What is phrogging and is it a real thing?

Have you ever heard of “phrogging” before? I learned about it when I recently watched I See You, a horror movie that involved phrogging, which is pronounced “frogging.”

If I’d seen the movie before making the “Cases of Creepy Haunted Houses” episode for the Haunting American True Crimes season on the podcast, I would’ve for sure mentioned it. I couldn’t help but think of one of the cases I talked about in that episode: the Spider Man of Moncrieff Place.

Of course, what Theodore Edward Coneys did by living undetected in the house of Mr. and Mrs. Philip Peters wasn’t called phrogging in the 1940s. But that’s essentially what it is. Inviting yourself into someone’s home and living with them without them knowing.

In Mr. Peters’s case, Coneys was not a nice phrogger, however. He ended up killing Mr. Peters. Which is what made his case so sensational. It was a real-life locked-room whodunnit.

Let’s take a look at that and then see if phrogging is a real thing or just something invented for I See You.

The Spider Man of Moncrieff Place

Police found Mr. Peters’s body during a welfare check. Concerned neighbors called after going to check on him. They knew he was home, but he never answered the door. Police entered and found his body beaten to death.

What perplexed police the most was that all of the doors had been locked from the inside. How had the killer escaped?

Nine months later they learned he hadn’t.

Police were once again called out to check on reports of mysterious happenings in the home. It happened a lot in the months after the murder, especially when Mr. Peters’s widow moved out. But police figured the reports of lights coming on inside, curtains moving, and shadowy figures passing in front of windows were teenagers playing pranks.

Until they arrived to check things out on July 30, 1942. At the same time they pulled up to the house, a gaunt pale specter of a face peered out at them from the front door before quickly slamming it. They ran inside and Coneys might have eluded them again if he’d been quieter.

They heard a noise upstairs and ran in that direction just in time to see Coneys’ leg disappearing through a small trapdoor in the ceiling. It was so small no one had thought to look up there when investigating Mr. Peters’s murder. Surely no one could fit through such a tight spot.

Well, a man with hardly any meat on his bones like Coneys sure could.

What Phrogging Is and Why Its Called That

In I See You, one of the characters explains phrogging in exactly the same way it’s defined on Million Acres:

“…phrogging is a person secretly living in another person’s home. The word is pronounced “frogging” and gets its name because phrogs — as the people who engage in this activity are called — tend to “hop” around from house to house, as a frog might do from lily pad to lily pad.”

Phrog or ghost?

At several points in I See You, it seems like Jackie (Helen Hunt) and her husband Jon (Greg Harper) may live in a haunted house.

While she’s cooking, the TV suddenly comes on…again and again when she’s trying to turn it off. Especially because it keeps coming on during a newscast about boys who have recently gone missing in the area. It’s upsetting and she doesn’t want to hear about it.

But that’s not the only strange thing going on. Why is her favorite mug suddenly on the roof? And what happened to all of their silverware? Jackie thinks the window repairman may have stolen it for some reason, but as Jon says, “Who would want our crappy silverware?”

But Jon notices things too. Like suddenly some of the framed pictures on their stairs are empty. Where did the photos go? And who the hell trapped him in his son’s closet when he noticed his son’s hamster on the loose and went to put it back in the boy’s bedroom?

It’s very easy to think they’ve suddenly got a ghost, but it turns out that it’s a phrog. Actually, two. And one of them has a vendetta against one of the occupants of the house.

No spoilers here. I will say, though, that I See You starts out as one of the tensest, creepiest movies I’ve seen in a while. I rarely jump in movies, but I did during one scene of I See You.

Was I See You based on a real case of phrogging?

I’m not sure if the movie was based on a true story or not. I especially don’t think anyone in their right mind would document their phrogging exploits on social media like they do in the movie.

However, even though they’re rare, there have been real-life cases of phrogging. So the movie may partially be based on one of those.

The Spider Man of Moncrieff Place is such an example, but in 2008 Stanley Wayne Carter, an Arkansas man, was found phrogging in a home in Plains Township, Pennsylvania. He lived in a family’s attic for a week. Luckily other than helping himself to some food, money, clothes, and Christmas presents during that time, he didn’t hurt —or, worse, kill— anyone. But he definitely creeped them out.

The same sort of thing happened to a South Carolina woman in 2012. The HuffPost only identified her as Tracy because she didn’t want to reveal her last name. However, in her case, her phrogger wasn’t a stranger. It was an ex-boyfriend, one she’d broken up with 12 years before.

When he got out of prison, I guess he decided he had no other place to go than her attic. Tracy’s sons found him up there after she thought “there was some poltergeist stuff going on” when she heard noises coming from the attic and saw nails popping in the ceiling.

All of these cases are super creepy, and it seems that, like ghosts, attics are a popular place for phroggers to live.

So if something strange is happening in your home, before you suspect ghosts and call the Ghostbusters, you might want to make sure you don’t have a phrogging problem instead.

Check-In

Which kind of stories creeps you out more: ghost or phrog?