In 1890, the tiny Greek village of Messeria on the island of Kifnos was plagued by something

otherworldly. Whatever it was, the villagers claimed that it would enter their homes, eat

their food, break their dishes, and then move on to repeat itself elsewhere. They named

this creature And the Labyrinth, and it claimed it was of Rikolakis, a close cousin to the

traditional European vampire. And the Labyrinth drank their wine and smashed their belongings,

howling like a wolf, and making a loud, horrible mess.

But the most interesting feature of this story is that no one actually saw And the Labyrinth

do these things. The villagers claimed to witness it all, of course, but they said he was

invisible. He was, in essence, a noisy spirit, but the only cultural lens they were able to

view him through was as a vampire. And they weren't the first, between 1591 and 1923, people

across Europe told similar stories, an invisible monster that raided their homes and destroyed

their belongings. Today we see events like these play out across the screens of our local

movie theater. Hollywood has been fascinated with invisible, violent forces since the early

1980s when they brought us Poltergeist. What once was looked on as overly spiritual and

easily disproven is now attracting the attention of popular culture. But Poltergeist have a

history that runs far deeper than just the 1980s. From first century Roman accounts, the

modern newspapers, the stories of humans interacting with angry ghosts, has been told for a very,

very long time. Some are clearly hoaxes. Some are misinterpretations of natural events.

Often times they are a grab for attention or a cry for help. But sometimes, on very rare

occasions, a story comes along that is nothing short of haunting. I'm Aaron Manke, and this

is lore.

The word Poltergeist evokes a number of ideas for most people. Most think about the movie.

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