The Tullymoan Fake Farm Phantom

For a few weeks in 1868, the people of Tyrone were entertained by the antics of the Tullymoan poltergeist. And while the whole thing was quite quickly uncovered to be an elaborate plan to scare a farmer off his land, the early reports seemed to indicate that this was a classic poltergeist case.

A random Tyrone farmhouse

EXTRAORDINARY AND MYSTERIOUS OCCURRENCE

In this age of common sense and disbelief in superstition, to find circumstances impossible to explain by ordinary criteria, awes and astonishes more than mere rustics. Such circumstances have been occurring in the village of Tullymoan, situated about a mile from Claudy, near Strabane. The house of a man named Speers has been the object of some mysterious destructive agency for weeks past. The owner was threshing oats in the barn, and in every sheaf he found two or three small stones — this went on so long that he found himself compelled to cease. 

Then he was startled by a noise in the stable, and he went in there carrying his flail with him, which he dropped behind the horse, that he might fetch away a tub from the animal’s head — and lo! the flail disappeared and has not since been found. 

Then the kitchen fire got scattered through the floor; the plates and dishes were were smashed off the dresser, and the pots and pans began to walk about through the apartments. Then stones began to fly in all directions, cutting everyone daring enough to approach the haunted dwelling. 

The panes of glass next began to be smashed; so, for safety, the windows were taken out and locked up in a press; but the mysterious visitors were too wise, for soon press, windows, and chairs were smashed to pieces. 

The turf stacks keep oscillating like a poplar tree, hammering constantly resounds from the chimney, and the stones keep flying in all directions, pelting and cutting and bleeding those venturous enough to risk visiting the place. 

On Friday evening week the crowds gathered, distinctly saw a pot come flying through the door, and fall in smashed pieces on the street. A religiously-inclined inhabitant of the locality volunteered to lay the Evil One, and so he repaired to the spot in vaunted hopes of success. Alas for human calculation! The stones rattled about his ears in the fated kitchen, they fell on his wrists, spraining them; and on his feet, hurting them. The combat was too unequal, his opponents were invisible, so he considered retreat justifiable. 

Strange to say, the disturbances ceased on Sunday last, from 10 am, to 5 pm, when they began with renewed vigour. Not alone in the house, but through the owner’s lands - though no farther - do the stones pelt away the crowds. The circumstance is an extraordinary one, and is creating an extraordinary amount of excitement far and near. For miles round the people flock to see and certify regarding the unusual wonder. 

The people have fled the house, and all about it and within are in fearful confusion. The event deserves notice and investigation from its many peculiarities.

Source:

The Tyrone Constitution Omagh, 27 March 1868