Case file · High strangeness
The Great Amherst Mystery
From 1878 to 1879 knockings, moving objects and fires were said to follow 18-year-old Esther Cox in her sister's cottage in Amherst, Nova Scotia.
1878 CE · 45.83, -64.21 · status: disputed
The account
The events began after a man attempted to assault her at gunpoint. The actor Walter Hubbell lodged with the family in 1879 and published a bestselling book. The phenomena stopped after Esther was convicted of arson for a barn fire.
The sceptical view
Walter Prince argued in 1919 that Esther produced the effects herself in a dissociative state, and one witness said Hubbell 'painted the facts up to make the book sell'.