Slightly annoyed, as well as not a little spooked, he picked the rock up and tossed it into the corner of the garage, and after several moments it came flying right back towards him. He threw the stone again, and once again it came flying back, and the startled Ian did this several more times, each time the stone returning, before calling out to John to come see what was happening. John would say of it:

One day Ian was standing at the bench, and something hit him on the chest if I remember right and it dropped on the floor. He picked it up and just threw it back into one of the corners of the room. And immediately, a missile of some sort, I think it was the same thing, came straight back at him, and hit the wall behind his head. So he looked at me and I looked at him, and he picked up another missile and he just threw it back again. And instantly back it came again. And this became a regular – he played with it then for ten minutes, fifteen minutes. But this became a regular thing and many people threw stones into that corner, or nuts and bolts, and nine times out of ten they had something back.

They kept it quiet and tried not to let word to get out about this strange phenomenon, afraid that it would scare off customers, but they did tell a lot of their friends, who came to witness the rock throwing for themselves, as well as other strange things like moving or swinging objects. One of their friends, known only as Pat, says of the first time he was introduced to the phenomena:

Well John said to me, he said, “You let me know if you see anything odd or you know, strange.” So I said “Right.” Well the next thing, as he said that, I heard “ping… ping.” and John looked at me and said “That’s the start of it.” Well I said “What is it?” and he said, “Believe it or not, it’s stones.” And I said, “Well where is it coming from?” and he said, “Well come into the workshop and I’ll show you.” And we went to the workshop and he pointed out a certain part of the workshop and it was up in the corner and he said “Pick up a stone and throw it.” Well I picked up the stone, and as I threw it, one came hurling straight back at me. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I said “I say”. He said, “Look on the wall.” So I looked on the wall and John had all these on a rack, all these different size spanners. He said “Look at the spanners.” One spanner was swinging back and forth, then another was swinging back and forth, and before I realised, the whole lot was swinging back and forth. So I just started laughing and I said, “John,” I said, “We’ve got something strange in this place.” He said “I know,” he said, “That’s what I’ve been telling you.”

At this time, there was nothing particularly menacing about it all, just the sense that there was a very playful, sometimes mischievous, almost child-like force lurking in there, and they began to call the entity Pete. It would would reportedly get up to all sorts of mischief, such as hide people’s belongings, throw all sorts of things, and play catch with those who threw things at it. On most occasions it seemed as if it was playing games, with one of its favorites being to hide someone’s belongings, then toss them onto the floor when the person got tired of looking for them, the objects seeming to materialize from nowhere. It also became obvious that Pete understood what was being said to it. On one occasion a paperclip dropped from out of nowhere onto John’s desk as he sat there with a colleague going over paperwork, and when he asked Pete for more a whole box fell out of thin air. John explains of this and what happened next:

There was an office upstairs above us, and one day a paper clip landed on the bench. So Richard picked it up and he said “That’s a bit mean, Pete, have you got any more?” With that, a whole box of paperclips landed on the fire, BANG. Never bounced, just ‘Bang.’ So we just look at one another, and Richard says “What about some paper to go with it?” And down behind us floats a sheet of paper. When we look at it, it’s a stationery order. So I went and saw the chap upstairs, and I said “Is this yours?” And he says, “It’s my stationery order, I made it out this morning.” And I said “Are these your box of clips?” “Well,” he said, “They’re the same ones we use.” So where they came from or how they got from his office to my workshop I don’t know.

It was not only in the garage and the office that these phenomena happened, but in John’s home as well, which was right next door. Objects would often appear from nowhere or be thrown from shelves, and Pete seemed to play its games here as well. It also seemed to enjoy playing with children’s toys, especially the Rubik’s Cube, although it broke them just as often, one time ripping the head off of an action figure. One thing that Pete became known for was causing objects to materialize out of thin air on demand. One day, John asked his wife for a banana, and before she could even react, one plopped down right in front of him. When asked for a fork or spoon, one would either fall from nowhere or come shooting across the floor. Pete would also get rid of things he didn’t like. The entity apparently hated oranges, and every time they tried to put them in the house they would be tossed out the window. In the workshop Pete proved to be especially useful, with it becoming common practice for them to ask for a wrench, spanner, or other equipment and have it promptly clatter down in front of them. Sometimes it would subvert what was actually asked of it in clever ways, showing that it was quite smart. Indeed, it constantly acted in clever ways, and one of the shop workers, John’s brother in law, Fred, would say of it:

Over the years that we were there, playing, I should say playing because we used to play with it, and we found that it was very intelligent. If you wanted a plug, we would say a plug, an electric plug that you plug an iron in with or something. But he would throw you a spark plug. In other words he would associate ‘plug’ as being a spark plug. And he was amazing, he’d throw you anything you asked for really. “You must make a note of this,” and he’d throw you a pen. Silly things, like “Stop messing about, Pete, we’ve got to get this together,” and he’d throw you a staple. You know, this sort of thing he would associate with what we were speaking. It was so good, I said “My Pete, you’re so clever. There’s one thing you can’t do or get for me,” I said, “and that’s a Rolls Royce.” And as I said that, at my feet, and John was my witness, a Rolls Royce keyring landed at my feet, with ‘R R’ on it. You know, amazing.

