00:00:06
hey weirdos I'm Alina and I'm Ash and this is [Music] morbid what is up [ __ ] what is
00:00:28
up so we're doing something foreen I won't say what it is it's a special surprise but part of it does involve
00:00:33
Elena wearing a weird contact in her eye and I'm wearing it right now and she's wearing it right now and it's it's
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throwing me off um it threw John way off John [ __ ] hates it he hates it John said get that out of your eyeball he
00:00:47
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
00:00:53
hear oh oh God no no no he hates and it freaks him out I love it I think it's great he knows now he was like oh no
00:01:03
this is going to be like you're just going to pop that in on like a random Tuesday and just walk downstairs aren't
00:01:08
you you should just like wake him up one morning wearing both of them and just stare at him yeah oh but you're afraid
00:01:12
to put one in the other eye I am I have like one eye that I had like it it's just a problematic eye didn't some the
00:01:20
kids like scratched it when they were babies yeah when they were like babies one of my kids accidentally poked into
00:01:26
my eye and then like ripped and literally T my cornea open like like it wasn't like a scratch on the cornea like a flap
00:01:36
was like literally the worst pain I've ever felt in my entire life it wasn't immediate I know we're getting off track
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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
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know from the eyes because it was bad like it was a bad poke and you were like oh my eye was like wateringly crazy and
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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
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middle of the night and I woke up and I opened my lid and my lid tore the remaining piece of my cornea up no and
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that was the worst pain I have ever experienced in my life and I have had three children yeah and I'm saying that
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confidently cuz I literally started to sob immediately but didn't want to wake anyone up because that's who I am and I
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went down stairs and just paced around crying into pillows and contemplating whether I should run full force into a
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wall and knock myself out that's how bad that pain was and I'm not saying that to
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be funny that is the reality of what happened I literally looked at a wall and I said should I run into it I'm just
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picturing a quiet still house like 4 a.m. yeah and then everybody just hears like just like what's that I'm just
00:03:05
picturing the cartoon birds above your head the stars no I literally did they we had to go to the ER I remember and
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they had to give me like the the numbing stuff like the lidocaine drops but they
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can only give you that once cuz they'll [ __ ] up your eye oh my God so they give
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you it and the relief is immediate and you go it goes away oh God this is amazing and then they send you home and
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they well you need to get you know you need to have an appointment you need to get
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all this stuff done you have to get a permanent or like like semi-permanent cont um a contact like a healing contact
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put on it because they had to like do something to it to like repair it reop so it wouldn't keep tearing open damn so
00:03:47
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 cuz
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there was so exposed that I couldn't be in the Sun burn your eye my eye story so
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the story at the end of that story is just that I I don't want to put a contact yeah moral of the story I don't
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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
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you heard that right um I was Ling with my girlies in class and I was holding a pencil and I literally went oh and like
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like T tilted my head back and then fell forward and scratched my cornea which that in and of itself hurts so bad I
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can't even imagine tearing my open and I was on crutches at that point because that summer I had broken my
00:04:35
pelvis um and then to add insult to mother [ __ ] injury 14 years old 8ighth grade like always the greatest
00:04:42
Time of Your Life AB except not at all the worst i' wear an eye patch so you're wearing an eye patch while on crutches
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an eye patch and I was on crutches I did not wear the eye patch as long as they told me to because I said honey my
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reputation will never recover I said I'm sorry doctor I be damned I I don't a [ __ ] I'll go blind before I walk theall
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damage my reputation with an eye patch and crushes oh my God I was on crutches for so long that people started to say I
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was faking even though I mean I was like I broke my [ __ ] pelvis like it's going to take me a while to heal here
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yeah it's like pretty big bone so then adding an eye patch to that it was was not good it's not good no good damn you
00:05:22
know that as Ash is a Lawler when she laughs she laughs with her whole body one thing about me is I la she's a
00:05:28
Lawler so I'm in it for the lws well this one um will not make you L I don't think but
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it'll make you go huh so you'll ha in L this is um this is the house of flying objects known I know isn't that kind of
00:05:44
beautiful kind of love it it's also known as the popper Poltergeist it almost was like
00:05:49
Poltergeist that's silly the popper Poltergeist that makes me also L this one is one of those cases where there
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isn't an answer to this day they were not able to debunk so it's a haunt but there's a theory but this Theory again
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is a theory and it has not been proven and the person who the theory is against vehemently says not me they did not
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cause this to happen all right so I'll I'll leave it to you at the end you decide so this is the family was the
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Herman Family um and it's this case is considered by many to be the first modern investigation into Poltergeist
00:06:30
disturbances it was in the 50s oh [ __ ] and it was actually the inspiration for
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Steven Spielberg's 1982 in Toby Hooper's horror film uh Poltergeist oh now despite all the attention it got the
00:06:44
case like I said is still unexplained they have not been able to figure out what the [ __ ] was going on in this house
00:06:50
it's really hard to look at you right now I know this is really fun to tell a story serious too so it's like I'm
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serious and I have this really scary eye yes but it's so kind of goofy cuz you're
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just in like regular clothes you know and like you have your hair extensions too so you're just like I'm pretty my
00:07:06
eyes 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
00:07:12
you in the haunted house a big blonde blowout listen that's like their s yeah can always be spotted so as far as
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anyone could remember the disturbances in the Herman house started on Monday February 3rd
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1953 uh 43-year-old James Herman man was at work and his wife 38-year-old Lucille
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and their children Jimmy and Lucille uh were home alone at their home in Long Island New York Long Island Long Island
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I love when a woman names her daughter after herself I think that's a [ __ ] power move in a yeah Laura and Rory cuz
