Hundreds of curious,fearful people surrounded the little house in Bridgeport, Connecticut. Some tried to burn it down, convinced it harbored a witch. Others threw garlic, an ancient protection against witches, onto the front steps. For very strange things were happening in this house. It was occupied by Gerald Goodin; his wife, Laura; and their adopted daughter,  Marcia, 11. They often heard tapping, banging sounds. Lights would go on and off. So did the TV. This was just a warm-up for terror.

Early one morning, Gerald Goodin noticed that a large refrigerator had turned from iuts unusual position. The kitched table began to flip up and down. Chairs fell over. He heard a crash from his wife’s bedroom. A religious pucture had fallen off the wall. An even louder crash came from Marcia’s room. Her bureau had fallen over. Wearing only nightclothes, the Goodins fled out into the street. A policeman lived nearby, and he went into the house, but left when the refrigerator began teetering back and forth. All sorts of explanations were offered – an earthquake, an underground stream, the house settling. Police came to the house to guard the Goodins. Experts on hauntings flooded in from all over the country. Among them was a Conneticut man named Boyce Batey. He talked with many witnesses, and saw and heard many of the strange things himself. The turning point in his investigation came on New Year’s Day, 1975, when he was sitting in the Goodins kitchen.

A stereo set moved, and a table went up and down with a bang. Actingon a suspicion, he ran into Marcia’s bedroom. The girl was lying on the bed, face down. “That didn’t seem right to me,” Batey says. “When a loud sound is heard, the tendency is to go towards it.” A picture in the bedroom fell from the wall, scattering glass across the floor. Marcia still lay motionless. Batey and other investigators began to develop a theory: the commotions were not being caused by a ghost or demon, they were being caused by Marcia.

It is becoming well known that some people can cause things to move without touching them. They can cause raps and bangs without hitting anything. This is called “parakinesis”. It happens particularly when people are emotionally disturbed. Often these people are teenagers or slightly younger, for this is often a difficult time of life. And Marcia had more than her share of problems.

 The Goodins had had a young son who had died. They had adopted Marcia, a Native American Iroquois from a reservation in Canada, in an effort to lessen their grief. They were so protective of Marcia that she had almost no outside life. Batey says, “This girl was a very normal child. She was intelligent, artistic, gentle,sweet.” But she had almost no social contact. Mrs. Goodin walked her to school and back. Some children taunted her about her Native American heritage. One kicked her in the back so severely that she was forced to stay home for weeks. It was when she was almost healed and was about to be sent back to her scary school life that the heavy poltergheist activity – things moving around- began.

Bately felt that initially it was Marcia’s way of expressing her anger at her parents and the world.  Afterwards, she wanted to keep the excitement going and the company coming. The police in the house made afuss over her. Her little game had brought social life into the house. Bately recalls: “One time, Marcia and a policeman were playing a game of checkeers, and he won. Withing three minutes, a bedroom bureau fell over, and a TV set fell onto the floor. Marcia had been disappointed by her defeat, but was too gentle to express it in an ordinary way.”

So it would seem that not all poltergheists come from another world. Some come from ordinarily harmless people who are very much part of this one.

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