Three teenage girls pulled their shawls over their heads as they scurried along the muddy village lane. Rain pelted down in angry bursts, and thunder crackled from the brooding sky above. The Normandy region of northern France where the girls lived, had been experiencing tempestuous weather for eight straight days, a series of intense, recurring storms of thunder and lightning that
seemed like they would never end. Locals were later reported as saying that the atmosphere seemed to be continuously charged with electricity. It was the evening of January fifteenth, eighteen forty six, in Bouviny, a village in the former commune of La Perriere today part of Belfrais on Persche in northwest France. The three girls in shawls were on their way to the home of their fourteen year old friend, Angelique, who lived with her widowed aunt in a small cottage
on the edge of the village. Angelique Couthin, like many older children in large families at that time, had been sent by her parents to live with a relative where she was expected to start earning her keep. Like most other teenage girls in the area, this involved several hours a day at a lace making loom, weaving lace for her aunt, Madame Loesna to sell. The loom was a large wooden structure that could hold over a hundred threads at a time, through which the weaver could then weave
perpendicular threads in and out of. With the thunder of finally starting to subside on that peculiar January evening on, Jelique's three friends eventually arrived at Madame loes Nard's home to start their own shifts at the loom. Shaking the rain from their shawls and long skirts, they announced themselves at the door and went inside, where they found Angelique already sat at the heavy oak table on which the
loom was mounted. It was a humble cottage with earthen floors and only the flicker of candle light to illuminate the space, made all the darker by those thick gray clouds outside. The three girls chattered as they set up a few more candles to light the place, then joined on Gelique at the loom and got to work making silk neck gloves. It was some time later, around eight p m. When one of the girls began to notice that the loom frame was shaking in a strange manner.
It was barely perceptible at first, before it intensified violently. Seconds later, the girls screamed out as the whole structure fell off the table and crashed to the ground. Then all around them the light began to undulate as the candlesticks started to shake, until they too fell to the ground, plunging the girls into darkness. You're listening to Unexplained and I'm Richard McLean Smith. Having been alerted by the crash,
Angelique's aunt demanded to know what was going on. Each convinced it was one of the others, the girls scolded each other as they groped around for the candlesticks and quickly ReLit them, With no one seemingly willing to admit it. The aunt had no choice but to help the girls place the loom back on the table and let them
get back to work. But no sooner had she left the room, the loom began to tremble violently again before once more being flung back down to the floor, and just as before, the candles followed suit, plunging the girls into darkness for the second time that evening. Moments later, the girl's screams were heard by neighbors as they ran out of the cottage in terror at what they'd just witnessed. But when the neighbors rushed over to see what the commotion was about, they refused to believe any of it.
The nervous teenagers were persuaded by Angelique's aunt to head back inside and return to work for a third time. This time, however, she stayed in the room to watch them. It was clear the girls were extremely nervous. They set about starting up another weave, unsure of just what might happen next. Then Angelique put her hand on the loom, and in an instant the frame began jiggling furiously before
shooting suddenly away from her. The others gasped in shock, their eyes widening in utter disbelief, as Angelique then moved her hand toward it again, only for it to shoot back further across the table. Many people living in rural France at the time were deeply superstitious, and Angelique's aunt was no different. It had been over a hundred years since the last person in France had been put on
trial for being a witch. Even so, tales of witchcraft and sorcery still loomed large in the imaginations of many. Telling the other girl quietly to go home, Madame Loisna instructed her niece to put on her shawl. Then she marched her through the village to the home of the local priest. Somewhat surprised to receive visitors so late on a winter evening, the priest invited the pair inside. After seating them in his kitchen, he listened incredulously as the
aunt relayed the evening's events. When she finished, she demanded the priest to perform an exorcism on her niece immediately. The priest laughed heartily in response. It wasn't quite time for that, he said, trying to ease the tension. Then, without saying a word, on Jelique placed the last glove that she'd been weaving on a chair next to the priest, immediately shot away from her and fell over with a clatter.
Stunned speechless, the priest picked up the chair, then sat down on it and asked Angelique to touch it again with her glove. No sooner than she did, it shot back once more with a screech, flinging the priest unceremoniously to the floor. Luckily for Angelique, the priest was a forgiving and unsuperstitious man. After brushing himself off, he gently reassured the pair that while he was happy to perform an exorcism, he didn't think it would solve the issue.
