What is a poltergeist well the term comes from the German (Poulter/gaist) poltern (“to make a sound” and “to rumble”) and Geist which means ( ghost or spirit). which translates into noisy ghost or spirit. These spirits are responsible for physical disturbances such as loud noises and object being moved from one place to another these so-called noisy spirts have also been known to pinch and bite and scratch and also hit out at a person.
The common difference between a Poltergeist and a ghost is a poltergeist will latch itself to a person were as a ghost will latch itself to a location. This noisy spirit will attach itself to an adolescent usually a young girl who is starting to become a woman.
Two very famous cases about Poltergeist activity are The Enfield Poltergeist and the Doris Bither case which was made into a hit movie called the Entity.
The Enfield Poltergeist: was the name given to supernatural events which happened at 284 Green Street Brimsdown Enfield England from 1977 to 1979.
In August 1977 single mother Peggy Hodgson called Police to report that furniture in her home was moving by itself and there were strange noises coming from the walls. When two police constables arrived at Peggy’s Home they reported seeing furniture moving by itself and also hearing loud knocking on the walls. Peggys was the mother of four children but it was Janet aged 11 and Margaret aged 14 that were witness to more of the supernatural events and it seems that the poltergeist latched on to Janet as she was usually thrown out of bed by unseen hands and later on Janet began to speak in a strange male-like voice.
The Case became so famous as Maurice Grosse from the Society of Physical research and a writer Guy Lyon Playfair was called in to investigate the Supernatural events and until Maurice Grosse death in 2004 he still maintained that the events that happened in 284 Green Street Enfield were true and not fabricated.
The Actor Timothy Spall portraited Maurice Grosse in a recent 2015 tv adaptation the Enfield Haunting.
The Doris Bither case, also known as The Entity Hauntings, was an alleged haunting which occurred in 1974 at Los Angeles, California where a woman named Doris Bither alleged the ghosts of three men were raping her. The case inspired Frank De Felitta‘s 1978 book The Entity which was made into a 1982 film of the same name starring Barbara Hershey.
Doris Bither, a mother of 4 children, had contacted paranormal investigators Barry Taff and Kerry Gaynor who came to investigate on August 22, 1974. Bither alleged that she was attacked and raped by an invisible entity which she believed were the spirits of three men. She claimed two would hold her down while the third raped her. Taff claimed to have photographed orbs during the investigation. Bither had a history of physical and substance abuse. She had been in multiple abusive relationships and had a traumatic childhood. Investigators noticed there was a poor relationship between Doris and her four sons. The home was in poor condition and had been condemned twice.[3][4]
Taff claimed to have photographed orbs and said the frequency and intensity of attacks decreased with time. Bither died in 1995 of pulmonary arrest.
I will be writing more about these two famous cases in future blogs
