Another Scotch Poltergeist case which, if not on all fours with the Ballechin House mystery, at least presents some correspondences with it, is now engaging my attention. The house is in Fifeshire and, like the Ballechin mansion, is a very large one, a family seat with many rooms. It was built about 150 years ago, and a large staff was necessary to run the household, which included a young girl in her ‘teens, the daughter of the owner, and another young lady. The family was of the upper middle class, of course educated and cultured. The place became known as ‘Poltergeist Manor’, on account of the extraordinary occurrences that were witnessed there.
I cannot, at the moment, reveal the exact location of the house because I am hoping to make an extensive investigation of the phenomena after the War, and I sincerely hope that the Poltergeists will not also ‘cease hostilities’ with the lifting of the black-out ban and our return to normality—and sanity.
The case was first reported to me by a well-known professional man, and what follows is the report I drew up at the time, and which I recorded in my case-book. This was some two or three years ago. Since then, developments have taken place which I will mention in their proper place. Here, then, is my original record:
The gentleman who reported the case to me has himself done some ‘investigating’ and he sent me a pretty full account of his inquiries. The damage done by the Poltergeist up to the beginning of the War was considerable: more than £100. Furniture, china and bronzes were the chief ‘sufferers’. Some of this furniture, that could not be moved normally by two men, slid about of its own volition, and could not be held while in motion. Some old and heavy fire-irons that were constantly rattling and moving about were tied up with string. As they were put back in the fender ‘they all leapt apart and there was not one knot in the piece of string.’ The witnesses to this phenomena will swear to this on oath.
On another occasion a bronze vase weighing about fifteen pounds went hurtling through the front-door at an incredible speed, and at an angle of ninety degrees shot into the front garden where it came to rest against the garage. Two witnesses vouch for its strange flight.
The phenomena are running true to type as in so many Poltergeist cases. The following incident is reminiscent of what occurred in the Great Amherst Mystery, where a young girl was the focal point of the manifestations. As the daughter of the house went to bed with her sister-in-law, ‘the pillow and bolster jumped up and hit her, and the bed lifted and shook violently.’ The girls shouted for help. The mother rushed in just as the bedclothes ‘floated’ off the bed on to the floor. She joined the girls in bed and her pillow was switched from under her and a chest of drawers moved into the centre of the room. She jumped out of bed, pushed the chest up to the wall again, and with a pillow in her back, leant against the drawers. Both she and the chest were pushed into the centre of the room.1 She sent her daughter and daughter-in-law into another room, but queer things happened there too.
On one occasion, in under five minutes, every picture in the drawing-room, hung near a very high ceiling, was taken off the walls and dumped in a heap in the centre of the room. Not one was broken. It would have taken a man twenty minutes at least, and with a step-ladder, to have reached the pictures. In fact, some of the frames were almost impossible to reach, as large articles of furniture would have prevented the use of a ladder at all.
It was impossible to keep water in the bedrooms as the ewers were constantly emptied on to the middle of the beds. On one occasion, when the lady of the house left her boudoir for a few minutes, she found on her return that a heavy Victorian mirror, together with half a dozen pots of face-cream, etc., on it, had completely disappeared. Immediate search revealed that the mirror had been ‘transported’ to a bedroom below, and the pomade pots suddenly appeared in their original positions. A heavy wardrobe, which it was almost impossible for one man to move, suddenly shifted of its own volition, leant forward at an angle of about forty-five degrees, without striking the ground (thus apparently defying the laws of gravity), recovered itself and restored itself to its original position. This phenomenon was seen and vouched for by two witnesses.
Upon another occasion a chest of drawers, in broad daylight, moved itself across a passage. As some members of the household were struggling to put it back, they saw another chest of drawers, on which were eight valuable china boxes, fall right over. All the ornaments—except one—were smashed to smithereens. This chest of drawers was ten feet away from the nearest person. (Vouched for by three witnesses.)
