweeper rolling across her stomach! The cavalry soon arrived in the form of a local group of parapsychologists, who suspected that the little girl was the poltergeist. She vehemently denied the claims: “They’re just making it up,” she said, bristling with defiance and indignation. “Grandpa did it. I know he did it, but they’re blaming it on me.” Her grandfather had died six years earlier.66

  At Resthaven, a small village in northeast Illinois, fourteen-year-old Susan Wall was the center of activity. The girl was living with her grandparents. Walls were reported “to shake and rumble and whistling noises came from empty rooms.” When the family moved to the house of a relative, the disturbances followed and intensified: a bar of soap flew across a room, furniture mysteriously tumbled over or broke, and a coffee pot supposedly floated above the stove and tipped over. A friend stopping in to check out the happenings became a victim when “from nowhere” an orange flew through the air, striking the back of his head. Another visitor was struck by an apple. Young Susan also took her knocks, having been plunked in the back of the head by a chunk of butter weighing a quarter of a pound and hit on the arm with a cabbage. 67 At the height of the disturbance, the Associated Press reported that journalists and photographers joined hundreds of visitors who were hoping to catch a glimpse of the phenomena, which quickly died down. This prompted one writer to remark that the poltergeist seemed to grow tired of the crowds. 68 Deputy Sheriff Chester Moberly had a different perspective and was suspicious that more mundane forces were involved. “Maybe they’re all innocent . . . but I notice I haven’t been getting any more reports after I threatened to use a lie detector on the whole batch of them.” 69

  A Haunting in the Eye of the Beholder

  All of these so-called haunted houses had common elements that were evident at Seaford: no one could verify the strange happenings in front of scientists or outside investigators, and the disturbances were associated with adolescents who seemed to attract the activity and were suspected of staging the events, although they were not caug
ht in the act. In the end, the Seaford “poltergeist” turned out to be a split verdict: the final score was three to two; that is, of the five investigators, three concluded that there was no evidence of trickery and that the shenanigans by Popper were likely a real paranormal phenomenon. Both Christopher and Osis concluded, based on the same evidence, that Jimmy was the culprit. As one reexamines this case, it becomes clear that Pratt and Roll were out of their depth of expertise and should have accepted the offer of assistance from Christopher, as they were woefully untutored in the arts of basic chemistry, tomfoolery, and deception. Instead of spending their time trying to see if they could recreate the disturbances by experimenting with containers and their caps, they should have consulted experts. It was equally clear that Detective Tozzi had lost his objectivity. Even Robert Wallace, in his article in Life magazine, rushed to Jimmy’s defense, writing that it was unfair to suggest Jimmy as the culprit, since Tozzi had “not seen fit to accuse the boy.”70 This was untrue. Tozzi had seriously suspected Jimmy on at least two occasions and subsequently grilled him with questions both times, but he never caught him in the act and eventually felt that he was innocent. Tozzi was far from impartial and had grown too fond of the family to be able to conduct an effective, impartial investigation. On March 6, after her prized coffee pot was found flipped upside down and damaged, Mrs. Herrmann said that she was willing to try anything if it would stop the disturbances. At this point, Tozzi phoned a local church to ask about the possibility of conducting an exorcism of the house. This option was not likely to have been found in the police detective handbook!

  In the final analysis, if we track the key figure (Jimmy), focus on the disturbances and their nature, and consider the “clandestine effect,” the finger of guilt points to Jimmy. If we follow his movements, it becomes clear, as Pratt concedes, that “the disturbances took place nearer to James, on the average, than to any other member of the family.” 71 He was also commonly the first on the scene or the only one present when a disturbance occurred. 72 The “poltergeist” only acted up when Jimmy was in the house. The disturbances were not scattered randomly throughout the house but were, more often than not, linked to Jimmy. The highest concentration of disturbed objects was in his room. Further, if one looks at the types of objects that were disturbed, Pratt places them into two categories: bottles popping and “displacements of furniture and household objects.” 73 In most instances, the movement of furniture is closely tied to Jimmy, and there are no other witnesses. A picture above his bed fell twice, and a lamp tumbled over once, both while he was in the room alone. In the basement, when a phonograph crashed to the floor, Jimmy was the sole person present. These objects would have been easy to toss without detection. As for the popping bottle tops for which Popper received its nickname, this could have been accomplished through simple misdirection, as Christopher demonstrated with reporters, pointing out that no one had seen a bottle cap pop. People heard a noise that they assumed was a pop, only to rush to the site of the sound to find the bottles open and on their sides. One way to accomplish the bottle “popping” would have been to have opened and overturned the bottles before making the noise. Such a trick could be accomplished easily, even by a young boy, as sound is the easiest of the five senses to fool. Pratt and Roll dismissed this possibility based on their examination of just one incident. 74

  But how does Christopher explain the incident involving the two bottles that moved in different directions in the bathroom as Mr. Herrmann stood in the doorway—a disturbance that baffled him so much that he called the police for the first time? Christopher says that he knows of two ways that a magician could have performed the exact movements. If Mr. Herrmann was not looking directly at the bottles, Jimmy easily could have pushed them with his free hand. It can also be accomplished, according to Christopher, using a piece of thread:

