The South Shields Poltergeist // 133 // Part 1

Transcript

The following is coming from The Paranormal Society and Psychic Elements:

What is a poltergeist? Well, poltergeist is a German word that actually means noisy ghost. The word comes from the German term poltern, to knock, and geist, which means spirit. The defining mark of a poltergeist is any manipulation off the physical environment, such as the movement of objects or physical attacks. Modern scientific studies argue that poltergeists are associated with psychokinesis, which is the ability to move things by power of the mind alone.

Poltergeists are not spirits. They may be a mass form of energy that a living person is controlling unknowingly. They are the most misunderstood and terrifying hauntings and also one of the rarest types. The energy is usually centered on one person in the household or workplace and it's witnessed by others. Polts are psychic disturbances surrounding an unhappy person, often a teenager, and typically females. The activity will usually start small and then it escalates through various stages. The biggest thing to understand is the activity originates from a live person, not an evil spirit. If you are dealing with this and you identify the person causing this energy, seeking help from a professional such as a counselor or therapist can help. Once their inner spirit is comforted, the activity should stop. If it doesn't, maybe you identified the wrong person as the polt. An experienced psychic who is well-trained in counseling may be able to figure out the root cause of the problem and they can offer possible solutions.

Here are some common things you may notice if you have a poltergeist.

-You may have a cat or dog that begins acting strangely. Maybe they're visibly upset, hissing, scratching, or staring at specific areas for no reason.

-You hear small noises at night

-Objects go missing, but return their original spots later

-Parts of the building or home get much colder than the rest of the areas

-You notice strange smells that fade quickly

-Furniture moves on its own

-Electronics turn on and off on their own

-Small fires can start on their own

-Throwing objects

-Doors or windows opening and closing

-Objects levitating

-physical attacks

-Graffiti or writing and it often involves blood

-Glowing orbs

If you have one of these things happening, it might be nothing, but if there are multiple, you better call a paranormal investigator.

THEORIES:

-Natural explanations, houses make weird noises. Maybe there's a gas leak and you're just hallucinating.

-Poltergeist activity can be caused by people with natural psychic powers when they're under high levels of stress. This is called RSPK or recurrent spontaneous psychokinesis.

-High stress such as a divorce, pregnancy, or death can cause unusual activity. It can often be linked to hormone changes.

-There is a correlation with polt activity and people who live near high voltage power lines, wind mills, or phone towers.

Poltergeists are typically temporary, if you're patient, it should fizzle out. They start to lose their abilities and become weaker and will just abruptly end. Most cases only last for a few days to a few weeks and its very rare that they stretch for more than a month. In the case we are discussing today, things went WAY past a month.

It was June 19th, 2006, when Darren Ritson was informed by his colleague, Lesley that there was an alleged haunting at a house in South Tyneside and owners of the home were done. They had

enough of the ghost shit and needed help. He was interested, so he contacted the homeowner's mother, June Peterworth and sent the following email:

“Hi June, it's Daren here, the paranormal investigator.

I was just wondering if you could give me an in-depth idea of the things that have been going on at your daughter's house. If you could write down in detail what has been happening and what you have experienced, that would be great.

Of course, I would love to talk to your daughter, to hear her experiences and get some more background information. An investigation of the property would be a good idea, too. We have a few night-vision video cameras and other tools of the ghost-hunting trade we could use in an effort to catch something on film. If what I hear from Lesley is right, it sounds too good to be true from an investigator's point of view; however, for the family at the focus of the alleged haunting it is a different story and we would try to help in whatever way we can.

Darren”

“Hi Darren,

I will try and list as much as possible from what she has told me and what I experienced myself last night- she is frightened at what's happening and is willing to get any help possible. She is more than happy for you to go to her house at any time and talk to her or do whatever you need to do- I will get back to you with the list of occurrences.

Thanks,

June”

“Darren,

She is going to the spiritualist church tonight, and she may be stopping at my house as her partner is out all night and she is too afraid to stay at home on her own. You can catch her on her mobile.

June”

“Thanks June.

What is the spiritualist church going to do? Are they offering her help? If so, this may be the best 'port of call'. If they are a reputable spiritual group they may be able to make the activity cease. If they don't, I know someone who may be able to help. Whatever the scenario, I would like to investigate in the hope we can prove one way or another that something odd is going on, and of course help your daughter. However, the chances are that the activity will cease as quickly as it all began, but when? That's another question.

Darren”

“Darren,

She's going to the open circle, which is where a lot of the mediums that have been to her house go to. I am not sure what they are going to do; they just keep telling her what spirits are there and pass on messages. They have said they can't force them to go and that it would stop soon.

I suggest you would be better off talking to my daughter as she could give you a lot more information. She has been saying that she has had something in her house for months now and things have escalated in the past couple of weeks.

I'll put together a list of things at lunchtime for you.

June”

June did put together a list of things that were going on at her daughter, Marianne's home and mentioned that it was escalating. When Marianne first told her mother about the ghosts in her home, she just laughed and told her she was imaging things. As the weeks went by, June couldn't deny any longer that something strange was going on and she got to experience it first-hand. June wrote the list of things that were happening:

-Shower has been mysteriously turned on.

