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
Page 6
As for the boy’s moving bed, this schoolmate said that he had been in Robbie’s house and seen the bed and that the movement was no mystery. “In those days the beds had wire springs and were on wheels and it was not too hard at all to make the bed bounce and move about—it was harder to keep it in one place and his bed was like that. A lot of these things can be exaggerated to make a story and that is exactly what happened.”45 Opsasnick concludes that the boy, to whom he refers as “Rob Doe,” was a seriously disturbed child who was adept at manipulating those around him. He writes, “[T]here is no question there was something wrong with Rob Doe prior to January 1949, something that modern-era psychiatry might have best addressed. Rob Doe was not just another normal teenage boy.”46 He says that Rob exhibited emotional problems stemming from a poor home life. “The facts show that he was a spoiled and disturbed only child with a very overprotective mother and an unresponsive father. To me, his behavior was indicative of an outcast youth who desperately wanted out of Bladensburg Junior High School at any cost. He wanted attention, and he wanted to leave the area and go to St. Louis. Throwing tantrums was the answer. He began to play his concocted game. For his efforts he got a collection of priests . . . who doted over him.”47
The Power of an Idea
The lesson from The Exorcist is that of the power of belief on the human mind. As Chicago sociologist William Isaac Thomas once famously wrote, “If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences.”48 While the film is likely based on a hoax, marketing it as “based on real events” enhances the power of the story. Considering the mere possibility that the story has a kernel of truth is likely to increase its emotional impact, as it could be seen as potentially happening in real life. This is exactly what occurred when it was released. Watching these events on the big screen was overwhelming for some viewers, who suffered traumatic neurosis and psychotic episodes.
The case of “Robbie” is a fascinating example of a supposed paranormal disturbance that began as a poltergeist outbreak, advanced to one of alleged spirit communication, and finally escalated to diabolic possession. The annals of the supernatural are replete with cases involving young men and women who were able to fool the adults around them, in part because the adults did not believe it was possible for someone so young to successfully deceive them. Two famous examples are the Fox Sisters and the Davenport Brothers. The modern spiritualist movement was launched in 1848, after poltergeist disturbances centering on the Fox Sisters in Hydesville, New York. It was essentially founded on the mischievous pranks of children. It was not until 1888 that Maggie Fox publicly confessed to having faked communication with the spirits of the dead.49 Margaret Fox said that their shenanigans began as an effort “to terrify our dear mother, who was . . . easily frightened.” She noted that her mother “did not suspect us of being capable of a trick because we were so young.” Among their antics, which went undetected for decades, they shook the dinner table, threw slippers at a disliked relative, and produced noises by knocking on a bed frame and by bumping the floor with an apple tied to a string.50
In 1854, two schoolboys in Buffalo, New York, Ira and William Davenport, fooled many people into believing they possessed paranormal powers. The sons of a local police officer, the pair was responsible for cutlery dancing around the family’s kitchen table and other oddities. Ira claimed that spirits would occasionally take him to faraway places. The boys soon advanced to spirit rapping, communication with the dead, and trance writing. Ira later confessed to magician Harry Houdini.51 In recalling the saga of spiritualism and modern-day claims of otherworldly spirits in films like The Exorcist, it is perhaps appropriate to recall the words of philosopher George Santayana: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
CHAPTER 3
Poltergeist: The Inspiration for the Film
You know my method. It is founded upon the observation of trifles.
