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

  Theories Abound

  Speculation as to what was triggering the mysterious happenings soon became a national obsession; hundreds of letters from concerned citizens arrived for both the Herrmanns and Detective Tozzi, and 1648 Redwood Path became the most scrutinized house in America. Everyone seemed to have his or her own pet theory and wanted to test it. Some visitors offered spiritual solutions. On February 17, Father William McCloud of Seaford’s Church of St. William the Abbot stopped in and blessed the house, amid discussion of seeking permission from the bishop to perform an official exorcism.29 He walked through each of the six rooms, sprinkling holy water and urging the good spirits to expel the bad: “O heavenly Father, Almighty God . . . we humbly beseech thee to bless and sanctify this house . . . and may the angels of thy light dwell within the walls.”30

  On February 18, a dignified gentleman wearing a smart-looking blue wool suit walked through the house, carefully surveying the situation. He was presumed to be a journalist. Suddenly, he fell to his knees in the dining room, cried out that he was “a holy man” from Center Moriches, forty miles to the east, and proceeded to pray for the next ten minutes. He then got up and drove off, but not before proclaiming, “Everything is all right, you have been forgiven.” 31 This incident was rather tame compared to other members of the fringe element. One person wrote, “Dear people, you are being visited by those from Space. Speak friendly to them. They come for America’s good.” Another wrote, in broken English, “Herman, I was read about your trouble in the paper. Sound like it could be ghostlys and ghostly don’t like sulphur. Burn some in every room and if it ghostly it will go away.” 32 One letter writer offered a similar solution and suggested waving a white handkerchief to drive out the spirits. Another optimistically instructed the Herrmanns to place a notepad and pencil in every room. On top of each pad was to be written, “Who are you?” to afford the ghost an opportunity to identify itself. 33

  Skeptics appeared to be in short supply. A resident of Cambridge, Ohio, suggested the likelihood of “a slick little trixter” in the form of one James Jr. who was “bored at school.”34 Arthur Matthews of Little Neck, New York, chastised Life magazine for devoting space to the supernatural when there were more pressing evils, such as communists.35 A physician in Grand Rapids, Michigan, compared the events to an old-fashioned French stage play involving legerdemain (sleight of hand), where a member of the audience is invited to the stage to ensure that no trickery is going on—in this case, Detective Tozzi.36

  Early in their investigation, police theorized that high-frequency radio waves could have been responsible for the strange events, and they even interviewed a neighbor who told them that he had not used his transmitter in several years. The Radio Corporation of America dispatched a test truck, complete with crew, to look for radio frequency waves outside the house. Nothing was found. Employees of the Long Island Lighting Company were called in and set up an oscillograph in the basement. While it was in use, three incidents were recorded in the house, yet no unusual floor vibrations were correlated with the events, even though one involved a bleach bottle popping its top in the same room as the device. Company employees also checked the fuse panels and wiring; everything was in working order. 37 On February 25, the Seaford Fire Department probed a nearby well, based on the theory that it might have become unstable and triggered earth tremors. It was stable and showed no radical changes in five years. Old maps were examined for possible hidden water sources, but none were found. The Town of Hempstead Building Department even checked the structure of the house for anomalies and gave it a clean bill of health.

  One day physicist Robert Zider showed up from the prestigious Brookhaven National Laboratory in central Long Island. A specialist in high-energy particle acceleration, he surprised many by pulling out a Y-shaped willow dowsing stick and circled the house. His complex theory for the disturbances is perhaps best described by a New York Times journalist who noted that Zider claimed to chart unusual magnetic fields created by streams of water under the house. “He related this to the presence . . . of a recharge basin, or sump, recently heavily coated with ice. Mr. Zider felt that powerful vibrations, caused perhaps by a passing jet plane, might have so jolted the ice that the shock wave was transmitted by the underground water faults in such fashion as to ‘back up’ or strike hard directly under the Herrmann house.”38

