Well, so there might be something to it. So the poltergeist might be something.
This case was no flash in the pan. It was real and valid. For nine full days it had persisted. For nine full days, stones passed through the air at the direction of—the poltergeist. Pictures of the stones in full flight. A step-by-step, frame-by-frame sequence picture of a stone leaving the ground and speeding away gave Thomas a wriggly feeling up and down his spine.
Barometric pressure 29.77 inches, temperature 84.66 degrees, both rising slightly. A graph gave the pressure and temperature throughout the nine days. The total number of stones and the masses, individual and aggregate. The district, with a map of both the entire township and a close-up map-diagram of the area, with motion-traces across it, each labeled, notated, numbered, and keyed to the text.
Physical data on the gravitational field. Maps of the magnetic field, both transverse and vertical. Wind direction during each passage of the stones.
A faked report.
Couldn't be real. Absolutely impossible. Ridiculous, and the work of a frantic mind, working avidly to create a situation.
And yet the engineer was a good engineer. He couldn't—it was psychologically impossible for him—to present fake data.
Ergo this report must be real.
Thomas considered the reports of peculiar activity. Mostly the newspapers reported them as small boys throwing stones as a method of exerting their ability to be annoying to the police and duly constituted authority.
There were reports, he knew. About twelve authentic reports per year, which considering the possibility of having the poltergeist phenomena present when no observer was there—how many times had he heard small stones rattling from the roof or rattling noises of one sort or another—meant that the poltergeist was a rather common phenomenon. There were cases he recalled wherein earthquake temblor had been blamed for the upsetting of a grand piano. He'd wondered about that one—a grand piano is stable, positionwise—and how it could have been rolled across the room and dumped upside down.