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The Enfield Poltergeist · Boozy Banter with Friends

• 0:08
  Leyla Zmeskal: Hello and welcome to Boozy Banter with Friends.
• 0:12
  Trisha Smith: Join us this week as we explore the supernatural,
• 0:16
  Leyla Zmeskal: With the little sass,
• 0:18
  Trisha Smith: The unexplained,
• 0:19
  Leyla Zmeskal: And to side of snark,
• 0:20
  Trisha Smith: And tales of other worldly shenanigans,
• 0:23
  Leyla Zmeskal: Grab your favorite spirit and join me Leyla,
• 0:26
  Trisha Smith: And me Trisha and meet us on the other side.
• 0:37
  Leyla Zmeskal: Hello,
• 0:40
  Trisha Smith: Hi, I was waiting to see what you were going to do.
• 0:43
  Leyla Zmeskal: I know you're like is it gonna be a subdued hello, or is it gonna be the normal hello.
• 0:49
  Trisha Smith: It was the normal, yeah.
• 0:52
  Leyla Zmeskal: As I'm inching closer to the microphone. You're just like staring at me. And your eyebrows are starting to grow up, go up like,
• 1:00
  Trisha Smith: What's it gonna be?
• 1:01
  Leyla Zmeskal: Is it?
• 1:05
  Trisha Smith: That's more like,
• 1:06
  Leyla Zmeskal: Surprise, surprise, surprise, it's a normal one today, but just never know.
• 1:13
  Trisha Smith: Yeah, you really don't.
• 1:14
  Leyla Zmeskal: I'm gonna keep shaking things up.
• 1:15
  Trisha Smith: So how are you doing?
• 1:17
  Leyla Zmeskal: Good, doing all right. Do anything special over the weekend?
• 1:21
  Trisha Smith: I did not,
• 1:24
  Leyla Zmeskal: Do anything for that bowl game.
• 1:26
  Trisha Smith: Ah, gosh, no, I don't like football. I don't usually say that out loud.
• 1:32
  Trisha Smith: Because people are like, what?
• 1:35
  Leyla Zmeskal: How dare you,
• 1:36
  Trisha Smith: I know but gosh, it just bores me to tears. I never know which direction they're going. I don't know what the point is. Except they're chasing this ball. It's not even on the ground. Like somebody is holding it. It's like keep away for adults.
• 1:58
  Leyla Zmeskal: A bunch of big dudes tackling each other trying to get it.
• 2:02
  Trisha Smith: Exactly, that sums up football right there. So yeah, I have no interest. I don't know who was playing. I can never tell the teams apart.
• 2:10
  Trisha Smith: All their little outfits look the same. They're all the same color. All wearing red or white.
• 2:19
  Trisha Smith: And then my friends always like no, they wear this color their home and this color they're away and I'm like who the hell cares,
• 2:26
  Leyla Zmeskal: Were you just threw that in there?
• 2:27
  Trisha Smith: Who wears white when you're gonna roll around on the ground anyways, what kind of nonsense is that? Clearly men.
• 2:36
  Trisha Smith: Women would not wear white to go roll around on the ground.
• 2:38
  Leyla Zmeskal: Do you know hard grass stains are to come out of things.
• 2:41
  Trisha Smith: So yeah, football is not for me.
• 2:44
  Leyla Zmeskal: Yeah, I'm not a big I'm not a big football fan either.
• 2:48
  Trisha Smith: I'm not a big sports fan in general. I'm
• 2:49
  Leyla Zmeskal: I'm not sporty.
• 2:49
  Leyla Zmeskal: Not really sporty either. No.
• 2:54
  Leyla Zmeskal: Yeah, I won 100 bucks from from the.
• 2:56
  Trisha Smith: From the game?
• 2:58
  Leyla Zmeskal: From the foosball. Yeah, it was purely by luck because I have really no, I just put my name on some squares and I won 100 bucks. You should
• 3:07
  Trisha Smith: They should of put pictures goat, cat, goat, cat.
