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Episode: Episode 612: The House of Flying Objects: The Popper Poltergeist
Author: Morbid Network | Wondery
Duration: 01:06:39
Episode Shownotes
On the afternoon of February 9, 1958, a complaint was called into Long Island’s seventh police precinct regarding a series of “strange occurrences” taking place in the caller’s home. According to the caller, Lucille Herrmann, for nearly a week the caps and lids of bottles in the basement had been
popping off inexplicably, while other bottles and containers were tipping over and spilling their contents for no obvious reason. Elsewhere in the house, items were flying off shelves without the aid of human hands, and toys were breaking without explanation. Not only were the disturbances destructive to the Herrmann’s home and property, but they were also psychologically upsetting, since they seemed to be happening on their own.Lucille Herrmann’s call to the Seaford Police Department kicked off a two-month-long fascination with what many came to believe was genuine poltergeist activity in the Herrmann’s Long Island, NY home. What began as a simple call to the police for assistance quickly escalated into near daily media coverage and interest from a variety of paranormal investigators and skeptics, all determined to identify and explain the cause of the ostensibly supernatural occurrences in what became known as “the house of flying objects.”The Herrmann’s case of poltergeist activity is considered by many to be the first modern investigation into poltergeist disturbances and would serve as the inspiration for Stephen Spielberg’s 1982 horror film, Poltergeist. Despite the considerable attention, however, the case remains unexplained to this day.Thank you to the Incredible Dave White of Bring Me the Axe Podcast for research and Writing support!ReferencesAllen, Tom. 1958. "A haunted house is not a home." Daily News (New York, NY), March 9: 30.Aronson, Harvey. 1958. "Expert sees no hoax in bottle-popping." Newsday, March 7: 3.Associated Press. 1958. "Bottles--all kind--flip their tops." Democrat and Chronicle , February 11: 1.—. 1958. "Bottle tops rout pop." Elmira Star-Gazette, February 23: 1.—. 1958. "Bottles pop, Davy falls for angel." Press and Sun-Bulletin, February 17: 11.Dorman, Michael. 1987. "Ghost stories." Newsday, October 25: 9.Elmira Advertiser. 1958. "Herrmanns' house quiet." Elmira Advertiser, March 27: 4.Kahn, Dave. 1958. "Bottle-popping force shakes our reporter." Newsday, February 24: 3.—. 1958. "Bottle-popping report points to Jimmy." Newsday, May 15: 5.—. 1958. "Experts are working, bottle-pop force isn't." Newsday, February 27: 4.—. 1958. "Flying figurines drive family out of Seaford home." Newsday, February 22: 5.—. 1958. "Has the LI bottle-popping force popped its last." Newsday, March 17: 7.—. 1958. "Jimmy a bottle-popper? No, sasy father." Newsday, February 28: 5.—. 1958. "Our bottle-proper's decision: he's baffled." Newsday, February 25: 5.—. 1958. "'Spirit' gets rough, starts hurling things." Newsday, February 21: 5.—. 1958. "Two more bottles blow tops at LI house." Newsday, February 12: 4.Newsday. 1958. "All's quiet on the bottle front." Newsday, March 3: 5.—. 1958. "Clues remnmain cold in bottle mystery, but bottles get hot." Newsday, February 17: 5.—. 1958. "Expert ponders bottle popping." Newsday, February 15: 10.—. 1958. "Look out! Things are popping again." Newsday, March 4: 5.Nickell, Joe. 2012. The Science of Ghosts: Searching for Spirits of the Dead. Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books.Roll, William G. 1976. The Poltergeist. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press.United Press. 1958. "Boy likely was spook, says expert." Press and Sun-Bulletin (Binghamton, NY), May 15: 25.Ziaman, Ronald. 1958. "Teen interviews." Brooklyn Daily, June 26: 14.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Summary
In Episode 612 of the podcast, the unusual occurrences at the Herrmann family home in 1958 are explored, which included inexplicable flying objects and spontaneous bottle openings. The family's distress led to significant media attention and investigations that labeled the case a potential poltergeist phenomenon. Notably linked to the case is the adolescent son Jimmy, whose presence coincided with many disturbances, prompting discussions about emotional turmoil contributing to poltergeist activity. Despite extensive investigations and sensational media coverage, the origins of these disturbances remain unresolved, influencing popular culture, notably inspiring Steven Spielberg's film 'Poltergeist.'
Go to PodExtra AI's episode page (Episode 612: The House of Flying Objects: The Popper Poltergeist) to play and view complete AI-processed content: summary, mindmap, topics, takeaways, transcript, keywords and highlights.
Full Transcript
00:00:00 Speaker_06
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00:00:08 Speaker_00
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00:00:23 Speaker_00
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00:00:33 Speaker_05
Hey Weirdos, I'm Alina. And I'm Ash. And this is Morbid.
00:00:50 Speaker_06
What is up, fuckers? What is up? So we're doing something for Halloween.
00:00:57 Speaker_00
I won't say what it is. It's a surprise.
00:00:58 Speaker_06
It's a special surprise, but part of it does involve Alina wearing a weird contact in her eye. And I'm wearing it right now. And she's wearing it right now, and it's throwing me off. It threw John way off. John fucking hates it. He hates it.
00:01:12 Speaker_06
John said, get that out of your eyeball. He literally went, oh, no. I was sitting in the office, and he was in the other room when she showed him, and I literally just hear, oh, oh, God, no, no, no.
00:01:25 Speaker_05
He hates it, it freaks him out. I love it. I think it's great. He knows now. He was like, oh no, this is gonna be like, you're just gonna pop that in on like a random Tuesday and just walk downstairs, aren't you?
00:01:35 Speaker_06
You should just like wake him up one morning wearing both of them. And just stare at him.
00:01:38 Speaker_05
Yeah. Oh, but you're afraid to put one in the other eye. I am. I have like one eye that I had, like, it's just a problematic eye.
00:01:47 Speaker_06
The kids, like, scratched it when they were babies, right?
00:01:48 Speaker_05
Yeah, when they were, like, babies, one of my kids accidentally poked into my eye and then, like, ripped and literally tore my cornea open. Like, it wasn't, like, a scratch on the cornea. Like, a flap was
00:02:03 Speaker_05
Like literally the worst pain I've ever felt in my entire life. It wasn't immediate. I know we're getting off track, but you know, it's the beginning. It's always off track in the beginning. This is just, you know, it's important for you to know.
00:02:15 Speaker_05
Because it was bad. Like it was a bad poke and you were like, oh, my eye was like watering like crazy and it was rough, but I was able to go to sleep that night, whatever. And then what happened was my eye dried out in the middle of the night.
00:02:28 Speaker_05
and I woke up and I opened my lid and my lid tore the remaining piece of my cornea up. No. And that was the worst pain I have ever experienced in my life and I have had three children. Yeah.
00:02:47 Speaker_05
And I'm saying that confidently because I literally started to sob immediately but didn't want to wake anyone up because that's who I am.
00:02:55 Speaker_05
And I went downstairs and just paced around crying into pillows and contemplating whether I should run full force into a wall and knock myself out. That's how bad that pain was. And I'm not saying that to be funny. That is the reality of what happened.
00:03:15 Speaker_05
I literally looked at a wall and I said, should I run into it?
00:03:20 Speaker_06
I'm just picturing a quiet, still house at like 4 a.m. and then everybody just here is like, dong. Just picture the cartoon birds flying above your head.
00:03:35 Speaker_04
The stars.
00:03:37 Speaker_05
No, I literally did. We had to go to the ER. I remember. And they had to give me like the numbing stuff, like the lidocaine drops. But they can only give you that once because they'll fuck up your eye. Oh my God.
00:03:48 Speaker_05
So they give you it and the relief is immediate. And you go, oh, oh God, this is amazing. And then they send you home and they say, well, you need to get, you know, you need to have an appointment and you need to get all this stuff done.
00:04:00 Speaker_05
Didn't you have to get like a permanent, or like semi-permanent contact? I had to get a contact, like a healing contact put on it because they had to like do something to it to like repair the cornea. And then so it wouldn't like reopen?
00:04:11 Speaker_05
So it wouldn't keep tearing open. Damn. So I had to wear a hard contact for like a week and I had to wear sunglasses for a week. I couldn't be outside in the, because it was so exposed that I couldn't be in the sun. Yeah, you could like burn your eye.
00:04:23 Speaker_05
My eye story? So the story, the end of that story is just that I don't want to put a contact. Yeah, moral of the story.
00:04:30 Speaker_06
I don't blame you. I'm just very scared of that eye. One time, I think it was, no it was eighth grade, I laughed into a pencil. And you heard that right. I was lolling with my girlies in class. Holding a pencil.
00:04:44 Speaker_06
And I was holding a pencil and I literally went, oh, and like tilted my head back and then fell forward and scratched my cornea, which that in and of itself hurt so bad. I can't even imagine tearing my cornea open.
00:04:57 Speaker_06
And I was on crutches at that point because that summer I had broken my pelvis. And then to add insult to motherfucking injury 14 years old eighth grade like always the greatest time of your life Oh, absolutely, except not at all the worst.
