Enfield Poltergeist

The Enfield Poltergeist was a claim of supernatural activity at 284 Green Street, a council house in Brimsdown, Enfield, London, England, United Kingdom, between 1977 and 1979. The alleged poltergeist activity centred around sisters Janet (11) and Margaret Hodgson (13).

Some members of the Society for Psychical Research (SPR), such as inventor Maurice Grosse and writer Guy Lyon Playfair, believed the haunting to be genuine, while others such as Anita Gregory and John Beloff were "unconvinced" and found evidence the girls had faked incidents for the benefit of journalists. Members of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP), including stage magicians such as Milbourne Christopher and Joe Nickell, criticized paranormal investigators for being credulous whilst also identifying elements of the case as being indicative of a hoax.

The story attracted press coverage in British newspapers, has been mentioned in books, featured in television and radio documentaries, and dramatized in the 2016 horror film *The Conjuring 2*.

## Poltergeist

In 1977, a series of terrifying events began in Enfield, England, which went down in the history of paranormal phenomena as one of the most shocking cases of haunting. The Hodgson family began to experience strange phenomena at home, such as knocking on the walls, spontaneous movement of furniture, spontaneous fires and even attacks, which were mainly aimed at children.

The family consisted of divorcee Margaret Hodgson and her four children – 13-year-old Peggy, 11-year-old Janet, 10-year-old Johnny and 7-year-old Billy. One August night in 1977, strange things began to happen in the girls' bedroom when they both claimed that the linen closet began moving around the room on its own. However, after the initial confusion, their mother found nothing out of the ordinary, so she ordered them to lie down again. But then the cupboard suddenly shifted and Margaret had to push it back with her hands. Knocking and other sounds also started coming from the walls. The family then stayed up all night and went to a neighbor's house in the morning. Neighbor Vic Nottingham wanted to investigate the matter and when he entered the house, he also heard a strange knocking that he said accompanied him from room to room.

The phenomena gradually increased in intensity. Lego bricks and other objects were suddenly thrown at family members, furniture moved spontaneously across the floor, and small fires appeared and suddenly disappeared in the rooms. The creature apparently targeted 11-year-old Janet, who was repeatedly thrown out of bed by an unknown force, sometimes levitating the girl in the air. One of these incidents was even reportedly witnessed by two passers-by who spotted Janet in a horizontal position floating in the air through a bedroom window while children's toys floated in the background behind her.

A priest and a medium came to the house after these events, but none of them could stop the antics of the invisible being. The poltergeist once allegedly tried to strangle Janet with a bedclothes, but her mother saved her then. On one occasion, Margaret was so frightened and at a loss that she called the police to the house. One policewoman then saw the chair move across the floor by itself, but she was not sure if it was due to supernatural causes or if someone in the family moved it. Another witness was a reporter from the Daily Mirror who interviewed the family. He allegedly saw a pan fly out of the stove and hit his fellow photographer directly in the head. Famous photographs were then taken in the bedroom showing Janet being thrown from the bed.

It was the turn of paranormal experts Maurice Grosse and Guy Lyon Playfair from the "Society for Psychical Research", who gradually recorded the phenomena in the house for many months. However, the technique sometimes failed inside for unknown reasons, while it worked perfectly outside the house. Grosse is said to have heard Janet scream from the mountain one evening while he was analyzing the evidence below. As he was about to go into the room, he saw Janet dragging something across the floor and down the stairs, ending up wailing at his feet. Playfair once again heard a "loud vibrating sound" that resembled a drill. When he got to the bedroom, he found that the old Victorian fireplace had been ripped right out of the wall.

After several months of invisible terror, other unusual things began to happen. The dog's barking and menacing growls echoed through the living room, except that the family had no dog. Maurice Grosse believed that if a being could produce these sounds, it might also be able to speak. There was also the disturbing question of whether these were even demonic forces. As Grosse began to ask questions, the creature allegedly spoke through Janet (who was apparently already possessed by the spirit) in a rough, unnatural voice that seemed to belong to an older man. From a medical point of view, it would be almost impossible for Janet to speak in such a voice, and even if she could, she would only last a few seconds.

The ghost is said to have introduced himself as Bill and claimed to be the previous occupant of the house, but died in the living room of a brain haemorrhage. After some research, the family of the dead man was contacted and when the recordings were played to Bill's son, he recognized his father's voice immediately. The paranormal activity lasted about 2 years, after which it gradually stopped as suddenly as it began. However, more and more skeptics became involved in the case, which later gained a lot of attention.

Grosse and Playfair themselves claimed in their records that they caught the girls several times playing with the strange phenomena themselves. However, they did not believe that they could fake all the phenomena that happened in the house. American magician Milbourne Christopher did not discover anything paranormal during his investigation and declared that "it was just the antics of a clever girl who wanted to cause trouble and confusion". Well-known investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren joined the case, who in turn claimed that Janet was under the influence of demonic forces. Whether the Enfield poltergeist was real or not, it is certain that to this day the case ranks among the most famous of its kind.