The Enfield poltergeist

the best documented investigations of paranormal activity ever taken place, and became one of the most famous poltergeist cases the world has ever seen. At the address of 284 green street, Enfield, lived a single mother, Peggy Hodgson and her children, The children included 2 young girls Margaret, age 14, and Janet aged 11 ,and sons Johnny, aged 10, and Billy, aged 7. ​The start of the activity The activity started one night as the children were getting ready for bed upstairs it was just an ordinary night like any other , ​ All of a sudden Peggy could here a lot of banging and screaming coming from the girls bedroom, she rushed into the room to tell the girls to keep it down, only to see them sitting there terrified staring at a set of heavy drawers that had been moved from there usual position to the middle of the room. The girls swore it had moved on its own ,but Peggy didn't believe the girls and attempted to push the heavy set of drawers iback into place . ​A few seconds later the drawers were back against the wall and Peggy, out of breath turned to her kids and insisted they stop messing around and get ready for bed . At that instant the set of drawers flew from the wall right back into the middle of the room as Peggy, Janet and Margret were left frozen in fear. This was followed by a loud unsettling knockings coming from all the walls in the room surrounding them . ​The Nottingham's .The family fled the house screaming, in nothing but there pyjamas , they ran across the road and banged on the door of their neighbours, Vic and Peggy Nottingham. ​The family frantically explained what had just happened in the upstairs bedroom, ​Vic Nottingham was not the kind of man to scare easily and volunteered to go over to the Hodgson residents to investigate. ​As Vic entered the house followed by the scared family, who stayed down stairs. He inspected the dark empty rooms and noticed the nocking sound following him around the house in every room, a little spooked he went down the stairs to talk to the Hodgson family. ​What we need to keep in mind is that Vic was a builder by trade and knew a thing or two about household plumbing, but he admitted that he couldn't blame the knocking noises on old water pipes or creaky floor boards . ​As they stood in the living room discussing this louder intense knocking came from directly above there heads ,BANG, BANG, BANG. Vic couldn't help but look shaken and suggested they ring the police .​ Police officer Carolyn Heeps ​When the police arrived you can imagine there initial reaction to the whole story and suggested that maybe it was nothing more that prank the children had played on the mother . ​as the police officer wpc Carolyn Heeps asked her questions she was horrified to see a old wooden chair move across the floor with no assistance . ​in a later television interview with wpc Carolyn Heeps , she describes how she did indeed see the chair move a few feet across the floor and was definitely not pushed ,she then goes on to explain how she tried in vain to debunk what she had just seen with her two eyes but in the end had no explanation. the fact is that a police officer, with such a respectable Career, would risk ridicule on television, only adds more credence to this case . ​The police had no choice but to leave after making sure that there was no risk ,at least from the living. ​ Wpc Carolyn Heeps, made the suggestion that they seek out other forms of help. At a loss and not knowing where to turn next Peggy and the Nottinghams decided to see if the british tabloids could help. The British tabloids ​Graham morris ,a photographer, and Douglas Bence ,a journalist for the daily mail news paper arrived at the hodgson house hold and was welcomed by a tired looking Peggy. ​after a few hours sat in the house waiting for something to happen ,cameras at the ready , waiting to capture any thing paranormal, the two men became more and more impatient ,they came to the conclusion that they had wasted their time and prepared to leave , ​Douglas and Graham left the house , as graham was loading his equipment into his car ,Vic came running out ,urging them to return to the house right away ​as they opened the door they could see Peggy and her children in Hysterics trying to get out of the way of multiple objects that flew around the house such as Lego bricks ,marbles and ashtrays, that smashed and rebounding off the walls . ​Graham backed himself up into the corner of the room and proceeded to take pictures, as he was doing so he was hit on the forehead by a Lego brick ,that hit him so hard it left a mark. abruptly, the activity ended leaving every one in the room very shaken. ​Unfortunately the photographs taken showed no evidence of what had occurred , this frustrated the Graham and Douglas and only encourage them to try and capture some hard evidence, but to do so they would need more help from some one who knew a little more about the paranormal than they did. Enter ,Maurice, Guy and Roz