One day, John got it into his head to see what would happen when he asked for money, and it seems to have worked. He explains:

Every day, and this went on for five years, almost every day, one period of time you could ask for money. Just give us money, Pete! And pennies, two pence pieces, five pence pieces, and pound coins on occasions used to come. Never fifty pence, I don’t know why. Mainly pennies and two pennies. And in one hour we, I, collected sixty eight pence in an hour, just saying “Send me some more money, send me some more money.” And it would appear from nowhere, just dropping around you in different parts of the workshop. On average we’d be getting about five pound a month, pound coins, that’s an average mind, sometimes it could be more sometimes it could be less. I remember once I was drinking a cup of tea after washing the dishes I’m looking out the window and there’s a pound coin in the cup, plop! And the noise on the cup, my wife said “What’s that?!” And I said, “We’re rich again!

At one point, John called in a David Fontana, a university professor with an interest in the paranormal, who came to investigate for himself and would not go away disappointed. Indeed, Pete made itself known right away. Fontana would say of what he witnessed:

Most of my visits were unannounced, so they didn’t know that I was coming at any particular time. As I entered the workshop, at that very moment a stone was thrown across the room and bounced off a piece of machinery. John was sitting there talking to one of the sales representatives but there was no question that either of them was involved in this. John looked up at me and said “There – see what I mean? He’s greeting you.” I think I was very pleased actually, because it’s so rare for investigators to be there when things actually happen. That made me take things very much more seriously than perhaps I otherwise would. You don’t see the things in midair, you hear them hit the wall and clatter to the ground, you look round and the stone is there, but you don’t actually see it in flight. Which, in the sense rather strengthens the idea that nobody’s playing tricks, because if they were, you would see the things in flight.

With Fontana’s involvement, the story began hitting the news, but rather than chase away customers, they actually started pulling in more business than ever before, with droves of curiosity seekers showing up to see the strange phenomena for themselves and usually succeeding. The bizarre goings on were witnessed by customers, two priests from a nearby church, and an insurance assessor, who would say of what he experienced:

When I was there I heard the stones or noises coming from the back of the shop. When I asked them what it was about, I was told “Oh that’s Pete the Poltergeist.” I didn’t really believe him. So I opened the door and looked through, and I could see a stone whizzing around on the floor. There was nobody else out there.

Even hardcore skeptics were going away baffled, and it became one of the biggest poltergeist cases in UK history. In the meanwhile, Pete continued his pranks and tricks for years, which were observed by numerous witnesses, but through all of this the entity itself was never actually seen. They all speculated on what or who the obvious spirit actually was, but Pete remained silent whenever asked for some sign of the answer to this question. Then one day, it began appearing on occasion to Fred, the only one who it would ever show itself to. Fred would describe the entity:

He was a little boy, dressed in 1940s clothes. And no figure, or face, you could see the outline, and he had a sort of cub cap on his head. And you could see the outline, of his hands, his face, and yet you couldn’t put a face to him. You can imagine he was all grey. No face, but the face was there. It’s hard to explain. But he was sat on sort of a fixture where we kept spare parts for lawnmowers. Now he looked out of proportion to me. His body compared to his size, his head should have been in the ceiling. It’s hard to explain but he looked really out of proportion. Now this happened several times, I should say four, five times I’ve seen Pete the poltergeist.

After this, it seems that Pete became absolutely obsessed with Fred, following him around everywhere and focusing most of the phenomena around him. Even when the shop was moved to another area, it stayed behind to be in Fred’s house. It got so persistent, and the phenomena grew so much in intensity, that Fred and his wife finally moved away. After this, the paranormal activity just seems to have melted away, and there have been no occurrences in the area since. We are left to wonder what was going on here? What sort of haunting was this? Where did this entity come from and what did it want? The haunting was certainly witnessed by many people and was very persistent, prolonged, and interactive, but what did it spring from and why did it start and stop so suddenly? These are question which only Pete the Poltergeist knows the answers to, and he’s not talking.

Most ghost stories relate to old buildings. The spirits involved are like a flashback in time, frozen in a repetitive action, oblivious to the surroundings of modern life. Poltergeists however, are something entirely different. They haunt people, not places, and they deliberately make their presence known. Poltergeists demonstrate a level of intelligent interaction with the living world that is not known amongst other types of ghost. Opinion is split on exactly what “poltergeists” are. Some argue that they are energy sources, originating from living people. Others suggest that they are the spirits of the lingering deceased.

