Brief description :
Unnecessary and redundant navigation paths in the course of development, highly transient associations of a particular class with another one, presence of stateless classes, occurrence of temporary and short duration objects/classes or classes that exist only to invoke other classes through temporary associations are the true symptoms of the presence of 'Poltergeist Antipattern'.
How to avoid them :
"...the project managers should implement strict procedures to get the ObjectOriented architectures reviewed by expert architects in this field and also avoid deploying developers who do not have sufficient knowledge and experience in object-oriented design in a software development project."
Excerpt from http://icmgworld.com/corp/news/Articles/RS/jan_0302.asp