Spring Break
Macomb Poltergeist
Jason Nevel
Issue date: 10/31/07 Section: News
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By 1948, Macomb Fire Chief Fred Wilson had extinguished a plethora of fires. However, the experienced fire- fighter had never seen anything like he was about to witness.
"The whole thing is so screwy and fantastic that I'm ashamed to talk about it," Wilson said to reporters in 1948.
Wilson was one of dozens of people who said they watched fires erupt on a worn-down farm just outside of Macomb. Although witnesses may not have realized it at the time, what they were experiencing went down in ghost story folklore as the Macomb Poltergeist.
Wanet McNeill, 13, was forced to leave Bloomington, Ill., and live with her father after her parents divorced. Along with her 8-year-old brother Arthur Jr., the three moved in with their uncle Charles, his wife and other family members who lived on a farm in Macomb.
The move crushed the young Wanet, and because of this people said she became a very disturbed adolescent. She longed to escape back to Bloomington to be with her mother; yet, she was stuck in a little wooden house with shoddy wallpaper in the middle of nowhere.
Then on Aug. 7, brown spots began to appear on that schlocky wallpaper, followed by small fires. It was an unexplainable occurrence because there weren't any flammable sprays on the wallpaper or insulation in the walls. In fact, family members knew of nothing that could have caused the fires - besides the deranged 13-year-old.
However, something didn't fit into that conclusion. Wanet was nowhere to be found when the fires seemed to randomly appear.
In the week of Aug. 7 to 14, more than 200 fires broke out in the Wiley house. Neighbors would come every day to witness the phenomenon and help douse the flames. Pans and buckets of water were placed all over the house in preparation. Still, the fires materialized in front of the startled witnesses. Some fires even spread to the ceiling.
Wilson was called in to investigate the freak situation, and he had the family strip all of the wallpaper from every wall in the house. Yet even that did not stop the fires from starting.
"The whole thing is so screwy and fantastic that I'm ashamed to talk about it," Wilson said to reporters in 1948.
Wilson was one of dozens of people who said they watched fires erupt on a worn-down farm just outside of Macomb. Although witnesses may not have realized it at the time, what they were experiencing went down in ghost story folklore as the Macomb Poltergeist.
Wanet McNeill, 13, was forced to leave Bloomington, Ill., and live with her father after her parents divorced. Along with her 8-year-old brother Arthur Jr., the three moved in with their uncle Charles, his wife and other family members who lived on a farm in Macomb.
The move crushed the young Wanet, and because of this people said she became a very disturbed adolescent. She longed to escape back to Bloomington to be with her mother; yet, she was stuck in a little wooden house with shoddy wallpaper in the middle of nowhere.
Then on Aug. 7, brown spots began to appear on that schlocky wallpaper, followed by small fires. It was an unexplainable occurrence because there weren't any flammable sprays on the wallpaper or insulation in the walls. In fact, family members knew of nothing that could have caused the fires - besides the deranged 13-year-old.
However, something didn't fit into that conclusion. Wanet was nowhere to be found when the fires seemed to randomly appear.
In the week of Aug. 7 to 14, more than 200 fires broke out in the Wiley house. Neighbors would come every day to witness the phenomenon and help douse the flames. Pans and buckets of water were placed all over the house in preparation. Still, the fires materialized in front of the startled witnesses. Some fires even spread to the ceiling.
Wilson was called in to investigate the freak situation, and he had the family strip all of the wallpaper from every wall in the house. Yet even that did not stop the fires from starting.
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