What happened
In the spring of 1983 things began to happen in a family’s flat in Sosnowiec, southern Poland, that the household could not explain. In the presence of their daughter, a schoolgirl named Joasia – sources give her age as 11 or 13 – household items reportedly rose into the air, pictures fell from the walls and refused to be hung back up, matches lit themselves and cutlery went soft and bent. There were also accounts of water appearing on the walls, light bulbs bursting and mirrors shattering, their shards endangering the family. The phenomena occurred even while the girl slept. Local authorities blamed the building settling and “geopathic anomalies”. Doctors and scientists took an interest in the girl and conducted tests and experiments with her over some 40 months; after a few years the phenomena faded away.
Witnesses
The girl’s family, neighbours, the doctors and scientists who examined her; the case was written up by journalists Anna Ostrzycka and Marek Rymuszko.
Explanations and hypotheses
The case was described by Anna Ostrzycka and Marek Rymuszko, who later founded the magazine Nieznany Świat, in the book “Nieuchwytna siła” (1989), published in English in 2023 as “The Elusive Force”. According to the authors, the tests confirmed the girl’s remarkable abilities, though they were ultimately inconclusive. There are no independent, peer-reviewed scientific publications from these studies, and almost everything known comes from authors sympathetic to the paranormal hypothesis. The case thus remains unexplained but poorly documented.
Unexplained There is no convincing explanation.
Sources
- Marek Rymuszko, Anna Ostrzycka, Nieuchwytna siła (Oficyna Literatów „Rój”, 1989)