Something Took Over a German Law Office

In October 1967, a man sat in a German law office and watched a telephone for twenty minutes. Nobody touched it, nobody picked up the receiver, and nobody made a call. But according to the telephone company’s records, that same phone had made about twenty calls while he was sitting there.

The man signed a statement confirming what he’d seen. For lawyer Sigmund Adam, whose office was in the German town of Rosenheim, it was another headache in a growing series of problems that nobody could explain. And things were about to get a whole lot stranger.

The Phone Bill Made No Sense

It started when Adam noticed calls appearing on his office telephone bill that nobody admitted making. They were all going to 0119, Germany’s automated service that told callers the correct time.

Sometimes the number was dialed several times a minute. On other occasions, all four office telephones reportedly rang together, or calls suddenly disconnected for no apparent reason.

Adam contacted the telephone company, which sent technicians to check the equipment. They inspected the lines, replaced parts, and eventually installed a counter to keep track of outgoing calls.

But the mystery calls kept happening. Even with the extra equipment watching the lines, the records continued showing calls to the time service.

The telephone company insisted somebody inside the office had to be making them. Adam and his employees insisted nobody was touching the phones. Before they could figure out what was happening, the electrical system started giving them problems too.

The Lights Started Going Crazy

Fluorescent lights flickered, went out, and sometimes broke without warning. Electricians discovered that some of the tubes had somehow twisted in their holders, even though they were mounted high on the ceiling.

Circuit breakers kept tripping, and loud banging noises interrupted the workday. The employees never knew what was going to happen next, or which piece of equipment would start acting up.

The local electricity company sent engineers to investigate. They checked the wiring and installed instruments that recorded changes in the electrical supply.

That’s when things got even more confusing. The recording equipment began showing sudden, sharp movements that nobody could explain.

Engineers tried separating the office from possible electrical problems elsewhere in the building. They even arranged for a different power supply to see whether the trouble was coming from outside.

It didn’t help. The strange readings reportedly continued, and the employees were left trying to do their jobs while electricians kept coming and going.

Even the Physicists Were Puzzled

In December 1967, two physicists named Friedbert Karger and Gerhard Zicha came to Rosenheim to examine what was happening.

They wanted to know whether something was wrong with the wiring, the instruments, or the building itself. They checked for changes in voltage, magnetic fields, vibrations, and other things that might explain the strange readings. They also brought additional equipment so they could compare the results.

During one observation on December 8, a recording instrument made around fifteen sudden movements. But another device watching the electrical supply wasn’t showing anything that explained them.

The physicists spent days running tests and trying to find the cause. In the end, they reported that some of the unusual readings couldn’t be explained by the things they’d checked.

Their findings were published the following year, along with a report by German parapsychologist Hans Bender. By then, the employees were reporting something that had nothing to do with electricity.

Now the Furniture Was Moving

Pictures on the walls reportedly turned by themselves. Drawers opened, calendars fell, and hanging lights began swinging even though nobody had touched them.

One electricity inspector, Paul Brunner, described standing about a metre away from a picture when it suddenly turned almost all the way around on its hook. Another inspector reportedly saw it happen too.

There was also a report of a filing cabinet weighing around 175 kilograms moving roughly thirty centimetres away from the wall. Nobody could explain how such a heavy piece of furniture had shifted across the floor.

Word about the strange office spread through Rosenheim. Reporters became interested, and television crews arrived to interview employees and film the investigation.

What made the story especially unusual was the number of people involved. Electricians, engineers, physicists, and visitors were all describing things they couldn’t understand. As investigators compared their notes, they began noticing something interesting about when the incidents happened.

A Nineteen-Year-Old Employee Became the Focus

Her name was Annemarie Schaberl, and she was nineteen years old. She worked in Adam’s office and had been there throughout the strange events.

Investigators noticed that many of the disturbances seemed to happen when Annemarie was around. When she was away, things often became quieter. When she returned, the problems tended to start again.

Hans Bender became especially interested in her. He had spent years studying unusual experiences and wondered whether strong emotions could somehow cause physical disturbances without a person realizing what was happening.

Annemarie was reportedly going through a difficult time in her personal life. Bender wondered whether that could be connected to the activity, although nobody understood how it could make lights swing or telephones dial numbers by themselves.

The attention couldn’t have been easy for her. She was a young office employee who suddenly found herself being watched by investigators, reporters, and people who believed something supernatural was happening around her.

Years later, Annemarie appeared in a television interview and said she considered herself an ordinary person. She didn’t believe she had any special abilities and couldn’t explain the incidents. She seemed as puzzled by the whole experience as everyone else.

Everything Stopped When Annemarie Left

In January 1968, Annemarie left her job at the law office. According to the investigators, the strange activity stopped soon afterward. The telephone problems disappeared, the electrical equipment settled down, and the furniture stayed where it belonged.

After months of interrupted workdays, visiting technicians, and television crews, Adam and his employees could finally get back to running a normal law office.

The investigation had produced telephone records, electrical measurements, eyewitness statements, and reports from trained scientists. Some of the people involved had witnessed things they would spend years trying to understand.

And despite all the attention, nobody had worked out exactly why the disturbances seemed so closely connected to Annemarie.