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guys do it all the time but you don't hear of it with women often and I love that both the kids are Juniors
00:07:50
yes James and Lucille that was lost on me yeah see they both did check it good for them uh Mrs Herman was finishing up
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some chores on the first floor of the house and she suddenly heard some popping noises coming from the second
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floor and when she went up to look Lucille found that a small holy water bottle on the dresser in the main
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bedroom you know like everyone has I was going to say whoa like just like okay just their holy water that they had on
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their nightstand okay um its cap was unscrewed and the bottle was laying on its side with the contents all spilled
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okay now in Jimmy's bedroom like I'm going to call James the father and Jimmy the son so you can okay differentiate in
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Jimmy's bedroom Lucille found that the head of a ceramic doll had been broken and several pieces of a model ship he
00:08:40
had been working on had snapped off H and in other places in the house Lucille discovered several other bottles where
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the Caps appeared to have simply popped off okay with no explanation pop off just popping off now although there were
00:08:54
some minor disturbances in the house in the days after that mostly witnessed by the children Lucille and Jimmy the
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problem didn't escalate until the morning of February 9th that morning a little after 10:00 a.m. the whole family
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was gathered in the dining room just eating breakfast and they heard the popping noises again this time they all
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heard it m Lucille ran to the main bedroom and discovered that the cap on the holy water bottle again had come off
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and the contents was spilled on the on the nightstand and a bottle of expensive perfume that was also on her dresser had
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spilled top [ __ ] that you mess with my perfume you die I figured you were going
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to be pissed about that so pissed so she's examining these bottles being like what the [ __ ] is going on here and she
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heard more popping noises as this was happening she went in the bathroom and a shampoo bottle and a bottle of liquid
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medication their cops had popped off and they were tipped over and the contents was spilling everywhere what and again
00:09:47
the kids are downstairs right so and it's not like it like like these bottles are like popping like she hears hear the
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pop sound like like someone's unscrewing things and tipping it over there's a pop
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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
00:10:05
so in the kitchen also a bottle of cooking starch exploded damn and in the basement a bottle of paint thinner
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popped open and began spilling the contents oh no so like what the [ __ ] is going on what is going on yeah so
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they're all clearly alarmed by what's happening so Lucille was like I'm calling the police I don't know what's
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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 yeah I
00:10:30
mean you call Ghostbusters like what do you do well and weird things like that happen and like it could be like a gas
00:10:35
sleep or something like exactly yeah which like when you really think about it you're like clearly it's not but like
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you would think like I can't determine what is happening here so like I'm afraid my house is going to explode yeah
00:10:46
so she called the police and patrolman Jay Hughes was dispatched to the house okay so Hughes sat with the family in
00:10:52
the living room to take their statement and the officer heard popping noises coming from the bathroom and they all
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went in there to look at what happened and the officer found that both the medicine and shampoo bottle had spilled
00:11:04
again and had popped their caps I love that the ghost was like I'm not going to hide yeah he was like oh hey officer
00:11:10
I'll do this in front of the cops call them so Lucille and James senior explained to Hughes at the time of the
00:11:15
occurrences there were no Tremors in the house and no loud noises or disturbances
00:11:19
of any kind that could be noticed okay a few days later on February 11th the whole thing repeated itself in the house
00:11:27
and Lucille called the police again and was like it's [ __ ] happening again so detective Joseph totsy arrived at the
00:11:33
Herman's house and uh very quickly and sat down to take their statement again and he labeled this report I love it
00:11:40
local investigation broken bottles think that's it no put this one top of shelf guys broken bottles
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according to Lucille since the last officer had been at the house a few days earlier quote the disturbances appeared
00:11:54
to be increasing in both number and magnitude huh so of course tot's first thought was I think your children are
00:12:03
playing a prank on you yeah uh maybe you know and so he warned the children he said to the children if they were in any
00:12:10
way connected with this case and that they were causing the disturbances in some way that is a serious matter yeah
00:12:15
cuz you're taking up our time yeah he was like you have to know that like if police are being called and you're
00:12:20
playing playing pranks you're going to be in trouble yeah like stop it cut it out so Jimmy and Lucille the kids were
00:12:26
like we did not do this like I promise and totsy said he was very convinced of their innocence like they did not seem
00:12:32
to have anything to do with this later that day and much to the surprise of James and Lucille Herman their story
00:12:39
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
00:12:44
they loved it oh okay and one reporter wrote the Revolt of the bottles today gripped the once tranquil Home of James
00:12:53
Herman I can't imagine listening to that and it wrote it probably wouldn't have seemed out of the ordinary to readers a
00:12:59
few bottle caps popped off unexpectedly and then it said but the article was quick to point out all the bottles that
00:13:05
flipped their Lids had screw type caps and the Caps were not bent or distorted they just came off which is weird which
00:13:11
is weird now out of concern that there might be some sort of like we said gas leak something weird something dangerous
00:13:19
that's happening some unseen hazard in this house James called Dr Donald Hughes which was an acquaintance of his who
00:13:26
worked at the Brook Haven National Laboratory which was a was a local atomic energy lab he's very smart guy
00:13:34
casual and he asked like is my family in danger should I get my family out of this house what's going on are we all
00:13:40
going to explode yeah and Hughes told him I cannot think of any cause for all of this it's certainly possible that
00:13:46
some bottles might explode from overdevelopment of gas but it would have nothing to do with radioactivity okay so
00:13:52
he was like I don't think you're in danger but like I can't explain to you what's happening I don't think you're in
00:13:57
danger but I also don't know actually know I don't rightly know sir to summarize here I don't rightly
00:14:05
know so by the next day more news outlets had picked up this story and they were calling it The Revolt of the
00:14:11
bottles I'm kind of obsessed with that I love all of this like I love that the report was called local investigation
00:14:18
broken bottles I love that all the articles are calling it The Revolt of the bottles I'm into it like the bottles
00:14:23
are revolting against this family for some weird reason they're like you know what we've had enough yeah and like I
00:14:29
said the hermans actually like loved it they were enthusiastically responding to
00:14:33
