“If I were asked to name my choice of the most fascinating news story of the month,” wrote Western Star columnist Ed Finn, Jr, “I would unhesitatingly nominate the yarn emanating from St. John’s last week concerning the “ghostly fires” which have been plaguing a family in Flatrock.”

The story that piqued Finn’s interest appeared in The Evening Telegram on December 1st, 1954 and concerned the experiences of Mr. & Mrs Mike Parsons, and their 19-year-old daughter Josephine.

According to the Parsons’, objects around the home began to spontaneously combust. In the preceding two weeks a dictionary, a doll, a sack of sugar, a box of books, and a trunk had simply ‘burst’ into flames.

All of the fires were unexplained; there seemed to be no source of ignition. It got so bad the Parsons family were afraid to sleep at night, not knowing what blaze might confront them next.

The first item to burn was a dictionary. Mrs. Parsons smelled smoke and traced the source to the wood box where she found the burning book. “There were boughs there, too, and dry sticks,” she recalled, “but they weren’t burning. We were puzzled but let the thing go at that.”

‘Letting it go’ proved to be impossible — the fires kept igniting.

Next to burn was a sack of sugar.

“Mom and I were in the kitchen and I was washing the floor,” recalled daughter Josephine. “Daddy was in the barn milking the cow. Mom and I smelled smoke…I called out to Daddy and Uncle Jim, and they came running and searched the the house.”

In the corner of the front room they found it.

“Our sack of sugar,” recalled Josephine, “Burning. Half-burned away. It smelled. And flames were already at the wall.”

Here, the story gets even stranger.

Vanishing Flames

“And here’s the mysterious thing about it,” Mike Parsons told The Telegram, “I touched the sugar sack. Just touched it with my hands, I tell you. And the fire went out.”

Next a box of religious books burst into flames, damaging the bureau it was resting on. Then a doll owned by the Parsons’ grand-daughter caught fire and scorched the bedroom floor.

The fire department and the RCMP paid a visit to the house.

“I know they have suspicious feelings,” confessed Mr. Parsons, “but they are all wrong.”

“Before you draw any conclusions,” he continued, “I want to tell you this: Nobody is trying to burn down the house. We have not a red cent of insurance for us to collect. Furthermore, I have a basement full of potatoes and turnip representing a hard summer’s work I wouldn’t want destroyed.”

A Poltergeist?

Seemingly convinced, The Telegram’s writers pulled the Encyclopedia Britannica off the shelf and asserted, “Poltergeists (a German term meaning “racketing spirits”) is the thing the Encyclopedia refers to which is the closest to the alleged mysterious breaking out of fires at the Parsons’ home.”

“It can almost invariably shown,” The Telegram quotes, “that there is some agent or person whose presence is essential for the production of the phenomenon.”

The RCMP Report

Ten days after The Telegram’s initial story, a brief follow-up appeared stating “RCMP have concluded investigating the ‘mystery house’ at Flatrock… RCMP’s Inspector Porter have told The Telegram his men have found no proof of the fires’ origin, though they have come to some conclusions.”

If those conclusions were ever reported in the media, I haven’t found them.

More ‘Poltergeists’ in the Press

Strange as it may seem, the ‘Flatrock Incident’ is not the only case of poltergeists appearing in the Newfoundland news.

In December 2013, CBC published a story, “Poltergeist behaviour haunts St. John’s family.” The story relates how a family moved into a 1970s-era home in the east end of St. John’s only to discover strange happenings in the residence. It started with a doll that moved around the house and graduated to jiggling door knobs and self-arranging furniture.

You can read the whole story at CBC.ca.