The exorcism of 'Roland Doe'
In March–April 1949 Jesuit priests in St. Louis performed a long series of exorcisms on a teenage boy from Maryland, known by the pseudonym 'Roland Doe', at relatives' homes and at the Alexian Brothers hospital.
1949 CE · 38.64, -90.23 · status: disputed
The account
A diary kept by the priests and newspaper reports inspired William Peter Blatty's novel The Exorcist (1971) and the 1973 film.
The sceptical view
Researchers such as Mark Opsasnick, who traced the boy's background, found no evidence of the supernatural and suggest a troubled child or deliberate pranks.
The researched reading
The case behind The Exorcist. A troubled or prankish boy and priests’ expectations explain it; the supernatural rests only on their diary.
| Explanation | Weight | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Perception, memory or mind | 38% | A troubled boy’s behaviour, including scratches and outbursts, fits psychological distress and attention-seeking; priests’ expectations shaped the diary. |
| Undetermined | 25% | The share the reading had given to fabrication on doubt rather than evidence: the record does not settle it either way. |
| A cultural story | 22% | Catholic exorcism ritual and later fame from The Exorcist magnified the story into legend. |
| A hoax or fabrication | 5% | Mark Opsasnick’s research found the boy was a known prankster; scratches and "messages" on skin could be self-made, and the exorcism diary is not independent evidence. |
| Genuinely anomalous | 5% | Priests reported phenomena they could not explain, but no independent investigation was made. |
| Something in the surroundings | 3% | Noises and movements in old houses can explain some reported phenomena. |
| A known natural phenomenon | 2% | A skin condition (dermatographia) could explain some marks. |
Official position: No official finding; the Church recorded it as an exorcism, and later researchers found no evidence of the supernatural.