press inquiries okay on February 12th detective totsy returned to the house in response to another complaint this time
00:14:41
they said additional bottle lieds were popping off and a plastic Angel ornament had a wing snapped off of it oh that's
00:14:48
sad yeah so totsy took the bottles and the angel as evidence but didn't really have anything else for them he was like
00:14:55
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
00:15:00
like a ton of reporters photographers camera Crews that had started to gather on the front lawn of the house of course
00:15:05
they were all interested to learn like this must be paranormal what's going on so Mrs Herman led the group through the
00:15:13
house she said check all this said sure pointing out where the various disturbances had occurred and a
00:15:19
man that nobody knew worked his way to the front of the crowd and introduced himself as quote a holy man from Center
00:15:27
more riches I'm [ __ ] obsessed with that said hello I'm a holy man I love it it gets even funnier because immediately
00:15:34
after introducing himself the man just dropped to his knees dropped to his knees in the dining room and started
00:15:39
praying loudly and excitedly for about 10 minutes straight okay so I don't really love that but when he was
00:15:44
finished he turned to Lucille Herman and said everything's all right you've been
00:15:49
forgiven and then he just walked out of the house got in his car and drove the [ __ ] away and no one saw him
00:15:57
again that's the kind of energy I'm looking for minus the prayer like just he's like hello I'm a holy man and then
00:16:03
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
00:16:10
just leaves and never comes back what the [ __ ] but this is very early on in the story so it seems like it didn't
00:16:17
work but honestly the star of the story in my opinion just just introduce yourself and
00:16:23
then go for it also way to like feed the rumor mill by looking directly at Lucille and being like it's all good and
00:16:30
like you've been forgiven you did like what the [ __ ] did she do yeah now this supposed holy man from Center moices was
00:16:37
just the first of many unusual characters to appear in the lives of the hermans to give Solutions some kind of
00:16:44
explanation for what was going on in their house that same day the family was visited by Dr Norman foder uh who was a
00:16:51
New York City psychoanalyst who had been studing studying studding studding study
00:16:56
studying the phenomenon of ghosts for DEC decades at this point I don't know why I can't speak it's hard according to
00:17:03
Dr Norman uh the destruction in the Herman's house was being caused by a poltergeist hey which he described as
00:17:11
quote a kind of biological life force that in some admittedly unknown manner leaps out of a person's body and
00:17:18
physically affects objects at a distance okay so Dr Norman explained that Poltergeist activity and this is a
00:17:26
thing related to Poltergeist activity it was it's commonly associated with adolescence undergoing puberty I did
00:17:33
know that yeah and it's speculated that the Poltergeist energy was likely coming
00:17:37
from 12-year-old Jimmy okay now to the hermans and the press and the public honestly the explanation seemed as
00:17:44
plausible as any at this point they were like sure why not I love that the public
00:17:48
is like down for this yeah the public was like yeah cuz usually they're like they like ostracize the family and
00:17:53
they're like oh my God they're [ __ ] crazy I think in the 50s they were just like sure what else are we going to talk
00:17:57
about why not but they still welcomed any advice or any alternative explanations they were just like sure
00:18:02
we'll we'll pin that one on the board yeah the detectives at the seventh precin for example instructed Lucille to
00:18:09
try an experiment they said fill 10 bottles with water and watch them throughout the day to see if they were
00:18:14
affected but by the end of the day they were still intact okay so that's interesting MH meanwhile an electrician
00:18:21
from the Long Island Lighting Company visited the house and inspected all the circuitry top to bottom he found no
00:18:27
faulty wiring no issues that could be causing disturbances and the technician went as far as setting up a device
00:18:33
capable of detecting the slightest vibrations and detected nothing that's really cool other more Supernatural
00:18:40
explanations were definitely offered by the public including those relating to the positions of you know the stars and
00:18:46
the planets in the sky or something like that yeah which I'm like I don't think that had to do with this I don't think
00:18:51
it had to do with this you know things related to high frequency vibration um the erosion of a stream under the house
00:18:59
causing the ground to shift in subtle undetectable ways people were really really reaching for anything they could
00:19:06
tap into here now all the media attention surrounding what they were now referring to as the house of flying
00:19:12
objects eventually extended Beyond just New York and it ended up reaching JB Ryan who was the founder of Duke Le
00:19:21
University's Paras psychology lab in Durham North Carolina oh cool um Ryan was a botanist by training but he had
00:19:27
also maintained a very serious interest in the Paranormal for decades he was very very into it uh he was introduced
00:19:34
to the concept in the 1920s actually Wow when he and his wife attended a lecture
00:19:40
by um a man you might know the name of a world-renowned author and paranormal Enthusiast um Sir Arthur coronan Doyle
00:19:48
do we know him Sherlock Holmes he wrote Sherlock H I don't actually know who that is
00:19:54
Arthur Conan Doyle uh within a few years of that lecture Ryan in a small number of research assistants started
00:20:00
investigating because he was very like interested in what he had to say and they started investigating the potential
00:20:05
for extra sensory perception ESP by testing students at Duke University and officially starting the lab in 1930 so
00:20:14
you really got into that's really cool and very like um like ahead of his time yeah truly so Ryan and his Institute at
00:20:21
Duke were dedicated to the scientific pursuit of the Paranormal so from the outset he hoped to apply the scientific
00:20:28
method to researching the Paranormal and he enthusiastically rooted out frauds and charlatans in the Paranormal world
00:20:35
he was going to call your ass out he was going to debunk your [ __ ] cool that's
00:20:39
his job yeah if he can't if he can't explain it cool but if he can explain it he's going to expl he's like Ghost
00:20:46
Hunters internet you know yeah like um like Taps yes yes yes they debunk so among the most notable achievements that
00:20:54
he had was the debunking and defaming of mina Crandon who was a notorious psychic
00:21:00
median who had been defrauding and exploiting people for years through her sances Mina that's me said get [ __ ]
00:21:08
Mina like that's one of his notable achievements was proving that she's a charlatan hate that I love the word
00:21:13
charlatan I do too uh but he had also been looking for an opportunity to begin exploring the Poltergeist phenomenon
00:21:19
because that had become a thing in the Paranormal world at this time and he told a reporter of his learning of the
00:21:24
Herman case we are always glad to be informed of puzzling phenomena either human or animal we don't have any record
00:21:31
that has been adequately proved so for the time being Ryan asked a colleague in New York to look into the case and just
00:21:38
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
00:21:43
involved in the meantime the activity of the uh Herman house I I had to take a deep breath after covid I don't know if
00:21:50
anybody else I'm still like my run out of breath like very easily that's not great yeah it's well I still have a so I
00:21:59
think it's not helping so in the meantime the activity at the house escalated in frequency and intensity a
00:22:06
few days after tot's last visit on February 13th the family continued to get experience the whole like bottle caps
00:22:13
you know popping off of their bottles yeah uh all the contents spilling and now the incidents were accompanied by
00:22:19
objects flying around the room okay hate that in Jimmy's bedroom a plastic Angel
00:22:24
ornament flew from its position on the nightstand and crashed into a statue of Davey Crockett 4 feet away that is the
00:22:32
most iconic thing I've ever heard period angel statue launching itself into Davey
00:22:39
Crocket like that happened she said [ __ ] you Davey and there were several literally [ __ ] you Davey Crockett and
00:22:46
there were several other instances where things were flying at the family essentially interesting that there's