00:05:11 Speaker_06
I had to wear an eyepatch So you're wearing an eyepatch while I'm crunching an eyepatch and I was on crutches I did not wear the eyepatch as long as they told me to because I said honey, my reputation will never recover I said, I'm sorry doctor.
00:05:23 Speaker_06
I be damned. I I don't give a fuck. I'll go blind before I damage my reputation.
00:05:30 Speaker_05
With an eye patch and crutches. Oh my God.
00:05:33 Speaker_06
Because I was on crutches for so long that people started to say I was faking. Even though, I mean, I was like, I broke my fucking pelvis. It's going to take me a while to heal here.
00:05:41 Speaker_05
Yeah, it's like pretty big bone.
00:05:43 Speaker_06
So then adding an eye patch to that, it was not good. It's not good. No good. Damn.
00:05:48 Speaker_05
you know that ash ash is a lawler and when she laughs she laughs with her whole body one thing about me yeah she's a lawler so i'm in it for the lols well this one um will not make you lol i don't think but it'll make you go huh so you'll ha instead of lol this is um this is the house of flying objects that's also kind of known i know isn't that kind of beautiful i kind of love it it's also known as the popper poltergeist
00:06:15 Speaker_05
I almost was like poltergeist. That's silly. The pauper poltergeist. That makes me also lol. This one is one of those cases where there isn't an answer to this day. They were not able to debunk So it's a haunt. But there is a theory.
00:06:33 Speaker_05
But this theory, again, is a theory, and it has not been proven, and the person who the theory is against vehemently says... Not me. They did not cause this to happen. All right. So I'll leave it to you at the end. You decide.
00:06:49 Speaker_05
The family was the Herman family. And this case is considered by many to be the first modern investigation into poltergeist disturbances. It was in the 50s. Oh, shit.
00:07:00 Speaker_05
And it was actually the inspiration for Steven Spielberg's 1982 Toby Hooper's horror film, Poltergeist. Oh! Now, despite all the attention it got, the case, like I said, is still unexplained.
00:07:14 Speaker_05
They have not been able to figure out what the fuck was going on in this house. It's really hard to look at you right now. I know, this is really fun to tell a story like this.
00:07:20 Speaker_05
Because now you're serious too, so it's like... I'm serious and I have this really scary eye.
00:07:25 Speaker_06
But it's also kind of goofy because you're just in like regular clothes. Because I'm just like, yeah, you know. And like you have your hair extensions too.
00:07:31 Speaker_04
So you're just like, I'm pretty and my eyes are scary. So you just have like a blowout. It's like you in The Haunted House. I was just going to say that. It's you in The Haunted House with a big blonde blowout. Listen, that's who I am.
00:07:42 Speaker_04
And Drew's like, there's Ash.
00:07:44 Speaker_06
Yeah, I can always be spotted.
00:07:46 Speaker_05
So, as far as anyone could remember, the disturbances in the Herman house started on Monday, February 3rd, 1953.
00:07:53 Speaker_05
43-year-old James Herman was at work, and his wife, 38-year-old Lucille, and their children, Jimmy and Lucille, were home alone at their home in Long Island, New York.
00:08:04 Speaker_06
Long Island. Long Island. I love when a woman names her daughter after herself. I think that's a fucking power move in a half. Yeah. Lorelai and Rory. Because guys do it all the time, but you don't hear of it with women often.
00:08:14 Speaker_05
And I love that both the kids are juniors. Yes. Oh, both of them. Jimmy and Lucille. There's James and Lucille.
00:08:20 Speaker_06
That was lost on me.
00:08:20 Speaker_05
Yeah. See, they both did. Check it. Good for them. Mrs. Herman was finishing up some chores on the first floor of the house, and she suddenly heard some popping noises coming from the second floor.
00:08:30 Speaker_05
And when she went up to look, Lucille found that a small holy water bottle on the dresser in the main bedroom. You know, like everyone has. I was gonna say, whoa. Like, just like, okay. Just their holy water that they had on their nightstand. Okay.
00:08:45 Speaker_05
Its cap was unscrewed and the bottle was laying on its side with the contents all spilled. Okay. Now, in Jimmy's bedroom, I'm gonna call James the father and Jimmy the son so you can determine. Okay, differentiate.
00:09:00 Speaker_05
In Jimmy's bedroom, Lucille found that the head of a ceramic doll had been broken and several pieces of a model ship he had been working on had snapped off.
00:09:09 Speaker_05
And in other places in the house, Lucille discovered several other bottles where the caps appeared to have simply popped off with no explanation. Pop off. Just popping off.
00:09:19 Speaker_05
Now, although there were some minor disturbances in the house in the days after that, mostly witnessed by the children, Lucille and Jimmy, the problem didn't escalate until the morning of February 9th.
00:09:29 Speaker_05
That morning, a little after 10 a.m., the whole family was gathered in the dining room, just eating breakfast, and they heard the popping noises again. This time they all heard it.
00:09:39 Speaker_05
Lucille ran to the main bedroom and discovered that the cap on the holy water bottle again had come off and the contents was spilled on the nightstand. And a bottle of expensive perfume that was also on her dresser had spilled. Oh, fuck that.
00:09:52 Speaker_06
You mess with my perfume, you die.
00:09:54 Speaker_05
I figured you were going to be pissed about that. I'm so pissed. So she's examining these bottles being like, what the fuck is going on here? And she heard more popping noises as this was happening.
00:10:04 Speaker_05
She went in the bathroom and a shampoo bottle and a bottle of liquid medication, their cups had popped off and they were tipped over and the contents were spilling everywhere. What? And again, the kids are downstairs. Right.
00:10:16 Speaker_06
And it's not like these bottles are like popping, like she hears the popping noises.
00:10:21 Speaker_05
Like you hear the pop sound. It's not like someone's unscrewing things and tipping it over. Yeah. There's a pop happening and the cap is like flying off. Like this doesn't sound like a child's behavioral problem. No. And so it's weird.
00:10:32 Speaker_05
So in the kitchen also a bottle of cooking starch exploded. Damn. And in the basement, a bottle of paint thinner popped open and began spilling the contents. Oh no. So like, what the fuck is going on? What is going on? Yeah.
00:10:46 Speaker_05
So they're all clearly alarmed by what's happening. So Lucille was like, I'm calling the police. I don't know what's going on. Like, is our house like about to explode? Like what's, I would freak out too. I wouldn't know who to call.
00:10:56 Speaker_06
Yeah, I mean, what do you call it? Ghostbusters? Like, what do you do? Well, and weird things like that happen, and like, it could be- Like a gas leak or something. Exactly, yeah.
00:11:03 Speaker_05
Which like, when you really think about it, you're like, clearly it's not. It could be a gas leak, but- But like, you would think like, I can't determine what is happening here, so like, I'm afraid my house is gonna explode. Yeah.
00:11:13 Speaker_05
So she called the police, and patrolman Jay Hughes was dispatched to the house. Okay. So Hughes sat with the family in the living room to take their statement, and the officer heard popping noises coming from the bathroom.
00:11:25 Speaker_05
And they all went in there to look at what happened, and the officer found that both the medicine and shampoo bottle had spilled again and had popped their caps. I love that the ghost was like, I'm not going to hide.
00:11:35 Speaker_05
Yeah, he was like, oh, hey, officer. I'll do this in front of the cops. Call them. So Lucille and James Sr.
00:11:40 Speaker_05
explained to Hughes, at the time of the occurrences, there were no tremors in the house and no loud noises or disturbances of any kind that could be noticed.
00:11:48 Speaker_06
OK.
00:11:48 Speaker_05
A few days later, on February 11th, the whole thing repeated itself in the house. And Lucille called the police again and was like, it's fucking happening again.
00:11:57 Speaker_05
So Detective Joseph Totsi arrived at the Hermann's house and very quickly and sat down to take their statement again. And he labeled this report, I love it, local investigation, broken bottles. Put this one top of shelf, guys. Broken bottles.
00:12:15 Speaker_05
According to Lucille, since the last officer had been at the house a few days earlier, quote, the disturbances appeared to be increasing in both number and magnitude. Huh.
00:12:25 Speaker_05
So, of course, Totsie's first thought was, I think your children are playing a prank on you. Yeah. Maybe, you know, and so he warned the children.
00:12:34 Speaker_05
He said to the children, if they were in any way connected with this case and that they were causing the disturbances in some way, that is a serious matter. Yeah, because you're taking up our time.
00:12:43 Speaker_05
Yeah, he was like, you have to know that, like, if police are being called and you're playing pranks, you're going to be in trouble. Yeah, like, stop it. Cut it out. So Jimmy and Lucille, the kids, were like, we did not do this. Like, I promise.
00:12:55 Speaker_05
And Tootsie said he was very convinced of their innocence. Like, they did not seem to have anything to do with this.
00:13:01 Speaker_05
Later that day, in much to the surprise of James and Lucille Herman, their story made its way into the evening edition of the local papers. Oh, no. And they're probably like, please don't do that. Oh, no. They loved it.
00:13:13 Speaker_05
And one reporter wrote, the revolt of the bottles today gripped the once tranquil home of James Herman. I can't imagine listening to that.
