[1][2] The Smurls' claims gained wide press attention and were investigated by demonologists who encouraged the family's supernatural beliefs, and clergy, psychologists, and scientific skeptics who offered more parsimonious explanations.
[4] They claimed that the premises were disturbed by a demon that caused loud noises and bad odors, threw their dog into a wall, shook their mattress, pushed one of their daughters down a flight of stairs, and physically and sexually assaulted family members on several occasions.
Jack Smurl told a newspaper reporter he had "surgery to remove water from his brain in 1983 because he had been experiencing short-term memory loss due to a case of meningitis in his youth."
[9] The book was criticized by reviewers such as Wilkes-Barre Times Leader staff writer Joseph Marusak who wrote, "Robert Curran forsakes the principles of his trade to give readers a one-sided account of what did or didn't occur over several years in Jack and Janet Smurl's former home".
Reviewer Mary Beth Gehrman wrote that the book was poorly written, adding that "it is hard to conceive of a supposedly sophisticated objective and (as far as I know, at least until now) credible reporter like Curran taking their story seriously given the complete lack of any empirical or physical evidence to support it.