Believing it was some kind of physical malady, he suggested they visit a doctor. The following day, Angelique's aunt took her to local physician, doctor de Pharamont, where once again she detailed everything that had been going on. But when the doctor asked Angelique to repeat her trick with the glove, her power seemed to have deserted her. It was three days later, around nine pm, when doctor de Pharamont received an urgent request to go to the aunt's cottage, and
excited Madame Loisna greeted him at the door. It's happening again, she said, as she showed him inside, where he found the young Angelique patiently waiting for him at the loom table. The doctor looked on aghast as she proceeded to extend her hand toward the loom, and without touching it, seemed to be able to make it rock back and forth. When she moved her hand closer, grazing the frame with the faintest of touches, it flew back violently, as if
moved by some invisible force. More than a little intrigued, the doctor pushed the loom back into place and ordered the girl to try it again. As he attempted to hold it in place slowly, Angelique held out her hand again, and the frame began to shake once more under the doctor's grip, and when she touched it, it shot back again, taking the doctor with it. Having seen enough with the loom, doctor de Paramont suggested Angelique try her strange trick on
something a little heavier. In those instances, when the object was too heavy for anyone to move, when Angelique touched it, she would then seemingly be flung backwards instead. After observing Angelique for some time, the doctor noticed that the girl became progressively tired with each event, but he had no explanation for the strange phenomenon. He became even more confused
a few days later when Angelique's abilities escalated. At first, the unusual force she seemed to exert affected only wooden objects, but now all sorts of household items were being moved, papers flew off tables. If she walked past, and heavy books fell off the shelves. Metal objects were also affected, although to a much weaker degree. Her seamstress's scissors once flew off the waistband of her apron across the room,
as did metal tongs and shovels. Even burning logs started flying out of the hearth if she walked too close to it. By then, no longer able to work on the loom, Angelique had been sent back home to live with her parents, but things only got worse. Whenever the girl approached a chair to sit down, it would be seemingly flung away from her, and at night, when she got into her bed, it would shake so violently she'd
be unable to sleep in it. One afternoon, while shelling peas into a basket, her mother watched with alarm when her daughter's dress brushed the basket, and in an instant it was propelled across the floor, scattering peas everywhere. Seeing the family's evident distress, who were also suffering financially. Since Angelique could no longer work, doctor de Faramont offered to take her to the neighboring town where she could be
further assessed. On January twenty fourth, eighteen forty six, Angelique was led into a consulting room and placed in front of three other doctors as de Paramont had a ten stone wooden block placed on the floor next to him. Then he instruct did Angelique to approach it. When her dress brushed against it, the three other doctors gasped as the block then seemed to levitate four inches off the floor before bouncing up and down roughly forty times in
a minute. Even when doctor Devaramont sat on the block, it continued to do the same, and when he invited the three other men to sit on it too, it proved no impediment to the extraordinary event they were witnessing.
Becoming increasingly intrigued by the phenomenon, doctor de Faramont wondered if some kind of electromagnetic force was at play and decided to try and isolate Angelique from any possible electric current with a sheet of glass, a non conducting material, positioned on the floor at a chair on top of it, and asked Angelique to try and move it, which she was seemingly unable to do, suggesting to him that the phenomenon was electrical in nature. Meanwhile, news of Angelique's strange
apparent powers were spreading around the region. About twenty days after the episode began, another physician, doctor Verger, arrived from the nearby town of Belem, and offered to take Angelique to his home to study her further. There he exhibited her on successive days to hundreds of people. By the sixth of February, she had been seen by more than two thousand onlookers, including distinguished physicians from Belem and nearby Mortaigne,
as well as local magistrates, lawyers, and clerics. By the end of each exhibition, the girl appeared to be exhausted, at which times her powers would seem to fade, but by the next day, invariably her disturbing abilities would return. When some of the onlookers gave Angelique money. Seeing an opportunity, her father resolved to make the most of this strange occurrence and decided to take her to Paris, where he
could try and exhibit her to the masses. Though doctors to Pharamond and Verge advised him against the idea, he would not be persuaded. It was not an enjoyable journey along the muddy roads of winter time rural France by then, reports of Angelique's sudden and unusual powers had spread far and wide, and the attention that some locals gave her as they passed from village to village was not always pleasant, with many believing her to be possessed by some malignant power.
Sometimes hundreds of people would wander out to see the oddity for themselves. Too scared to get close, they would follow her carriage from a distance, hooting and shouting abuse at the dangerous sorcerer. After arriving in Paris on the twelfth of February, Angelique was taken to visit distinguished Parisian physician, doctor Tonshon. He was quick to verify the girl's power for himself by firmly holding a chair with both hands
and inviting the girl to sit on it. As soon as she did, both the doctor and the chair were pushed backwards forcibly. Then he invited the teenager to sit with him on a large sofa, and it too was pushed violently back against the wall as she moved to be seated. The doctor noticed that not only did Angelique's clothing seem to be attracted to, but also adhered to any furniture that was repulsed from her, suggesting to him that there was some kind of static electric charge involved.
He also noted that the power appeared to be far greater from the left hand than the right, as well as curiously from the left side of her pelvis. He also observed that her left hand was warmer than her right one, and it often trembled or displayed irregular contractions during her paroxysms. If her left hand touched any object, she would throw it from her as if it were burning hot and prickly. At one point, the doctor accidentally touched the nape of her neck, which sent the girl
running away, crying out in pain. It seemed the point where her neck muscles met her cranium was so acutely sensitive the child would not suffer even the lightest touch there, saying that it burned too intensely. On occasions when Angelique's powers appeared to be manifesting, doctor Tonschon took her pulse.