00:22:52
been a couple instances of angels too like breaking like uh oh do you have a diamond now later that afternoon a water
00:23:00
bottle and another perfume bottle in the main bedroom lost their Lids the contents Spilled Out but this time the
00:23:07
bottles were reported to be hot to the touch okay now Herman said I had just gone into the room with my son and
00:23:16
daughter and we noticed that another bottle had fallen it was hot as if lukewarm water was in it this was the
00:23:22
first time I had noticed that like that particular thing and what I say to that is the those are two conflicting ideas
00:23:30
um how is it hot if there's lukewarm water in it thank you because when I have lukewarm water it does not make the
00:23:37
outside hot no it makes it lukewarm correct so I'm confused by that yeah but if it's hot to the touch it's like was
00:23:46
it like heated up somehow on the outside and like press and then like got pressurized and that's why the bottles
00:23:52
are popping off and it's like somebody walking around with like a lighter yeah and it's like remember this is the 50s
00:23:57
so it's like did they have lighters in the' 50s I don't we matches and what and I think that's what's important is like
00:24:03
there's so many things in here where you're going to go well it's that but then you have to be like wait it's the
00:24:09
50s would they even know how to do that you know you mean like there's so you got to like bring it back to there and
00:24:13
be like wait a second right not impossible like all these things that we're going to come through but like
00:24:18
interesting at the very least like what you learned in science at Jimmy's age I know cuz he's 12 remember so not he
00:24:26
wouldn't have like super advanced yeah you shouldn't have I mean scienic knowledge yeah unless he's like really
00:24:32
into science which he could be mhm his dad was friends with Scientists like so yeah it's obviously you know but a few
00:24:40
days later the intensity of the attacks appeared to increase okay bottles were now
00:24:46
shattering which is interesting ink was being thrown across the walls damn and more ornaments and figurines were flying
00:24:53
from the shelves and smashing on the floor or against the wall to this point was the hermans alone who'd experienced
00:25:00
all this like no one else was in the house but on February 21st detective totsy was in the house when in an
00:25:06
adjoining room he saw a porcelain figure shoot 10 ft across the room and smash itself against the wooden secretary
00:25:15
putting a sizable dent in the wood wow so it had to have been launched hard yeah and he saw that nobody was in that
00:25:23
room like he said it launched itself all he saw was this thing launch itself across the r and it's it's a porcelain
00:25:31
figure and it hit that wooden thing so hard that there was a sizable D which is crazy which takes Force yeah absolutely
00:25:41
so totsy documented this and returned to the precinct but less than an hour later
00:25:46
he was called back to the house by Lucille and when he got there he found Mrs Herman and the children huddled
00:25:51
together in the hall saying she figured that would be the safest place oh cuz she was saying like everywhere flying at
00:25:59
us like I'm afraid one of the kids is going to get hurt yeah so according to Lucille not long after detective totsy
00:26:04
left the house it went crazy like things the ferocity and directness was something they had not experienced like
00:26:11
that it was things were being thrown hard and they were being thrown directly at them like and that hadn't happened
00:26:17
before before it was kind of flying across the room maybe near them well and that's kind of like what happens with
00:26:22
Poltergeist activity like gradually exactly and in fact whatever was you know Popp and caps I knew you'd like
00:26:30
that one I'm obsessed popping caps like literally popping caps off bottles and hurling objects seem to now be doing so
00:26:37
with the kind of like aggressiveness and malevolence that implied sentience like it implied that they this
00:26:46
thing was angry at the hermans themselves I kind of [ __ ] love that right like it it imp implied that they
00:26:52
are this thing is trying to hurt them like I don't want it to hurt them I don't love that but I just I love a
00:26:56
sentient being yeah like a this is seems like a sentient like it's making a choice interesting that that guy looked
00:27:03
at Lucille before diping off into the sunset and said they forgave you maybe they didn't maybe they just told that
00:27:10
guy she was forgiven yeah exactly yeah no it wasn't enough to alarm the family with like you know when it was like a
00:27:17
few bottles popping off here and there like they were more just confused by that they weren't like super scared cuz
00:27:23
was hurting them under attack but that's the thing now it's destroying their property and H objects at them and think
00:27:30
like of like the sentimental things that you have that probably got D they're worried that this is going to hurt the
00:27:34
kids so the disturbance on the night of the 21st was so intense that the next day James and Lucille thought it was
00:27:41
best to go stay with family members nearby um just to get a break like they were like we don't want to deal with the
00:27:46
media anymore we don't want to deal with what's going on in the house yeah it seems like very overwhelming James
00:27:51
Herman told a reporter my wife has lost sleep during the last days and the kids are getting behind on their homework oh
00:27:57
no so while they were staying with relatives Lucille received a call from Helen Connelly who was a 74-year-old
00:28:03
widow in Rivier Massachusetts R Ria in Rivia oh yeah we got Helen oh honey Rivia Here Comes Helen from Rivia my
00:28:13
sister was thinking about moving to Rivier and I was like you going to live in Rivier and she said no not anymore
00:28:19
she said never mind so Helen from Rivia called and she and also 74 yearold Helen
00:28:26
I just have to do like a quick side note here I had a client from Riv when I still worked at the hair salon and her
00:28:31
name was Tony and she had red hair and she was like an older lady and she was the coolest [ __ ] broad I've ever met
00:28:38
I love that and I love Tony and Tony if somehow for some reason you're listening
00:28:41
to this I miss you I love you you're phenomenal Tony from Ria she was the coolest well you know what Helen also
00:28:48
Helen just wanted to help so was she cool so Helen called and she had read about the experiences in the paper Okay
00:28:55
and she wanted to offer some advice okay I'm I'm help from Riv I got something to
00:28:59
tell you she said we had the same thing in April of last year she told them tables chairs ashtrays dishes lamps even
00:29:08
an artificial fireplace was lifted like paper an artificial fireplace an artificial fireplace was lifted like
00:29:14
paper paper she said hel oh my God according to Helen a building inspector looked over the home and determined the
00:29:22
cause of the problem was builtup gases trapped in the chimney we had the inspector come out he searched around
00:29:28
my God we had an inspector Sully come out and he told us that it was just built up gases trapped in the chimney
00:29:36
it's just gases and when it was freed back into the house it would blow items around the house okay yeah and while
00:29:42
they were away detective totsy was like all right cool like that sounds valid like thank you Helen from Riva she she
00:29:50
was like that's all I just wanted to help I think it might be gases and you [ __ ] do you have an artificial
00:29:56
fireplace Queen queen queen so while they were away staying with family detective totsy arrived arranged for the
00:30:04
home to have a turbine style ventilator installed on the outside of the chimney and that would prevent any downdrafts
00:30:11
from entering the house that way cuz he was like let's debunk that like let's get that maybe that's it maybe so it did
00:30:18
seem a little uh unlikely that drafts were the problem in this house I don't know if drafts are causing objects to
00:30:25
fly with such force that they're denting wood trying to debunk but yeah go for it
00:30:29
it was just again totsy said I just want to rule out any potential explanation and in response to a request for comment
00:30:37
from a reporter John ditri a chairman of science at the Merchant Marine Academy refuted this gases theory he said
00:30:44
activity like that as the result of just the free movement of gases doesn't sound
00:30:48
plausible okay the idea sounds rather Fantastical to me that's funny cuz my response was that sounds plausible I
00:30:53
know and it's and he was like that does not sound plausible now if the Herman's temporary stay with relatives was