  Hold a bottle in your left hand near its base. With your left thumb press the end of the thread firmly to the side of the bottle near its bottom and wind the thread around the bottle several times until, by friction, the end is held firmly. Place this bottle upright on a shelf close to the wall with the thread extending horizontally so that you can pull it taut. Take the second bottle, put it upright between the first container and yourself. Move it to the left so that it carries the thread with it. Drop your end of the thread until you are ready for action. To send the two bottles in different directions, grasp the end of the thread and give a quick sharp yank. The second bottle will be sent to the right, the first will come forward. 75

  Christopher notes that Jimmy would not even need to be looking directly at his father to accomplish the trick, as he could monitor his reflection in the mirror. As soon as he noticed his father look away, even for an instant, he could have subtly yanked the thread. Such a feat is not as complicated as it may sound, and it would not be difficult to master with practice, given that Jimmy had the element of surprise in his favor.

  The antics of Popper ended with a fizz on March 10, under curious circumstances. Mr. Herrmann had turned down the request by Milbourne Christopher to investigate the case after making it clear “that he did not want a magician in the house” and characterizing magicians as being in the same category as charlatans, mystics, and mediums. 76 Clearly this was not a credible reason. Then there is the sudden flip-flop by Mr. Herrmann over taking a lie detector test. Initially, he had agreed to allow his entire family to be polygraphed, but then he rescinded the offer, specifically telling Dr. Pratt that it was because “the children had objected.” 77 Had the “poltergeist” been caught in the act and was the “haunting” to be kept a household secret, or was the talk of polygraphs making certain family members nervous to the point of deciding to stop their antics? These explanations are far more plausible than creating a hypothetical condition—psychokinesis—the existence of which has yet to be proven.

  It is noteworthy that just days before the disturbances ended, on March 5, Dr. Osis offered to end the speculation, once and for all, that any family members were engaged in pranking. He proposed to create a set of “foolproof conditions” by sealing up the most disturbed location—Jimmy’s room—after placing in it the most desired objects that had been targeted by the “poltergeist” and adding monitoring devices. Osis said, “If the poltergeist were a real psi force, this would have offered a splendid opportunity. If it were not, the owner of the room . . . would be motivated to put an end to incidents” so as to avoid being caught. Soon after his proposal was made, the disturbances stopped, even though Mr. Herrmann had eventually rejected the plan. 78

  There are several instances where either Pratt or Roll was too trusting of the family and failed to follow fundamental rules of investigation. For instance, on March 9, a loud thud was heard from the direction of Jimmy’s room, while he was supposedly in bed. An investigation found that no objects had been disturbed. Several minutes later, a louder thump echoed out, prompting a search of his room. Pratt writes, “Lucille, still in bed, said it came from James’s wall just as if he had hit it with his fist or elbow. I asked James to do this and he was able to nearly get the same sound.” Remarkably, instead of suspecting James of having thumped the wall, Pratt dismisses his involvement, noting that James said he was partly asleep during both thumps. Pratt takes Jimmy’s word for this and downplays the two incidents as trivial: “These sounds are, of course, trivial in comparison with the other events and they would not be worth pointing out except for the sake of completing the record of what happened in the house while we were there.” This incident shows the extent to which Pratt was biased, uncritical, and easily duped.79 To label these sounds as trivial—and to fail to follow up on the suspicious thuds—explains why it was so easy for Jimmy to have fooled a house of adults. In another instance, Pratt observes that because several disturbances involved religious objects and because such acts constituted “a serious religious offense,” it “seems unlikely that a family as devout as the Herrmanns would be party to such sacrilege.”80 On the contrary, if Jimmy was
rebelling against his parents’ restrictions, which would have included following certain Catholic protocols, the targeting of such objects in order to vent his anger and frustrations would not be out of the question. Pratt was also prone to embellishment. For instance, in recounting the case several years later in his book on parapsychology, Pratt describes an incident in which he hears “a series of explosive sounds,” one of which “literally shook the house.” Later in the book, these same events are described as “dull thumps” coming from the direction of Jimmy’s room and the “explosion” of a cap popping off a container of bleach sitting in the basement. It is difficult to imagine the latter disturbance shaking the house.81

  Pratt and Roll’s study on the Seaford outbreak was published in the June issue of the Journal of Parapsychology, with great fanfare within the parapsychological community. It has been widely touted as the first scientific study of a poltergeist. However, it is far from scientific, and it is remarkably flawed. Dr. Pratt would later caution critics that the study was “inconclusive,” yet Pratt and Roll clearly conclude that the most likely explanation was that Jimmy was able to move objects with his mind. They also state that numerous laboratory tests since the 1940s had demonstrated that psychokinesis (PK) “has been widely confirmed.”82 Hogwash. Their article is a study in wishful thinking and amateur detective work involving two scientists who were pranked and outwitted by a little boy. The evidence that Jimmy was the poltergeist was everywhere, yet they failed to see it. Time and again, Dr. Pratt’s words were incongruent with his claims. It is a testament to their pro-poltergeist bias that Pratt and Roll’s study failed to even cite the research findings of Christopher and Osis.