He found her heartbeat to be irregular, varying from one hundred and five to one hundred and twenty beats a minute, and in those moments when she appeared to be causing the greatest effect on surrounding objects, he believed he could feel a motion in the air flowing from the girl onto his hand, as if it was being brushed by a cold gust of wind, as he put it, just like doctor de Pharamont, Doctor Tonshon also demonstrated that if the girl was cut off from contact with the ground,
either by placing her feet on a non conductive material or merely by keeping her fe feet off the floor, her strange apparent power over objects ceased immediately. Ton Schan wrote up his findings and published them in a scientific pamphlet. He also brought the case to the attention of the French Academy of Sciences at their session on February sixteenth, eighteen forty six. Naturally, the learned members were skeptical. Nonetheless, a committee of six agreed to conduct a study of
the girl for themselves. On February seventeenth, just over a month since Angelique's apparent powers had first appeared, the team of six invited the girl to prove her powers once more at the Jardin de Plonte, a famous botanical garden in Paris. Once again, Angelique moved heavy pieces of furniture
with only the slightest of touches. When a compass needle was brought close to her body, it resolutes swung round to point at her instead of north Anngelique also claimed that whenever she touched the north pole of a magnet, it gave her an electric shock, but the south pole had no effect on her at all. Impressed by what they'd seen so far, the six scientists then tried something else.
Back in seventeen eighty six, while investigating the effects of electrical charge on frog's legs, an assistant to Italian scientist Luigi Galvani discovered by mistake that they convulsed when an electrically charged metal was applied to the sciatic nerve. Inspired by the revelation, Galvani became convinced that this was proof of what he called animal electricity, a supposed innate force
in the body's nerves that controlled all living things. This, in turn led to the speculation that one had to only reignite this charge in a dead thing to potentially bring it back to life. When Galvani died in seventeen ninety eight, his nephew, Giovanni Aldini, took up his work. It was Aldini who, with much fanfare and not a little theater tried to use his uncle's theory to resurrect
a newly hanged man. The extent to which the gentlemen of the French Academy of Sciences were influenced by Galvani's theory, or the novel Frankenstein, for that matter, which was partly inspired by the idea and not known. Nonetheless, in a certain nod to it, they decided to see what effect on Jelique might have on the nervous system of a
dead frog. Using a voltic pile, a precursor of the modern day battery, they instructed on Jelique to stand close to it, while on her forearm they placed a skinned and partially dissected frog so that its spinal column and nervous system could clearly be seen. When they asked her to then touch the battery with her free hand, the frog's dissected corpse began suddenly to twitch and jump, terrifying
the young girl out of her wits. In truth, the scientists would have likely got the same result from the frog with anyone, not just the so called electric girl, since any human body will conduct electricity, But the experiment left on Jelique so traumatized that She endured nightmares about it for several months afterwards, and over the course of the next few weeks, as if they'd been scared right out of her, Angelique's strange apparent powers began to steadily diminish.
All this time, Angelique had been giving daily public performances for money, but by April tenth, her supposed powers had all but evaporated. Soon it became clear that her father was deliberately moving the furniture around her in an effort to keep up the mystery. Due to a public outcry, however, he eventually gave up the charade. By the end of April, Angelique's apparent gift had ceased completely, never to return. It was at this point that the Committee of Eminent Scientists
started to backtrack. Despite carrying out what by today's standards would be seen as a shameless exploitation of the girl for their own ends, some committee members suggested that she'd been a fraud all along. When their final scientific report was published, it remained inconclusive, giving no indication as to
the court or cessation of the girl's apparent powers. In response, some of the doctors who'd claimed to have witness the strange phenomena, when at the height of its power, compelled the Committee to think again, writing, it matters not what name we may give to this the effects it is impossible to deny. The more we have seen, the deeper our conviction of the phenomenon, we have examined and re examined,
and taken every precaution against deception. I do not say what cause was operating, but what effects presented themselves removed even the shadow of a doubt. It is perhaps a testament to those times that we have no record of Angelique Kutar's own thoughts on her remarkable experiences, or what effect the events of early eighteen forty six had on her afterwards. All that we do know is that she is said to have simply gone back to living a
normal life. Her case remains to this day Unexplained. This episode was written by Diane Hope. Unexplained is an Avy Club Productions podcast created by Richard McLain Smith. All other elements of the podcast, including the music, are also produced by Richard McLain Smith. Unexplained. The book and audiobook, featuring stories that have never before been featured on the show, is now available to buy worldwide. You can purchase from Amazon, Barnes,
and Noble Waterstones, among other bookstores. Please subscribe and rate the show wherever you listen to podcasts, and feel free to get in touch with any thoughts or ideas regarding the stories you've heard on the show. Perhaps you have an explanation of your own you'd like to share. You can reach us online at Unexplained podcast dot com or Twitter at Unexplained Pod and Facebook at Facebook dot com. Forward slash Unexplained Podcast