Author's project of Tatiana Makarova
Poltergeist Victim Eleanor Tsugun
Similarly to the abbreviation "UFO", which is now unambiguously understood throughout the world, the word "poltergeist" has also become international, with a few exceptions, which are discussed below. The recognition of this term in English-speaking countries happened relatively late, after in 1926 the English journalist and "ghost hunter" G. Price brought to London a thirteen-year-old Romanian girl Eleanor Tsugun, whose name was then known to many because of the poltergeist that pursued her.
After several publications about this case, the word "poltergeist" became as popular as the name "Barabashka" in the Soviet press of the late twentieth century, and spread to all English-speaking countries. This word is now avoided only in Germany. For some reason, the Germans are ashamed of its initial meaning, and therefore use the word "spuk" as a synonym, meaning both "ghost, ghost" and "noise, shout".
Volzhsky Automobile Plant, north side. Shootout with a poltergeist
The first article about the poltergeist process in our city appeared in 1990 in the newspaper "Freedom Square".
Promotional video:
On the long autumn nights of 1990, the watchmen of one of the VAZ units began to notice strange things. On the walls of the room they were guarding, it was as if someone occasionally, but rather strongly, knocked. These blows were of different strength, which in itself did not explain their origin. The fact is that this room, located on the northern side of VA3a, stands alone, it has no adjacent walls with other buildings. Assuming that some of the people might "joke" so strangely, the people guarding the building repeatedly went outside and examined it from the outside. Inspection showed that there were no passers-by around. Yes, if only knocks on the walls, they could still be somehow explained. But the situation was complicated by the fact that on the roof of this one-story building someone seemed to be arranging "walking walks": stomping and shuffling as if a whole crowd were really walking there. Inspection of the roof (and it was easy to do, since the building is one-story) and the surrounding area showed that there were no individuals who could perform such actions nearby again.
This story lasted about six months, they gradually began to get used to it, they almost did not pay attention to knocks, and everything would be fine. If events did not develop further.
The Togliatti press wrote a lot about poltergeists
The next night, the watchman, who was on duty, noted that ventilation in one of the shops, lighting and headlights near the tractor in the garage, had spontaneously turned on. Then the TV turned off (the plug went out of the network without participation, but in front of the person who was next to him). The watchmen got tired of such arbitrariness, and one of them, possessing some extrasensory abilities, decided to use his own methods to find out the cause of the events. Having stepped in on duty, he walked around all the premises of the building he guarded - everything was in order. Then, concentrating, I began to mentally locate the interior of the building. At first everything was calm, he did not feel any outside presence. But then events took the most unexpected turn. A funnel appeared in front of a person in a state of concentration, with a bell facing downward, and its end, bending,went up somewhere, into space.
Having moved, the funnel turned out to be its wide side directly above the head of this person and, like a vacuum cleaner, began to draw him into itself. The feeling of attraction was purely physical - his hair literally stood on end, and his shirt crawled up onto his body.
Having intuitively felt how it was possible to stop this phenomenon, the watchman fired several times upwards into the funnel mouth. In theory, the traces of bullets should have remained on the ceiling, above the place where he was sitting, if only because he saw sparks from bullets hitting a concrete slab exactly where the funnel went into the ceiling. But upon subsequent examination, they were not there.
However, the reception helped and the funnel disappeared. The bullets themselves, as well as the traces from them, were nowhere to be found, although every single cartridge case was found on the floor.
At that time, our group of researchers of anomalous phenomena had already appeared in Togliatti. And, although none of us then had neither experience, nor special knowledge about what poltergeists are, we nevertheless left for night duty at the scene. As the saying goes, it's better to see once than hear a hundred times. But, apparently, the shelling calmed the "noisy spirit", and more events in this room did not repeat.
What was the reason for this poltergeist? Then it was not possible not only to understand, but even to make some assumptions. However, the interest in events that went beyond the generally accepted worldview was so great that an article about another case of the appearance of a "noisy spirit" appeared even in the official city newspaper of that time.
"Barabashka in Togliatti" - "For communism"
It was in the newspaper "For Communism" that a phenomenon was described that took place in one of the apartments of the Avtozavodsky district - on Moskovsky Prospekt. For obvious reasons, I do not give the real name of the woman who lives.