00:13:22 Speaker_05
And it wrote, it probably wouldn't have seemed out of the ordinary to readers that a few bottle caps popped off unexpectedly.
00:13:28 Speaker_05
And then it said, but the article was quick to point out, all the bottles that flipped their lids had screw type caps and the caps were not bent or distorted. They just came off. Which is weird. Which is weird.
00:13:39 Speaker_05
Now, out of concern that there might be some sort of, like we said, gas leak, something weird, something dangerous that's happening, some unseen hazard in this house, James called Dr. Donald Hughes, which was an acquaintance of his, who worked at the Brookhaven National Laboratory, which was a local atomic energy lab.
00:13:58 Speaker_05
So he's a very smart guy. Casual. And he asked, is my family in danger? Should I get my family out of this house? What's going on? Are we all going to explode? Yeah, and Hughes told him, I cannot think of any cause for all of this.
00:14:11 Speaker_05
It's certainly possible that some bottles might explode from overdevelopment of gas, but it would have nothing to do with radioactivity. Okay. So he was like, I don't think you're in danger, but like, I can't explain to you what's happening.
00:14:23 Speaker_05
I don't think you're in danger, but I also don't know. But I don't actually know. I don't rightly know, sir.
00:14:29 Speaker_04
To summarize here, I don't rightly know.
00:14:32 Speaker_05
So by the next day, more news outlets had picked up this story, and they were calling it the revolt of the bottles. I'm kind of obsessed with that. I love all of this. Like, I love that the report was called Local Investigation Broken Bottles.
00:14:45 Speaker_05
I love that all the articles are calling it the revolt of the bottles. I'm into it. Like, the bottles are revolting against this family for some weird reason. They're like, you know what? We've had enough.
00:14:54 Speaker_05
Yeah, and like I said, the Hermanns actually, like, loved it. They were enthusiastically responding to press inquiries. Okay. On February 12th, Detective Totsi returned to the house in response to another complaint.
00:15:07 Speaker_05
This time, they said additional bottle lids were popping off and a plastic angel ornament had a wing snapped off. Oh, that's sad. Yeah, so Totsi took the bottles and the angel as evidence, but
00:15:19 Speaker_05
didn't really have anything else for them he was like yeah I don't know what's going on here but I'll take them as evidence okay so as he left that afternoon there were like a ton of reporters photographers camera crews that had started to gather on the front lawn of the house of course they were all interested to learn like this must be paranormal what's going on so mrs herman led the group through the house she said check all this out sure pointing out where the various disturbances had occurred and a man
00:15:47 Speaker_05
that nobody knew, worked his way to the front of the crowd and introduced himself as quote, a holy man from center more riches. I'm fucking obsessed with that. He said, hello, I'm a holy man. I love it.
00:15:58 Speaker_05
It gets even funnier because immediately after introducing himself, the man just dropped to his knees, dropped to his knees in the dining room and started praying loudly and excitedly for about 10 minutes straight. Okay, so I don't really love that.
00:16:10 Speaker_05
But when he was finished, He turned to Lucille Herman and said, everything's all right, you've been forgiven. And then he just walked out of the house, got in his car and drove the fuck away and no one saw him again.
00:16:24 Speaker_06
That's the kind of energy I'm looking for minus the prayer.
00:16:28 Speaker_05
He's like, hello, I'm a holy man. And then he's just, boom, prayer, 10 minutes. And then he just gets up and he's like, you good, you've been forgiven. And then he just leaves and never comes back.
00:16:40 Speaker_06
But this is very early on in the story, so it seems like it didn't work. But honestly, the star of the story, in my opinion. Just introduce yourself and then go for it.
00:16:51 Speaker_06
Also, a way to, like, feed the rumor mill by looking directly at Lucille and being like, it's all good. And like, you've been forgiven.
00:16:58 Speaker_05
Like, what the fuck did she do?
00:17:09 Speaker_06
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00:17:19 Speaker_06
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00:18:28 Speaker_02
In the upcoming episode of Killer Psyche, we will be diving deep into the unfolding case of accused Gilgo Beach serial killer Rex Heuermann. Heuermann is awaiting trial for the murder of three women, with many more victims still being linked to him.
00:18:45 Speaker_02
Now, a recently released tell-all bail application goes into unusual details and links to keep him locked away, revealing shocking updates about the case.
00:18:57 Speaker_02
Listen as we take a closer look into the newly revealed evidence and charges, bringing new insight into what we already know about the case and what may have motivated him. Follow Killer Psyche on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:19:13 Speaker_02
You can listen to Killer Psyche and more Exhibit C true crime shows like Morbid and The Kill List early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery+. Check out Exhibit C in the Wondery app for all your true crime listening.
00:19:33 Speaker_05
This supposed holy man from Center Moriches was just the first of many unusual characters to appear in the lives of the Hermanns to give solutions, some kind of explanation for what was going on in their house.
00:19:45 Speaker_05
That same day, the family was visited by Dr. Norman Fodor, who was a New York City psychoanalyst who had been studying, studying, studying. Studying, studying. Studying the phenomenon of ghosts for several decades at this point.
00:19:59 Speaker_05
I don't know, I can't speak. It's hard.
00:20:01 Speaker_05
According to Dr. Norman, the destruction in the Hermann's house was being caused by a poltergeist, which he described as, quote, a kind of biological life force that in some admittedly unknown manner leaps out of a person's body and physically affects objects at a distance.
00:20:21 Speaker_05
Okay. So Dr. Norman explained that poltergeist activity, and this is a thing related to poltergeist activity, it's commonly associated with adolescents undergoing puberty. I did know that, yeah.
00:20:32 Speaker_05
And it's speculated that the poltergeist energy was likely coming from 12-year-old Jimmy. Okay. Now, to the Hermans and the press and the public, honestly, the explanation seemed as plausible as any at this point. They were like, sure, why not?
00:20:46 Speaker_05
I love that the public is like down for this. Yeah, the public was like, yeah.
00:20:49 Speaker_06
Because usually they're like, they like ostracize the family.
00:20:52 Speaker_05
They're like, oh my God, they're fucking crazy. I think in the 50s, they were just like, sure. What else are we going to talk about? No, why not? But they still welcomed any advice or any alternative explanations.
00:21:01 Speaker_05
They were just like, sure, we'll pin that one on the board. The detectives at the 7th Precinct, for example, instructed Lucille to try an experiment. They said, fill 10 bottles with water and watch them throughout the day to see if they were affected.
00:21:14 Speaker_05
But by the end of the day, they were still intact. So that's interesting. Meanwhile, an electrician from the Long Island Lighting Company visited the house and inspected all the circuitry, top to bottom.
00:21:25 Speaker_05
He found no faulty wiring, no issues that could be causing disturbances. And the technician went as far as setting up a device capable of detecting the slightest vibrations and detected nothing. That's really cool.
00:21:38 Speaker_05
Other more supernatural explanations were definitely offered by the public, including those relating to the positions of, you know, the stars and the planets in the sky or something like that. Fuck yeah.
00:21:48 Speaker_05
Which I'm like, I don't think that had to do with this. I don't think it had to do with this. You know, things related to high frequency vibration, the erosion of a stream under the house causing the ground to shift in subtle undetectable ways.
00:22:01 Speaker_05
People were really going for it. Really reaching for anything they could tap into here.
00:22:06 Speaker_05
Now, all the media attention surrounding what they were now referring to as the House of Flying Objects eventually extended beyond just New York, and it ended up reaching J.B.
00:22:17 Speaker_05
Rhine, who was the founder of Duke University's parapsychology lab in Durham, North Carolina. Oh, cool. Ryan was a botanist by training, but he had also maintained a very serious interest in the paranormal for decades. He was very, very into it.
00:22:32 Speaker_05
He was introduced to the concept in the 1920s, actually, when he and his wife attended a lecture by a man you might know the name of, a world-renowned author and paranormal enthusiast, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Do we know him? Sherlock Holmes.
00:22:49 Speaker_05
He wrote Sherlock Holmes. Oh, gotcha. Do we know him? I was like, I don't actually know who that is. Arthur Conan Doyle.
00:22:54 Speaker_05
Within a few years of that lecture, Ryan and a small number of research assistants started investigating, because he was very interested in what he had to say, and they started investigating the potential for extrasensory perception, ESP, by testing students at Duke University and officially starting the lab in 1930.
00:23:13 Speaker_06
So he really got into it. That's really cool. like ahead of his time.
00:23:17 Speaker_05
Yeah, truly. So, Ryan and his institute at Duke were dedicated to the scientific pursuit of the paranormal.
00:23:23 Speaker_05
So, from the outset, he hoped to apply the scientific method to researching the paranormal, and he enthusiastically rooted out frauds and charlatans in the paranormal world. He was gonna call your ass out. Obsessed. He was gonna debunk your shit. Cool.
00:23:37 Speaker_05
That's his job. Yeah. If he can't explain it, cool. But if he can explain it, he's gonna explain it. You're fucked. He's like Ghost Hunters internet, you know? Yeah. Like taps. Yes, yes, yes. They debunk.
