Awesome or Off-Putting is a weekly delve into cryptozoology, ufology, aliens, medical marvels, scientific wonders, secret societies, government conspiracies, cults, ghosts, EVPs, ancient artifacts, strange facts, odd sightings or just the plain unexplainable.
Ghosts. If they don’t make the heads of teenage girls spin around while vomiting straight out 100 feet in every direction, we’re not interested. If the ghosts do do that, we’re interested alright, but only from a distance of at least 101 feet.
The story of the Stockwell Poltergeist doesn’t contain an ounce of vomit. We know you’re probably disappointed. Also there are no farts, burps or any disgusting sullying of panties. We’re just being upfront with you here. What it does have is about 20 hours of super strange and noisy goings on.
It also has this sworn statement by six witnesses:
“The above narrative is absolutely and strictly true, iii[sic?] wit?ness whereof we have set our hands this eleventh day of Janu?ary, 1772.”
1772 was a bumper year. Not only did it see mankind isolate nitrogen for the first time, but it was also the year man’s balls first descended into the scrotum, allowing for increased fertility and an explosion in several population groups. In fact, it could be argued that if it weren’t for the great ball descension ’72, you might not even been born. We’d have been born though. All our ancestors always had testicles way up in their stomachs.
It was also a crazy year for poltergeisting, apparently. Have you ever heard of the Stockwell Poltergeist? Neither had we. Probably because of all the archaic html they used in those days. It didn’t hold up – and 90% of all their 1772 websites have been lost forever.
Luckily though – the related sworn statement that six of the witnesses signed made it through the ages. It’s a very detailed account. It’s also a very long account, so we’ll just give you excerpts. First for the setup.
Mrs. Golding was an old bag that owned a great big farmhouse. It was in her place that the madness started. What kind of madness, you might ask? Well it appears there was no shortage. From the document written by the six witnesses at the time:
?On Monday, January the 6th, 1772, about ten o?clock in the forenoon, as Mrs. Golding was in her parlor, she heard the china and glasses in the back kitchen tumble down and break; her maid came to her and told her the stone plates were falling from the shelf; Mrs. Golding went into the kitchen and saw them broke. Presently after, a row of plates from the next shelf fell down likewise, while she was there, and nobody near them…”
“…this astonished her much, and while she was thinking about it, other things in different places began to tumble about, some of them breaking, attended with violent noises all over the house ; a clock tumbled down and the case broke ; a lan?tern that hung on the staircase was thrown down and the glass broken to pieces ; an earthen pan of salted beef broke to pieces and the beef fell about…”
That there is just for starters, mind you. Multiple witnesses came by. One said the crazy happenings were because the weight of a room recently added was too much for the foundation of the house. This seemed like a decent explanation, apparently, but everything still got weirder.
One of the other witnesses was a doctor that stopped by. His part goes like this:
“Among the persons who were present was Mr. Gardner, a surgeon, of Clapham, whom Mrs. Pain [Mrs. Golding’s niece who was sent for, as far as we can tell] desired to bleed her aunt, which he did. Mrs. Pain asked him if the blood should be thrown away : he desired it might not, as he would examine it when cold…[but] the blood that was just congealed, sprang out of the basin upon the floor, and presently after the basin broke to pieces!”
Now obviously everyone is spooked at this point. Everything really started picking up. Some of it happened as people were trying to empty the houses they thought might collapse. Things were exploding in people hands for no apparent reason. Golding was house hopping too. She’d been spooked out of her own house – but this stuff just kept happening everywhere Golding and her new maid went.
Did you catch that bit where we said ‘new maid’? Well all the witnesses started to notice that the maid really wasn’t freaked out about the haunting. In fact, she seemed quite calm. And then they all noticed something else:
“…in the midst of the greatest confusion, [the maid] was as much composed as at any other time, and with uncommon coolness of temper ad?vised her mistress not to be alarmed or uneasy, as she said these things could not be helped. Thus she argued, as if they were common occurrences, which must happen in every family.”
That’s not all. The spooky happenings kept ratcheting up. Tables were moving, chairs were moving and drawers were being shuffled all about. Golding decided to leave this house too. With her maid.
“When Mrs. Golding?s maid had seen her safe to [the next house], she came back to Mrs. Pain, to help her to dress the children in the barn, where she had carried them for fear of the house falling. At this time all was quiet. They then went to [the house where Golding now was], and then began the same scene as had happened at the other places. It must be re-marked, all was quiet here as well as elsewhere, till the maid returned.”
People were suspicious at this point, but they let the maid stay. The hauntings continued enough for their host to give them the boot. Golding and her maid returned home, and the poltergeist went with them. As the madness continued, someone thought it a good idea for the maid to go bring back Mrs. Golding’s niece. While the maid was gone, all was quiet.
When the maid returned, she was fired. Nothing ever happened around Golding again.
This has been a very abridged version of the haunting. To read it in full – check this out.
d says
Damn. All this time I thought the butler did it