A poltergeist ("noisy ghost," from the German poltern, to make noise, and geist, spirit) is a type of reported haunting phenomenon centred on physical disturbance rather than a visible apparition — objects thrown or moved, furniture displaced, unexplained noises, and electrical disturbances, rather than a seen or felt presence. Unlike most entries under Ghosts and Hauntings, poltergeist activity is not always attributed to a deceased spirit at all; a major strand of research instead attributes it to a living person within the household.
Recurrent Spontaneous Psychokinesis (RSPK)
The scientific-sounding term "Recurrent Spontaneous Psychokinesis" (RSPK) was coined by parapsychologist William G. Roll following his 1958 investigation, with Joseph Gaither Pratt, of the Seaford, New York poltergeist case, in which the Herrmann family reported repeated unexplained disturbances. Roll proposed that at least some poltergeist activity might stem from a living person's own unconscious psychokinetic ability, rather than an external spirit — a marked departure from the traditional "ghost" framing of the phenomenon.
Analysing dozens of cases, Roll identified a recurring pattern: activity tends to centre on a single household member, referred to as the "agent" or "focus person," most often an adolescent, and disturbances typically cease once that person leaves the location — a pattern Roll's own analysis of 92 cases found present in 62 of them. Proponents theorise the agent may be unconsciously channelling emotional stress, repressed anger, or hormonal changes, most commonly around puberty, into unintentional physical effects. RSPK has never been accepted by mainstream science, and critics have characterised parapsychologists who investigated it, including Roll himself, as overly credulous.
Notable cases
The Enfield Poltergeist
The best-documented poltergeist case in British history occurred at a council house on Green Street, Enfield, North London, between 1977 and 1979, centred on 11-year-old Janet Hodgson and her family. Reported phenomena included furniture moving, loud knocking, thrown objects, and a gruff voice claiming to be a deceased former resident of the house, investigated over roughly 18 months by Society for Psychical Research investigators Maurice Grosse and Guy Lyon Playfair and witnessed by police officers, journalists, and neighbours. Some specific incidents were later attributed to pranks admitted by the children involved, while investigators maintained that other elements remained unexplained; proponents of RSPK have linked the case to the stress Janet was reportedly experiencing around her parents' separation.
The Rosenheim Poltergeist
A 1967 case in Rosenheim, Germany, notable for occurring in an office environment rather than a private home, with reported electrical disturbances documented by physicists from the Max Planck Institute, and activity again linked to a young employee present at the time.
The Seaford Poltergeist
Roll's original 1958 case, later re-examined by sceptical investigator Joe Nickell, who concluded that all the reported phenomena could be explained by deliberate trickery on the part of the Herrmann family's twelve-year-old son.
Scientific and sceptical perspective
Sceptics attribute poltergeist cases to a combination of deliberate fraud — often by the "agent" seeking attention — unconscious or conscious trickery, misperception of ordinary events, and investigator bias, and note that in several high-profile cases the agent was directly caught producing phenomena by normal means. As with other subjects gathered under Parapsychology, RSPK remains a fringe hypothesis rather than an accepted explanation, even among researchers who take poltergeist reports seriously as a subject worth investigating.
See also
- Ghosts and Hauntings
- Society for Psychical Research
- Parapsychology
- Mother Shipton Inn, whose reported "sealed room" discovery shares some thematic overlap with poltergeist case histories