00:23:49 Speaker_05
So among the most notable achievements that he had was the debunking and defaming of Mina Crandon, who was a notorious psychic median who had been defrauding and exploiting people for years through her seances. I hate that. Mina, that's mean.
00:24:05 Speaker_05
And he said, get fucked, Mina. Like that's one of his notable achievements was proving that she's a charlatan. I hate that. I love the word charlatan. I do too.
00:24:14 Speaker_05
But he had also been looking for an opportunity to begin exploring the poltergeist phenomenon because that had become a thing in the paranormal world at this time.
00:24:22 Speaker_05
And he told a reporter of his learning of the Herman case, we are always glad to be informed of puzzling phenomenon, either human or animal. We don't have any record that has been adequately proved.
00:24:32 Speaker_05
So for the time being, Ryan asked a colleague in New York to look into the case and just kind of report back as to whether it was even worth investigating. He was like, take a look, let us know if we should get involved.
00:24:43 Speaker_05
In the meantime, the activity of the Herman house, I had to take a deep breath after COVID. I don't know if anybody else had, I'm still like, I run out of breath like very easily. That's not great. Yeah.
00:24:56 Speaker_05
Well, I still have a cough, so I think it's not helping. So in the meantime, the activity at the house escalated in frequency and intensity.
00:25:05 Speaker_05
A few days after Totsie's last visit on February 13th, the family continued to experience the whole bottle caps popping off of their bottles, all the contents spilling, and now the incidents were accompanied by objects flying around the room.
00:25:19 Speaker_05
Okay, hate that. In Jimmy's bedroom, a plastic angel ornament flew from its position on the nightstand and crashed into a statue of Davy Crockett four feet away.
00:25:30 Speaker_06
That is the most iconic thing I've ever heard, period. Angel statue launching itself into Davy Crockett.
00:25:38 Speaker_05
Like that happened. She said, fuck you, Davy. And there was several, literally, fuck you, Davy Crockett. And there were several other instances where things were flying at the family, essentially.
00:25:50 Speaker_06
Interesting that there's been a couple instances of angels too, like breaking and dive bombing.
00:25:54 Speaker_05
Yeah, in holy water and stuff. I'm like, uh-oh, do you have a diamond?
00:25:57 Speaker_05
now later that afternoon a water bottle and another perfume bottle in the main bedroom lost their lids the content spilled out but this time the bottles were reported to be hot to the touch okay now
00:26:12 Speaker_05
Herman said, I had just gone into the room with my son and daughter, and we noticed that another bottle had fallen. It was hot, as if lukewarm water was in it. This was the first time I had noticed like that particular thing.
00:26:25 Speaker_05
And what I say to that is, those are two conflicting ideas. How is it hot if there's lukewarm water in it? Thank you. Because when I have lukewarm water, it does not make the outside hot. No. It makes it lukewarm. Correct. So I'm confused by that.
00:26:41 Speaker_06
Yeah but if it's hot to the touch it's like was it like heated up somehow on the outside and like pressure and then like got pressurized and that's why the bottles are popping off? And it's like somebody walking around with like a lighter?
00:26:54 Speaker_06
Yeah and it's like remember this is the 50s so it's like did they have lighters in the 50s?
00:26:58 Speaker_05
I don't know. Matches? And what and I think that's what's important is like there's so many things in here where you're gonna go Well, it's that. But then you have to be like, wait, it's the 50s. Would they even know how to do that? You know what I mean?
00:27:10 Speaker_05
Like there's so you got to like bring it back to there and be like, wait a second. Right. Not impossible, like all these things that we're going to come through, but like interesting at the very least.
00:27:18 Speaker_06
I wonder like what you learned in science at Jimmy's age. I know. Because he's 12, remember? So not he wouldn't have like super advanced Yeah, you shouldn't have.
00:27:28 Speaker_05
Scientific knowledge. Yeah. Unless he's like really into science. Which he could be. Mm-hmm. His dad was friends with scientists. So yeah. It's obviously, you know. But a few days later, the intensity of the attacks appeared to increase. Okay.
00:27:43 Speaker_05
Bottles were now shattering, which is interesting. Ink was being thrown across the walls. Damn. And more ornaments and figurines were flying from the shelves and smashing on the floor or against the wall.
00:27:56 Speaker_05
To this point, it was the Hermans alone who'd experienced all this. No one else was in the house.
00:28:01 Speaker_05
But on February 21st, Detective Totsi was in the house, and in an adjoining room, he saw a porcelain figure shoot 10 feet across the room and smash itself against the wooden secretary, putting a sizable dent in the wood. Wow.
00:28:17 Speaker_05
So it had to have been launched hard. Yeah. And he saw that nobody was in that room. He said it launched itself. All he saw was this thing launch itself across the room. And it's it's a porcelain figure.
00:28:31 Speaker_05
And it hit that wooden thing so hard that there was a sizable dent. Which is crazy. Which takes force. Yeah, absolutely. So Totsie documented this and returned to the precinct. But less than an hour later, he was called back to the house by Lucille.
00:28:47 Speaker_05
And when he got there, he found Mrs. Herman and the children huddled together in the hall, saying she figured that would be the safest place. Oh, because she was saying like, everything's flying at us.
00:28:58 Speaker_05
Like, I'm afraid one of the kids is going to get hurt. Yeah. So according to Lucille, not long after Detective Totsie left the house, it went crazy. Like things, the ferocity and directness was something they had not experienced, like that it was.
00:29:11 Speaker_05
things were being thrown hard and they were being thrown directly at them. And that hadn't happened before. Before, it was kind of flying across the room, maybe near them. Well, and that's kind of like what happens with poltergeist activity.
00:29:22 Speaker_05
It gets worse and worse. Gradually, exactly. And in fact, whatever was, you know, popping caps, I knew you'd like that one. I'm obsessed. Popping caps, like literally popping caps off bottles.
00:29:33 Speaker_05
And hurling objects seem to now be doing so with the kind of like aggressiveness and malevolence that implied sentience. Like, it implied that this thing was angry at the Hermanns themselves.
00:29:47 Speaker_06
I kind of fucking love that.
00:29:49 Speaker_05
Right? Like, it implied that this thing is trying to hurt them.
00:29:53 Speaker_06
Like, I don't want it to hurt them. I don't love that. But I love a sentient being.
00:29:56 Speaker_05
Yeah, like, this seems like a sentient, like, it's making a choice.
00:30:00 Speaker_06
Well, and it's interesting that that guy looked at Lucille before dipping off into the sunset and said they forgave you.
00:30:05 Speaker_05
Yeah.
00:30:06 Speaker_06
Maybe they didn't. Maybe they just told that guy that she was forgiven. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
00:30:12 Speaker_05
No, it wasn't enough to alarm the family with like, you know, when it was like a few bottles popping off here and there. Like they were more just confused by that. They weren't like super scared because nothing was hurting them. Under attack.
00:30:24 Speaker_05
But that's the thing. Now it's destroying their property and hurling objects at them. And think like of like the sentimental things that you have that probably got destroyed. And they're worried that this is going to hurt the kids.
00:30:34 Speaker_05
So the disturbance on the night of the 21st was so intense that the next day James and Lucille thought it was best to go stay with family members nearby just to get a break.
00:30:44 Speaker_05
Like they were like, we don't want to deal with the media anymore, we don't want to deal with what's going on in the house. Yeah, it seems like very overwhelming.
00:30:50 Speaker_05
James Herman told a reporter, my wife has lost sleep during the last days and the kids are getting behind on their homework. Oh no.
00:30:56 Speaker_05
So while they were staying with relatives, Lucille received a call from Helen Connelly, who is a 74-year-old widow in Revere, Massachusetts. Revere!
00:31:05 Speaker_06
In Revere? Oh yeah, we got Helen. Oh honey, Revere. Here comes Helen from Revere. My sister was thinking about moving to Revere and I was like, you gonna live in Revere? And she's like, no.
00:31:17 Speaker_04
Not anymore.
00:31:18 Speaker_06
She said, nevermind. So Helen from Revere called, and also 74-year-old Helen. I just have to do like a quick side note here.
00:31:27 Speaker_06
I had a client from Revere when I still worked at the hair salon, and her name was Toni, and she had red hair, and she was like an older lady, and she was the coolest fucking broad I've ever met. I love that.
00:31:37 Speaker_06
And I love Toni, and Toni, if somehow, for some reason, you're listening to this, I miss you, I love you, you're phenomenal. Toni from Revere. She was the coolest.
00:31:44 Speaker_05
Well, you know what? Helen also, Helen just wanted to help. So was she cool? So Helen called and she had read about the experiences in the paper. Okay. And she wanted to offer some advice. Okay. I'm Helen from Revere. I got something to tell you.
00:31:59 Speaker_05
She said, we had the same thing in April of last year, she told them. Of course. Tables, chairs, ashtrays, dishes, lamps, even an artificial fireplace was lifted like paper. An artificial fireplace? The initial fireplace was lifted like paper.
