The Rochester rappings

Record summary

After the Hydesville episode, the Fox family demonstrated alleged spirit communications in Rochester, attracting committees, journalists, clergy, and paying audiences. The Rochester phase helped transform a private household claim into a public evidential controversy and supplied early examples of coded communication, witness testimony, and attempted testing. Researchers can compare it with later séance and poltergeist reports because the event was repeatedly staged before observers. The surviving accounts vary in detail, and critics identified possible bodily or environmental sources for the sounds rather than an external agent.