The Indianapolis Poltergeist: the Beck and Gemmecke Household

2910 North Delaware Street, Indianapolis. In March 1962 three women shared the house. Renate Beck, 32, a divorcee from Vienna. Her daughter Linda, 13, described as shy and quiet. And Renate's mother, Lina Gemmecke, 61, widow of a German newspaper publisher, said to be critical of Americans and of how her granddaughter was being raised.

Sunday, March 11, 1962. A few minutes after 10 p.m. A heavy glass beer mug lifted out of the kitchen sink. In one telling it sailed through the air and exploded upon the floor. Then the family found a large piece of German crystal lying on the floor about four feet from the bookcase where it had been sitting. Broken into pieces. They called a family friend, Emil Noseda, who ran the Sheffield Inn. After 11 p.m. a heavy glass ashtray was hurtled across a downstairs room. The women spent the night in a hotel.

They came home. It started again. Glasses and crockery flew and broke in the kitchen. Patrolman Ray Patton was struck in the back by a glass that broke into several pieces. It flew with such force that it left him bruised and sore for days.

A coffee cup flew from the sink and smashed against the wall. A glass swan lay broken in an empty room. Twice in a row, three steak knives were found on the floor in the shape of a cross. "I have never seen anything like it," Noseda said. A wall lamp fell. He reattached it with a larger nail. A few minutes later it came down again, this time breaking, but no one was near it. Rapping sounded upstairs while the family sat downstairs.

Then the bites. Mrs Gemmecke grabbed her throat and cried out that she was being choked. Examiners found two tiny sets of punctures that looked like small teeth marks. Noseda counted nine bites on Mrs Gemmecke and two on Mrs Beck. A doctor likened them to bat bites. The house quickly became a sightseeing tour.

Sgt. John Mullin suggested a pellet gun, or a hi-fi stereo emitting sound waves that shattered the glass. Lt. Francis J. Dux sat the household down for an hour and a half. Nothing happened. He concluded the activity only happened when one member of the family was out of sight.

Parapsychologist William G. Roll of the Psychical Research Foundation reportedly stayed in the house from March 16 to 22 with clinical psychologist David Blumenthal. Roll chronicled 110 movements and incidents in all. Linda was ruled out as sole agent, since she was away during many incidents. The agent was never definitively established.

March 24. Mrs Gemmecke collapsed and a priest was called. A sergeant arrived and saw her throw an ashtray and turn over furniture. She was arrested. A judge offered to drop the case if she returned to Germany within 10 days. On March 31 she flew home to Kassel. Police and papers said she had caused the disturbances all along. The major activity stopped.

Roll saw it differently. He treated such outbreaks as recurrent spontaneous psychokinesis, or RSPK, rooted in household tensions. A recent divorce. A hostile mother and daughter. A teenager in the house. He told the story in The Poltergeist in 1972. One account says a few events still occurred at the house later that year and in early 1963.