Poltergeist

Many claims have been made that poltergeist activity explains strange events (including those by modern self-styled ghost hunters), however, their evidence has so far not stood up to scrutiny.

[7] Time and time again in other "poltergeist" outbreaks, witnesses have reported an object leaping from its resting place supposedly on its own, when it is likely that the perpetrator had secretly obtained the object sometime earlier and waited for an opportunity to fling it, even from outside the room—thus supposedly proving he or she was innocent.Unsubstantiated claims: A claim of activity at Caledonia Mills (1899–1922) was investigated by Walter Franklin Prince, research officer for the American Society for Psychical Research in 1922.

[12] A study (Lange and Houran, 1998) wrote that poltergeist experiences are delusions "resulting from the affective and cognitive dynamics of percipients' interpretation of ambiguous stimuli".

[13] Psychologist Donovan Rawcliffe has written that almost all poltergeist cases that have been investigated turned out to be based on trickery, whilst the rest are attributable to psychological factors such as hallucinations.

Jung believed that a female cousin's trance states were responsible for a dining table splitting in two and his later discovery of a broken bread knife.

Later researchers, such as Alan Gauld and Tony Cornell, tested Lambert's hypothesis by placing specific objects in different rooms and subjecting the house to strong mechanical vibrations.

[21] However, Persinger's claims regarding the effects of environmental geomagnetic activity on paranormal experiences have not been independently replicated and, like his findings regarding the God helmet, may simply be explained by the suggestibility of participants.

[22][23] David Turner, a retired physical chemist, suggested that ball lightning might cause the "spooky movement of objects blamed on poltergeists.

[29] In Finland, somewhat famous are the case of the "Mäkkylä Ghost" in 1946, which received attention in the press at the time,[30] and the "Devils of Martin" in Ylöjärvi in the late 19th century, for which affidavits were obtained in court.