Inside the Supernatural. Jean Ritchie

For instance, when a large bolt of wood was hurled across the workshop and when metal stepladders were thrown across the shop, breaking some of the plates that were on sale. Seed and fertilizer, which is sold in the shop, has frequently been scattered all over the floor and the counter when they have arrived at work in the morning and, on one occasion, fertilizer was thrown over a customer. When Pat is in the toilet she is upset to find stones being thrown around her while the door is locked.

      ‘I don’t like the idea of him being in there with me,’ she said. Although she does not mind when Pete fingers and plays with her hair.

      Other phenomena have worried the family because of the risks. The poltergeist has seemed able to create fire and once they arrived at work to find the engine of a giant lawnmower had been started and left running, emitting dangerous fumes. This happened on a Monday morning, so there was no possibility that the mower had been left on by them: it would have run out of petrol over the weekend. Only a strong man could have started the difficult engine, from which a spark plug had been removed for safety.

      ‘That worried me a bit. If it could start that engine and put back a spark plug that we had removed, what couldn’t it do?’ said John.

      Fred, who was originally very fond of Pete, has had the most alarming experiences, and now tries to discourage the whole affair, ignoring new phenomena. On four occasions he has seen an apparition in the workshop, the figure of a small schoolboy, aged about nine or ten, but dressed in the sort of clothing worn in the 1940s and 1950s – a school cap, grey shorts, heavy shoes. Once, the apparition was sitting on the handle of a lawnmower, swinging its legs; once on the shop till; and once on a set of shelves in the ‘active’ corner. Fred could not make out a face or hands and the apparition seemed not to be limited by the physical shape of the room because when it was sitting on the top shelf in the workshop half of its body should, logically, have stuck through the ceiling. Although John was with Fred during at least one of these sightings, John could see nothing.

      When Fred saw the apparition for the fourth time he was alarmed. The ghost child was standing in the workshop, near the doorway to the small kitchen, waving to him. He tried to speak to it, but it disappeared.

      The most worrying thing for the whole family was the risk to their business. When the stone throwing was at its height John even spoke to his insurance company about the danger to customers. In fact, only one customer was hit, and not hard enough for injury to be caused, but she left the shop indignantly because she believed one of the staff had fired the missile at her. John and Pat were concerned that publicity would affect them adversely.

      ‘I never believed in any of this before. I would have thought someone was nuts if they said all this had happened to them,’ said John. ‘So I thought people would think I was nuts.’

      Two things rule out the possibility of faking in this case: the family’s lack of motive for it and the substantial number of people who would have to be in on any plot. None of the people involved with the business stood to gain the slightest advantage from having Pete there and they all carefully avoided publicity. The incidents have happened over such a long period of time, and with such a variety of witnesses, that there can be no question of one person faking it all: the minimum number of people involved would have to be five or six, because events have occurred even when none of the four main family members was present. (Dr Fontana witnessed throwing while on his own in the workshop.)

      Dr Fontana scrupulously investigated the possibility of underground water or vibrations from traffic or other physical events causing disturbance in the building. He went to the premises on numerous occasions, often unannounced, and never saw anything that made him suspect trickery. (Although Graham, John’s original partner, was a practical joker and was known at times to flick stones about when everything was otherwise quiet. Graham’s leaving the business did not end Pete’s activity, and there were plenty of times before that when things occurred and Graham was not present.)

      The case was ideal for investigation because the activity has lasted a long time and the poltergeist has not been shy about performing in front of strangers.

      ‘The chances of getting another case as good as this are slim,’ said Dr Fontana. ‘It is the sheer volume of activity and the number of witnesses, many of whom I have tracked down and interviewed, that make it special. Poltergeists sometimes will not “perform” in front of anyone except the inhabitants of the house or building and investigators have to take a great deal on trust. That has been partly true with Pete. I have sometimes gone to the workshop when John has rung to say there was a lot of activity, only to find nothing happens while I am there. But I have also been able to witness actual phenomena and, on many occasions, I have seen the results of activity (for instance, the shop floor and counter covered in seed).

      ‘It is very time consuming investigating a case like this, but very rewarding. The amount of activity was so great that at times I had to guard against getting blasé – I’d find myself feeling bored with the stone-throwing games and wishing something else would happen. Yet I know that most investigators would be delighted to witness and take part in reciprocal stone throwing with a poltergeist.

      ‘I was also intrigued by my own reactions. When I was there, I would eliminate all possibilities of fraud or natural causes and would know that I was seeing genuine phenomena. But as soon as I was away from the premises and reflecting on what I had seen, I would find myself trying to reject the evidence of my own senses by coming up with all sorts of tortuous rationales for what was happening.’

      The Cardiff case is still being monitored, and will probably become one of the Society for Psychical Research’s celebrated cases. One of the most unusual features about it is that, unlike most poltergeist cases, it is not centred on an adolescent or young person, nor are any of the main participants emotionally unstable. John Matthews points out that the highest peak of Pete’s activity coincided with his business going through a bad time: two very dry summers had reduced the need for lawnmowers, and consequent lawnmower repairs. But he and his relatives are equable people, old enough to have lived through other vagaries in their business life and uninclined to let problems get them down.

      Another unusual feature is the reciprocal nature of the phenomena. At one time, it was possible to ask Pete to start throwing stones more or less at will. It was possible to ask not just for paper clips but for coloured paperclips and even to name the colour.

      The word ‘poltergeist’ is German for noisy spirit (although the Germans themselves do not use the word, preferring ‘spuk’) and a noisy spirit is certainly present in the Cardiff case. Poltergeists and ghosts are generally regarded as different phenomena, although there are so many overlaps in the definitions of the two that it is not always possible to keep them apart. Classically, a ghost is an apparition which goes about its own business, regardless of whoever or whatever is around. Haunted houses, with their tales of headless knights, cowled monks and grey ladies, abound. The apparition can be seen, perhaps frequently, but it does not interact with those who see it.

      A poltergeist, on the other hand, does interact. The Cardiff case is exceptional: most are not as intelligent or as responsive as Pete. But poltergeist cases always involve some attempt, however crude, to monopolize the attention of the living. Typical poltergeist activity includes rapping and making other noises, moving around ornaments and furniture, ‘bringing’ objects from other places. When small items are seen moving they often appear to travel as though being carried and, instead of losing height in a gradual trajectory, fall as though dropped. Although poltergeists rarely harm anyone, they can be destructive of property and they can pinch or push human beings. Some poltergeists produce water in unexplained pools, some seem to make objects hot to touch. There have been changes over the years. Before this century, cases did not involve switching on and off electric lights or causing electrical equipment to malfunction, and there are now more cases involving water, probably because today buildings are linked to the mains water supply. On the other hand there are fewer cases today of one of the poltergeists’ nastier habits, the daubing of excrement, possibly because there are far fewer cess pits around.

      These two groups, ghosts and poltergeists, are separated by large grey areas which overlap, or fit into neither category. The Cardiff case involved an apparition and, in other ways, it was