Canada

Poltergeist activity, which eventually manifested itself as a speak ing entity, occurred in 1889 in Quebec, Canada on a farm owned by George Dagg.

It started with streaks of faeces or manure appearing on the floor of the house for which a young boy, Dean, was blamed. However, while the boy was out of the house the streaks continued to appear, proving that he was not the cause. Poltergeist activity accelerated with crockery being displaced, windows smashed and fires spontaneously breaking out. The focus was identified as eleven-year-old Dinah McLean, an adopted child of the family.

In November 1889 an artist named Woodcock asked Dinah McLean to take him to the woodshed where she reported something connected to the haunting. Woodcock apparently heard both sides of Dinah’s conversation with an entity — the entity’s side of the conversation consisted mostly of obscenities. The entity identified itself as the devil and threatened to break Woodcock’s neck. It calmed down when questioned by George Dagg and Woodcock together and admitted that it was only doing the hauntings ‘for fun’.

A crowd soon heard about the phenomenon and gathered at the woodshed; apparently the entity performed for all and sundry. Indeed, Woodcock organised a statement signed by seventeen witnesses acknowledging that they had seen the spon- taneous pyrotechnics, that they had witnessed stones flying and a mouth organ playing by itself. Of particular interest, the entity made itself visible in a variety of guises to the two younger children of the house and to Dinah; as the devil, as a huge black dog and once as a man in white robes.

It seems that the entity then cleaned up its act quite signifi cantly, abandoned its violent language and sang beautiful music, finally disappearing like an angel up into the air. It has been speculated that this case shows the mischievous rather than the evil side of poltergeists. Investigator Cohn Wilson suggests that, having finally gained the attention it sought, the poltergeist calmed down and turned over a new leaf which is quite characteristic of the phenomenon. Poltergeists seem to act like humans, perhaps behaving badly either out of boredom or from a desire to impress. Once they achieve their goal they cease their disruptive behaviour.

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