!["The Baltimore Poltergeist" by Michael Naver and Travis Kidd, From Tomorrow, Vol. 8, No. 2, Spring 1960, page 9
The chandelier swung violently, pitchers and bottles crashed, a sugar bowl leaped, and an incense burner flew off the shelf.
To any outside observer, the Edgar G. Jones family would appear as a model of a closely-knit, happy household. Lodged in a pleasant six-room brick house in a quiet residential section of Baltimore, the Joneses are three generations of a family - to all appearances, a harmonious, self-sufficient family.
Yet the observer need only have entered the house between January 14 and February 8, 1960, to discover how far from the case this was. A succession of breaking, cracking, flying and exploding objects had left the house a shambles and tightened the family's nerves to the breaking point. More eerie yet, the events had fallen generally into the classic pattern of the poltergeist, or so-called "noisy ghost" phenomena.
Edgar G. Jones, the homeowner, is a retired fireman, home for good after thirty-seven years of service in the Baltimore Fire Department. He is taciturn, almost phlegmatic, but he has fond [continues on next page]](https://library.umbc.edu/specialcollections/garrett/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2024/06/The-Baltimore-Poltergeist-717x1024.jpg)
!["The Baltimore Poltergeist" by Michael Naver and Travis Kidd, From Tomorrow, Vol. 8, No. 2, Spring 1960, page 10
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memories of his fire-fighting career and still keeps an especially tuned radio in the house to keep him posted on fire alarms. His wife, a small, pert woman in her sixties, has no time for such matters. To her falls the job of running the house, keeping things running smoothly. She is efficient and almost totally pre-occupied with family and household chores. Also living in the house are the couple's son-in-law and daughter, Mr. and Mrs. Theodore Pauls. Mrs. Pauls works in the accounting department of a large department store, and her husband drives a cab. Neither of them spends much time at home, except for sleeping.
And last, but far from least, is the Pauls' seventeen-year-old son, Ted.
Ted is a shy, brooding youngster who talks knowledgeably about being "introverted." He explains that he "cannot speak at length with people whom I have not been acquainted with for some time."
Ted has left school and does not work, so he spends most of his time at home. His family says he left school at sixteen, the legal age, because he was so brilliant that classes bored him.
So shy is he, and so few are his friends, that his major interests are solitary ones. He reads a good deal, mainly science fiction and tales of the supernatural. In addition, he is the teenage writer and editor of a mimeographed newsletter which he issues from the basement and mails to a selected list of friends.
From January 14 to February 8, Ted Paul's shyness was put to an extreme test. He was the center of more attention from the world outside his home than ever before in his life.
Fifteen Exploding Pitchers
The series of events, uncanny to some, merely unexplained to others, and which may become known as the "Baltimore Poltergeist Case," began on the morning of January 14, when fifteen miniature pottery pitchers blew up on a dining room shelf.
This was the first incident in what was to be a month of intermittent havoc, that left the house looking as though a holocaust had hit. In the next few days, these things happened:
A ceramic flower pot, shaped like a shoe, jumped from a shelf in the dining room and crashed [page ends here]](https://library.umbc.edu/specialcollections/garrett/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2024/06/Baltimore-Poltergeist-2-694x1024.jpg)
The Baltimore Poltergeist haunted the Jones family in Baltimore, Maryland from January 14 to February 8, 1960. Edgar G. Jones and his wife lived with their daughter and son-in law, the Pauls, and their 17-year-old grandson Ted. Like the Seaford and Poultry Farm cases, the Baltimore Poltergeist was believed to center around a child or teenager – in this case, Ted Pauls. Peculiar similarities have been noted between these children, particularly their intellect.
Parapsychologist Nandor Fodor, who investigated the case, recognized Ted’s talents through his zine, praising him on television. (Editions of Ted Pauls’ zine are located within the collection). Fodor theorized that the poltergeist activity was caused by the “somatic and psychic dissociation” of Ted’s depressed ego, a case of “projected repressions.”
Theories connecting individuals to poltergeist activity were shaped by contemporary attitudes, some of which are recognized as offensive today. The adjoining quote displays prominent elements of ableism and homophobia. Fodor believed that poltergeists were manifestations of the subconscious, and so he made observations of characteristics that in his time were considered sources of psychological tensions.
“Thank you for the Poultry Farm Poltergeist report. More attention should have been paid in it to the CRIPPLE MOTIVE in the mother. I looked for the same motive in Baltimore. The boy is not crippled but walks like a duck or frog (Ted Pauls – tadpole) and looks, on some photographs, like a pixy. There is something odd about the lift of one eye and I can well imagine that in school he may have been subjected to cruel jokes.”
Nandor Fodor, letter to Martin Ebon, Esc., Parapsychology Foundation, Jan. 24, 1960
In Folder “Baltimore Poltergeist,” Box D, Eileen J. Garrett Parapsychology Foundation collection, Collection 331, Special Collections, University of Maryland, Baltimore County (Baltimore, MD).
Unlike the Seaford and Poultry Farm poltergeist cases, the Jones family appears to have found a solution to their mystery. Frustrated with the bombardment of people who claimed to have the answers, Mrs. Pauls said to a newspaperman, “All you smart people who thought you knew everything about it didn’t help us at all. The plumber’s the only one who did anything for us.” After the plumber’s visit, the poltergeist activity ceased.