Even Shaggy and Scoob could've foiled the plans of Sommy, the high-tech specter. Electronic Possessions by D. Trull Enigma Editor dtrull@parascope.com In the movies, and sometimes in real life, people living in haunted houses somehow manage not to pack their bags and get the heck out of there, pronto. Invariably there's some idiotic reason for staying while the walls bleed and the toilet spews bile and the kids get sucked into other dimensions, whether it's a sadistic stipulation in a rich uncle's will or sheer incalculable laziness. But here's one case in which the residents of a possessed estate could benefit naught by grabbing a U-Haul and a few jugs of holy water at the first sign of phantasmic belligerence. You see, this family had a little ghost whose feats were quite a show, and everywhere the family went, the ghost was sure to go. Dwayne and Debbie Tamais of Emeryville, Ontario, claimed that their home was infested by a mischievous ghost that called himself "Sommy." A sort of high-tech specter, Sommy manifested himself primarily through the household's telephones and television. When they first encountered him, the Tamaises say he was causing strange clicks on the line during phone conversations, or disconnecting calls altogether. The harassment increased when Dwayne and Debbie went on a trip and left their 15-year-old son Billy at home with a housesitter. The power in the house began to go out intermittently, and Sommy interrupted phone calls to announce himself verbally. He said he was watching the house, and sounded off with grunts and burps. By the time the Tamais returned, Sommy had cut the house's phone lines. After having them repaired, Debbie Tamais got to hear Sommy for herself. "It was freaky the first time I heard him," she said. "My hair stood on ends. My arm was goose bumps. It was just the meanest voice." The poltergeist's pranks progressed to involve manipulating the family's TV set, altering the ringing sound of the phones and changing the PIN codes on the family's voice mail and bank cards. The police, private investigators, surveillance crews and officials from Bell Canada were unable to identify the source of the disturbances. Dateline NBC reported on the strange case of Sommy, and the show's producers hired private security specialists in "our own attempt at ghostbusting," but it yielded no conclusive results. The Tamais family themselves seemed halfway to believe Sommy was a ghost, and halfway to suspect he was a human hacker who was electronically terrorizing them from afar. In the end, they got fed up with the exasperating spirit and decided they would move out. "We won't tell anyone where we're going," Mrs. Tamais said. "I want to find a house that a nice older couple have been living in for the past fifty years without any problems." She reported that on one occasion, she asked asked Sommy why he kept pestering them. The ghostly voice responded, "I just want a friend." Sadly, as anyone with the amateur sleuthing skills of Shaggy, Fred and Velma must surely have deduced by now, Sommy the poltergeist was none other than the Tamais' son, Billy. The boy had by no means escaped suspicion of outsiders. In fact, rumors that Billy was the culprit had become so widespread that on the day after the Dateline NBC broadcast, his parents intended to take him to the police and make an official statement of his innocence. But then he decided to confess, explaining that the telephone and electrical pranks began as jokes with his friends but completely grew out of control until he didn't know how to stop. The parents apologized to everyone whom the hoax had concerned or inconvenienced, and noted that they would arrange professional counseling for their son. According to Joe Nickell, a paranormal investigator and senior research fellow of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP), cases of "hauntings" like this one are fairly common and easy to identify. "We realized that many of the phenomena described, such as the eavesdropping, could have been accomplished more easily by someone in the house, negating such an elaborate hypothesis as that involving highly sophisticated electronic wizardry," Nickell wrote. "We also knew that such mischief is typically due to a disturbed youngster in the household." So if you should ever suspect your house is haunted by ghosts in the machines, it might be a good idea to check first for skeletons in the family closet. Sources: Skeptical Inquirer, Sept./Oct. 1997; Associated Press. (c) Copyright 1997 ParaScope, Inc. More Fortean Slips! Share your views in the Fortean Slips message board!