—Sherlock Holmes1
In 1982, Steven Spielberg’s Poltergeist enthralled audiences with the story of the Freeling family of suburban Cuesta Verde, California. Their life is turned upside down when the youngest daughter, Carol Anne (Heather O’Rourke), strikes up a relationship with a mysterious force that soon enters the house through their television. Eventually the little girl is abducted through her bedroom closet, which is a portal to another dimension. The film earned just under $122 million at the box office: a smashing success, as it cost just $10.7 million to make.2 While containing several incidents that are commonly attributed to poltergeists, the storyline soon grows increasingly fantastic and bears little resemblance to alleged real encounters, as bodies and coffins explode out of the ground before the house implodes and is sucked into another reality. The inspiration for the film is said to be based on a much more light-hearted outbreak 24 years earlier in suburban New York City.3
Beginning in early February 1958 and persisting for five weeks, Americans were captivated by a series of strange occurrences that were reported at a house in the town of Seaford, on eastern Long Island (pop. 14,718 in 1960). Visitors arrived in droves, hoping to glimpse the mysterious happenings, until they stopped in mid-March, as suddenly as they had begun. The poltergeist was affectionately dubbed “Popper” in the press, for its propensity to pop open bottle tops before tipping them over. But its antics were by no means confined to bottles, and they included everything from toppling bookcases and furniture to sending plates, bowls, and religious statues flying through the air. It just as easily could have been dubbed “Tipper” or “Tosser.” More mischievous than malevolent, Popper the Poltergeist seemed more akin to Casper the Friendly Ghost than the evil force that typifies many hauntings today. It quickly became a media darling. Many notable journalists reported on the haunting and got to know the family on a first-name basis. Among them were the editor of the influential Catholic magazine America and Robert Wallace of Life; both spent time at the home and wrote features on the outbreak. Legendary broadcaster Edward R. Murrow was given a tour of the house. The New York Times covered the strange goings-on, and wire services brought the case to the attention of people around the world. It seemed as though Popper was popping up everywhere—from the New Yorker to Reader’s Digest. Later that year, just before Halloween, Popper’s exploits were shown to a national television audience on the popular CBS show Armstrong Circle Theatre. The hour-long program featured live interviews with witnesses and reenactments of the events by professional actors.4
The case of Popper has been viewed as a landmark in the history of poltergeist research, as it attracted scientists from the Duke University Parapsychology Laboratory.5 They eventually concluded that the events were most likely a genuine example of telekinesis—the ability to move objects with one’s mind.6 As paranormal historian Rosemary Guiley observes, it represents “the first modern investigation by parapsychologists of poltergeist disturbances.” She also writes that the episode “remains unsolved.”7 The investigators from Duke were baffled, and they ruled out human deception. Other researchers consider the case to represent some of the best evidence for the existence of a poltergeist. In his book on true suburban legends, Sam Stall states that no one has been able to “offer an explanation for the goings-on.”8 In Haunted America, Michael Norman and Beth Scott report “that neither the police nor the country’s most prestigious parapsychologists were able to explain” the events.9 In 2012, Huffington Post journalist David Moye wrote that “there was never any explanation for the events.”10 How accurate are these claims? Have any scientists been able to offer a plausible answer for these mysterious happenings? Curiously, if one were to travel from the site of the Seaford events at 1648 Redwood Path to 112 Ocean Avenue in Amityville, the scene of another famous haunting eighteen years later, it is just over five miles, or about twelve minutes in normal traffic.11
The Herrmanns seemed to be the typical American family, residing in a modest one-story, ranch-style home in the suburbs, amid rows of similar houses. A green three-bedroom home w
ith white trim, immediately after it was built in 1953, the family moved into it. The couple oozed normalcy and level-headedness, two traits that lent credence to their story. A devout Catholic, James Herrmann, 43, lived with his wife Lucille, 38, and their two children: Lucille, 13, and James Jr., 12, also known as “Jimmy.” The Herrmanns were well educated and financially successful—pillars of their community. James was a representative of Air France, serving as a Marine Corps sergeant in the Pacific theater during the Second World War. He was also a member of the Seaford Auxiliary Police, public volunteers who would assist the regular police with routine duties, such as traffic control at community events, and who had the power to make arrests. Lucille was a housewife and former head nurse at St. Luke’s Hospital in Manhattan.12 Perhaps the episode held widespread appeal because of the prankish nature of Popper’s deeds or because people could identify with the Herrmanns, for it seemed that just as easily, it could have been one’s own house that was infested. There is no doubting the impact of the affair, which briefly propelled the family to celebrity status and allowed them to meet a Who’s Who list of luminaries of the day, from Jack Parr to Douglas Edwards, before fading back into obscurity.