- In the summer, after exchanging with my husband, I moved to this two-room apartment, - Nadezhda said. - Miracles began on the very first night. My eighteen-year-old daughter and I settled down for the night in different rooms, talking for a while. And suddenly they heard: someone was walking leisurely from room to room, scratching the floor with their nails. The daughter asked: "Mom, do you hear?" In order not to frighten her daughter, she replied in a feigned calm tone: "I think it's a rat."
The women turned on the lights, but they never managed to fall asleep that night..
Soon the daughter got married, and Nadezhda Nikolaevna began to live alone. In the evenings, she noticed that she had the feeling that someone was watching her. And when she opened the book, it seemed to her that this "someone", standing behind her, was also interested in the content of the book. There was a slight crackling sound.
Sometimes the sound coming from the open umbrella was startling. Sometimes it took several hours as she left the open umbrella to dry, and suddenly, for no reason, no reason, there was a loud knock of large drops running from it. This began to occur both day and night. We checked the entire apartment, but possible real sources of such sounds were never found. At these moments, Nadezhda carefully examined the umbrella and the floor: everything was completely dry. There was a feeling that they were playing with her, testing her reaction to what was happening.
For some time, the manifestations of the poltergeist in Nadezhda's apartment almost stopped. The landlady already thought that the noisy spirit, if not disappeared altogether, then, in any case, became very subdued and began to behave quite decently. But on the eve of the impending departure to the resort in the evening, two knocks were heard on the inner wall, between the kitchen and the large room, and then they began to knock monotonously on the toilet door. While vacationing at the resort, the owner of a "noisy" apartment periodically returned to the idea of how she should live in such an apartment?
Two days after our return passed calmly. She had already hoped that the "bastard" had disappeared, but it was not there. The banging on the wall resumed.
A sketch of a poltergeist by a medieval artist
Gradually, Nadezhda and the invisible "informer" even developed a kind of communication system. Sometimes he answered her offer to “knock,” sometimes he ignored her. He greeted her with a short knock when returning from work. If she was busy with her thoughts or work in the kitchen, she did not pay attention to his knocking - she could knock for an hour. But as soon as you speak to him, he will knock a little more and calm down.
It would seem that peace has been established in the relationship between the "owner" of the apartment and its guest. But one night the woman jumped on the bed at the sound of a powerful explosion, the source of which seemed to be on the balcony. As it turned out, there was no explosion, there was only a frightening sound (and the poltergeist has a unique ability to imitate various sounds, no matter how strange this quality of "invisibility" may seem to us).
A couple of days later, the TV turned off half an hour ago crackled violently. Nadezhda saw on the screen a luminous "light" the size of a five-kopeck coin, which burned until dawn. From time to time, a glow appeared on the wall above the sofa - a circle 12 centimeters in diameter, then the carpet began to glow. In moments of strong activity of the “noisy spirit”, the carpet “burned” with a bright flame, and the people near it (neighbors, guests) felt a severe headache, ringing in their ears …
- Somehow my daughter and granddaughter stayed overnight, - Nadezhda Nikolaevna told us, - I felt stuffy, and I opened the balcony door. And suddenly it began to crack violently. I asked: "What do you want, why are you cracking?" The crackling does not stop. And then I realized that he would be worried until I closed the balcony door: there were flowers on the windowsill, next to the door, the temperature outside was below zero. The flowers are obviously giving off a signal, and Barabashka took pity on them. She closed the door and there was silence.
So - in the relative friendship between man and the invisible - several years passed, but in the end Nadezhda Nikolaevna still wanted to figure out what was going on in her home.
One of the members of our research group spent several nights at Nadezhda Nikolaevna's house. He confirmed that she really can hear all the sounds that she talked about, and there are no everyday or technical sources for these sounds.
But here's what else he happened to see:
- The landlady invited me to drink tea. As soon as they poured it into cups, someone began to knock on the table top from below. In the middle of the night, no matter how hard he tried not to sleep, he dozed off and woke up from the rustle. It seemed as if someone was dragging a pile of paper across the floor. I got up, then went to the doorway and saw in the darkness, in the mirror opposite, a reflection of my, as I thought at first, silhouette. But when I raised my hand and waved it to make sure that the silhouette reflected in the mirror did the same, I was dumbfounded: the silhouette in the mirror was motionless. I bent down, continuing to watch. The silhouette stood rooted to the spot. It was then that, I confess, I felt uneasy, and I turned on the light …
Researchers and casual witnesses of poltergeist outbreaks were not comfortable more than once during all those hundreds of years during which humanity is trying to figure out the cause and mechanism of this anomalous phenomenon.