00:32:14 Speaker_05
She said, Helen. According to Helen, a building inspector looked over the home and determined the cause of the problem was built up gases trapped in the chimney. We had the inspector come out. He searched around.
00:32:27 Speaker_05
My God, we had an Inspector Sully come out and he told us. That it was just built-up gases trapped in the chimney. It's just gases. And when it was freed back into the house, it would blow items around the house. Okay, yeah.
00:32:41 Speaker_05
And while they were away, Detective Tootsie was like, all right, cool. Like, that sounds valid. Plausible. Like, thank you, Helen, from Revea. And she was like, that's all, I just wanted to help.
00:32:51 Speaker_05
I think it might be gases and you fucking, do you have an artificial fireplace?
00:32:56 Speaker_06
Queen. Queen. Queen.
00:32:58 Speaker_05
So while they were away, staying with family, Detective Totsie arrived, arranged for the home to have a turbine style ventilator installed on the outside of the chimney. And that would prevent any down drafts from entering the house that way.
00:33:11 Speaker_05
Cause he was like, let's debunk that. Like, let's get that. Maybe that's it. Maybe. So. It did seem a little unlikely that drafts were the problem in this house. I don't know if drafts are causing objects to fly with such force. They're denting wood.
00:33:26 Speaker_05
Yeah, we're trying to debunk. But yeah, go for it. It was just, again, Totsie said, I just want to rule out any potential explanation.
00:33:34 Speaker_05
And in response to a request for comment from a reporter, John Dittrich, a chairman of science at the Merchant Marine Academy, refuted this gases theory.
00:33:42 Speaker_05
He said, activity like that as the result of just the free movement of gases doesn't sound plausible. The idea sounds rather fantastical to me.
00:33:50 Speaker_06
That's funny, because my response was, that sounds plausible. And he was like, that does not sound plausible.
00:33:55 Speaker_05
Now, if the Herman's temporary stay with relatives was supposed to give them a break from the media attention and the disruptions, it wasn't. exactly successful, at least in terms of the media attention.
00:34:06 Speaker_05
In fact, them fleeing their home in desperation really only generated more interest in the story. Makes sense. Uh, and it didn't seem like the Hermans minded it like too much. They weren't like super put off by it.
00:34:18 Speaker_05
Um, they definitely like entertain the press when they needed to. Like I think they just kind of kept them on their side. Yeah. Which is smart. I was gonna say. You don't want them to turn on you.
00:34:27 Speaker_05
On February 24th, Dave Kahn, a reporter from the Long Island newspaper Newsday, actually moved into the Hermans' home while they were living with the family. Wow. To cover the story from a first-hand perspective. He wanted to experience it. That's cool.
00:34:42 Speaker_05
And in his first report from the house, Khan referred to his initial night as a frightening experience. Really? According to him, the activity began the evening of his first night, a little after 8 p.m., as he and James Sr.
00:34:55 Speaker_05
were sitting in the dining room having coffee. Out of nowhere, Khan heard a loud crash from the living room and rushed in and found a figure had smashed against the wooden secretary.
00:35:06 Speaker_05
Interestingly, Khan notes that just after he heard the crash, he jumped out of his chair and ran into the living room and he said, but Jimmy got there before us. Hmm.
00:35:26 Speaker_00
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00:37:29 Speaker_05
Now, a short time later, after the reporter had settled back in the dining room, they heard a, quote, low rumble come from upstairs. And when they went to investigate, they found that the dresser in Jimmy's bedroom had inexplicably tipped over.
00:37:44 Speaker_05
And he said, I tried when I heard the noise, like he tried to move it. And Jimmy told his father and Khan, but he said, and a part of the dresser landed on my foot. I only saw it fall the last few inches. Ouch.
00:37:55 Speaker_05
So he was like in the room when it happened. And it was actually like very near the dresser. In fact, he said it fell on his foot. Now, that would lead you to believe that maybe Jimmy's doing these things. Well, yeah, I'm questioning it.
00:38:09 Speaker_05
Like, how can you not? There's that. Or there's the possibility, like they said, poltergeist activity can emanate from somebody in puberty going through, an adolescent going through puberty.
00:38:20 Speaker_05
So maybe it's because he's around that that's why it's happening near him.
00:38:23 Speaker_06
Or maybe two things can be true at once. These things are happening. but also Jimmy's having a little bit of fun at the same time because this is a little exciting.
00:38:32 Speaker_05
And I think that's the most valid explanation, I think. So I think this is not all Jimmy. I don't think it's all him. But partially. But I think maybe, maybe. I'm not accusing him.
00:38:42 Speaker_00
No. Allegedly.
00:38:43 Speaker_05
Allegedly, maybe he had something to do with it. Now, after the dresser fell, James Herman promptly called Detective Toetzee, who came out to the house, but could not figure out what the fuck happened.
00:38:53 Speaker_05
He said, there was something especially strange about the noises, or excuse me, Toetzee didn't say this, Kahn said this, the reporter. There was something especially strange about the noises accompanying both disturbances.
00:39:04 Speaker_05
It was almost explosive, which is, that's interesting. He said, and the low rumble lasted an abnormally long time. And both noises seemed to allude the immediate location.
00:39:17 Speaker_05
Later that night, other objects flew from their locations, including a large bookcase in Jimmy's bedroom that was seemingly pushed away from the wall by unseen hands.
00:39:27 Speaker_05
Most baffling of all, at least for Khan, was an incident that occurred the next night.
00:39:31 Speaker_05
It was a little after 9 p.m., and he said, as I sat alone in the corner of the living room, a 10-inch cardboard globe of the world flipped silently out from Jimmy's darkened bedroom in my direction and bounced into the opposite corner of the living room.
00:39:46 Speaker_05
I jumped up, ran into Jimmy's room, and snapped on the light. The boy was sitting up in bed, the covers over his legs. Naturally, I tried to discover whether Jimmy had thrown the globe. I found that it was possible, but improbable.
00:39:58 Speaker_05
The globe could not have landed where it did if it had been thrown from the bed. But could he have just huddled into bed really quickly? He could have, but they said he would have to be very quick to get back in there, which he could. Okay.
00:40:10 Speaker_05
Now, when he noticed all the incidents that occurred at the home, he noticed that they all had one thing in common.
00:40:15 Speaker_05
the same situation with Jimmy has existed in every one of these strange occurrences since February 3rd when they started tormenting the family.
00:40:24 Speaker_05
He noted that in every case Jimmy was near the affected object when it moved and in all cases he possessed the strength to move the object himself. However,
00:40:34 Speaker_05
He did have difficulty accepting that Jimmy could have been the real cause for all the disturbances.
00:40:39 Speaker_05
He said there is the physical improbability of him having the speed to say, get back in bed fast enough after throwing that globe, or the strength to throw figurines with the explosive force they display, like denting the wood.
00:40:54 Speaker_05
So he ended up being driven to the theory, quote unquote, that had become the most popular and common at the time they had a poltergeist and that it might be emanating from Jimmy. Yeah.
00:41:04 Speaker_05
Now, after following the story in the press and speaking with the Hermanns and Detective Totsi, J.B. Ryan, our scientist from before, was convinced that whatever was happening in the house was at least worth investigating at this point.
00:41:18 Speaker_05
So in early March, Ryan sent his trusted longtime assistant, J. Gaither Pratt, to Seaford in Long Island, along with a relatively new member of his research team, William Rohl.
00:41:29 Speaker_05
William Rohl was a German psychologist who'd been with the Institute for like a little less than a year. The two researchers moved into the house and started investigating.
00:41:37 Speaker_05
And they consulted with experts from RCA Communications who were brought in to determine whether the house was being affected by radio waves or other disturbances in the electromagnetic fields. They really tried to debunk everything here.
00:41:51 Speaker_05
While the RCA scientists evaluated the house, Pratt and Roll set out interviewing the members of the Herman family about like the beginning. The beginning till now.
00:42:02 Speaker_05
According to James, he became convinced they had a supernatural problem on the morning of February 9th. He said he was talking to Jimmy, who was in the bathroom brushing his teeth.
00:42:12 Speaker_05
And he said, I was standing in the doorway of the bathroom while Jimmy was brushing his teeth. And he said, he told investigators, all of a sudden, two bottles that were placed on the top of the vanity table were seen to move.
00:42:24 Speaker_05
Both bottles moved at the same time. Okay, that's weird. He insisted that both bottles had previously been under the sink and were recently put on the table, so he concluded the caps had become unscrewed while they were under the sink. Okay.
00:42:39 Speaker_05
He was witnessing the bottles move on their own at that time, so he said, that's what made me think, okay, this isn't like gases or something, something paranormal is happening here.
00:42:49 Speaker_05
So since the phenomenon began in early February, the activity in the house really escalated day after day. And again, it became really aggressive, especially in the presence of non-family members in the house.
00:43:04 Speaker_05
But now that Pratt and Roll, two trained experts, were in the house, the poltergeist activity went completely quiet. Uh-huh.
00:43:15 Speaker_05
The equipment set up by the RCA technicians registered no change in the electromagnetic activity in the home, didn't pick up any unusual radio waves,
00:43:24 Speaker_05
So Pratt made it pretty clear going into this investigation, one of the researchers, that their objectives were very clear.