Popper Is Born
Monday, February 3, 1958, was a typical winter’s day on Long Island. It was clear and chilly with a high of 29 degrees; the relative humidity was nothing out of the ordinary: 43 percent. Then something extraordinary happened. According to press reports, Mrs. Herrmann was at home with her two children when suddenly, at about 3:30 p.m., loud noises could be heard echoing through the house, like champagne corks popping. As she went from room to room to investigate, she found that several different bottles containing a variety of liquids had popped their tops and fallen over. In the bedroom, the cap on a bottle of holy water had come unscrewed, and the container had tipped over and spilled out its contents. It was a similar scene in the bathroom cabinet, where two bottles were laying on their sides—one of shampoo, the other, medicine; their caps were also unscrewed. In the kitchen, a bottle of liquid starch had been the target, while in the cellar, it was a gallon container of bleach. 13 Each of the bottles had a screw top made of either metal or plastic. In Jimmy’s bedroom, a ceramic doll had its neck snapped, while the model of a plastic ship had several small pieces broken off. 14 Mrs. Herrmann found the events to be eerie and mystifying, but she was not frightened.
At a loss to explain the strange sequence of events, Lucille rang her husband at his New York City office. James was equally perplexed, but since no one had been hurt and there was no major damage, he decided to keep to his normal routine and returned home that evening at seven o’clock on the Long Island Railway. During the 35-mile trip, he had time to think of possible explanations. Perhaps it was a rare chemical reaction? Yet none of the liquids were carbonated. The hypothesis was soon dismissed, as a variety of contents were involved, and the holy water was just plain water. He also considered the possibility that there might be a practical joker in the family. 15 The next three days passed uneventfully.
The afternoon of Thursday, February 6, it happened again, at nearly the same time: 3:30. Mrs. Herrmann and the children were startled by loud popping as half a dozen bottles in different parts of the house lost their caps and tumbled over. The following day at the same time, with the same trio on hand, there was a third series of incidents. The final straw came on Sunday morning at 10:15, when Mr. Herrmann experienced the phenomenon firsthand; he was so disturbed that he rang the police. While he stood in the bathroom doorway and chatted with Jimmy, who was brushing his teeth at the sink, two bottles near the sink tipped over at the same time. 16 Nassau County patrolman James Hughes responded to Mr. Herrmann’s call. What follows is a report on the incident written by Nassau County detective Joseph Tozzi, who was later assigned to the case:
On Sunday, Feb. 9th, 1958, at about 1015 hours, the whole family was in the dining room of the house. Noises were heard to come from different rooms, and on checking it was found that the holy water bottle on the dresser in the master bedroom had again opened and spilled, a new bottle of toilet water on another dresser in the master room had fallen, lost its screw cap and also a rubber stopper and the contents were spilled. . . . [A] bottle of shampoo and a bottle of Kaopectate [a popular antacid and anti-diarrhea medication] in the bathroom had lost their caps, fallen over and were spilling their contents. The starch in the kitchen was also opened and spilled again and a can of paint thinner in the cellar had opened, fallen and was spilling on the floor.
