The Seaford Poltergeist

In February 1958 a family in Seaford, on Long Island, became the subject of one of the best-publicised American poltergeist cases of the 20th century. James and Lucille Herrmann had two children, Lucille (13) and James (12). According to the Psi Encyclopedia, the first incident was logged on 3 February 1958, when a ceramic doll and a ship model were found broken on James’s dresser. Bottles of bleach, shampoo, ink and perfume then began to lose their caps and spill. From about 13 February, figurines, lamps and larger items were reported moved or damaged.

Mrs. Herrmann called the police on 9 February. From 11 February Detective Joseph Tozzi of the Nassau County Police was assigned to the case, and two officers reported hearing or finding disturbances. Reporters from Newsday, Time, the New York Times and the London Evening News visited, as did a physicist, Robert Zider. The family left the house four times for a total of six nights. Newspaper reports reached the Parapsychology Laboratory at Duke University, which sent J. Gaither Pratt and William G. Roll. They logged 67 incidents between 3 February and 10 March.

Pratt and Roll tested for radio interference, electrical faults and structural causes and found nothing. They considered fraud, but argued that a few incidents were witnessed when neither child could have touched the objects. They favoured what Roll later called “recurrent spontaneous psychokinesis” centred on James, while saying their evidence was not conclusive. Their report appeared in the Journal of Parapsychology in June 1958.

Sceptics read it differently. The magician Milbourne Christopher wrote in 1970 that the family declined his help and that he could reproduce such effects, and Joe Nickell argued in 2012 that each event could have been produced by simple trickery by a boy. The idea of a disturbed adolescent as the centre of a poltergeist, as this case helped popularise, is still debated. The family’s home was and remains private, and none of the sources used here give its address.

Bottle caps unscrewing and contents spilling, figurines and household objects moving or breaking, and furniture shifting, reported by the family, police and reporters.

The family’s house in Seaford; most incidents were around the boy’s bedroom, bathroom and living areas, in February and March 1958.

The case was covered in the national press in 1958, and the Psi Encyclopedia notes that its publicity is said to have influenced the film Poltergeist (1982). It also began William Roll’s long career investigating poltergeist cases.