• 3:12
  Leyla Zmeskal: Catgoat, I probably would have been able when I,
• 3:16
  Trisha Smith: You would of put them all on the cat. You would of have been like Cat Cat Cat Cat. That's how you get a chose.
• 3:19
  Leyla Zmeskal: I mean I would of had to spread the love, you know wealthl. I'm an animal lover. I mean, it's all animals rams can like butt your face off. It was just purely by luck. It wasn't like I didn't have to like choose any numbery things. It was just like, Oh, this looks like a fun square but my initial on.
• 3:40
  Trisha Smith: Hey,
• 3:41
  Leyla Zmeskal: And I got lucky, You got lucky.
• 3:43
  Trisha Smith: That works. If I were going to make a drink for the Super Bowl, it would have been something like what we're having today because,
• 3:50
  Leyla Zmeskal: Oh man,
• 3:51
  Trisha Smith: It's easy and it's good.
• 3:53
  Leyla Zmeskal: I can't believe how,
• 3:54
  Trisha Smith: How fast it came together.
• 3:55
  Leyla Zmeskal: Yeah, you're like I'm gonna go make us a beverage now. I'm like, okay, like, Here you go.
• 4:01
  Trisha Smith: So we are big Balaton fans.
• 4:05
  Leyla Zmeskal: Now we are,
• 4:06
  Trisha Smith: Since the chocolate old fashion. And I didn't realize that they had so many other choices. So I'm bringing a bottle to a friend of the chocolate whiskey. And I had to go pick it up and I'm looking at the shelf and there's like four other types. And so while I was there, I grabbed their bourbon ball it's what it's called. And it smells and tastes good. I mean, you smell it.
• 4:31
  Trisha Smith: You're like, ooh, this like candy. tastes delicious.
• 4:34
  Trisha Smith: Slightly different than the plain chocolate whiskey. But they had a little recipe on the tag that was on the bottle. And it was called the Balaton Highball.
• 4:48
  Leyla Zmeskal: Okay.
• 4:49
  Trisha Smith: Yeah, right. Yep.
• 4:49
  Trisha Smith: Yeah. Okay. And I'm like, did I remember that?
• 4:53
  Leyla Zmeskal: No, no, you did.
• 4:54
  Trisha Smith: Okay. The Balliton Highball which was just two ounces, the bourbon ball whiskey topped with club soda.
• 5:03
  Leyla Zmeskal: And it's really,
• 5:04
  Trisha Smith: So good,
• 5:06
  Leyla Zmeskal: Really I tell you what that Balaton,
• 5:09
  Trisha Smith: I know they're one of my favorites now I just,
• 5:11
  Leyla Zmeskal: There right up there with City Gate.
• 5:13
  Trisha Smith: Like when I'm struggling to figure out what we want to do this week. Those are my go twos now you know something with citygate something with Balaton because it they just it's so good it comes together so easy. Just a favorite now so yeah,
• 5:28
  Leyla Zmeskal: Yeah we'll have to explore more of the Balaton flavors.
• 5:33
  Trisha Smith: Yeah.
• 5:33
  Leyla Zmeskal: Good job Balaton.
• 5:34
  Trisha Smith: Yeah, I like it a lot. So did you watch anything this week? I you know, I've been struggling. I've been rewatching a lot of stuff this last month,
• 5:46
  Leyla Zmeskal: Conjuring Two.
• 5:47
  Trisha Smith: Yes. I had.
• 5:47
  Trisha Smith: That's, you know, all of the Conjuring movies are good.
• 5:52
  Leyla Zmeskal: Yeah. I mean, especially since we're in this, Warren investagating.
• 5:58
  Trisha Smith: Right, yeah,
• 5:59
  Leyla Zmeskal: You know, it kind of going back, I still appreciate the movies just for the fact that they're movies,
• 6:06
  Trisha Smith: Right.