they decided to reach out to the society of psychical research , who sent out there newest member ,inventor and paranormal investigator Maurice Grosse. ​Initially he was unsure of what to make of the claims of the haunting ,thinking it may all be was a hoax or maybe the family wanted their five minuets of fame with the tabloids, but after a few nights and after witnessing some strange happenings in the home he became convinced that this was all worthwhile and suggested this was all down to a poltergeist. Maurice decided he would need more help and invited ,writer and journalist , Guy Lyon Playfair , to join the investigation , due to his background in paranormal investigations. Over the next fourteen months the investigators ended up spending the majority of the time staying with the family to comfort and to try and capture some sort of evidence of poltergeist activity . It wasn't long before the supposed haunting caught the eye of the BBC radio service who sent out, Roz Morris to investigate the story that was capturing the attention of Britain. On her first night as all the family slept , Roz and Maurice sat down stairs as he filled her in on the investigation so far. As they sat in the living room there came a loud bang coming from the Janet and Margret's room ,Roz and Maurice rushed up to find the girls in a deep sleep, and a chair that was originally standing next to Janet's bed, thrown over in the middle of the room ,with shaking hands Roz brought out her microphone and started to document what had happened, the girls, were fast asleep . Not long after this incident the activity started to escalate and the family started to feel safer sleeping in the same room, The fire place incident One night Janet informed her mother that she could hear a scraping sound coming from a fireplace that was upstairs in the bedroom, the scraping turned into a loud vibrating noise like a the walls were coming down around them. Guy rushed into the bedroom and witnessed the fireplace being ripped from the wall by some invisible force and flying over the bed and coming down to the ground in a tremendous crash, and leaving every one in the room shocked and terrified. Maurice Grosse commented on the sheer weight of the gas fire that he could not lift it, so there was no possibility two young girls could either . All of the activity seemed to occur even more so around the youngest daughter Janet. Grosse thought this was probably due to puberty as this seems to attract poltergeists. gross decided to have Janet tested for any chance that she could perhaps influence metal to move or vibrate or bend like the famous spoon bender Uri Geller. Janet was told to place her hand six inches away from the spoon with no touching, within a minuet or so the spoon did indeed begin to bend, by the end of the experiment the spoon was successfully bent fully ,with no touch from Janet at all. Guy Lyon Playfair , had a theory that the activity could have been due to the break up of Peggy and her husband leaving Peggy with the children to bring up alone with very little money coming into the house, creating a very unhappy home, creating the perfect environment for a haunting. A well deserved break Two months after the first incident the activity carried on increasing in volume as time went on ,thumping, knocking noises coming from all over the house on every wall which was caught on tape on many occasions. October rolled around , and the nights were getting darker, as the occurrence's got stronger and stronger, and this was seriously taking its toll on the family. Maurice decided to send the family away on holiday, to Clacton on sea , to give them a well deserved break, the holiday was delightful and a certain weight had been lifted ,but unknown to Peggy and the children, the behaviour was going to return with a vengeance as soon as they got home . Maurice makes contact and takes a hit One night as the girls slept they were awoke by once again loud banging coming from there bedroom floor, Maurice entered the room to calm the girls, and decided to try and communicate with the knocking. he asked aloud if the could culprit of the knocking answer with, one knock for no, and two for yes. ​ He then asked the source of the knocking if it died in the house . Maurice didn't get one knock or two ,he got a total of fifty three knocks . This annoyed Maurice who then asked if the spirit was playing some sort of game with him, suddenly a box from the corner of the room flew into the air and hit Maurice square in the face followed by a pillow. Poltergeist turns its attention to Janet Three months into the case Janet's behaviour started to concern every one ,she started drawing disturbing pictures, she also started to go in a trance like state and having fits , and sometimes bang her head into the wall ,Maurice became worried she may injure herself. A doctor was called , after the doctors check up, he decided to give Janet a sedative to calm her. Later Janet would awake from her sedated sleep in pure darkness, and pure terror, screaming for help , as she realised she had been placed on top of her radio player which was sitting on top of her chest of drawers. this was witnessed by her uncle , as he entered the room to help her down . Another incident that was caught on audio tape my Maurice involved Janet asleep in bed when she was suddenly dragged out of bed by the invisible ice cold hands, and dragged across her bedroom floor and out of her room and thrown from the top of the stairs headfirst. Graham Morris set up a video camera in the girls room which he could control when ever he heard any kind of noise coming from the girls room , Graham captured Janet being thrown against her will on a few occasions across the room, Janet was once seen by the local baker , who was passing by the house when he heard a great commotion coming from Janet's bedroom window he looked up to see Janet floating as well as a few of her toys, around the room in a horizontal position floating up and down. this was also witnessed by a lollypop lady who was standing across the street . Poltergeist starts to speak

