Poltergeist reverse adoptions

"In the typical poltergeist outbreak, small objects are hurled through the air by unseen forces, furniture is overturned, or other disturbances occur -- usually just what could be accomplished by a juvenile trickster determined to plague credulous adults."

Nickell writes that reports are often exaggerated by credulous witnesses.

"Time and again in other “poltergeist” outbreaks, witnesses have reported an object leaping from its resting place supposedly on its own, when it is likely that the perpetrator had secretly obtained the object sometime earlier and waited for an opportunity to fling it, even from outside the room—thus supposedly proving he or she was innocent."