• 6:06
  Leyla Zmeskal: But when you research some of the story, and then you go back and you watch, it takes on a different role.
• 6:15
  Leyla Zmeskal: Because if you're looking at it with more of a a skeptical eye, you see things right, still doesn't mean it's not entertaining, you know, it just gives you a different,
• 6:26
  Trisha Smith: A different perspective. And the first conjuring was my favorite. That was of the three that one was my favorite. The second was, I guess I liked him in order. So like, I like the first one the best, but I like the second one.
• 6:41
  Trisha Smith: Okay. And the third one I'm like,
• 6:44
  Leyla Zmeskal: Yeah, it was a little disappointed on the third one to be honest.
• 6:46
  Trisha Smith: Yes, me too. But the second one wasn't like I wouldn't call it a favorite.
• 6:50
  Trisha Smith: Like I like the way it fits in.
• 6:53
  Trisha Smith: But I wouldn't call it a favorite because even if you didn't know any history about it, there's something about it where you're like, you actually kind of checked it out.
• 7:05
  Leyla Zmeskal: I did actually, I'm going to tell you all about,
• 7:09
  Trisha Smith: Nice, okay, because I really haven't tapped into that at all. Like I have
• 7:17
  Leyla Zmeskal: The real story.
• 7:17
  Trisha Smith: Right. I it's one of those things where you kind of hear here and there that it was, you know, there are some discrepancies and things like that, for the most part, I just the movie wasn't enough of a favorite for me to want to know more. So I am glad that you did it. So now I can know,
• 7:35
  Leyla Zmeskal: I was curious.
• 7:35
  Leyla Zmeskal: Like, of course, we're we're doing all these stories about how it ties in with the Warrens.
• 7:42
  Leyla Zmeskal: And so, you know, you kind of get curious about some of the stories they did. So I decided to do one from across the pond, called the Enfield Poltergeist.
• 7:51
  Trisha Smith: So it was a poltergeist,
• 7:54
  Leyla Zmeskal: That's what they're claiming it was not really I mean, haunting phenomenon, phenomena, paranormal, you know, could be depending on who is talking and who you're listening to. Could be all kinds of all kinds of things. Spirits entities, demonic,
• 8:14
  Trisha Smith: Of course.
• 8:18
  Leyla Zmeskal: You're like you're looking at me like, of course. What you hippies call her wives?
• 8:23
  Trisha Smith: Who hippies.
• 8:24
  Leyla Zmeskal: Yeah. Misses Hippies,
• 8:28
  Trisha Smith: I like thinking this has something to do with this story.
• 8:34
  Trisha Smith: I know you are.
• 8:38
  Trisha Smith: Mrs. hippies,
• 8:39
  Leyla Zmeskal: Mrs. Hippies,
• 8:40
  Trisha Smith: That is actually kind of funny.
• 8:44
  Leyla Zmeskal: I actually got it cracked up a little longer than I should have over that, anyway.
• 8:50
  Trisha Smith: Anyway,
• 8:51
  Leyla Zmeskal: The story of The Hodgeson family and the events that happened to them in 1977 through 1979.
• 8:59
  Trisha Smith: It's so it's a long,
• 9:01
  Leyla Zmeskal: It's about 18 months,
• 9:03
  Trisha Smith: Okay,
• 9:04
  Leyla Zmeskal: I'll give you like, you know, specific dates as we go on. Peggy Hodgeson was 47 years old. She was a single divorced mother to four kids, you know, just trying to get back on her feet and do what's really best for her kids, which, in that timeframe was kind of not normal. It's like a normal thing because she knows she was divorced. So Margaret was 12.
• 9:27
  Leyla Zmeskal: She was said to be the serious and reserved one. Janet was 11 and was the outgoing one, you know, like center of attention.
• 9:38
  Leyla Zmeskal: Johnny, who was 10 went to a special boarding school and he was only home like during holidays and a few weekends. I don't know why he was at a boarding school and not the other kids but I don't know. And then Billy was said to be a normal little boy except for like a severe speech impediment.
