Here is how to recognize when your home might be experiencing poltergeists

By Stephen Wagner via paranormal.about.com

DETERMINING THE DIFFERENCE between poltergeist activity and ghost or haunting activity can be difficult. While ghost and haunting activity is the result of spirit energy, poltergeist activity – also known as “recurrent spontaneous psychokinesis” or RSPK – is the result of psychic energy generated (usually unconsciously) by a person, referred to as an agent.

But how do you know there might be poltergeist activity in your home? Most often, you’ll know it if you have it because it is out of the ordinary and pretty obvious: sounds, movements, and odors of unknown origin.

Below are 7 of the most common types of poltergeist activity. Let me be clear, however: Because you experience – or think you experience – one or more of the activities listed below does not automatically mean that it definitely is poltergeist activity. There could be more mundane, everyday causes for the activity. For example, smells of unknown origin could be wafting in from an open window; lightings flickering on and off could be faulty wiring.

You should seek logical explanations before jumping to the conclusion that it is poltergeist activity because true poltergeist activity, although it is a well-documented phenomenon with many hundreds of real cases, is relatively rare. A professional investigator might be able to help you to determine the cause of what you are experiencing.

Having said that, here are 7 signs to recognize:

1 – DISAPPEARING OBJECTS

You put your set of keys or your cell phone down in the place you always put it. You turn around a minute later and it’s gone. You and your family search high and low for it, but it cannot be found. Later – sometimes days later or longer – the object mysteriously reappears in the very place you always put it. Or, more bizarrely, you later find it in a most ridiculous place, like high on a bookshelf, in a shoebox in the closet… or some other spot where you’d never put it in a million years. Read more about this particular phenomenon in the article Disappearing Object Phenomenon.

2 – OBJECTS LEVITATING OR THROWN

You’re sitting there watching TV, totally engrossed in a dramatic movie, when suddenly the bowl of popcorn you’ve been munching from rises from the coffee table, floats through the air a few feet, then drops to the floor. Or… you’re having a loud argument with your teenage daughter, and as she storms out of the room, books and knick-knacks come hurtling off of the bookcase, as if reacting to the young girl’s anger.

The movement of physical objects like this can be quite dramatic and can be as slight as a box of Tic Tacs sliding a few inches across a table top or as amazing as a heavy refrigerator levitating off the kitchen floor.

3 – SCENTS AND ODORS

No one in your house smokes, yet on occasion the distinct smell of cigarette or cigar smoke can be detected in the bathroom. Or… as you’re dressing for bed, suddenly the overpowering scent of lilacs fills the room.

As stated above, all kinds of smells can enter your house from the outside, even from a passing car, so such scents might not necessarily mean poltergeist.

Such scents and odors can also be a sign of ghost activity as they might be associated with a spirit or with a residual haunting.

Keep Reading: 7 Signs of Poltergeist Activity.
See also: What Is a Poltergeist and How to Survive a Poltergeist

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