00:30:59
supposed to give them a break from the media attention and the disruptions it wasn't exactly successful at least in
00:31:05
terms of the media attention in fact them fleeing their home in desperation really only generated more interest in
00:31:12
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
00:31:19
it um they definitely like entertained the Press when they needed to like I think they just kind of kept them on
00:31:24
their side yeah which is smart I was going to say you um on February 24th Dave Khan a reporter from the Long
00:31:32
Island newspaper news day actually moved into the Herman's home while they were living with the family wow to cover the
00:31:39
story from a firsthand perspective he wanted to experience it that's cool and in his first report from the house Khan
00:31:46
referred to his initial night as a frightening experience really according to him the activity began the evening of
00:31:52
his first night a little after 8:00 p.m. as he and James senior were sitting in the dining room having coffee out of
00:31:59
nowhere KH heard a loud crash from the living room and rushed in and found a figure had smashed against the wooden
00:32:06
secretary interestingly Conan notes that just after he heard the crash he jumped
00:32:11
out of his chair and ran into the living room and he said but Jimmy got there before
00:32:15
us H now a short time later after the reporter had settled back in the dining room they heard a quote low Rumble come
00:32:25
from upstairs and when they went to investigate they found that the dresser in Jimmy's bedroom had inexplicably
00:32:30
tipped over and he said I tried when I heard the noise like he tried to move it Jimmy told his father and con but he
00:32:38
said and a part of the dresser landed on my foot I only saw it fall the last few
00:32:42
inches ouch so he was like in the room uhhuh when it happened and it was actually like very near the dresser in
00:32:49
fact he said it fell on his foot mhm now that would lead you to believe that maybe Jimmy's doing these things well
00:32:55
yeah I'm I'm questioning can you not there's that or there's the possibility like they said Poltergeist activity uh
00:33:03
can emanate from a somebody in puberty going through an adolescent going through puberty so maybe it's because
00:33:09
he's around that that's why it's happening near him or maybe two things can be true at once these things are
00:33:16
happening but also Jimmy's having a little bit of fun at the same time because this is a little exciting and I
00:33:21
think that's the most valid explanation I think so I think this is not all Jimmy
00:33:26
I don't think it's all him partially you think maybe maybe I'm not accusing him allegedly allegedly maybe he had
00:33:32
something to do with it now after the dresser fell James Herman promptly called detective totsy who came out to
00:33:38
the house but could not figure out what the [ __ ] happened he said there was something especially strange about the
00:33:44
noises or excuse me toy didn't say this Khan said this okay uh the reporter there was something especially strange
00:33:50
about the noises accompanying both disturbances it was almost explosive which is that's interesting he said and
00:33:57
the low Rumble lasted an abnormally long time and both noises seemed to elude the
00:34:03
immediate location mhm later that night other objects flew from their locations including a large bookcase in Jimmy's
00:34:11
bedroom that was seemingly pushed away from the wall by unseen hands most baffling of all at least for KH was an
00:34:17
incident that occurred the next night it was a little after 9:00 p.m. and he said
00:34:22
as I sat alone in the corner of the living room a 10-in cardboard globe of the world flipped silently out of out
00:34:28
from Jimmy's darkened bedroom in my direction and boun bounced into the opposite corner of the living room I
00:34:34
jumped up ran into Jimmy's room and snapped on the light the boy was sitting up in bed the covers over his legs
00:34:41
naturally I tried to discover whether Jimmy had thrown the globe I found that it was possible but improbable the globe
00:34:47
could not have landed where it did if it had been thrown from the bed but could he have just huddled into bed really
00:34:53
quickly he could have but they said it he would have to be very quick to get back in there which he could okay now
00:34:58
when he noticed all the incidents that occurred at the home he noticed that they all had one thing in common the
00:35:04
same situation with Jimmy has existed in every one of these strange occurrences since February 3rd when they started
00:35:10
tormenting the family uhhuh um he noted that in every case Jimmy was near the affected object when it moved and in all
00:35:16
cases he possessed the strength to move the object himself okay however he did have difficulty accepting that Jimmy
00:35:24
could have been the real cause for all the disturbances he said there is the physical improbability of him having the
00:35:30
speed to say get back in bed fast enough after slow throwing that globe or the strength to throw figurines with the the
00:35:38
explosive force they display like denting the wood so he ended up being driven to the theory quote unquote that
00:35:46
had become the most popular and common at the time they had a poltergeist and that it might be emanating from Jimmy
00:35:52
yeah now after following the story in the press and speaking with the hermans and detective to
00:35:58
JB Ry our our scientist from before was convinced that whatever was happening in
00:36:03
the house was at least worth investigating at this point so in early March Ryan sent his trusted longtime
00:36:09
assistant Jay Gaither Pratt to Seaford in Long Island along with a relatively new member of his research team William
00:36:16
R William R was a German psychologist who'd been with the institute for like a little less than a year the two
00:36:23
researchers moved into the house and started investigating um and they consulted with experts from RCA
00:36:29
Communications who were brought in to determine whether the house was being affected by radio waves or other
00:36:34
disturbances in the electromagnetic fields damn they really tried to debunk everything here while the RCA scientists
00:36:41
evaluated the house Pratt and roll said out out interviewing the members of the Herman Family about like the beginning
00:36:48
the beginning till now according to James he became convinced they had a supernatural problem on the morning of
00:36:55
February 9th he said he was talking to Jimmy who was in the bathroom brushing his teeth and he said I was standing in
00:37:01
the doorway of the bathroom while Jimmy was brushing his teeth and he said he told investigators all of a sudden two
00:37:08
bottles were that were placed on the top of the vanity table were seen to move both bottles moved at the same time okay
00:37:15
that's weird he insisted that both bottles had previously been under the sink and were recently put on the table
00:37:22
so he concluded the Caps had become unscrewed while they were under the sink okay he was witnessing the bottles
00:37:29
move on their own at that time so he said that's what made me think okay this isn't like gases or something I'm
00:37:35
something paranormal is happening here right so since the phenomenon began in early February the activity in the house
00:37:42
really escalated day after day um and again it became really aggressive especially in the presence of non-family
00:37:50
members in the house but now that Pratt and role to trained experts were in the house the Poltergeist activity went
00:37:59
completely quiet uhhuh the equipment set up by the RCA technicians registered no change in
00:38:07
the electromagnetic activity in the home didn't pick up any unusual radio waves so Pratt made it pretty clear going into
00:38:15
this investigation one of the researchers that their objectives were very clear it was to decide whether one
00:38:22
Jimmy is deliberately causing these things to happen and cleverly concealing them because it is pretty CL how he's
00:38:27
concealing them yeah it is two that Jimmy is the agent for a poltergeist or three Jimmy I'm thinking of Jimmy just
00:38:37
like signing a polter like being an agent like an actual agent signing him on like let's go getting him some
00:38:42
opportunities you know we have an ad coming in for you Jimmy it's time to tour let's go um so it's like Jimmy from
00:38:50
hack there you go Jimmy's the agent so he's like Poltergeist it's time to tour let's take this show on the road um or
00:38:56
three that there's a a mixture of both that he's involved somehow but not not in the way we might think okay now
00:39:04
within a few days pratton roll had all but ruled out the involvement of James and Lucille the parents and they ruled
