What happened
On 3 February 1958, in the home of James and Lucille Herrmann in Seaford, a New York suburb, bottles began popping their caps and tipping over – holy water, shampoo, bleach, ink. Then came porcelain figurines that fell and broke, moving furniture and an overturned bookcase. The incidents happened mostly when the 12-year-old son, Jimmy, was nearby. Several times the family fled the house for the night. From 11 February Detective Joseph Tozzi of the Nassau County Police worked on the case full-time, and parapsychologists J. Gaither Pratt and William G. Roll came from Duke University. Sixty-seven incidents were logged; the last occurred on 10 March 1958, after which the house fell quiet.
Witnesses
The Herrmann family, Nassau County police officers (including Detective Joseph Tozzi), journalists; parapsychologists J. Gaither Pratt and William G. Roll.
Explanations and hypotheses
Pratt and Roll checked the wiring, radio waves, vibrations and the structure of the house and found no cause. They treated the case as “recurrent spontaneous psychokinesis” (RSPK) centred on the boy – a concept Roll went on to popularise. Magician Milbourne Christopher showed how similar effects could be produced by trickery and misdirection, and Joe Nickell argues that a 12-year-old could easily have staged it all while witnesses missed his involvement.
Disputed A likely explanation exists, but some of the facts are still disputed.