The professional man who first drew my attention to the case, and who sent me the relevant documents concerning it, described what happened at his first visit. As he entered the house, he was asked to go into the library: ‘It was turned upside down, the pictures on the walls turned to their faces, the fire-irons were on the mantelpiece.’ All this happened, he was informed, as his car sped up the drive to the house. ‘We had tea, and I went back to the library with my host. An ash-tray flicked past my head and struck the wall. I left the room and saw a bronze pot in mid-air falling from a high wardrobe. A minute later, a tumbler smashed in a corner behind us…. After dinner there was a crash and I found our host on the stairs mixed up in a chair and badly shaken. At about midnight I went to bed, after a bath. When drying myself, I heard a bump and came out to find, on the half-landing opposite my bedroom, a large Delft vase smashed to smithereens, though it fell on a soft carpet. It had come from the upper landing. Its companion was standing in the middle of the upper stair. A terrified servant appeared and my hostess and I pacified her. I went to bed. In ten minutes there was a crash. I leapt out of bed in one second and there was a large heavy chair lying outside my door. It had come from the upper landing. I went to bed again. In a few minutes there was a knock. It was my hostess, who said: ‘Come here and look!’ I went. All the pictures on the upper stairs with their faces to the wall! We put them back and for the next quarter of an hour we were chasing bronzes and vases which disappeared from one place upstairs, down two flights. As we turned one corner, all the rest of the pictures were found, this time, lying on the stairs. After that we had a quiet night.’
On the next day a friend called in. He had been shooting, and had two pigeons in a game-bag, which he placed in the hall. When he got up to go, the bag had disappeared and was eventually found outside in the area. The report continues: ‘I went upstairs to my room when there was a whizz and a crash and a large vase crashed past me and smashed with terrible power. In under a second I was round the corner—dead silence. It had come from upstairs above my bedroom. Later, a large bronze was found in the w.c, head down. Later, in the drawing-room, we heard a rumble in the hall, which turned out to be a billiard ball. My hostess said she had hidden a white one and a red one (which had been ‘tiresome’) in the drive some days before, and had told no one. She went to the place; only the red one was there. The rest of the night was quiet.’
A few days later, seventeen fires broke out in the house, much to the amazement of the police, who investigated. (These conflagrations remind me of those spontaneous outbreaks of fire at Borley Rectory and in the Great Amherst Mystery.) There was some trouble with the insurance company, who were incredulous that ghosts caused the fires, but they eventually paid up.
The fires broke out while my informant was actually in the house. While he was sitting in a heavy antique chair, he was gently deposited on the floor with the chair on top of him. Two minutes later he went back to the chair, which had on its arm an ash-tray with weighted leather flaps to keep it in position. He was quietly reading and smoking. Happening to look up, he was amazed to find that the used matches had come out of the tray and had spaced themselves out at two-inch intervals along the arm of the chair, like a regiment of soldiers! There were only three persons in the house: his host and hostess, and himself. Terrified, the family and staff had gone to live in the cottage on the estate. After the match incident, a hanging lamp outside his bedroom door was struck and swung violently. No one was near it. Large chests that he could not shift with all his strength moved out from the wall, and leant over at an angle of forty-five degrees, with no visible means of support. The dogs in the house were terrified.
It can be imagined that occasionally life becomes so unbearable in the house that the family has to move out periodically in order to get a little peace. Then things quieten down a bit, and they and their staff then return. There is some danger, too, during these ‘bad’ periods, as members of the family have been repeatedly struck—and injured—by flying missiles. Both Anglican and Roman Catholic priests have tried to exorcise or ‘lay’ the Poltergeist, without success. When someone was saying prayers for the supposed uneasy spirit, books were hurled at him.2
Since I compiled the above report, the case has been mentioned in the national and local Press, especially in connection with the claim on the insurance company for damage caused by the spontaneous outbreaks of fires due, it was alleged, to Poltergeist activities. In the Daily Telegraph for April 8, 1942, under the heading ‘Mansion Fires Mystery’, it is stated: ‘An insurance company has paid £400 for damage alleged to have been done by a Poltergeist or mischievous spirit…. In a mansion in Fife twenty rooms had been set on fire, furniture had been heaped in the drawing-room, and ewers of water left in the bedroom were emptied over the bed immediately the room was vacated. Faced with a claim for £400 fire damage, the insurance company had investigated the matter. It was certain the fire had not been started by the occupants, and that it had not been caused accidentally. So the claim was paid.’ A similar report was published in the Daily Mail for the same date, and other national newspapers gave the same very interesting news.
The fact that insurance companies now recognise the existence of Poltergeists, and that they can cause material damage, is proof of the change that is taking place in official circles as regards paranormal phenomena. If hard-headed insurance men now accept Poltergeist incendiaries as a ‘risk’ to be reckoned with, it is proof positive of the progress that scientific psychical research has made during recent years. And a possible sequel to the Fife case is that insurance companies will, in future, insert a ‘Poltergeist clause’ and disclaim all liability for loss or injury due to ‘occult means’—or they will charge a higher premium if ‘damage caused by paranormal entities’ is to be covered. This will be a triumph for the Poltergeists!
I had hardly begun this chapter when my professional friend wrote and informed me that certain developments, which I mentioned previously, had occurred since he sent me his preliminary report in 1940.