  One of the more plausible explanations came from an elderly woman in Revere, Connecticut. Mrs. Helen Connolly wrote to say that she had experienced similar happenings in her home several years earlier, when household items began to move about. A building inspector eventually diagnosed the problem as a “downdraft of warm gasses” passing through the chimney. As soon as a cap was placed over her chimney, the strange activity stopped. A rotating turbine ventilator cap was placed over the Herrmanns’ chimney. Hopes of an easy fix were soon dashed when a figurine flew through the air. On the bright side, the cap had only cost $9. 39

  A Poltergeist Named Jimmy

  After getting to know the Herrmanns intimately over several weeks, Life magazine journalist Robert Wallace believed that a mysterious phenomenon had occurred in the house and that the Herrmann children were not pranking. Yet, despite his trusting nature, he made an astute observation: “In the poltergeist literature it is often pointed out that the phenomena cease when a great deal of attention is concentrated on them. Is it possible that the outburst of publicity . . . somehow changed the ‘psychological atmosphere’ of the household?”40 Yet the presence of more people equals more scrutiny and a greater chance of detection. Hence there is an even more plausible explanation than the one advanced by Wallace, without recourse to the existence of unseen, hypothetical psychic forces that have not been proven to exist: little Jimmy did it.

  If we follow basic detective protocol and evaluate the evidence, James Jr. had the means, motive, and opportunity. In every one of the 67 known incidents, he was in the house; and most suspiciously, whenever he stayed with relatives or was at school, the poltergeist was quiet. Jimmy may have felt more comfortable being on familiar turf, and he may have been targeting his parents. One psychologist who interviewed the family noted that Mr. Herrmann was a strict and uncompromising disciplinarian, a trait that likely fostered hostility in both children. He stated, “[I]t was impossible to avoid the noticeable impact of Mr. Herrmann’s personality. In his interview with me he stated that he rules the family with an iron hand.” The psychologist said that in his presence, the father treated the children abruptly, issuing commands as if he were still in the Marines. “They were told to come and go, when to speak, and when to remain quiet.” 41

  Psychological tests were later released that revealed that Jimmy hated his father and exhibited “passive demandingness, hostility to father figures, impersonal violence, and isolation of affect [emotion].” When Jimmy was asked to create imaginary stories, in one account, he fights and murders his father; in another, he writes about a boy “living with a guardian whom he hates.” 42 This fits the classic profile of the central figure in poltergeist cases throughout history: a disturbed adolescent. It is also curious where the incidents took place. William Roll would later observe, “Most of the disturbed things belonged to the parents and the events often happened in their living space.” 43 It may be noteworthy that some of the objects targeted had religious significance—the bottles of holy water that were found tipped and spilled, over and over, and a statue of the Virgin Mary that was broken—which may reflect Jimmy’s frustration with being raised in a strict Catholic family. Yet, instead of scrutinizing Jimmy for possible fraud, they assumed it was one more reason why he was disturbed, which—due to built-up psychic energy—resulted in the objects moving about the house.

  Distorted Press Coverage

  Throughout 1958, newspapers reported that the Duke University scientists were “baffled” by the case and could find no evidence of a hoax. A flurry of articles appeared, most quoting Pratt and Roll as having been mystified and saying that the outbreak ap
peared to be an authentic example of a psychic phenomenon. 44 Little space was given to two other investigators who drew diametrically opposite conclusions. The first was Dr. Karlis Osis (1917–1997), a psychologist from the New York-based Parapsychology Foundation. On Thursday, May 15, Osis announced his findings to the media, concluding that little Jimmy and the poltergeist were one and the same. “The presence of James Herrmann Jr. in all likelihood was a necessary condition for the occurrence of the phenomena. There was a close relationship between his activities, habits and whereabouts, and the distribution of the disturbances.” Firstly, he observed that “Popper” never engaged in antics between one and six o’clock in the morning—the very time when the two children were likely to have been asleep. Second, when Jimmy was in bed, the disturbances occurred either in his room or nearby. Next, there was the odd incident of the bottle of holy water that Mr. Herrmann found was warm to the touch, along with many of the bottle caps that had seemingly popped off. Osis found that Jimmy was a member of the school science club, where he could have learned simple tricks to get container tops to pop, using chemical reactions. He also points to a suspicious incident in the basement, when a bookcase weighing 120 pounds moved two feet away and tumbled over. Jimmy was seen to be breathing heavily afterward. As for the boy’s motivation, Osis noted that as Mr. Herrmann was a strict disciplinarian, Jimmy may have been rebelling or “blowing off steam.” 45