One of the most famous accounts of poltergeist activity comes from Cardiff in Wales. The Cardiff Poltergeist was alleged to haunt a small backstreet automobile repair centre called Mower Services. During the 1980s, Mower Services was run by John Matthews along with his wife Pat and his brother Fred. Mower Services had enjoyed good trade since opening. It had built up a loyal customer base drawn from across Cardiff and the family were earning a decent wage from the business. Times were good at Mower Services.

However, one day the peace at Mower Services was permanently shattered. John and Fred were doing some repairs on a car in the workshop area of their premises when suddenly they heard a tremendous clattering coming from the roof. Assuming that children were outside throwing stones, Fred went to investigate, only to find the surrounding area to be deserted. As soon as he returned to the workshop the noise started again, causing John to remonstrate with his brother for not stopping the child vandals. Perplexed, Fred explained that the forecourt was empty and that there was no possible way the noise was being made by someone outside.

This was the beginning of an intensive period of poltergeist activity that would go on to be witnessed by police officers, insurance officials, academics, a priest and a large number of Mower Service’s customers. In the words of John Matthews, the “spirit decided to move in”. As well as the usual poltergeist phenomena, such as unexplainable changes in temperature and mysterious, overpowering smells, the spirit showed a fondness for childish tricks. For example, keys would go missing for hours and hours, only to be thrown from no where at their owner. Money would also go missing, then turn-up stuck to the ceiling or wedged in a crack in the wall. Despite all the paranormal activity, Fred and John insisted during interviews that they never felt threatened by the spirit’s presence. They even gave it a friendly nickname – “Pete the Poltergeist”.

What did concern the owners of Mower Services was the fact that customers began witnessing the ghostly activity. They became worried that the poltergeist may well scare away their trade, so decided to treat it a lot more seriously than they had originally. One day John and Fred decided to conduct a test, along with their staff, to evaluate the degree to which “Pete” would respond to what they were doing. Everyone present at the time was asked either to leave the premises or join-in the test. All doors and exits were then locked and the remaining individuals sat around a large circular table holding hands. The group then requested the spirit to make its presence known and sure enough a stone suddenly landed on the table. This prompted one of those present to suggest that the group should record the responses by writing them down. Seconds later a pen was thrown from nowhere, again landing on the table.

To the astonishment of all present, the Cardiff Poltergeist seemed to demonstrate a level of rudimentary intelligence, alongside a willingness to interact with the living world. During the test, those present requested that the spirit throw specific items, such as a coin or a battery. Amazingly, according to the witnesses, the spirit obliged by throwing exactly what had been requested each time.  Fred and John decided to seek assistance. They contacted David Fontana, a university lecturer and expert on metaphysical and paranormal phenomena.

According to reports, as soon as David Fontana arrived at Mower Services, the strange activity began. When the investigator walked into the reception area, a small stone was thrown at him from an area of the room that was not occupied. John Matthew’s response was to say “see, it’s Pete and he’s saying hello”.  After several hours observing the phenomena at Mower Services, Fontana went on to write a report which alleged that the premises were home to a poltergeist that was demonstrably intelligent. The article attracted a huge amount of attention nationally, achieving the precise opposite of what the business’ owners had wanted. Mower Services became a notorious paranormal location and began attracting tourists.

Despite the increased public attention, the poltergeist’s activity was undiminished. In fact, it seemed to intensify quite dramatically. Incidents of items being thrown or doors being locked from the inside increased sharply. Then, one day, the spirit took things even further by manifesting in front of Fred.

Fred and his brother John had been working on a car, when something caught Fred’s attention on the top shelf of a unit in the corner of the room. It was a little boy, who he described as being “tiny, thin and grey in complexion”. He said the child was huddled in the corner, staring intensely at himself and his brother John. He was apparently dressed in tattered clothing, with a face that was almost featureless. Careful not to scare the spirit away, Fred whispered to his brother to turn around slowly, in the hope that he too would see the ghost; but as John turned, the boy vanished from sight. When asked what he had seen, Fred replied “it was Pete, our Pete”. Seconds later a large, heavy brick was hurled at Fred, narrowly missing his face.

Months passed with the activity continuing on a daily basis, until one day, John and Fred decided that the time had come to move premises. Both brothers thought that the move would be the end of their contact with Pete the Poltergeist, but it soon became clear that this wasn’t to be the case. When Mower Services moved out, Pete moved in with Fred. Within days, Fred and his wife began witnessing paranormal phenomena throughout their home. The activity closely mirrored the events experienced at Mower Services. In a final attempt to rid himself of his supernatural sidekick, Fred consulted with a medium, who advised him to smash or break any items that the poltergeist moved or interfered with. Sure enough, this method worked and Pete never returned to visit Fred again.