-Robert (3 years old) has seen a lady in his bedroom and has talked to her.

-General noises and bumps have been heard when no one is around etc.

-A cup fell from the worktop into bin next to Marianne and her dad twice.

-The blinds keep being taken down in Robert's room

-Robert has seen a little boy called Sam and plays with him in his room

-Marianne and Marc (her boyfriend) have heard a voice on the baby monitor telling Robert that he was going to fall out of bed.

-A vase on stair landing keeps moving from one side to another.

-Coats are thrown up the stairs.

-A chair has been wedged up to the door in Robert's room.

-Robert's table and chair found on the landing.

-Marianne and her dad were standing at back door when a cup from Robert's room landed in the garden and smashed. The window was closed and the blind was down.

-Robert's rocking horse keeps getting moved and turned upside down.

-Ornaments are getting moved.

June said that she went to Marianne's house for the first time since this all started happening. They were all in Robert's room for awhile and he was getting ready for bed, so it took about 10 minutes, then they headed downstairs together for dinner. Around 20 minutes later, they headed back upstairs and noticed the chair in Robert's room was gone and it was now in Marianne's room and the door was shut.

Darren reviewed this information and in the book he said there were classic signs of 'polt-presence'. He was most interested in the incident where a cup supposedly passed through a closed window and blind, only to smash in the garden. It is quite rare for a solid matter to pass through solid matter, even in poltergeist cases. Darren told June to keep writing everything down as it happens so they could keep track of it and she sent another email in July.

“Hi Darren,

Marianne has asked me to contact you as she is still having problems. It started again over a week ago and things are getting worse. She had a priest in on Monday and things seemed to quiet down, but last night things got really bad and they all left the house to stay at mine. Things are getting quite scary and sinister for them, furniture is moving in front of them, things are getting thrown at them, things thrown down stairs at them and much more. Marianne has asked if you can ring her as soon as possible if you don't mind.

Thanks,

June”

Darren called Marianne to get the scoop and she explained that they were having trouble with Robert's rocking horse. It typically stayed in his bedroom, but Marriane's brother Ian found the horse hanging from the loft hatch by its reins. They put the horse in the garden overnight, but when they got up, they found the horse inside the house and it was destroyed. This wasn't the only toy of Robert's that was causing them trouble. He had a large, tan-colored rabbit that belonged in his room. Ian found the rabbit in a blue, plastic bucket chair at the top of the stairs and the rabbit was holding a bade from a box-cutter. And if that wasn't bad enough, Robert's toy cars would launch at Marianne's back as she walked down the stairs and she could feel an invisible force hitting her back, but nothing was there when she turned around. Her boyfriend Marc had been pushed and had stepladders and bed frames fall on him while they were propped against a wall.

Darren and Mike decided it was time to pay Marianne and her husband a visit and they actually noticed something strange during their interview. Mike was sitting on a black leather sofa in the living room and it was a hot, muggy day, but suddenly, he was cold and shivering. Both Marianne and Marc said they have experienced the same thing in other parts of the room. This proved that the couple wasn't faking things.

Marianne was asked to keep records of everything that happened so they could investigate things further and there's SO much, I'll give a list of some of them:

The waste bin in Robert's room moved on its own and his toys were moving

The door slammed and shut when Marc was in the bathroom

A toy lion and crayons from Robert's room was in the garden

A speaker was removed from Marianne's room

A table with drinks was pushed over

Robert saw a man sitting on the sofa in the living room, then he saw the man floating above his bed that night. Then the man was lying on his bed and pulled the quilt off him.

Toys were hurled at Marianne and Marc many times and they were both pushed near the stairs

A storage unit was dismantled and a chair was sitting on top

Robert saw the man in the cupboard and the door opened by itself and the fuses in the cupboard were tripped

Magnets fell from the ceiling

Letters were placed on Robert's doodle board and said DIE

Robert had been removed from his bed and was found wrapped in a quilt under the table. His eyes were wide open and his parents say he was in a trance like state and it took awhile to get him out of it.

Marianne's son, Robert started calling the poltergeist Sammy and they soon realized that they could actually communicate with him. He loved to move their cell phones around the house and one day, Marianne blew up. Both her and Marc had spent all day looking for their phones and she yells, “Look you have to stop this!” They went up the stairs and Marc decided to address Sammy. He told him if this is you, stop it now. If you continue to scare us, we may not be able to stay here and you won't be able to see Robert anymore. They heard a noise in the cupboard and when they looked inside, they saw Robert's doodle board and there was a message on it. It said I AM SORRY. They quickly erased it and decided they would ask questions and put the board back in the cupboard to see if they could communicate.

Marianne said, “We know you like being here, Sammy, and we know you like Robert, but you must stop being naughty. You mustn't throw things around, you should put things back where you find them.” The message on the board said OK. She continued, “Sammy, we aren't here to harm you. We only want to help.” Sammy wrote I LOVE ROBBERT. Marianne reads this and says, “If you love Robert please don't throw things around, because you'll frighten him and then he won't want to play with you.”