00:43:32 Speaker_05
It was to decide whether one, Jimmy is deliberately causing these things to happen and cleverly concealing them, because it is pretty clever how he's concealing them. Yeah, it is. Two, that Jimmy is the agent for a poltergeist, or three, I'm sorry.
00:43:47 Speaker_06
I'm thinking of Jimmy just like signing a poltergeist.
00:43:49 Speaker_05
Like being an agent. Like an actual agent. Like signing him on. Like, let's go. Getting him some opportunities, you know. We have an ad coming in for you. Jimmy, it's time to tour. Let's go. It's like Jimmy from Hux. There you go. Jimmy's the agent.
00:44:04 Speaker_05
So he's on poltergeist. It's time to tour. Let's take this show on the road. Or, three, that there's a mixture of both. That he's involved somehow, but not in the way we might think.
00:44:15 Speaker_05
Now, within a few days, Pratt and Roll had all but ruled out the involvement of James and Lucille, the parents. And they ruled out Lucille, the daughter.
00:44:25 Speaker_05
Lucille, the daughter, was often out of the house or was fully asleep when most of the incidents occurred. She said, baby, I'm catching up on my beauty rest. But the two identified Jimmy as the thing connecting all the events.
00:44:39 Speaker_05
Though they did draw, they stopped short of drawing any conclusions about how previously, you know, previously how he was involved.
00:44:48 Speaker_05
But their suspicions caused everyone in the house, parents, researchers, Khan, the reporter, to keep an extra close eye on Jimmy. Yeah. Now, since the onset of the poltergeist activity, like we said, it was everywhere.
00:45:00 Speaker_05
It was in the local, regional, national papers all the time. Readers had a really close look in on this family and the disturbances happening. And the level of awareness that this caused was
00:45:14 Speaker_05
It kind of brought in like amateur sleuths, like what we would now have as internet sleuths, even back then in the 50s. But these sleuths had to write into the papers and call the police department with their shit.
00:45:28 Speaker_05
And this type of engagement can be interpreted as a kind of support. which was typically accompanied by explicit support from those following the story.
00:45:37 Speaker_05
But when the narrative shifted towards suspicions that Jimmy might be the cause of some of these disturbances, the public sentiment about the Hermann's poltergeist, by then referred to as the Popper poltergeist, You are so Boston.
00:45:51 Speaker_06
I can't say poltergeist. Especially when you say popper poltergeist.
00:45:55 Speaker_05
I can't say two errs.
00:45:56 Speaker_06
Yeah.
00:45:56 Speaker_05
It's like I can get one out but I can't get two. It's the Boston and you just say stop. Yeah. It allows one. It won't allow more. It says you can park the car. I know. I can't say it right. That's funny. Popper poltergeist. I actually don't like it that way.
00:46:07 Speaker_05
Popper poltergeist. So they were less sympathetic. Yeah. At this point. I would be. Which also like remember this kid is 12. Everybody. That's true.
00:46:16 Speaker_06
I mean, I wouldn't, I would just be like, wow, Jimmy, what a turd.
00:46:19 Speaker_05
We're all excited about poltergeist. He doesn't need the whole world bullying him. Weighing him. But as public criticism of Jimmy, this 12-year-old boy grew, James Sr.
00:46:29 Speaker_05
did what any parent would do and took to the press to defend his son and emphatically rejected the belief that Jimmy had anything to do with the activity in the house. Yeah.
00:46:38 Speaker_05
He said, because the scientists of this country can't come up with an answer to this, people are trying to make a scapegoat out of a 12-year-old boy who can't fight back. I mean, yeah. But James didn't stop there.
00:46:50 Speaker_05
He went on to say he threatened to bar anyone from his home who openly questioned Jimmy's intentional involvement in this phenomenon. I understand the dad in him wanting to do that, because I'd be like, fuck you, don't come for my kid.
00:47:03 Speaker_05
That's the thing. I can understand his role as a parent being like, fuck you, you're not questioning my kid.
00:47:07 Speaker_06
But at the same time, you also want to figure out what's going on in your house.
00:47:10 Speaker_05
Well, and it put Pratt's role, and to a lesser extent, Dave Kahn, into like a difficult position. Yeah, because they're like, what if it is him?
00:47:18 Speaker_05
Because if they want to find out what's happening here, if they want to remain in the home and continue to do their work, they have to ignore the idea, the theory that Jimmy is doing it. And that's, you really can't do that.
00:47:27 Speaker_05
That's not how the scientific method works. Exactly. And so, which is not good. So despite the growing skepticism and near total lack of activity in the house at this point, Pratt and Roll continued the investigation.
00:47:38 Speaker_05
So, Pratt said, I draw no conclusion whatsoever from the fact that there was no unusual occurrences after I came because there was so much turmoil in the house at that time.
00:47:48 Speaker_05
He said, you know, but nevertheless, the lack of activity made it unnecessary for the researchers to stay in the house for very long while they were conducting the investigation. So, they just returned to Duke and continued the research from afar.
00:48:01 Speaker_05
They were like, we don't need to be in the house. We didn't see anything. Now, less than one day after Pratt and Roll left Long Island, it all began again. Huh.
00:48:10 Speaker_05
A table in Jimmy's room crashed to the floor, breaking a crystal table lamp, among other things.
00:48:15 Speaker_06
It's interesting now that, like, a lot of it is happening in Jimmy's room.
00:48:18 Speaker_05
Yeah. And the incident prompted another call to Detective Totsie, who rushed to the house as soon as he was called.
00:48:25 Speaker_05
And according to Totsie, James reported that at the time, his son was, quote, flat on his back in bed with the covers pulled up to his chin. So he couldn't have possibly caused the table to fall. That's according to the father.
00:48:40 Speaker_05
Now, despite the convenient timing of the return of the activity, it does appear everyone involved remained unwilling to consider seriously whether Jimmy was causing the activity in the house. That's not great.
00:48:50 Speaker_05
Roll said, and this was one of the researchers, Roll, the fraud hypothesis would be easier to accept. And I get this.
00:48:57 Speaker_05
The fraud hypothesis would be easier to accept if it could be supposed that the other members of the family were acting as Jimmy's accomplices, like the parents.
00:49:08 Speaker_05
That is to say that, you know, Pratt and Roll would be more likely to accept the idea if it was a hoax if it wasn't a child that was perpetuating this entire thing. Yeah.
00:49:18 Speaker_05
Pratt was equally emphatic in his rejection of the fraud theory, saying, I don't believe for a moment that there is any colossal hoax behind this.
00:49:26 Speaker_05
These are two very well-respected researchers and they don't need to be in the house anymore, so they don't need to bullshit.
00:49:33 Speaker_05
So they're at least saying that, that they believe if there is a hoax happening, there's a whole family involved and we can't seem to connect that. And the other one is saying, I don't believe that there's a whole hoax here.
00:49:44 Speaker_05
I think there's something happening. While the return of the activity was, you know, an exciting development for Pratt and Roll, others were less enthusiastic. Like the family? Well, Detective Totsie, who's probably a little sick of this. Yeah.
00:49:59 Speaker_05
He's like, I have actual crimes to investigate. He literally said, it's the damnedest case I've ever worked on. I mean, it's beginning to go on forever.
00:50:06 Speaker_05
And it's true, because for what had been started as a call about like, you know, a weird disturbance about a month earlier, the case had exploded and started attracting all this attention from all over the world.
00:50:18 Speaker_05
And all of it was rooted directly through Detective Joe Tootsie. By March, Tootsie was spending a significant amount of time combing through the correspondences received by the Seventh Precinct on behalf of the Hermanns, like people writing in.
00:50:33 Speaker_05
to say this is what I think is happening, this is what you should do, blah, blah, blah.
00:50:36 Speaker_06
And that's a lot of shit to comb through.
00:50:38 Speaker_05
And this was a lot of letters on how to deal with the problems with suggestions ranging from kill your house. What does that exactly mean? I like that one. Kill your house, like stab it? Kill it, like shoot your house down.
00:50:51 Speaker_05
And another one was burn sulfur in every room.
00:50:54 Speaker_05
oh god yeah another one was wave a white silk hanky in every room wave a white flag say you know what poltergeist this is you i like that one i will go this one's my favorite this one's my favorite buy a horse that's it you want to know why that's the tweet horses have mysterious powers so just buy one
00:51:19 Speaker_05
I agree that horses are mysterious as fuck, but it's kind of like adding a lot of expenses. And as much as Detective Totsie would have liked to move on to more pressing matters, he was ordered to keep a close eye on this now wildly popular story.
00:51:34 Speaker_05
He said, the brass doesn't like anything to happen around here they don't know about. So he's like, so now I'm stuck. Here I am.
00:51:52 Speaker_00
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00:52:06 Speaker_00
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00:52:19 Speaker_00
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00:52:36 Speaker_00
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00:52:55 Speaker_05
So by mid-March, it seemed even the poltergeist had kind of grown tired of the whole thing. As six days, then 10, then 20 passed in the Herman house without a single incident.
