In 1890, the tiny Greek village of Messeria on the island of Kithnos 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 Andolavaris, and they claimed that it was a vrykulakas, a close

cousin of the traditional European vampire, Andolavaris drank their wine and smashed their

belongings, howling like a wolf and making a loud, terrible mess.

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

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 theaters.

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 poltergeists have a history that runs far deeper than just the 1980s, from first

century Roman accounts to modern newspapers, the stories of humans interacting with angry

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