Zugun was born in Talpa, Romania, on 1913-05-24 to a farming family. In February 1925, at age eleven, Zugun visited relatives and reportedly picked up money found beside the road despite being warned that it was associated with the Devil. After Zugun spent the money on sweets, a relative reportedly told the child that the Devil had entered or would remain with Zugun. The episode subsequently became central to the family's interpretation of the disturbances that followed, although the connection between the coin incident and later phenomena was itself an interpretation rather than an independently established cause.

The earliest reported disturbances involved stones striking a house and breaking windows, together with small objects moving, jumping, or apparently being thrown without an identified person responsible. Similar events were reported after Zugun returned to Talpa, leading relatives and neighbors to increasingly associate the activity with the child. Stories concerning the Devil, possession, or a malevolent force influenced local interpretations of the events.

Attempts were subsequently made to address the situation through religious and institutional intervention. Zugun spent time in a monastery, where disturbances were also reported, and was later placed in a psychiatric institution for observation. The continuing reports attracted wider attention after a local newspaper account appeared on 1925-04-18. German engineer and psychical researcher Fritz Grunewald subsequently traveled to investigate and personally observed Zugun during May 1925. Grunewald publicly stated that the phenomena witnessed during the investigation appeared genuinely paranormal, although that conclusion remained an interpretation of the observations rather than independently demonstrated proof of psychokinesis.

Following Grunewald's involvement, Austrian researcher Zoë Wassilko-Serecki became one of the most important investigators of the case. Wassilko-Serecki brought Zugun to Vienna in early 1926 and conducted extensive observations over subsequent months. A report published in the February 1927 issue of Zeitschrift für Parapsychologie stated that more than nine hundred alleged phenomena had been recorded in Zugun's immediate surroundings during the Vienna investigation.

The reported manifestations included raps; movement, disappearance, and reappearance of objects; thrown or displaced household items; pins or needles appearing in Zugun's clothing or skin; and scratches, weals, abrasions, and bite-like marks appearing on the body. These bodily manifestations became one of the most distinctive aspects of the case because they could sometimes be photographed and examined after they appeared. The physical existence of photographed marks is therefore better documented than the claimed paranormal mechanism responsible for producing them.

British psychical researcher Price first investigated Zugun in Vienna in April 1926. Price reported witnessing several unusual object movements, including a steel letter opener moving across a room, a mirror being displaced, and other household objects apparently moving while Zugun and Wassilko-Serecki were under observation. Price subsequently arranged for continued investigation at the National Laboratory of Psychical Research in London, where Zugun was studied during the autumn of 1926.

Contemporary British newspapers reported extensively on the London investigation. A Daily News article dated 1926-06-02 described Price's earlier observations and reported numerous incidents attributed to the case, while additional British coverage appeared during Zugun's visit later that year. The case consequently became a public-media phenomenon as well as a subject of psychical research.

Price's later published treatment is useful because the investigator did not regard every category of alleged evidence as equally secure. Discussing the bite-like marks, Price acknowledged that impressions produced experimentally by Zugun's own teeth could closely resemble those attributed to unexplained causes. Price also noted that the bite marks occurred only on areas accessible to Zugun's mouth and that scratches and other marks appeared on accessible portions of the chest, arms, wrists, and hands. However, Price maintained that investigators did not actually observe Zugun deliberately producing the marks while under surveillance.

This distinction is important when evaluating the case. Photographs demonstrate that marks and abrasions existed, and contemporary observers documented their appearance, but those facts do not establish that an external entity or psychokinetic process produced them. Conversely, demonstrating that similar marks could be reproduced conventionally does not prove how every documented mark actually originated. The evidentiary strength therefore differs substantially between the existence of the physical marks and the explanation proposed for them.

Investigators likewise disagreed over the object movements and other reported phenomena. Some regarded their observations as evidence of genuine psychokinetic activity, while critics questioned the adequacy of controls and considered deliberate or unconscious deception possible. The case also became important in the development of psychological interpretations of poltergeist phenomena, particularly theories connecting recurrent spontaneous psychokinesis or disruptive physical events with adolescent subjects experiencing psychological conflict.

The investigation gradually ended as Zugun matured and the reported phenomena subsided. Later accounts indicate that Zugun returned to comparatively ordinary life, while the case remained influential in psychical-research literature. The surviving documentary record includes contemporary press reports, photographs, published investigative accounts, and archival material preserved within the Society for Psychical Research collections at Cambridge University Library.

The Talpa Poltergeist is therefore unusually valuable because the case does not depend exclusively upon a decades-later family story or paranormal legend. Multiple investigators observed Zugun, physical marks were photographed, contemporary newspapers reported the investigation, and substantial archival material survives. At the same time, the documentation also preserves reasons for caution, including weaknesses in experimental control, phenomena that could potentially be produced normally, and disagreement among investigators over what had actually been demonstrated. The case is strongest when those competing elements are preserved together rather than treating extensive documentation as proof that a supernatural or psychokinetic interpretation was established.