One particular night the family and Maurice were sat in the living room, when all of a sudden a loud dog bark sounded out in the room, this would have been fine if the Hodson's owned a dog ,but they didn't. Maurice decided to try once more to communicate with the spirit as the girls lay in bed . he asked the spirit to communicate ,another loud dog bark rang out into the bed room . he then ask the spirit to say his name ,and it did .in a very rough gravely voice which seemed like it was coming from Janet, The next day Roz returned and set up her audio recorder and had a conversation with the supposed spirit coming through Janet's vocal cords. ​the conversation was as follows {Maurice} talk to Rosalind, she wants to talk to you. {spirit - Janet} hello. {Roz} good evening...good evening , are there two of you there ? {Spirit-Janet} yeah. {Roz} what are you called? {Spirit-Janet} tom and dick. {Roz} and where's harry? that's a joke isn't it?. the voice coming from Janet was under speculation , many believed that she may be making this all up and faking the voice , With Peggy's permission, Maurice decided to put this to the test by making Janet hold a mouthful of water in her mouth ,he then covered her lips with tape, he then states he went onto ask the spirit questions to which it answered just as before ,and when Maurice removed the tape from Janet's mouth she spat every bit of the water out,this to Maurice was undeniable proof that this was indeed paranormal. More conversations with the spirit came in the following days but there was still a doubt in some minds that Janet was still playing a prank on every one even though she swore it wasn't her speaking. But one conversation had some shocking undeniable facts about a previous resident of the house that Janet could not have known about. Poltergeist identity revealed Maurice had spoken on many occasions with the spirit that was coming through Janet and had discovered the name of the spirit to be Bill Wilkins. Maurice decided to invite his son , Richard Grosse, to try his hand at interrogating the spirit to see if he had any luck in making it talk. Richard asked one simple question, he asked the spirit to tell him if he remembered what happened to him when he died , and the answer he got from the spirit was astounding. the spirit or bill answered , in what Richard describes as a gruff gravely voice, of an old man, that no 11 year old girl was capable of replicating "I went blind …… then I had an haemorrhage ,and I fell asleep ,and I died in a chair in the corner downstairs ." after a bit of investigating with the council ,they discovered that the last occupier of the house was indeed a Mr bill Wilkins. To put the icing on the cake, Maurice tracked down bills son , Terry Wilkins who also confirmed that his father had lived at the property before the Hodgson family had moved in. Maurice asked terry how his farther had died ,terry confirmed that his father ,Bill Wilkins had died in his chair, and had suffered a brain haemorrhage , The calm after the storm

not long after Janet was taken into hospital for two months ,and a number psychiatric tests where made on her. in the two months Janet was away from the house, the activity started to die down and eventually came to a stop. although Janet always thought she could still feel a presence in the house ,her mother Peggy stayed in the house until her death in 2003 , and the children all moved away to try and build a normal life elsewhere. many years have passed since the haunting at 284 green street, but in all the time that has passed, up until the present day ,no one has ever changed there story of what occurred in the Hodgson home including Maurice Grosse ,

not long after Janet was taken into hospital for two months ,and a number psychiatric tests where made on her. in the two months Janet was away from the house, the activity started to die down and eventually came to a stop. although Janet always thought she could still feel a presence in the house ,her mother Peggy stayed in the house until her death in 2003 , and the children all moved away to try and build a normal life elsewhere. many years have passed since the haunting at 284 green street, but in all the time that has passed, up until the present day ,no one has ever changed there story of what occurred in the Hodgson home including Maurice Grosse , who went to his grave a believer.

who went to his grave. Believer