Petrifying poltergeists (part 2)
February 26 2023
In our last blog, we introduced the chilling topic of poltergeists. We learned that they are a type of ghost famous for knocking things, over, throwing things around and generally making a huge mess in your home.
Believe it or not, readers, there are some people who do not like to keep their rooms tidy (I’m looking at you, teenagers and single men). These folks will often open their door, looked shocked at the chaos inside, and cry “Not that darn poltergeist again! And he’s been eating takeout pizza in here!”
These kind of incidents have led to experts questioning whether such ghosts really exist. They used all kinds of underhand tricks to discover the truth behind the thumps, bangs and crashes. You will recall in the previous blog that we examined the curious case of the Enfield Poltergeist in the 1970s. Investigators set up hidden cameras around the house. This is a sneaky thing to do. Imagine if someone set up a hidden camera in your house. Even if you weren’t faking a poltergeist, the investigators would have endless hours of fun recording you picking your nose, scratching your bottom and eating pints of ice cream whilst watching embarrassingly awful reality TV. The Enfield investigators actually caught one of the girls in the house bending spoons and banging a broom handle on the ceiling. This really proves nothing. Spoon bending and broom banging were popular hobbies back in the 1970s. Even today, in the modern world of the Internet, people still enjoy ‘virtual’ spoon bending and YouTube broom banging challenges.
Luckily, there were many other events that could not have been faked. In one horrific episode, an investigator was brutally attacked by a flying piece of Lego. Skeptics point out that there was a 7 year old boy in the family. Come on! A small boy throwing Lego? Is that possible?
On another occasion, one of the girls started to talk with a deep, scratchy voice. At first, as she was a moody preteen, her mom was thrilled that she was actually speaking to her at all. It made a refreshing change from eye-rolling and stomping up the stairs (and indeed broom banging).
However, it became clear that the gravelly voice was coming from beyond the grave. It claimed to be the ghost of an old man who had died in the house many years ago. This may seem hard to believe, until we look more closely at the evidence. Apparently the voice would drone on for hours and hours, completely boring everyone silly. Only an old man could be capable of this. I assume he spent a lot of time complaining about various things such as:
-
The price of cheese
-
His neighbor’s lawn
-
Hippies
-
Kids today
-
His back
-
Modern ‘rock’ bands
-
Women wearing trousers
To be fair, the kids did admit they had faked some of the phenomena. Rather precisely, they claimed they had fabricated 2% of the ghostly events. This still leaves 98% genuine spookiness! That’s not bad at all, especially if you consider that pork sausages are around 40% meat and juice drinks contain about 10% fruit. This does not mean, of course, that the largest part of sausages and juice drinks are faked by 1970s children, but I would not rule it out.
Finally, the Enfield Poltergeist was given the official seal of approval when it was investigated by none other than Ed and Lorraine Warren. These two shy and retiring folks were the crème de la crème of ghost investigators. You might have seen them depicted in the absolutely true movies ‘The Conjuring’, ‘The Conjuring 2: More Conjuring’, and ‘The Conjuring 3: The Horror of the Pork Sausage.’ Non-believers claim that Ed and Lorraine falsified and exaggerated some of their scariest cases. However, I would point out that this husband and wife team were, according to their numerous books, demonologists! We all know that if you are an ‘ologist’, than you are a genuine expert. I did a bit of research to see if there are any dubious ologies that are not real academic sciences. I did actually find a few:
-
Agnoiology- The study of things that cannot be known. How does that work? I sincerely hope no-one is being paid to study that.
-
Apiology- This one is just confusing. It’s not the study of chimps, as you might think. Rather it is the study of bees!
-
Campanology- See above! Not the study of hanging about in tents, it is actually the science of bell ringing. Come on! If you can’t be bothered naming your ology properly, how are supposed to take it seriously?
-
Harmartiology- The study of sin. This is a genius idea. Full credit to the professors who came up with this science which allows them to get up to all sorts of naughty things whilst claiming ‘they are just studying’.
-
Philematology- The study of kissing. See above.
Demonology, in contrast, is clearly a real science and demons are real. If you want proof, watch those ‘Conjuring’ movies. There are at least 10 demons, including a nun in desperate need of dental insurance, a doll with poor social skills and a man in a purple hat.
This last one is uncomfortably close to the fellow with the yellow hat in the ‘Curious George’ books. No wonder that monkey is always getting up to mischief!
Anyway, if you find you live in a messy house, with flying Lego, deep voiced children and bent spoons, you know who to call.
On the other hand, if you need help with bees or bell ringing you're on your own.
Of course the late actor Lee Marvin would have been perfect to overdub the voices of the deep voiced children. Sadly, he is no longer around but if I employ this lego ouigi board, some pork sausages and paint this wagon - who knows......