  Media coverage of the skeptical conclusions drawn by Dr. Osis was somewhere between scant and anemic. A lengthy article on the case published by United Press International in June noted that Dr. Osis had concluded that little Jimmy used “sleight of hand” and knowledge of basic chemistry to create a belief in the poltergeist. Just two sentences were devoted to this view, while the remainder of the article discussed the likelihood that the house really was haunted, citing Pratt, Detective Tozzi, and the Herrmanns. The headlines for the article, which would have been devised by the local papers carrying it, gave no hint of skepticism. An editor for the Santa Fe New Mexican used the title “‘No Trick’ Says Victim: Jumping Bottles Still Stump Scientists,”46 while the Greenville, Mississippi Delta Democrat-Times (which also carried Osis’s skepticism) headlined with “That House of Flying Objects Subject of Several New Reports.”47 Given the conclusions of Osis, perhaps a more appropriate title would have been “Psychologist Concludes Seaford Poltergeist Is a Hoax.” Most papers completely ignored the findings of Dr. Osis. In August, the New York Times would proclaim, “L. I. ‘Poltergeist’ Stumps Duke Men,” writing that the Duke team reported being “at a loss to explain the strange goings-on” involving the “puzzling disturbances.”48 Of that newspaper’s four articles on the case, none even mentions the report by Osis. But why downplay the negative findings? It is likely because a story about scientists being baffled by a seemingly haunted house is more appealing and attention-grabbing than one that concludes that it was a hoax perpetrated by a little boy.

  Writing on the case in 1964, Pratt would later claim that he and Roll had not determined the cause of the outbreak. “We reached—I repeat—no conclusion regarding the case,” he said, noting that “it would be an improper application of scientific method to attempt to go further.”49 Yet in 1958, Pratt gave a very different impression to the press. Dr. Osis was clearly irritated by Pratt’s proclamations to journalists in which he implied that Jimmy had special psychic powers. He saw Pratt as grandstanding and making claims that were scientifically unsubstantiated and therefore bad for the field of parapsychology. Pratt told the New York Times that experiments at Duke University had “led to the definite conclusion that there is some sort of influence of mind over matter.” That was not true in 1958, and it is not true today. In 1958 he was quoted in the New York Post as saying “‘thought waves’ may have done it.” He also told the United Press that “the mysterious happenings” were “not a hoax perpetrated by a member of the family.”50

  A closer inspection of the original incident that marked the beginning of the affair shows that it was inaccurately reported in the press. Virtually all press reports gave the impression that the outbreak began when Mrs. Herrmann and her two children were at home on the afternoon of February 3, heard bottles popping and tipping over, and quickly moved from room to room to investigate. Robert Wallace of Life magazine was typical, noting that “at about 3:30 a number of bottles containing various liquids, in various rooms of the house, suddenly began to ‘pop’ and to jump about. . . . As they hurried to investigate the sounds they discovered that the bottles had been freshly spilled and therefore could not have been tipped over earlier. . . . As to the noises that accompanied the uncapping . . . they were loudly audible throughout the house.”51 In reality, based on detailed interviews with the trio, the events were far less dramatic. Upon arriving home from school, Jimmy went to his room and reported finding that a ceramic Davy Crockett doll had been smashed into a model ship. Mrs. Herrmann then began checking other rooms for damage and found a bottle of holy water tipped on its side on her dresser, the cap removed and the water spilled. It was only at this juncture that she heard the first popping sound. Over the next 45 minutes, she would hear mysterious pops and find bottles tipped over.52