The next message was a little different. Sammy wrote OK MAM BUT THE and then there was a drawing of an animal. Marianne and Marc wondered if it was a picture of a dog? They did have a family dog named Bounder. She said, “Sammy, this is your mam. We don't understand what you meant by your last message.” He responded with BAD DOG. She said, “Is it the dog you're frightened of?” The next message said YES, but it was actually written upside down. They asked if Sammy would be willing to talk to the investigators when they arrived and he said NO.

This information was all documented and sent over to Mike and Darren who were planning on stopping by again and Sammy kept them very busy. Their recordings were erased, bleach was pushed over in the bathroom, a night light was pulled from the wall, ice cubes were spread across the shelves in the fridge/freezer, pennies were falling from the ceiling, and the dining room table slammed into Darren's leg.

When the investigators were analyzing evidence, they noticed that the handwriting was not consistent on the doodle board messages. It looked like they were written by more than one entity. That means that Sammy wrote them all and changed handwriting, there are different entities and they are all claiming to be Sammy, or Sammy genuinely wrote some and the others were faked, or every message was faked. The photos of the doodle board messages were sent to two handwriting analysts, Dennis Duez and Dana White. The analysts also received samples of Marianne's and Marc's handwriting.

Dana White said that her overall feeling was that most of the messages had been written by an adult, but at least one of the messages was written by a child and the writer attempted to disguise their writing to appear more childlike. Dana felt that the writer was male and two of his main character traits were stubbornness and obstinacy. They have a tendency towards industry and enterprise and knows what he wants and how to get it, but the writer appears to be in distress and was in desperate need of help. Dana said that the writer had an unusual habit of writing letters in the shape of numerals. The letter S looked like a 5 or 7 and a G looked like an 8. This indicates that the person is money-orientated. They also switched between cursive and capital letters and this could mean that the writer isn't understood and is trying to be forceful to get attention. Dana felt very strongly that whoever wrote these messages, had a disturbed mind based on the handwriting samples.

The writing on the doodle board was most similar to Marc's own handwriting. People had been in the room with Marc when some of the poltergeist things were happening, so it would be really difficult for him to fake everything. Many experts in the field believe that a poltergeist is actually external negative energy that is created by stress. When a human host can no longer contain this energy, it can externalize itself and behave like a human or entity. If Marc was the one that was causing this energy, that could explain why it has similar handwriting. Either way, Dana did believe that there was some kind of entity because she saw it when she was reviewing the writing samples. She was sitting in her garden, looking at the images and she saw a tall man with straight black hair and a long coat staring at her. This was the same man that Robert described seeing in his room. Despite the similarities between Marc and the poltergeist's handwriting, it is not believed that Marc himself was faking the messages.

At some point during the investigation, the team decided to bring in a psychic named Jill. She went to Marc and Marianne's home and said she could sense a number of negative emotions in the living room. Lots of unhappiness, fear and rage. She felt that something unpleasant happened in that location and she was sensing that someone had taken their own life under very tragic circumstances. Mike mentioned that a lot of things seem to happen in Robert's room, so she may want to check that out. When they walked in, they saw something very disturbing. There was a small table in the center of the room and Robert's rabbit was lying on top with a kitchen knife in his paw and the knife blade was laid across the neck of a toy duck. The prayer that hung on a frame was turned backwards, and some of Robert's toys were hung from the shelf and the policeman toy had cord around his neck.

The investigators truly felt that there was strong poltergeist activity in the home, but they also wondered if Marc was playing things up or faking some of it. It was at least something that needed to be ruled out, so they decided to watch him extra close while they were at the house and they were presented with a great opportunity to do so. Marc was in the kitchen pouring himself a glass of water and the investigators followed him in to watch. Suddenly, they heard a loud noise outside and they turned to see building blocks falling from the sky. Robert was playing in the garden and started giggling. He said there was a man in his room that tossed the blocks out the window. On this particular day, investigators had set up a camera that was facing the door of Roberts room and you can't see anyone enter the room or open the window, but you can hear a thud when the blocks dropped outside. Shorty after this, toys were thrown down the stairwell while they were reviewing footage.

Before anyone had arrived at the home that day, Marianne kept getting calls on the landline, but no one was there when she answered, it just kept disconnecting the call. They noticed that the calls had been coming from her boyfriend Marc's phone, so they tried to find it, but couldn't. Marianne used her cell to call his phone and it said phone busy on the screen. It was in use. The landline rang and Marianne answered again. Marc's phone had sent her a text message that was automatically translated to a voice message, so they heard the automated voice message say HI HI HI HI over and over again. Marc's phone was later discovered sitting right in the middle of the table, out in the open. They decided to place all phones in sight to make sure there was no trickery and the landline rang again a few minutes later. The voice message said HELLO. About 7 minutes later, another call came through and said SORRY.

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