00:39:11
out Lucille the daughter okay um Lucille the daughter was often out of the house
00:39:16
or was fully asleep when most of the incidents occurred she said baby I'm catching up on
00:39:21
my uh but the two identified Jimmy as the thing connecting all the events okay though they did draw they stopped short
00:39:30
of drawing any conclusions about how previously you know previously how he was involved but their suspicions caused
00:39:38
everyone in the house parents researchers con the reporter to keep an extra close eye on Jimmy yeah now since
00:39:45
the onset of the Poltergeist activity like we said it was everywhere it was in the local Regional National papers all
00:39:52
the time um readers had a really close look in on this family and the disturbances happening
00:39:57
and the level of awareness that this caused was kind it kind of brought in like amateur sleuths like what we would now
00:40:06
has have as Internet sleuths yep um even back then in the 50s but these had to write into the papers and call the
00:40:14
police department with their [ __ ] um and that this type of Engagement can be interpreted as a kind of support which
00:40:20
was typically accompanied by explicit support from those following the story but when the narrative shifted towards
00:40:28
suspicions that Jimmy might be the cause of some of these disturbances the public
00:40:32
sentiment about the Herman's Poltergeist by then referred to as the popper Poltergeist uh you're so Boston every
00:40:39
time you say it's especially when you say popper Poltergeist I I can't say two s yeah it's like I can get one out but I
00:40:46
can't get 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
00:40:52
it right that's funny popper Poltergeist I actually don't like it that way poer Poltergeist um so they were uh less
00:40:59
sympathetic yeah at this point I would be which also like remember this kid is 12 everybody that's true I mean I
00:41:05
wouldn't I would just be like Jimmy what a turd like it's excited about need the
00:41:09
whole world bullying him weigh um but as public criticism of Jimmy this 12-year-old boy grew James senior did
00:41:18
what any parent would do and took to the press to defend his son and emphatically
00:41:22
rejected the belief that Jimmy had anything to do with the activity in the house yeah he said because the
00:41:28
scientists of this country can't come up with an answer to this people are trying
00:41:31
to make a scapegoat out of a 12-year-old boy who can't fight back I mean yeah but
00:41:36
James didn't stop there oh he went on to say he he threatened to Bar anyone from
00:41:42
his home who openly questioned Jimmy's intentional involvement in this phenomenon I understand the dad and him
00:41:48
wanting to do that cuz I'd be like [ __ ] you don't come for my kid that's the thing I can understand his role as a
00:41:53
parent being like [ __ ] you you're not questioning my kid but at the same time you also want to figure out what's going
00:41:57
on in your house well and it put Pratt role and to a lesser extent Dave Conan into like a a difficult position yeah
00:42:04
cuz they're like what if it is him because if they want to find out what's happening here if they want to remain in
00:42:09
the home and continue to do their work they have to ignore the idea the theory that Jimmy is doing it you really can't
00:42:15
do that that's not how the scientific method works exactly and so which is not good so despite the growing skepticism
00:42:20
and near total lack of activity in the house at this point Pratt and R continued the investigation um so Pratt
00:42:27
said I draw no conclusion whatever whatsoever from the fact that there was no unusual occurrences after I came
00:42:33
because there was so much turmoil in the house at that time M he said you know but nevertheless the lack of activity
00:42:39
made it unnecessary for the research just to stay in the house for very long while they were conducting the
00:42:44
investigation right so they just returned to Duke and continued the research from afar they were like we
00:42:50
don't need to be in the house we didn't see anything right now less than one day
00:42:53
after Pratt and roll left Long Island it all began again huh a table in Jimmy's room crashed to the floor breaking a
00:43:02
crystal table lamp among other things it's interesting now that it like a lot of it is happening in Jimmy's room yeah
00:43:07
and the incident prompted another call to detective totsy who rushed to the house as soon as he was called and
00:43:13
according to totsy James reported that at the time his son was quote flat on his back in bed with the covers pulled
00:43:19
up to his chin mhm so he couldn't have possibly caused the table to fall that's according to father now despite the
00:43:29
convenient timing of the return of the activity it does appear everyone involved remained unwilling to consider
00:43:35
seriously whether Jimmy was causing the activity in the house that's not great R
00:43:39
said and this was one of the researchers Ro um the fraud hypothesis would be easier to accept and I get this the
00:43:46
fraud hypothesis would be easier to accept if it could be supposed that the other members of the family were acting
00:43:52
as Jimmy's accomp right like the parents um that is to say that you know pratton roll would be more
00:44:00
likely to accept the idea if it was a hoax if it wasn't a child that was perpetuating this entire thing yeah uh
00:44:07
Pratt was equally emphatic in his rejection of the fra uh fraud Theory saying I don't believe for a moment that
00:44:12
there is any colossal hoax behind this and these are two like very well respected well respected researchers and
00:44:18
they don't need to be in the house anymore so they don't need to [ __ ] right right like so they're at least
00:44:22
saying that that they believe if there is a hoax happening involv and we can't seem to connect that
00:44:29
right and the other one is saying I don't believe that there's a whole hoax here I think there's something happening
00:44:35
now while the return of the activity was you know an exciting development for Pratt and roll uh others were less
00:44:41
enthusiastic um tot family well in detective totsy who's probably a little sick of this yeah he's like I have
00:44:48
actual crimes to investigate he literally said it's the damnedest case I've ever worked on I it's beginning to
00:44:53
go on forever and it's true because for what had been started as a call about like
00:44:58
you know a weird disturbance about a month earlier the case had exploded and started attracting all this attention
00:45:04
from all over the world and all of it was rooted directly through Detective Joe totsi uh by March totsy was spending
00:45:13
a significant amount of time combing through the correspondences received by the seventh
00:45:18
precinct on behalf of the hermans like people writing in to say this is what I think is happening this is what you
00:45:23
should do blah blah blah and that's a lot of [ __ ] to come through and was a lot of letters on how to deal with the
00:45:29
problems with suggestions ra ranging from kill your house what does that exactly mean I like that one I kill your
00:45:36
like stab it kill it shoot your house down um and another one was burn sulfur in every room oh God yeah another one
00:45:44
was wave a white silk hanky in every room wave a white flag so you know what poter you know what poter guys this is
00:45:51
you I like that one I will go to this one's my favorite this one's my favorite buy a
00:46:01
horse that's it you that's the Tweet horses have mysterious Powers so just buy one I agree that hes are mysterious
00:46:09
pretty mysterious kind of like adding a lot of expenses in and as much as detective totsy would have liked to move
00:46:16
on to uh more pressing matters He was ordered to keep a close eye on this now wildly popular story yeah um he said the
00:46:23
brass doesn't like anything to happen around here they don't know about he's like so now I'm stuck here I am so by
00:46:30
mid-march it seemed even the Poltergeist had kind of grown tired of the whole thing yeah um as six days then 10 then
00:46:39
20 passed in the Herman house without a single incident okay despite the quiet in the house enthusiasm and interest in
00:46:46
the case definitely remained uh members of the public were still calling sending
00:46:50
letters even dropping by the house oh I don't like that stay out stay out of my house James told a reporter on March 7
00:46:57
two couples were over here with Ouija boards I'm not sure what they were trying to do but I didn't let them in do
00:47:02
you think I want the whole house to fall down around our ears he said he has Papa energy he's
00:47:07
like get the [ __ ] out of here get the [ __ ] out of here get a life so the sudden end to the activity was
