The Cock Lane Ghost saga began when strange knocking noises and scratching sounds echoed through a lodging house in Smithfield, London. Eleven-year-old Elizabeth Parsons claimed the spirit was 'Scratching Fanny,' the ghost of Kentish woman Fanny Lynes. The ghost purportedly communicated via knockings to accuse Fanny's former lover, William Kent, of poisoning her with arsenic.
The phenomenon attracted massive crowds, including author Horace Walpole and Dr. Samuel Johnson, who formed a committee to investigate. When Johnson exposed the séances as an elaborate hoax orchestrated by Elizabeth's father, Richard Parsons, William Kent took legal action.
Rather than treating it as mere trickery, English courts treated the supernatural smear campaign as criminal conspiracy and defamation. Parsons and his accomplices were convicted, with Parsons sentenced to the pillory and two years in prison, establishing that invoking ghosts to ruin a reputation carries real-world legal penalties.