  A Strange Ban on Magicians

  A second skeptical investigator also entered the fray: one of the world’s most acclaimed stage magicians, Milbourne Christopher (1914–1984). The former national president of the Society of American Magicians, Christopher contacted Detective Tozzi and asked to conduct his own investigation, but oddly, Mr. Herrmann refused, saying that he did not want a magician in the house. Christopher then gathered all the information on the case that he could from afar, and he claimed that he could duplicate each of the alleged poltergeist effects reported at the house. During an interview with reporter Jack Fox of the New York Post, Christopher was able to make several bottles with screw-on tops “explode” and even caused an object to sail through the air, all to the bafflement of the journalist, and all done through deception and magic. Over the ensuing day, he gave similar demonstrations to other journalists.53 Remarkably, Christopher’s conclusions received little media attention, both then and now.

  Even today, numerous books on the paranormal are quick to cite the findings of Roll and Pratt, which support the position that a genuine anomalous event took place, while virtually ignoring the findings by Dr. Osis and Christopher—or in the rare instances that their skeptical views are mentioned, they are quickly dismissed. Prominent “ghost hunter” Hans Holzer briefly mentions the Osis study but then looks for more exotic answers and criticizes Osis for failing to see the obvious: spirits of the dead. Instead of investigating in order to draw conclusions, Holzer sought advice on the episode from a medium, who was able to “psychically” discern that the house had been built on a burial site—an action that had supposedly caused the haunting. But why did it take five years for the poltergeist to appear? She says there was no receptive medium in the house until Jimmy appeared and was approaching puberty, thus making his energies available to the infesting spirit. 54 It is not unusual for paranormal researchers to explain poltergeist disturbances by delving into the history of a suspected haunted house, in an attempt to dig up a traumatic event that had happened at the location. In Seaford, investigators had no such opportunity, since the house was only five years old and the Herrmanns were the first to move in. Plan B is to then use the standard “haunted Indian ground” or “unmarked pioneer cemetery” hypothesis.

  A Comedy of Errors

  During their investigation, Pratt and Roll said they considered the possibility that Jimmy had created the popping effect by adding an outside agent to the containers, so they tried to create the same effect themselves. They bought dry ice (frozen carbon dioxide) and placed pieces into containers before screwing on the caps. As the pressure increased, the gas was forced around the threads but did not loosen the caps. After a series of trial-and-error experiments, the pair drew the following conclusion: “In general, it became clear that pressure d
oes not cause these types of caps to unscrew and come completely off. Either the gas escapes around the threads or the bottle explodes, the cap remaining in place. We found it made no difference if we oiled the threads of the glass.”55 The problem was that neither Pratt nor Roll was a chemist or an expert in deception. Instead of contacting specialists in their fields and seeking their participation or advice, they chose to conduct their own amateurish experiments.

  Pratt and Roll concluded that it was not possible for Jimmy to have used skilled magic tricks to produce the disturbances. “We ascertained that the performance of magic is not known to be among James’s hobbies, and it is improbable that a boy would be interested in magic without having the fact become known”—but even if he had, they said, the effects could not be explained with recourse to magic.56 This was yet another example of their arrogance and loss of objectivity. These researchers and the Herrmanns ignored a golden opportunity to solve the mystery (or eliminate magic as a cause of some of the disturbances) when Milbourne Christopher not only offered to investigate but also reported that he could explain how someone could have caused the same exact effects as the poltergeist, through magic and deception. Pratt would later meet with Christopher that June, and as they talked, a figurine suddenly flew through the air from a bookcase, landing eight feet away—very similar to what had happened at the Herrmanns’. Pratt examined the room closely and had no clue as to how it was accomplished. Several days later, he wrote to Christopher, saying that he understood why the Herrmanns were apprehensive about allowing him to visit, as he had “prejudged the issue,” and they had dismissed his demonstration as “magic.”57