00:47:13
surprising to James and Lucille her which is all of a sudden was done yeah it was just done who'd been dealing with
00:47:18
daily destruction of their home for over a month yeah but Pratt explained that in
00:47:23
his experience some things such things tend to end that way um Lucille said he said that whatever Force had been
00:47:30
causing it just goes away and usually they don't come back while the hermans were certainly happy to have some peace
00:47:36
and quiet in their home the abrupt and like unceremonious end to the situation public doesn't like that no we don't we
00:47:44
don't like things just yeah we need to know what's going on cuz they've been closely following the case and they
00:47:50
wanted an explanation explanation so a short time later Pratt and roll provided the family
00:47:56
with their report finally okay the researchers counted a total of 67 incidents wow 64 in which an object
00:48:03
moved on its own okay and three in which unexplained thumping could be heard somewhere in the house okay um the so Ro
00:48:11
wrote Gaither and I spent 10 days with the family under circumstances which we felt gave us qu close acquaintance with
00:48:17
all of its members and we were unable to accept the family hoax hypothesis as a reasonable one okay interesting yeah the
00:48:25
researchers concluded that after to ruling out fraud and other possible explanations the rspk hypothesis had to
00:48:32
be taken seriously for this case rspk is recurrent spontaneous psychokinesis um it was a popular Theory
00:48:40
among those at the Duke lab for explaining the decidedly unscientific oldw World explanation of ghosts and
00:48:46
Poltergeist yeah in rolls Theory a person and in many cases children can produce a discharge of psychic energy
00:48:54
strong enough to disrupt the Z Z Point gravity of an object that's really [ __ ] awesome the thing that keeps it
00:49:01
in place it's Matilda which there you go which exactly which causes it to appear
00:49:06
as though it has flown across the room on its own huh this is more commonly observed in cases where the individual
00:49:11
is in a highly aroused or unsettled emotional or psychological State AKA puberty such as adolescence going
00:49:19
through puberty yep um Ro wrote the Poltergeist has a reputation of being elusive if not plain evasive this was
00:49:26
not true in Seaford things sometimes happened in full view of people and when Outsider visitors were present yeah so
00:49:33
while the researchers were unable to conclusively prove a cause of the activity they were inclined to believe
00:49:38
it supported the theory of rspk yeah um they were satisfied that that the activity was most likely unintentionally
00:49:46
caused by Jimmy okay this seemed an adequate explanation for some people made sense I'm happy especially those
00:49:52
who are eager to just like move on with the stor yeah you get bored of a story after a while when you're experiencing
00:49:57
it but not everyone found the rspk theory to be satisfactory you're never going to satisfy everyone as hard as you
00:50:04
try nope in their own report on the incident the Paras psychology Foundation of New York concluded that Jimmy was
00:50:11
most likely the culprit everyone leave Jimmy leave Jimmy alone and they noted that he might have caused the
00:50:18
disturbances by normal means if he so wish well you know what maybe he was just vibing in these streets maybe what
00:50:24
the [ __ ] else are you going to do at 12 years old I don't know so you know although they were unable to prove their
00:50:29
belief that Jimmy had intentionally caused the disturbances that group the Paras pychology group um was headed by
00:50:35
former Duke Paras pychology lab researcher Carlos osus I really love that name um they pointed out to the
00:50:41
suspicious timing of the events which this will give you a little bit of a pause oh no they wrote disturbances
00:50:48
during school hours occurred only on weekends in the evenings after 8:30 p.m. when according to Mr Herman Jimmy had
00:50:56
gone to bed the the phenomenom occurred at that point either in his room or in places near his bedroom door Jimmy in
00:51:04
the hours When the Children might definitely be assumed to be asleep nothing happened well this was their working
00:51:11
theory osus was quick to add of course this is not an accusation but merely one possible explanation yeah the presence
00:51:18
of James Herman Jr Jimmy in all likelihood was a necessary condition for the occurrence of the phenomena so
00:51:25
they're not necessarily saying this but he's got to be awake and in the house his presence is needed we're not
00:51:32
saying he did this intentionally but we're not not saying he did this intentionally we're saying it's a
00:51:38
possibility while osus and the Paris psychology Foundation may have uh kind of hedge their Bets with that one um
00:51:45
they they definitely avoided blaming Jimmy outright which is nice yeah that is nice uh skeptical investigator Joe
00:51:51
nickel had no problems placing the blame where he thought it belonged in his review of the evidence years later
00:51:57
nickel wrote taken as a whole the evidence strongly points to 12-year-old James Herman Jr as having been the
00:52:04
deliberate cause of the Seaford Poltergeist Outbreak The motive means and opportunity were his and the case
00:52:10
was unwittingly prolonged by the credulousness of adults so nickel points to the efforts
00:52:16
made by magician Milbourne Christopher to explain the phenomena in 1958 which incl included an extensive Recreation of
00:52:25
the bottle popping and other incidents that he performed for roll in Pratt MH so he was like this can be done right
00:52:31
but by a 12-year-old yeah po possible yeah but it's just like whoa you know like that's
00:52:38
a lot yeah it's Advanced he said Pratt had no idea of the Simplicity with which the effects were accomplished and Ro
00:52:45
imagined that James's tricks would have had to have been produced by special devices which would have been installed
00:52:52
operated and removed in the presence of adult Witnesses so he was saying like rat and roll were under the impression
00:52:58
that whatever was happening here would have been very Advanced and something that he would have had devices to do but
00:53:04
not necessarily but then nickel was able to show him like some kind of like magician [ __ ] like kind of like slight
00:53:09
of hand thing that he was like you really don't need that advanced of yeah you know but like did Jimmy know about
00:53:17
this does a 12-year-old know how to do that I don't know could if he's into magic and [ __ ] but it's interesting and
00:53:22
like you said like the family was connected to scientists who knows what conversations he sat in on yeah or he
00:53:28
dropped on even and it's worth noting again too that the only reason Pratt and roll really ruled out the hoax theory
00:53:34
was that they couldn't fathom any of the adults in the house having been involved
00:53:38
they really didn't believe the adults were involved in this and they couldn't accept the fact that Jimmy would have
00:53:43
been able to execute this entire hoax on his own but then nicholl's kind of showing them like he might have been
00:53:48
able to yeah U but he's also not proving inconclusively like conclusively that he
00:53:53
could do all of it he's just saying like some of the stuff you're a little like iffy on
00:53:57
could done that right now those who uh have investigated the case during and after the incidents they agreed on very
00:54:04
little it there was a lot of different theories going on everyone's kind of yelling at each other but most do appear
00:54:10
to be of one mind when it came for the motive for the activity like we said like Pratt and R and a couple of other
00:54:16
people said the psychokinesis that they were talking about how it can happen when somebody's in like a very highly
00:54:21
emotional or disturbed State yeah um so they figured that the destruction was caused unintentionally maybe or
00:54:30
intentionally but they said either way they think the motive might have been Jimmy's allegedly poor relationship with
00:54:37
what they refer to as his demanding and generally unsupportive father oh that's a bummer um but again I didn't expect
00:54:45
that yeah and in the psychological evaluations of Jimmy and Lucille the kids at this time the child psychologist
00:54:51
concluded that Jimmy demonstrated passive demandingness hostility to father figures imp personal violence and
00:54:58
isolation of effect oh wow lot for a 12-year-old they took to believe to be repressed feelings of anger towards his
00:55:06
father that's really sad so that is that can go either way that can go with did he intentionally do this for attention
00:55:15
