Case file · Haunting
The Battersea poltergeist
From 1956, for about twelve years, the Hitchings family of Wycliffe Road, Battersea, reported fires, moving objects and writing by a poltergeist they called 'Donald'.
1956 CE · 51.47, -0.17 · status: disputed
The account
Ghost hunter Andrew Green investigated and obtained a 'letter from a poltergeist', later the subject of a Guinness record entry.
The sceptical view
The letter was found to be in the teenage daughter Shirley's handwriting.
The researched reading
A long-running household poltergeist centred on a teenage girl, with writing traced to her hand. Trickery within a stressed family is by far the best fit.
| Explanation | Weight | Why |
|---|---|---|
| A hoax or fabrication | 50% | The famous "letter from a poltergeist" was in Shirley Hitchings’s handwriting; poltergeist cases centred on a teenager have often been shown to be trickery, and "Donald’s" fires and moving objects fit a hidden agent in the house. |
| Perception, memory or mind | 25% | A family under stress, a teenage daughter at the centre, and twelve years of belief create the conditions in which ordinary events are read as a poltergeist. |
| A cultural story | 12% | The story grew through the press and later books, adding a royal "Donald" persona and dramatic details. |
| Something in the surroundings | 8% | Old terraced houses creak, settle and have draughts and noisy pipes, which can account for some sounds. |
| Genuinely anomalous | 3% | With fraud evidence and no controlled observation, little remains for the paranormal. |
| A known natural phenomenon | 2% | No natural phenomenon fits writing and identity claims. |
Official position: No official investigation; ghost hunter Andrew Green investigated and the letter was found to match the daughter’s handwriting.