• 9:59
  Trisha Smith: And how old was he,
• 10:00
  Leyla Zmeskal: Seven,
• 10:01
  Trisha Smith: Seven. So by her fourth one she was ready to take a break because that one was pregnant for three solid years.
• 10:08
  Leyla Zmeskal: 12, 11 And 10.
• 10:13
  Trisha Smith: She's is like whoa, whoa wait, I need a little break here before I,
• 10:17
  Leyla Zmeskal: Don't you come near me with thing, Don't fucking come near me.
• 10:21
  Trisha Smith: I'm pretty sure that's what she was saying.
• 10:25
  Leyla Zmeskal: I'm sure to.
• 10:27
  Trisha Smith: I had a headache for three years. Okay, so seven.
• 10:31
  Leyla Zmeskal: Seven. Some say the events that took place in the three bedroom semi detached house on 284 Green Street in North London was Britain's best documented poltergeist hauntings. And during the 18 months, over 30 people had witness activity within the house and I can't cite any one source again because there was just so many but from the many sites that I've read, so were they there it was a consistent number of people.
• 11:00
  Trisha Smith: So were they reporters, neighbors, friends?
• 11:02
  Leyla Zmeskal: Clergy, priests, which the same thing, psychics, mediums, paranormal investigators, neighbors, family members.
• 11:13
  Trisha Smith: Okay, so a wide range,
• 11:15
  Leyla Zmeskal: TV crews.
• 11:16
  Trisha Smith: Okay,
• 11:17
  Leyla Zmeskal: So yeah, Peggy had a brother named John who lived nearby with his family.
• 11:20
  Leyla Zmeskal: And it was said that they had a really close and supportive relationship. You know, he was taking care of his sister. She was also friendly with a neighbor who lived next door. So by all accounts, you know, they were just like a normal, normal family. So it all began one evening of August 30 of 1977.
• 11:37
  Leyla Zmeskal: When after putting the kids to bed, Peggy her Janet complaining that she was the second daughter the 11 year old. She heard Janet complaining that her and her brother's beds were wobbling thinking that the kids were just messing around, Peggy ignored it and just told him to go the fuck to bed. Because I'm sure she was over it. However, the next night after the kids had gone to bed, she heard a loud noise coming from upstairs. So now it's August 31. Thinking it was the kids roughhousing again, she went upstairs to tell him to knock it the fuck off that time.
• 12:23
  Trisha Smith: She's done,
• 12:23
  Leyla Zmeskal: She's done. Cuz I can imagine like bedtime is stressful. Especially when you get there ages. I can imagine.
• 12:32
  Trisha Smith: Okay, not to interrupt, but
• 12:33
  Leyla Zmeskal: You can interrupt, you can interupt i'm fine with it. I know my place.
• 12:41
  Trisha Smith: There was this one time when we moved. We were moving into we were in a duplex.
• 12:47
  Trisha Smith: And my friend Ann lived next door.
• 12:53
  Leyla Zmeskal: She's a one as a fan of the show.
• 12:55
  Trisha Smith: Yeah.
• 12:55
  Leyla Zmeskal: Got you the Trivial Pursuit.
• 12:57
  Trisha Smith: Yes. Very supportive. And she I've known her for a very long time. And they were our neighbors at Fort Carson, Colorado. And they had moved into the duplex first and then we moved in a few months later. And we didn't have cell phones back then.
• 13:15
  Leyla Zmeskal: I mean, nobody did.
• 13:17
  Trisha Smith: So we just showed up one night with our moving truck. And we're moving our stuff in and taking things upstairs trying to put some beds down so our kids can go to sleep. Right. And at the time her kids you know we're going to bed next door. And so her and her husband kept yelling up there you better go to bed or you're gonna get in trouble.
• 13:36
  Trisha Smith: Because they can hear all this banging and they thought their girls were screwing off.
• 13:44
  Leyla Zmeskal: That's how friendships are made.