was what was that or was it subconsciously was this some kind of strange um like Poltergeist phenomen
00:55:25
that happens because of his highly agitated and emotional state like almost like Carrie yeah yeah like could it be
00:55:33
there 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
00:55:39
allowed to uh accuse my son I was like yeah well that's why like I don't know a lot about their relationship so I don't
00:55:45
want to sit here and like speculate that they had this awful relationship and remember that so I don't know if
00:55:52
anybody really had like the ideal relationship with their father back then no um he did come to bat for Jimmy
00:55:58
during this whole thing but I don't know what their relationship was before that
00:56:01
and we do have a child psychologist who's saying he seems to have anger towards his father yeah so take with
00:56:05
that you will but again we don't have all the facts of that so allegedly um there were of course other
00:56:13
theories as to the cause of the disturbances and the most interesting and outlandish were definitely offered
00:56:19
uh interestingly by younger readers of the papers who'd been following the story and wanted to weigh in okay one
00:56:26
14-year-old reader wrote in it's the pressure in the bottles that's what's making them
00:56:32
pop I mean okay ging but then the reader went on to say I can also tell you what
00:56:39
isn't the cause of these events what's not it isn't martians or things on other planets as some seem to believe don't
00:56:46
blame it on the Soviet Union or any other country either huh another reader though
00:56:54
15-year-old Sandy she said the Soviets might have done have something to do with the events but
00:57:00
why it's only happening in only one house well that's a great question Sandy babe Sandy grew up to be a conspiracy
00:57:08
theorist so Jesus Christ so we must ask was it was it a poltergeist recurrent spontaneous psychokinesis the Soviets or
00:57:19
a childish prank that caused the Herman household to explode for one month in 1950 will never [ __ ] no I'm willing
00:57:27
to bet it wasn't the Soviets to this day we don't know I know it's not martians and I know it's not
00:57:34
the Soviet we don't know whether it's a poltergeist recurrent spontaneous psychokinesis the Soviets or a childish
00:57:40
prank it could be any of them based off like what I I've heard today I would like to think that it was Poltergeist
00:57:48
and maybe influenced and like put on a little bit longer by Jim Jim I could see that by Jim Jim Jim Jim now after the
00:57:55
media interest in the story died down they just kind of like the family just settled back into their lives like um
00:58:01
James senior you know s unsuccessfully ran for public office before retiring from his job okay uh Lucille got a
00:58:08
part-time job as a school nurse after the kids moved out of the house okay um and Jimmy maintained that he had
00:58:14
absolutely nothing to do with the activity in the house all right he did not intentionally do it or intentionally
00:58:19
I should say he said maybe it was my vibes but it wasn't me maybe my vibes were off but it wasn't my vibes it
00:58:26
wasn't my fault um he said I did not do that um and according to the hermans they never had another experience like
00:58:33
those in 1958 wow um James told a reporter in 1987 not a thing is H is happening around the house now
00:58:41
everything's been peaceful and quiet every day since it stopped in 1958 interesting Jimmy graduated from college
00:58:48
and went on to become the president of an electronics company in North andova Massachusetts jimy yeah wow where was
00:58:56
the house of flying objects it was in Long Island Oh Long Island right of course um although the hermans
00:59:02
themselves may have like kind of just faded back into Domesticity you know bye I love Dom which good for them uh their
00:59:08
story definitely lived on past past those that one year here we are um it be it was the subject of everything from
00:59:15
you know TV talk show fod because remember that back then it was like all about that [ __ ] oh hell yeah like Ed and
00:59:22
Lorraine were on talk shows like um there was TV movies plots and even again one of the biggest ones the main
00:59:29
inspiration for Steven Spielberg and Toby Hooper's 1982 horror film polter pist pist um there definitely like since
00:59:38
then since 1958 there's obviously been some like way more frightening and intense phenomenon that we can't explain
00:59:46
but the story of seaford's House of flying objects is definitely going to always have the distinction of being
00:59:52
really the first modern paranormal investigation in the United States it's really cool and the first obsessively
00:59:58
documented and like and handled by the American press this this is the one that really was the first one to get the
01:00:06
attention of the American Press and just take it it really popped off it really popped off so whatever you think is what
01:00:14
you think and that's fine because I don't have a [ __ ] clue but I think um I think the Vibes are off so I think the
01:00:23
Vibes were off I think we can all agree that The Vibes were off I think I don't think I don't think 12-year-old Jimmy
01:00:29
meant any harm and I don't think he did all of it yeah I really well intentionally I really don't think he
01:00:35
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
01:00:41
went on to live peacefully and quietly so good for them and hopefully his relationship with his dad if it wasn't
01:00:47
great I hope it got better allegedly yeah perfect me too you know what an interesting story a very interesting
01:00:53
story I liked that one cuz it's got a little spooky to it but it's more just like an interesting look at
01:00:59
like like the hoax of it all and the scientific investigation of it all I liked that part like the scientific
01:01:06
investigation cuz they took it really seriously and they didn't get I like when they actually like genuinely
01:01:12
scientifically investigate versus like the Ed and Lorraine kind of Investigations I think those are cool
01:01:19
but like we've talked about them a lot so it was interesting to hear like a different kind of Investigation straight
01:01:23
up look at it using the scientific meth like I I like that they do that cuz that's why I love um I I think it's
01:01:32
Ghost Hunters Taps right yeah I always confuse Ghost Adventures Ghost Hunters ghost whatever I'm I'm like 99% positive
01:01:39
that Ghost Hunters is Taps and then Ghost Adventures is Zach B yes precisely the Ghost Hunters uh Taps I really love
01:01:46
that's why I always loved that show because I just love the spooky Vibes of and the apprach and it's like they from
01:01:51
Rhode Island so it's like they're Island and but they go about it intentionally going into debunk and then they let
01:02:01
things take it from there but they don't go in being like I think this is a ghost
01:02:04
they go in being like I think something is up here and I'm going to figure out what it is it's like Scooby-Doo I like
01:02:09
that but different that's a good way to go into in my opinion personally that's how you would do a paranormal
01:02:15
investigation is to go in with the intention of debunking and be surprised if you're surprised I think a lot of
01:02:20
paranormal happenings are related to science yeah like in some way shape or form
01:02:26
it's all energy it's all energy you know drink every time I say and you know what
01:02:30
one of the real stars of this is Helen Connelly from Ria I everybody pul went out foren 74 year-old Helen was just out
01:02:38
here being like you know what you know what I had the the same [ __ ] thing happened to me in April she said it was
01:02:43
crazy it was crazy my artificial fireplace like paper what is an artificial fireplace I think it's like
01:02:49
one of those like literally fake little fireplaces like a movable fireplace like
01:02:54
a what's that [ __ ] called that's I yeah almost like a space heater but I think it like looks like a little fire
01:03:02
place oh okay it's got the aesthetic of a little fireplace but that [ __ ] like paper that's terrifying those things are
01:03:10
also so dangerous be careful with be very careful around those things especially as we get into the winter
01:03:14
months be careful about your space heaters um but yeah interesting Helen forever Helen I really lik that case I
01:03:22
hope Jimmy's I hope Jimmy's doing well me too he seems to he's the president of electronics company I hope he's killing
01:03:28
It Go Jimmy you know so well I hope you guys are doing well too we also hope that you keep listening and we hope you
01:03:34
keep it we but not so weird that you don't sign off in your Riv accent I know bye
01:03:41
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