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The South Shields Poltergeist

Just got the book this morning , and it seems to me the authors haven't looked through all the possible causes of the polt, (an entity of sorts.....evil in the purest sense of the word) Dont they look into other likely causes?

Was the TV show ever made? I would like to watch it if it was.
 
Finished the book last night,and i do think the investigators follow the evil spirit explanation to much, at the cost of the freak out mind scenario,but maybe if i had seen a 3 meter (that's about 7 foot?) tall ,midnight black entity radiating evil , the evil spirit theory may just cross my mind....
 
9 foot tall ,radiating evil,i would be off in a trail of diarrhea.....Most of what the investigators call evil i would call a joke (like the fluffy toys with knives) but if somebody says they felt the evil coming off an entity,then i take it very seriously.
 
The report on the polts handwriting cant be released for legal reasons .....i am going to do some digging on the web, but from coming into this case open minded (well no, i did believe) i am beginning to have doubts .
 
While i still believe the case was genuine there are some important questions raised here http://www.ghosttheory.com/2009/06/18/a ... s-evidence

It does seem to me that the authors/investigators are looking more at making money then sharing there research, does anybody know what is going on with all the evidence that was meant to be gathered?
 
I read the book and it seemed like it couldn't be true. I'm sorry, but who would continue to live in a house, putting their child in danger the way the people in this book apparently do? There's no way I'd continue to live in a house with stuff like that going on around my 3 year old. No way.

For that reason alone I don't believe it all.

Plus, all that stuff about the text messages - surely that can be followed up with the network operators? There wasn't any mention of whether anyone had even bothered trying that.
 
I am not sure about this case , but if it WAS a genuine polt there would be no point in moving house, as the polt would just follow you.

But thats a good point about the mobiles ,it would be good if the investigators would come back on here and explain everything (but then again maybe not as they seem to get a bit angry with people questioning them)
 
Just had a thought (ye ye insert sarky comments here.. :) ) When the investigator has the run in with the tall dark shadowy scary thing, he then notices a puddle on the floor which he touches with his fingers and concludes its polt wee.


Since it was on the floor of a young childs bedroom, and he doesn't say he saw the polt wee on the floor, isn't it more likely to be kiddies wee? And was the "wee" examined to see if it was polt wee? Then again what would polt piss look like... :?
 
titch said:
Then again what would polt piss look like... :?

Invisible in the light but glow-in-the-dark when the lights are out.
 
I'm looking into various Poltergeist cases at the moment and bumped into this story. Low and behold there was a FT thread all about it (i.e. this one).

Thought I'd give it a quick *bump* and ask if anyone knows if the documentary was ever made?
 
Ritson and Hallowell's Contagion was recently published. It's an interesting coda to the South Shields poltergeist - happily there are a number of new photographs from the 2006 case. This new book advances the theory about contagion (as the title kind of suggests!) and details some extraordinary and very disturbing phenomena experienced by another family. I found it genuinely creepy; the idea that a poltergeist has a 'reach' beyond the primary experients is not a comfortable one... Anyway, Contagion is quite a slim volume, but definitely recommended if you're interested in hearing more about the SS case.
 
Just had a thought (ye ye insert sarky comments here.. :) ) When the investigator has the run in with the tall dark shadowy scary thing, he then notices a puddle on the floor which he touches with his fingers and concludes its polt wee.


Since it was on the floor of a young childs bedroom, and he doesn't say he saw the polt wee on the floor, isn't it more likely to be kiddies wee? And was the "wee" examined to see if it was polt wee? Then again what would polt piss look like... :?
Do polts have bladders.....hmmmm (strokes chin)?
 
Polts might not have bladders, but rats do and they relieve themselves very often.
 
I wonder if Labour HQ have moved against the South Shields Poltergeist?
 
https://www.spookyisles.com/south-shields-poltergeist-darren-w-ritson/

Anyway, that's a link to Darren Ritson's thoughts on the South Shields case after the passage of 15 years - and the involvement of other investigators such as Alan Murdie and Steve Parsons who later sifted through the oral, written and photographic evidence collected at the time.

I find this one quite a fascinating case, due to the length of time it went on for and the pretty extreme nature of some of the events.

Ritson strikes me as someone who's still pretty open-minded about the whole thing, admitting that he still has no idea what causes reported polt phenomena, and accepting that there could have been hoaxing involved, but he's at a loss to explain how or why it would have been done.

One thing that still does niggle at me a little though - the whole 'text messages from a phone which had the battery and SIM card removed' incident, which was described as inexplicable, and had baffled phone engineers.

What I've never heard mentioned was that a fair few mobile telephony services back in the mid-2000s allowed a user to log on to their website using a home PC, and send text messages which, to the recipient, would show up as being from the sender's mobile. BT Genie (later 02) and Orange/EE both allowed this, as the messages didn't use up your credit or your mobile plan's inclusive texts allowance (remember those?) - my then-girlfriend and I used the service a lot to stay in touch with each other while at uni, as we could message each other from the faculty computer rooms while browsing the NME webforum composing earnest and learned essays of great academic value.

So, in theory, someone with Marc's mobile number and account login details could have been remotely sending messages to Marianne's phone, while Marc's mobile phone was disassembled on the table in front of the couple and the two investigators.

Not saying that's what happened, or that I've any clue as to why that would have been happening - but it may provide a possible non-paranormal explanation for a phenomenon which still seems to be viewed as inexplicable by the investigators.

Anyway. The book's still a decent read, I reckon.
 
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I found the book rather sensationalist, which always sends alarm bells ringing, serious research is not sensational and it can be quite boring (read Ian Stephenson) but it uncovers things that are not obvious
 
I found the book rather sensationalist, which always sends alarm bells ringing, serious research is not sensational and it can be quite boring (read Ian Stephenson) but it uncovers things that are not obvious
I know what you mean.
I enjoyed the book, but couldn't help thinking that it went too far to re-enact Poltergeist, in that a New Age exorcist comes to the rescue, showing them how to 'smudge' the house etc.
 
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