The Stove-Goblin of Zaragoza

Home appliances can be a pain in the neck.  They break down, malfunction, and often cost a bundle to replace.  However, there is one thing to be said for them: they generally don’t start talking to you.

However, on at least one occasion, that is exactly what happened.

The Palazón family lived in a simple apartment building in Zaragoza, Spain.  Their lives were perfectly quiet and ordinary until September 27th, 1934.  On that day, all High Strangeness Hell broke loose.  The family began hearing mysterious screams, loud laughter, and a strange male voice, all seeming to emanate from the kitchen stove.  Since the stove’s chimney was linked to other apartments in the building, they initially assumed that the sounds were coming from another unit.  When neighbors came to visit, they too heard the sounds, and word quickly spread through the area that the Palazóns had a talking stove on their hands.

While some continued to believe that the family was being harassed by a human prankster, most observers became convinced that the stove was being haunted by a “duende.”  (What Western folklore would call a “goblin.”)

Inevitably, the Palazón apartment became a gathering place for those with a taste for supernatural entertainment.  The duende--or whatever it was--was always eager to chat.  It would answer questions and make any variety of smart remarks.  For whatever reason, The Voice seemed fixated on the family’s 16-year-old maid, Pascuala Alcocer.  It would often call her name, and then laugh in a demented fashion that must have been particularly unsettling for the girl.

By November, the family felt they couldn’t take any more of both the crowds and their loud-mouthed stove, and they did what so many households plagued by Fortean problems have done: they went yelling for the police.  This worked as well as you might expect.  The Voice showed no fear of the officers, chatting away to them with its usual glibness.

One of the policemen asked the stove, "Who are you? Why are you doing this? Do you want money?" 

"No," said the stove.

All the flummoxed police officer could think of to say was, "Are you looking for a job?"

"No."

"Then who are you, what is it that you want, man?"

"Nothing," the stove calmly replied.  "I am not a man."

The police had no idea what to do.  Just try arresting a talking stove.  They sent an architect and some of his workmen to inspect the apartment.  They found no place where any human hoaxer could possibly hide.  When one of the workmen suggested measuring the chimney, The Voice replied, “You need not trouble, the diameter is just six inches.”  It was.

In a move that reeked of “We Don’t Have Any Better Ideas,” the entire apartment building was evacuated, and police put a 24-hour guard around it.  Psychologists were brought in.  A priest sprinkled the stove with holy water.  None of it did a bit of good.  It was looking that there was no power, either human or divine, that could shut up that damned stove.

And then, The Voice suddenly went silent.  After two days had passed with the stove being as quiet as any decent kitchen appliance should be, everyone decided that the episode was over, and life could get back to normal.  The guard withdrew, the psychologists went home, and the priest put away his holy water.  But as soon as the Palazóns returned to their apartment, they were greeted by the stove shrieking, “Cowards, cowards, cowards, here I am!”  The Voice then amiably gave its listeners permission to smoke, if they were so inclined.

The family threw in the towel, and moved not just out of the building, but out of Zaragoza altogether.  The Palazóns disappear from our story at that point, but I’m guessing they gave their stoves the side-eye for the rest of their lives.

Even with the apartment now vacant, The Voice carried on, taunting visitors with the words “I am coming, I am coming!”  Music-hall comedians began impersonating The Voice.  The talking stove was a popular figure in local advertisements.  Businesses, smelling a possible publicity bonanza, offered The Voice large sums of money to visit their establishments.  That stove was causing such an uproar throughout Spain that there was talk about calling in Scotland Yard.

By the end of November, the Governor of Zaragoza had enough of what he obviously thought was a lot of pure nonsense, and decided to wrap things up.  On December 4th, he issued a statement claiming that The Voice was the unwitting handiwork of Pascuala Alcocer.  He declared that her subconscious had produced The Voice by means of “unconscious ventriloquism.”  He described this as “a combination of ventriloquism and auto-suggestion.”  This novel argument failed to explain why The Voice was often heard when Alcocer was nowhere near the apartment.  Alcocer was briefly arrested, but as nobody could decide what to charge her with--”unconsciously impersonating a goblin” seemed a little too weird--she was allowed to return to her hometown.

The apartment got new tenants, and life quieted down.  Sort of.  The apartment’s residents still heard some mighty odd sounds, but by then, everyone was tired of dealing with a goblin, so such disturbances were ignored.

However, The Voice has not been forgotten.  Although the apartment complex was demolished in 1977, the building now at that site is known as the “Edificio Duende”--the “Goblin Building.”