00:53:08 Speaker_05
Despite the quiet in the house, enthusiasm and interest in the case definitely remained. Members of the public were still calling, sending letters, even dropping by the house. Oh, I don't like that. Stay out of my house.
00:53:20 Speaker_05
James told a reporter on March 17th, two couples were over here with Ouija boards. Not sure what they were trying to do, but I didn't let them in. Do you think I want the whole house to fall down around our ears? He's like, he has papa energy.
00:53:32 Speaker_05
He's like, get the fuck out of here.
00:53:34 Speaker_06
Get the fuck out of here.
00:53:35 Speaker_05
Get a life. So the sudden end to the activity was surprising to James and Lucille Herman. Which is all of a sudden was done. Yeah, it was just done. Who'd been dealing with daily destruction of their home for over a month. Yeah.
00:53:46 Speaker_05
But Pratt explained that in his experience, some things, such things tend to end that way. Lucille said, he said that whatever force had been causing it just goes away and usually they don't come back.
00:53:59 Speaker_05
While the Hermanns were certainly happy to have some peace and quiet in their home, the abrupted like unceremonious end to the situation, the public doesn't like that. No. We don't like things just as loud. We like a neat bow.
00:54:11 Speaker_05
Yeah, we need to know what's going on. Because they've been closely following the case and they wanted an explanation. I want an explanation. So a short time later, Pratt and Roll provided the family with their report, finally. Okay.
00:54:22 Speaker_05
The researchers counted a total of 67 incidents. Wow. 64 in which an object moved on its own. Okay. And three in which unexplained thumping could be heard somewhere in the house. Okay.
00:54:35 Speaker_05
So Roll wrote, Gaither and I spent 10 days with the family under circumstances which we felt gave us quote, close acquaintance with all of its members. And we were unable to accept the family hoax hypothesis as a reasonable one. Okay. Interesting. Yeah.
00:54:50 Speaker_05
The researchers concluded that after ruling out fraud and other possible explanations, the RSPK hypothesis had to be taken seriously for this case. RSPK is recurrent spontaneous psychokinesis.
00:55:04 Speaker_05
It was a popular theory among those at the Duke lab for explaining the decidedly unscientific old world explanation of ghosts and poltergeists.
00:55:13 Speaker_05
In Rolle's theory, a person, and in many cases children, can produce a discharge of psychic energy strong enough to disrupt the zero point gravity of an object. That's really fucking awesome. The thing that keeps it in place. It's Matilda. There you go.
00:55:29 Speaker_05
Exactly. Which causes it to appear as though it has flown across the room on its own. This is more commonly observed in cases where the individual is in a highly aroused or unsettled emotional or psychological state. A.K.A. puberty.
00:55:42 Speaker_05
Such as adolescents going through puberty. Yeah. Roll wrote, the poltergeist has a reputation of being elusive if not plain evasive. This was not true in Seaford. Things sometimes happen in full view of people and when outsider visitors were present.
00:55:57 Speaker_05
Yeah. So while the researchers were unable to conclusively prove a cause of the activity, they were inclined to believe it supported the theory of RSPK. Yeah. They were satisfied that the activity was most likely unintentionally caused by Jimmy. Okay.
00:56:13 Speaker_05
This seemed an adequate explanation for some people. Made sense? I'm happy. Especially those who are eager to just like move on with the story.
00:56:19 Speaker_06
Yeah, you get bored of a story after a while, like when you're experiencing it.
00:56:23 Speaker_05
But not everyone found the RSPK theory to be satisfactory. You're never going to satisfy everyone. You never are. As hard as you try. Nope.
00:56:30 Speaker_05
In their own report on the incident, the Parapsychology Foundation of New York concluded that Jimmy was most likely the culprit. Everyone leave Jimmy, leave Jimmy alone.
00:56:41 Speaker_05
And they noted that he might have caused the disturbances by normal means if he so wished.
00:56:46 Speaker_06
Well, you know what? Maybe he was just vibing in these streets. Maybe. What the fuck else are you going to do at 12 years old? I don't know.
00:56:51 Speaker_05
So, you know, although they were unable to prove their belief that Jimmy had intentionally caused the disturbances, that group, the parapsychology group, was headed by former Duke parapsychology lab researcher, Carlos Osis. I really love that name.
00:57:05 Speaker_05
They pointed out to the suspicious timing of the events, which this will give you a little bit of a pause. Oh no. They wrote, disturbances during school hours occurred only on weekends.
00:57:17 Speaker_05
In the evenings after 8.30 p.m., when according to Mr. Herman, Jimmy had gone to bed, the phenomenon occurred at that point either in his room or in places near his bedroom door.
00:57:28 Speaker_05
In the hours when the children might definitely be assumed to be asleep, nothing happened. Well, this was their working theory. Osis was quick to add, of course, this is not an accusation, but merely one possible explanation. Yeah.
00:57:43 Speaker_05
The presence of James Herman Jr., Jimmy, in all likelihood was a necessary condition for the occurrence of the phenomenon.
00:57:50 Speaker_06
So they're not necessarily saying he did this, but he's got to be awake and in the house.
00:57:54 Speaker_05
They're saying his presence is needed. We're not saying he did this intentionally, but we're not not saying he did this intentionally. We're saying it's a possibility.
00:58:04 Speaker_05
While OSIS and the Parapsychology Foundation may have kind of hedged their bets with that one, they definitely avoided blaming Jimmy outright, which is nice. Yeah, that is nice.
00:58:15 Speaker_05
Skeptical investigator Joe Nickell had no problems placing the blame where he thought it belonged. In his review of the evidence years later, Nickell wrote, Taken as a whole, the evidence strongly points to 12-year-old James Herman Jr.
00:58:28 Speaker_05
as having been the deliberate cause of the Seaford poltergeist outbreak. The motive, means, and opportunity were his, and the case was unwittingly prolonged by the credulousness of adults.
00:58:40 Speaker_05
So Nickel points to the efforts made by magician Milbourne Christopher to explain the phenomena in 1958, which included an extensive recreation of the bottle popping and other incidents that he performed for Roland Pratt.
00:58:54 Speaker_05
So he was like, this can be done. But by a 12-year-old? Yeah. Possible. Yeah. But it's just like, whoa, you know, like that's a lot. Yeah. It's advanced. He said Pratt had no idea of the simplicity with which the effects were accomplished.
00:59:10 Speaker_05
And Rolle imagined that James' tricks would have had to have been produced by special devices, which would have been installed, operated, and removed in the presence of adult witnesses.
00:59:20 Speaker_05
So he was saying, like, Pratt and Roll were under the impression that whatever was happening here would have been very advanced and something that he would have had devices to do. But not necessarily.
00:59:29 Speaker_05
But then Nickel was able to show him, like, some kind of, like, magician shit, like, kind of, like, sleight of hand thing that he was like, you really don't need that advanced of.
00:59:39 Speaker_06
Yeah.
00:59:40 Speaker_05
You know, but like, did Jimmy know about this? Does a 12 year old know how to do that? I don't know.
00:59:44 Speaker_06
He could if he's into magic and shit.
00:59:46 Speaker_05
But it's interesting.
00:59:46 Speaker_06
And like you said, like the family was connected to scientists.
00:59:49 Speaker_05
Exactly.
00:59:50 Speaker_06
Who knows what conversations he sat in on.
00:59:52 Speaker_05
Yeah.
00:59:53 Speaker_06
Or eavesdropped on even.
00:59:54 Speaker_05
And it's worth noting again, too, that the only reason Pratt and Roll really ruled out the hoax theory was that they couldn't fathom any of the adults in the house having been involved. They really didn't believe the adults were involved in this.
01:00:05 Speaker_05
And they couldn't accept the fact that Jimmy would have been able to execute this entire hoax on his own. But then Nichols kind of showing them, like, he might have been able to.
01:00:13 Speaker_05
yeah but he's also not proving in conclusively like conclusively that he could do all of it he's just saying like some of the stuff you're a little like iffy on he probably could have done that right now those who uh have investigated the case during and after the incidents they agreed on very little it was there was a lot of different theories going on everyone's kind of yelling at each other but most
01:00:34 Speaker_05
do appear to be of one mind when it came for the motive for the activity.
01:00:38 Speaker_05
Like we said, like Pratt and Roll and a couple of other people said the psychokinesis that they were talking about, how it can happen when somebody's in like a very highly emotional or disturbed state. Yeah. So
01:00:50 Speaker_05
They figured that the destruction was caused unintentionally maybe, or intentionally, but they said either way they think the motive might have been Jimmy's allegedly poor relationship with what they refer to as his demanding and generally unsupportive father.
01:01:07 Speaker_05
Oh, that's a bummer. But again, I didn't expect that. Yeah.
01:01:11 Speaker_05
And in the psychological evaluations of Jimmy and Lucille, the kids at this time, the child psychologist concluded that Jimmy demonstrated passive demandingness, hostility to father figures, and personal violence and isolation of effect.
01:01:25 Speaker_06
Oh, wow. That's a lot for a 12-year-old.
01:01:28 Speaker_05
All of which they took to believe to be repressed feelings of anger towards his father. That's really sad. So that is... That can go either way. That can go with, did he intentionally do this for attention? What was that? Or was it subconsciously?
