Newspaper Clipping of the Day

Via Newspapers.com

This odd little maybe-it-was-a-poltergeist-maybe-it-wasn't story appeared in the "Greenville (South Carolina) News," May 15, 1960:

GAFFNEY (AP) - It's a little spooky when a milk-filled glass suddenly shatters in the hand. 

Or when the best glass ash tray cracks with a loud noise. 

Equally ghostly is the noticeable break in a sea shell that adorns a living room end table. 

A vase and serving tray also are victims of the silent menace that has plagued the fragile contents of the Brian Eppley home in Gaffney for the past several weeks. 

Mr. Eppley, a former Charlotte resident who recently moved to Gaffney, believes these breakages are caused by frequency waves emitting from his television receiver. 

"You can't hear anything," he states, "but I can feel it...like pressure, beyond the area of hearing, from these waves." 

He says he develops a headache while watching TV.

Mrs. Eppley says that objects break only after the set has been on for a long period. "And the breaks occur only while the TV is on," she adds. 

Mr. and Mrs. Eppley were sitting in front of their TV set a few days ago. Suddenly, they heard a loud report. Their ash tray had split in the center. 

Later, other objects fell under the mysterious spell. 

Then the chain of events was climaxed when a glass broke into pieces while Mrs. Eppley held it and watched TV.

I couldn't find any follow-ups to this mystery, although three months after this story was published, South Carolina papers carried a small news item informing us that Brian D. Eppley, a former Charlotte resident who had recently moved to Gaffney, was arrested on charges of armed robbery.  Maybe he needed to pay for a new television.