It only saves that a poltergeist is a long-term phenomenon, but not eternal. And in this apartment he gradually calmed down.
Soon the newspaper that published the article changed its name (however, the article about the poltergeist had nothing to do with it …) But the modern history of poltergeists in Togliatti did not end there at all. Less than a few months later, an even stronger poltergeist process broke out. He was also remarkable in that he was localized in one of the secondary schools of the Avtozavodsky district.
I am not a "brownie", I am a "schoolboy" …
Early summer of 1991. The school year was over, schoolchildren were looking forward to the holidays with pleasure, tired teachers dreamed of a vacation. And only one school was preoccupied with completely different events - a poltergeist began at the school.
First of all, schoolchildren encountered unusual phenomena. For example, in the classroom, during the pre-examination consultation, pots of flowers could fly up into the air and then smoothly fall into place. Or, heading to the assembly hall to begin rehearsals for the festive evening, the guys saw the door in front of them slamming shut and the key sticking out in it turns in the keyhole.
What else was going on? In the closed assembly hall, all the chairs were moved (heavy in themselves, and even knocked down four pieces in a row), again, in the locked hall, the light and color music installation turned on by itself. The poltergeist was especially fond of playing with ultraviolet lamps. Well, and also all sorts of little things like cold breezes in closed rooms, where, in theory, there should be no drafts …
When the limit of surprise was reached, the students decided to complain to the headmaster. What do you think was the reaction to the story? Sure! "Do not talk nonsense, there is nothing like this and cannot be!" And at that very moment of the verdict, “something” took and pushed the headmistress straight towards the flock of guys who were standing nearby. This argument proved to be very convincing …
By coincidence, one of the teachers of this school was a member of our research group. It was he who helped organize the observations. Night time was chosen for observation, when only the watchman remained at the school. This was also necessary for one more reason - so as not to create additional excitement among schoolchildren and thereby not activate the poltergeist (such an influence has been noted more than once).
Keeping in mind the experience of the Moscow "drummer" and the poltergeist in Nadezhda Nikolaevna's apartment, we tried, according to the same principle, to organize a dialogue with that "something" or "someone" that was the cause of the poltergeist events in this school. But we failed - we failed to "talk".
I must say that at that time we did not have any special methodological developments in the study of poltergeist phenomena (a little more than a year had passed since the group was created). Therefore, I had to invent on the go and use the means at hand. Photographing in different modes and with different filters did not give any results, the poltergeist also successfully avoided "traps" in the form of talcum powder tracks and stretched threads. Other techniques from detective stories read at their leisure, and elementary logical reasoning were also used.
For example, if this Someone possesses such physical strength that he is able to "drop" a person or turn on the light, will he not leave an imprint of his hand (or of what he influenced on the switches) on a thin layer of plasticine? During the next watch, the buttons in the assembly hall (namely, the poltergeist chose him) were appropriately processed, the hall was sealed. Several experiments were unsuccessful - the sealed hall was opened in about an hour, the light was on, but the plasticine remained intact. But once this "something" still left a mark! A thin layer of plasticine on the desired button was drawn down to the plastic with an uneven line. Of course, it was not a fingerprint with fingerprint lines, but it would not be superfluous to remind that there was no one in the sealed room at that moment …
One of the experiments showed that the school "noisy spirit" has the ability not only to close doors with a key, but also open them. Before the next experiment, accurately fixing the position of all objects in the hall and carefully checking that no one else was hiding there (they checked both the wings and the utility room in which the musical equipment and some household trifles were stored), having closed all the windows and the front door with his own hand (outside and on a key), we left the hall in silence and darkness for another hour of duty. I must say right away that even despite all these checks, the entrance to the hall was always under our supervision, so that no one could enter it unnoticed. Is that a "noisy spirit" …
An hour has passed. Having opened the door, we begin an inspection in the hope of finding traces of poltergeist activity. A fairly strong breeze attracted attention, which cannot be attributed to a poltergeist … It turned out that one of the window transoms was half open. And it could only be opened from the inside … And there was no one in the hall.