As Officer Hughes was interviewing the family in the living room, loud pops rang out from the bathroom. Investigating with the Herrmanns in tow, he found that the medicine and shampoo bottles had tipped over again.17
As the disturbances began to increase in frequency and magnitude, on Tuesday, February 11, Detective Tozzi was given the go-ahead to investigate the case full-time. Two days later, Tozzi gathered up five of the bottles that had popped their tops, spilling their contents, and sent them to the police lab in Mineola, New York, for analysis. The tests were unremarkable, and no foreign substances were found.18 Several of the affected items were targeted more than once. For instance, on Saturday, February 15, a bottle of holy water on the couple’s bedroom bureau was found tipped over for a fourth time. Mr. Herrmann noticed that it felt warm. Suddenly, he dashed through the house, touching as many bottles as he could find, hoping to identify a pattern, but none were warm.19
That evening in the living room, a dramatic incident took place involving Mr. Herrmann’s adult aunt, Marie Murtha, while she was watching TV. Jimmy and young Lucille were also in the room, sitting on the sofa. Suddenly at 7:40, Marie said that a porcelain figurine began to wiggle and then flew through the air two to three feet before landing on the rug, undamaged. It was one of two figurines resting on a coffee table by the sofa. A closer examination of this incident is revealing. The figurines were located near Jimmy.20 While Marie claims to have seen the statuette lift off and move through the air, the event happened quickly. When deception expert Milbourne Christopher looked at a report of the incident, he noted that a TV set was on in the room and observed, “It is logical to suppose that her attention was there. A quick movement by the occupant of the sofa could have jarred the small end table with enough impact to send the upright figurine falling to the floor the mere two feet away.”21
Soon, two members of the famous Duke University Parapsychology Lab arrived on the scene: Dr. J. Gaither Pratt and William Roll. Both men interviewed Officer Hughes while the incident was fresh in his mind. He corrected the police report, saying that one bottle, not two, had fallen over in the bathroom while he was there.22 He said he had inspected the bathroom before hearing the noise and was certain that the bottle had not been on its side. However, Roll wrote that when Hughes was questioned further, he had excluded “the possibility that someone had turned the bottle over after he had seen it as they were leaving the bathroom.”23 Roll and Pratt could not explain the events and eventually suggested the existence of RSPK: recurrent spontaneous psychokinesis, whereby one of the family members—most likely young Jimmy—had unconsciously created a psychic force. There is one major problem with this hypothesis: the existence of such a force has never been proven. Despite Pratt and Roll’s trust in the Herrmann family and their confidence that the children were not consciously involved, about fifty of the sixty-seven recorded events they tallied centered on Jimmy.24 They concluded that seventeen incidents could not, “if correctly reported, be explained as easily performed, single pranks.”25 The key words here are “if correctly reported” by the many visitors to the house. While Roll and Pratt were believers in the existence of psychic phenomena and poltergeists, forty-five years after the case had faded from the headlines, Roll admitted that he still “could not be certain” whether or not trickery was involved.26
One telling incident occurred on February 19 and is described in Detective Tozzi’s police report. Tozzi was with the Herrmanns in the basement, while Jimmy was upstairs d
oing homework at the dining room table. A loud noise echoed out. Racing upstairs, Tozzi wrote that they found that a “porcelain figurine had left the end table at the south end of the sofa and flown through the air approximately 10 feet” before striking a desk and breaking off one of its arms. Tozzi eliminated Jimmy as a suspect, noting that “No one was in the living room at this time . . . it would have been impossible for James to have left the dining room, thrown the figurine and returned to the dining room” without going undetected by those in the basement, as the wooden floors were creaky and “every sound can be heard through them.”27 But Tozzi’s report is just that—a report—and does not necessarily reflect what happened. He failed to consider a plausible alternative explanation. James Jr. easily could have obtained the object and hidden it where he was doing his homework. It was small enough to have been concealed under a book, pulled out, and thrown through the doorway leading to the living room. Magician Milbourne Christopher observes that both the Duke University parapsychologists and local police accepted the statements by little Jimmy. Yet, research into human perception shows that it can be easily mistaken. As Christopher explained, “Let us suppose that what the boy said was not true, that he was in one room when he said he was in another in some instances. Also let us suppose that what people thought they saw and what actually happened were not precisely the same.” This has been shown to have occurred during the course of Tozzi’s investigation, when we compare police interviews with those of the parapsychologists. Christopher says that according to police notes, “the boy and his mother ‘actually saw’ the bleach bottle leave a box and crash on the floor.” Yet later, when Dr. Pratt conducted independent interviews, “neither witnessed the out-of-the-carton action.” This led Christopher to comment, “Any trial lawyer will testify that witnesses often believe that they have seen things that did not occur. For example, a woman hears a loud noise, then sees a pistol. She may be confident she heard the pistol fire” even though the sound came from a different source—say, a passing car backfiring or a firecracker.28