In the first place, the owner of ‘Poltergeist Manor’ died soon after my friend wrote me, and the owner’s wife followed him to the grave twelve months later. The house became vacant and was taken over by the military authorities. Then the soldiers declared that they had seen the ghost of the owner both in the house and in the very extensive grounds. This may, or may not, be true. In this same letter my friend gives details of some further phenomena that he witnessed, that could not have been produced normally by any person. The fires were exceptionally interesting. He says: ‘The fires were the weirdest things. Heaps of matches were in the rooms. On a bare wall of white enamel in my bedroom, six feet up, were three large burnt blisters, finger size, and I cannot think what human instrument could have raised such. I had a huge Victorian bed with a wide strip of wood at the sides, down to within an inch of the floor. Well, there was a heart-shaped burn there, larger than my hand. A blow-lamp might have done it, but no matches or such-like. In the dining-room, which was very high-ceilinged, the rolled-up blind was burnt through. I am six feet tall and I had to stand on a chest to reach up to it! In the bath-room, a footling little hand-towel was burnt, and the flimsy inflammable curtains unharmed. A shovel-full of coals was on the library sofa. All this, for a human, would take time, and there wasn’t any time. Then—I forgot to mention it—smoke was seen emerging from a wardrobe, and inside a hat was burning. Wherever X. [a young maidservant] went (with the firemen, after they turned up), apparently the fires automatically broke out, and the firemen accused her, and there was, as you can imagine, a terrible rumpus!’
So there we have another version of the old story of a girl adolescent being the unconscious prime-mover in a Poltergeist-infested house; the unwilling nexus between the psychical invisibles and their effect upon matter. Well, if the firemen were not satisfied, the insurance people were—at least, they were fifty per cent, satisfied, as I understand that the original claim was for £800. A very expensive Poltergeist! It is only fair to add that many of the phenomena were witnessed when the young girl, mentioned above, was not even on the premises. But there certainly appeared to be some affinity between her and the fires.
I will conclude this brief summary of the Fifeshire manifestations by relating a few more strange incidents, all vouched for by reliable witnesses, that occurred in the mansion.
The owner was lying awake one night. He could not sleep, when suddenly he saw a flame, like that of spirits of wine, on the carpet. He says: ‘I got up and flogged it with a pillow. It just moved aside. I put my hand on it and it did not burn, and it then disappeared.’ There was no trace of a burn on the carpet. His bed also, he said, jumped up and down and moved about.
The flame phenomenon is curious and was paralleled at Borley. If the reader has perused my Most Haunted House in England, he will remember that Mr. S. G. Welles, Rhodes Scholar of University College, Oxford, when investigating at Borley Rectory, was stationed in the dark in the Blue Room when he saw a remarkable luminous phenomenon. In his report he said: ‘I became aware of a luminous patch of light on the ceiling, about six inches from the moulding that ran round the top of walls. This luminous patch, perhaps a foot by five inches, moved slowly from its original position, poised there a moment, moved as slowly back, disappeared for an instant, again appeared just where it had been before, and then disappeared a second and last time.’ Mr. Welles and his friends tried many experiments in an attempt to reproduce the same effect normally, but they found that this was not possible.
But to return to ‘Poltergeist Manor’. On one occasion, when the owner was away, an amateur dramatic society held a rehearsal in the large drawing-room. During an interval, when no one was in the room, two pastels fell from the wall. They heard the noise, went to see what it was, left the pictures in situ, and returned to their tea—or whatever they were doing. When, later, they resumed their rehearsal, the pastels had been restored to the walls. They made the positive statement that no one had entered the room during their absence.
Poltergeists are not usually beneficent and obliging—just the contrary in fact. But there was a bell in the hall at the Manor that occasionally rang of its own volition, and always when lunch was ready, and always when the owner was out in the grounds somewhere. He used to hear the bell and return to the house. But he was never sure, until his wife informed him, whether the rope had been pulled by a maid or a Poltergeist!
I do not know what the reader’s reaction to the ‘Poltergeist Manor’ will be, but so far as I am concerned there is a primâ facie case for serious—and scientific—investigation. Many credible people have signed statements as to what they have seen, and heard. And the sceptic has his work cut out to explain away the very material £400 paid by the insurance company. The case impressed me from the start because of the first-hand evidence of my friend, the very hard-headed professional man who is used to solving ‘mysteries’ and assessing evidence. And I repeat that I am sorry that I cannot, at this juncture, give the exact name and location of the house. The case is sub judice and the reader must wait. But perhaps in a future edition of this book I may be able to relate my own experiences in this very strange dwelling north of the Tweed.3