FT259

Back in November, the story of a poltergeist in a small Czech Republic town flared brightly then faded as news media – and, it seems, the public – quickly lost interest. What happened?

The focus of attention was the Mráček family in the town of Strašice, in the Plzeň Region, 39 miles (62km) south-west of Prague, where they live in a small bungalow. Precisely how the phenomena came to the attention of the Prague Daily Monitor we don’t know, but the paper was told of a “sudden” onset of cracking windows and light bulbs, and small fires appearing “constantly throughout the house”. They had to extinguish as many as 60 combustions a day involving plastic bags, pictures, towels and curtains, and wall sockets (even though many of the latter are disconnected from the power supply). Similar incidents would keep them awake at night. Once, they found the aquarium water boiling, killing the resident turtle.

Mrs Hana Mráček said they sent their son Jiří to his grandmother’s and all they could do was wait around for the next fiery outburst. “We must stay here to extinguish the fires,” she said. “It is our house. We built it ourselves and everything was all right for 10 years.” Mr Mráček told one investigator that they had, since September, lived without electricity, especially on days when the polter­geist was most active; however it is not clear whether he meant the supply failed, that the activity knocked it out, or that he simply disconnected for safety. He also said that neighbours had told him of odd electrical problems.

It’s not clear, either, who called in a geophysicist and engineers from the local telecom and ČEZ power utilities. It might have been the mayor of Strašice, Jiří Hahner, since it was he who declared the house a danger and promised the family a new home within weeks if the trouble persisted. At this early stage of the story, very few facts were known. “We do not want to fall for occultism,” the mayor told the Monitor. “We will try to explain it in a scientific way; however, it is hard as these phenomena are really inexplicable.”

Other experts arrived – physic­ist Dr Luděk Pekárek from Sisyfos [Sisyphus], a Czech sceptics’ society, who declared that the phenomena had been perpetrated by “the inhabitants”; Ms Jitka Lenková, representing the Czech Psychotronics and UFO Club, who declared for a poltergeist infestation; and a spec­ialist in non-ionising radiation from the School of Electrical Engineering (CVUT) in Prague, who seems to have made no comment.

Tests performed by ČEZ on the Mráček home showed that the power supply was working properly. There was no evidence of any high-frequency energy powerful and localised enough to account for the ‘spont­aneous’ fires; even if there was, it would be difficult to explain how it could affect such diverse materials or objects. They commented light-heartedly that it is the “most electrically grounded building in the world”.

After TV NOVA installed seven mini-cameras around the house, the number of ‘incidents’ reportedly dropped to zero. With elect­rical shorts ruled out, and other tests proving inconclusive, Dr Pekárek’s theory seemed the most viable. Suspicions fell upon young 12-year-old Jiří Mráček; not only was he present at many of the incidents but, earlier in the Spring, he was among a group of boys who visited a fire station to learn about the work of firemen and paramedics, which included demonstrat­ions of different ways fires can start. A poll by the major media corporation iDNES showed that 40 per cent of its audience believed the phenomena were faked by one of the family. Such was the pressure that on 30 December the boy confessed and the police promptly closed the case. According to police spokeswoman Jana Tomkova, “He confessed to having burnt a moist towel and broken up an aquarium and a window pane.” His motive? “He wanted to compel experts to start taking interest in the bizarre phenomena in the house,” Tomkova said.

Oddly, even though the scept­ical Dr Pekárek made his judgment after being refused entry to the premises – similar to when James Randi was barred from the household of Tina Resch during the Columbus, Ohio, poltergeist case in 1984 (see FT190:38–44) – his analysis proved correct. This too was the early suspicion of Luboš Motl, a Harvard-trained physicist, who lives in Pilsen. Around mid-November, not long after the case became news, he drove the 20 miles (32km) to Strašice to see for himself and spent some time with the plainly perplexed father and his son – “a pleasant, clever, shy boy” – recording his impress­ions in a blog. “I wasn’t able to convince the son to confess – although I may have been pretty close,” he wrote. Jiří’s confession, however, was only part­ial; he insists he was responsible for only some of the phenomena to draw official attention to the family’s plight. This motif, too, is often seen in forteana: for instance the Cottingley girls faking photos of fairies to depict the ‘real ones’ they saw in the glen.

That should have been the end of it but, as we have come to expect in the fortean arena, not everything is straightforward; there are still unexplained myst­eries. Firstly, the phenomena seem to have continued after the Mráčeks sent their son away. Secondly, even after installing major grounding in the surrounding area the ČEZ electricians themselves claimed to have seen seemingly spontaneous ignitions, apparently at times when the house was supposedly disconnected. Thirdly, the boy’s supposed pyrotechnical technique eluded the investigat­ors. According to Martin Sobotka, regional spokesman for the ČEZ, “No trace of self-igniting stuff was found in [the sockets] and he [young Jiří] could not cause the repeated defects of the circuit breaker.”

In the wider view, Motl notes mischievously, the reports from the ČEZ electricians might be “just due to their effort to hide that they’re idiots who have wasted a lot of money”, and that around Strašice there are enough military and other unusual facilities to hang a few conspiracy theories upon, including the fact that Strašice “lies on a straight line from the Large Hadron Coll­ider” (is there anywhere that doesn’t?). Best of all, for those who find significance in the ‘name game’ (lexilinking), writes Motl, is that the village’s name, Strašice, translates as ‘Spooksville’.

Incidentally, a few days after news of the phenomena at Strašice broke, a family in Vyhnánově told of their own experience of a poltergeist in 1942. Mrs Květa Pešková, 77, told iDNES her husband was a boy at that time and told of drawers shooting out of the dresser, cutlery flying around and water pouring from his clothes. His granddad was struck below the eye by a fork and a priest found a wet cloth pressed over his mouth. Neighbours say a cow appeared in the house (which she can’t confirm) and that when they sent for an exorcist her horses bolted and it took several men to restrain them. The phenomena seemed to centre on her husband’s sister.



Sources
Reuters/CTK 1 Nov; Česká Noviny Magazin 1, 19 Nov; 30 Dec 2009; Prague Daily Monitor, posted on twitter by bonniegrrl, and translated on Sci Fi SoundTrack, 4 Nov 2009; Zpravy iDNES.cz 6+9+10+16+19+21 Nov 2009; blogs by Luboš Motl (as ‘lumo’) in The Reference Frame 4+12 Nov, 31 Dec 2009; Pešková polt: Zpravy iDNES.cz 9 Nov 2009.