Well, they recorded the event in the observation protocol, pushed back the window latch, fixed the position of the hall property, sealed the assembly hall for the umpteenth time and left for another hour. The next inspection showed such that even we felt creepy. A very impressive table disappeared from the hall. They examined everything, but the table was nowhere to be found. There was only one place within this room, where no one had looked - the utility room. There were two exits from it: one through a narrow hatch cut into the floor of the utility room itself and closed by a lid, and an almost vertical staircase - but the size of the table there, well, could not get through, except in sawn form … And the second exit was through the window, which was located almost under the ceiling of this hall. But there were no stairs to it, and it was closed by two shutters,laid from the inside with a thick wooden block. Since no logic could have led to the conclusion that the table was in the back room, we paid attention to it in the very last place. However, it turned out that the table is there. And the shutters are closed from the inside with the same wooden block. And one more leg of the table crushed the hatch that closed the second exit, so that it was possible to open the utility room only after a fair sweat.
The table was returned to its original place along the ladder by the forces of four men - three of ours and another school guard, who, I think, received an unforgettable experience that night.
Trying to find the cause of the onset of poltergeist events, we interviewed schoolchildren. I was interested in everything: were there any major conflicts before the start of the events we are studying, or some other emergency, have such incidents been noticed before? There really was an emergency - two months before that, one of the high school students, one of the recognized school leaders, and even the leader of school discos, tragically died. The connection between this accident and the beginning of the poltergeist was neither proven nor verified at that time, but nevertheless we decided to try a method that we accidentally heard about from one of our colleagues in the capital, based on the principle of the “Phenomenon of electronic voice”. Its essence lies in using the capabilities of modern recording equipment, the sensitivity of which to the effect is somewhat greater than the sensitivity of the human ear,which allows you to capture and translate into the category of audible extremely weak sounds that are beyond the physiological limits of audibility. And the ideological basis for the study of EVP came from ancient times, and it lies in the idea that the human biological body is only a temporary refuge, a kind of "vessel" for the substance that stores the human personality and is called the soul.
Note to the topic: The "electronic voice phenomenon" was officially discovered by Swedish art critic and filmmaker Friedrich Jurgenson in the summer of 1959. Like everything great, this phenomenon was discovered by chance. Enjoying solitude in nature, having recorded a couple of cassettes with bird voices, Jurgenson decided to listen to them at his leisure. There was no end to his surprise when, amid the whistle and chirp, he discerned someone's obsessive whisper. A male voice was giving a lecture in Norwegian about the peculiarities of bird singing (Jurgenson knew not only Norwegian, but also radio engineering.) Since during the walk he did not meet a single living soul, at first he decided that his little portable tape recorder was accidentally caught and recorded the transmission of one of the neighboring radio stations. This phenomenon occurs when sensitive items of household musical equipment: turntables,tape recorders, and sometimes other electrical appliances, catch and reproduce the signal of a nearby radio station. To confirm his hunch, Jurgenson checked the programs broadcast that day. But none of the Norwegian-language stations broadcast anything like that. Thus began a period of experimentation, which produced a number of new recordings. On the basis of the data of many years of work, he wrote the book "Radio communication with the beyond world" - the first in this area. On the basis of the data of many years of work, he wrote the book "Radio communication with the beyond world" - the first in this area. On the basis of the data of many years of work, he wrote the book "Radio communication with the beyond world" - the first in this area.
Why not assume that in the silence of the school hall at night there are no sounds that we cannot hear? Maybe this Someone wants to say something to people, but cannot - his voice is too quiet for us?
The time for the experiment was the most silent - three in the morning. The night city was asleep, and a tape recorder was turned on in the school hall. Nearby sat silently our observer, who recorded every sound coming from the street with an accuracy of minutes and seconds. A car drove by … A crow cawed awake …
When they later compared the recording and the protocol, it turned out that the street sounds were not recorded (they were so quiet), but others appeared on the tape - creaking, as if the chairs were dragging across the floor, barely audible voices - both lonely and in chorus …
If at that moment in time there was at hand the necessary literature on the phenomenon of electronic voices, and more time, maybe it would be possible to record a intelligible message. But, alas, time was running out, the poltergeist also died down. He completely calmed down after the repairs made in the hall. If you know, this is one of the ways to neutralize a poltergeist.
For more than a year, large poltergeist processes did not bother Togliatti residents. And only in the fall of 1992, in one of the workshops of the Volga Automobile Plant, where the Togliatti citizen D. worked, something curious began and continued with varying intensity until 1994.