In March, 1661 John Mompesson of Tedworth (located in Wiltshire, England) brought a lawsuit against a local drummer whom he accused of collecting money under false pretences. The court found the drummer guilty, confiscated his drum, and gave it to Mompesson. Soon afterwards, Mompesson discovered that an angry, drumming spirit had invaded his house. The spirit drummed loud tunes on the bed of his children, moved objects around in the house, threw shoes, and wrestled with servants. The case of the ghostly drummer of Tedworth soon became famous throughout England.
Comments
Listed in chronological order. Newest comments at the end.
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Can you explain why you believe the Tedworth Drummer to be a "probable hoax"? To many it's a well-documented historical poltergeist attack, conforming to standard patterns of poltergeist behaviour, especially refusing to manifest when external investigators are present. I agree that the Philadelphia case could well be a hoax, but the letter of April 1730 stated: '.. two local Reverends who had recently had an encounter with an angry, drum-beating ghost which was described as being "not a whit less obstrepreous, than the Tedsworth Tympanist."' - this isn't the same as saying it actually was the Tedworth spirit, merely that it bore comparison. To then conclude that because the second case was almost certainly a hoax, then the first must probably have been fake, doesn't hold water. The two cases are unrelated, and at no point does the second account say that they are, bar the nature of the manifestation. I've researched anomalous phenomena for many years now, and quite happily concede that many reports are either mistaken or indeed outright hoaxes, but to be honest the Tedworth account, even three centuries on, is still held by many to be a solid case study.
Posted by Stu Neville on Sat Nov 15, 2003 at 04:18 AM
Stu, In my account I lay out a number of reasons to suspect why the first Tedworth Drummer could be a hoax. Let me quote from the article: "First of all, no one was ever allowed to inspect his cellar. Why not? Was someone hiding down there creating all the sounds and commotion? Second of all, the drumming almost always happened at night and seemed to come from outside the house, not inside of it. In other words, someone could easily have been hiding outside banging on the walls of the house with a hammer. Finally, the King himself sent some gentlemen to investigate the haunting, but when they arrived they found no evidence of spectral activity at all." Personally I think this is enough to label the event a 'probable hoax'. My view is that if a 'haunting' can easily be attributed to human agency, then it should be. There's no reason to invoke ghosts if a phenomenon could easily have been performed by mischievous humans.
Posted by Alex on Sun Nov 16, 2003 at 07:23 PM
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