01:01:43 Speaker_05
Or was this some kind of strange, like... Poltergeist feeding off of his anger. Phenomenon that happens because of his highly agitated and emotional state.
01:01:54 Speaker_06
Almost like Carrie. Yeah. Yeah. Like, could it be either? Sure. Yeah. I could see both. Oh, that makes me so sad. When the dad came out and said, you know, like, nobody is like allowed to accuse my son. I was like, yeah.
01:02:07 Speaker_05
Well, and that's why, like, I don't know a lot about their relationship. So I don't want to sit here and like speculate that they had this awful relationship and everything. I mean, it was the 50s. It was the 50s. We remember that.
01:02:16 Speaker_05
So I don't know if anybody really had like the ideal relationship with their father back then. No. He did come to bat for Jimmy during this whole thing, but I don't know what their relationship was before that.
01:02:26 Speaker_05
And we do have a child psychologist who's saying he seems to have anger towards his father. So take with that what you will. But again, we don't have all the facts of that. So allegedly.
01:02:37 Speaker_05
There were, of course, other theories as to the cause of the disturbances. And the most interesting and outlandish were definitely offered, interestingly, by younger readers of the papers who'd been following the story and wanted to weigh in.
01:02:51 Speaker_05
One 14-year-old reader wrote in, it's the pressure in the bottles. That's what's making them pop. I mean, okay, girly. But then the reader went on to say, I can also tell you what isn't the cause of these events. What's not?
01:03:07 Speaker_05
It isn't Martians or things on other planets as some seem to believe. Don't blame it on the Soviet Union or any other country either. Huh. Another reader, though. Hot take. 15-year-old Sandy.
01:03:21 Speaker_05
She said the Soviets might have done something to do with the events. But why it's only happening in only one house? Well, that's a great question. Sandy, babe.
01:03:31 Speaker_06
Sandy grew up to be a conspiracy theorist. Oh, Jesus Christ. So we must ask. Was it a poltergeist?
01:03:40 Speaker_05
Recurrent spontaneous psychokinesis? The Soviets? Or a childish prank that caused the Herman household to explode for one month in 1958? I guess we'll never fucking know.
01:03:52 Speaker_06
I'm willing to bet it wasn't the Soviets.
01:03:55 Speaker_05
To this day.
01:03:56 Speaker_06
We don't know. I know it's not Martians, and I know it's not the Soviets.
01:04:00 Speaker_05
We don't know whether it's a poltergeist, recurrent spontaneous psychokinesis, the Soviets, or a childish prank. It could be any of them.
01:04:06 Speaker_06
Based off, like, what I've heard today, I would like to think that it was poltergeisty and maybe influenced and, like, put on a little bit longer by Jim Jim. I could see that, by Jim Jim. Jim Jim.
01:04:19 Speaker_05
Now, after the media interest in the story died down, they just kind of, like, the family just settled back into their lives. Yeah. James Sr. unsuccessfully ran for public office before retiring from his job.
01:04:33 Speaker_05
Lucille got a part-time job as a school nurse after the kids moved out of the house. And Jimmy maintained that he had absolutely nothing to do with the activity in the house. He did not intentionally do it. Or intentionally, I should say.
01:04:45 Speaker_05
He said, maybe it was my vibes, but it wasn't me. Maybe my vibes were off, but it wasn't my fault. He said, I did not do that. And according to the Hermanns, they never had another experience like those in 1958. Wow.
01:05:01 Speaker_05
James told a reporter in 1987, not a thing is happening around the house now. Everything's been peaceful and quiet every day since it stopped in 1958. Interesting.
01:05:11 Speaker_05
Jimmy graduated from college and went on to become the president of an electronics company in North Andover, Massachusetts. Jimmy! Yeah! Wow!
01:05:21 Speaker_06
Where was the House of Flying Objects?
01:05:22 Speaker_05
It was in Long Island. Oh, Long Island.
01:05:24 Speaker_06
Right, of course.
01:05:26 Speaker_05
Although the Hermanns themselves may have like kind of just faded back into domesticity, you know, bye. I love domesticity. Which is good for them. Their story definitely lived on past that one year. Here we are.
01:05:38 Speaker_05
It was the subject of everything from, you know, TV talk show fodder, because remember back then it was like all about that shit. Oh, hell yeah. Like Ed and Lorraine were on talk shows.
01:05:49 Speaker_05
There was TV movie plots and even, again, one of the biggest ones, the main inspiration for Steven Spielberg and Tobe Hooper's 1982 horror film, Poltergeist. Poltergeist. Poltergeist.
01:06:02 Speaker_05
There's definitely, like, since then, since 1958, there's obviously been some, like, way more frightening and intense phenomenon that we can't explain.
01:06:11 Speaker_05
But the story of Seifert's House of Flying Objects is definitely going to always have the distinction of being really the first modern paranormal investigation in the United States. It's really cool.
01:06:21 Speaker_05
And the first obsessively documented and, like, handled by the American press. Yeah. This is the one that really was the first one to get the attention of the American press and just take it.
01:06:34 Speaker_06
It really popped off.
01:06:35 Speaker_05
It really popped off. So whatever you think is what you think, and that's fine, because I don't have a fucking clue, but I think the vibes are off. So I think the vibes are off. I think we can all agree that the vibes were off.
01:06:51 Speaker_05
I don't think 12-year-old Jimmy meant any harm. And I don't think he did all of it.
01:06:57 Speaker_04
Yeah.
01:06:57 Speaker_05
I really don't. Intentionally. I really don't think he meant any harm if he had anything to do with it. I don't. and it seems like the family recovered after that and they went on to live peacefully and quietly so good for them.
01:07:09 Speaker_05
Hopefully his relationship with his dad, if it wasn't great, I hope it got better. Allegedly. Yeah. Perfect.
01:07:16 Speaker_06
Me too. You know? What an interesting story.
01:07:18 Speaker_05
A very interesting story.
01:07:19 Speaker_06
I liked that one.
01:07:19 Speaker_05
Because it's got a little spookiness to it but it's more just like an interesting look at like like the hoax of it all and the scientific investigation of it all.
01:07:29 Speaker_06
I liked that part, like the scientific investigation, because they took it really seriously and they didn't get... I like when they actually like genuinely scientifically investigate versus like the Ed and Lorraine kind of investigations.
01:07:43 Speaker_06
I think those are cool, but like we've talked about them a lot, so it was interesting to hear like a different kind of investigation.
01:07:48 Speaker_05
Like a straight up look at it using the scientific method. Yeah, I like it. I like that they do that because that's why I love, I think it's Ghost Hunters. It is. It's TAPS, right? Yeah. I was confused. Ghost Adventures, Ghost Hunters, Ghost whatever.
01:08:02 Speaker_06
I'm like 99% positive that Ghost Hunters is TAPS. And then Ghost Adventures is Zach Bagans.
01:08:07 Speaker_05
Yes, precisely. Ghost Hunters. TAPS, I really love. That's why I always loved that show because I just love the spooky vibes of the show. And the approach.
01:08:16 Speaker_05
like they're from Rhode Island so it's like they're Rhode Island and but they go about it intentionally going in to debunk mm-hmm and then they let things take it from there but they don't go in being like I think this is a ghost they go in being like I think something is up here and I'm gonna figure out what it is like Scooby-Doo I like that but different that's a good way to go into in my opinion yeah personally that's how you would do it a paranormal investigation is to go in with the intention of debunking and be surprised if you're surprised
01:08:45 Speaker_06
I think a lot of paranormal happenings are related to science. Yeah. Like in some way, shape or form. It's all energy.
01:08:52 Speaker_05
It's all energy, you know? Drink every time I say that. And you know what? One of the real stars of this is Helen Connolly from Revere. Everybody pawing out for Helen. 74-year-old Helen was just out here being like, you know what? You know what?
01:09:05 Speaker_05
I had the same fucking thing happen to me in April. She said it was crazy. It was crazy. My artificial fireplace, Like paper. What is an artificial fireplace? I think it's like one of those like literally fake little fire.
01:09:17 Speaker_06
Like a, like a movable fireplace. Like a, what's that fucking called? A space heater?
01:09:23 Speaker_05
Yeah. Almost like a space heater. Okay. But I think it like looks like a little fire place. Oh, okay. Like it's got the aesthetic of a little fireplace. But that shit, like paper. That's terrifying. Those things are also so dangerous. Be careful.
01:09:37 Speaker_05
Be very careful around those things. Especially as we get into the winter months. Be careful about your space heaters. But yeah. Interesting. Helen forever. Helen. I really liked that case. Thanks, Dave. I hope Jimmy's doing well. Me too.
01:09:51 Speaker_05
He's the president of Electronics Company. I hope he's killing it.
01:09:54 Speaker_06
Go Jimmy. I hope you guys are doing well too. We also hope that you keep listening. And we hope you keep it weird. But not so weird that you don't sign off in your Revere accent. I know. Bye.
01:11:11 Speaker_06
If you like Morbid, you can listen early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music.
01:11:20 Speaker_06
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