• 13:46
  Trisha Smith: So yes, that time with children sucks. But yeah, I just thought it was like because every now and then she'll tell that story of how you know her kids were getting yelled at all night long because she thought they're messing around and they're like sleeping. It's us banging around next door.
• 14:07
  Leyla Zmeskal: So after she told him to knock it the fuck off as your friend Ann was trying to do with her kids. She finally said I'm fucking going upstairs.
• 14:15
  Leyla Zmeskal: Goddamnit I'm seeing what the hubbub is. Pretty sure since they were, you know, British, they didn't say,
• 14:21
  Trisha Smith: Hubbub,
• 14:24
  Leyla Zmeskal: Mucking around or something. I don't know some word that they have, that means the same thing. But when she went into the bedroom she shot she saw Janet and Margaret huddled in the corner with a terrified look on their face.
• 14:37
  Leyla Zmeskal: Janet told her mom that the drawers were moving on their own and that they heard knocking noises. Her immediate reaction was basically you're crazy. Get the fuck back into bed. But out of the corner of her eye. Peggy saw the large dresser started to move across the room. Peggy said I just couldn't believe it. In fact, I pushed it back to it twice. And at the third time, I couldn't move it.
• 15:02
  Trisha Smith: Oh, wow.
• 15:03
  Leyla Zmeskal: Yeah.
• 15:04
  Trisha Smith: Okay.
• 15:05
  Leyla Zmeskal: So of course being so freaked out by what they saw they ran across the street to their neighbor's house that they were friendly with.
• 15:11
  Leyla Zmeskal: Vic and petty Peggy Nottingham.
• 15:16
  Trisha Smith: Okay,
• 15:17
  Leyla Zmeskal: So Vic was said to be a big burly builder kind of guy. And of course you know being a big burly builder can say that seven times fast. Big burly builder and of course offered to go check out the house and make sure that everything was fine. Vic said, I heard knocking as soon as I walked through the front door, I went all over the house just couldn't make out what the noises were. There was knocking on the wall, in the bedroom, on the ceiling and I was beginning to get a bit frightened. So in the end, I thought there's only one thing, I'll call the police.
• 15:51
  Leyla Zmeskal: They don't say cops over there.
• 15:55
  Leyla Zmeskal: They say police. I would of have said I'll call the coppas,
• 16:00
  Trisha Smith: Just like that.
• 16:02
  Leyla Zmeskal: I'll call the cappas, but they said i'll call the police. Margaret later added that I've never seen a big man like that looking so scared when he came back from investigating the house.
• 16:14
  Trisha Smith: Okay, okay.
• 16:15
  Leyla Zmeskal: So the first officer to arrive was WPC Carolyn Heaps along with PC Heims, police caught, police constable. I don't know what W stands for. So they said that they heard the knocking on the walls but couldn't find any explanation for it. Are you doing the Google's?
• 16:31
  Trisha Smith: I am, I want to know.
• 16:34
  Leyla Zmeskal: What does the WPC stand for? Survey says?
• 16:37
  Trisha Smith: Police constable.
• 16:37
  Trisha Smith: What does the W?
• 16:40
  Leyla Zmeskal: Yeah, what does the W.
• 16:41
  Trisha Smith: Oh, it's a woman.
• 16:43
  Leyla Zmeskal: No way.
• 16:44
  Trisha Smith: That's a,
• 16:45
  Leyla Zmeskal: Woman police constable really?
• 16:48
  Trisha Smith: That's what it says,
• 16:49
  Leyla Zmeskal: Okay,
• 16:50
  Trisha Smith: Woman Police Constable. Yes. You have your own little title if you're
• 16:55
  Leyla Zmeskal: A woman.
• 16:56
  Trisha Smith: Okay.
• 16:56
  Leyla Zmeskal: All right,
• 16:57
  Trisha Smith: Who knew, not me.
• 16:58
  Trisha Smith: Okay,
• 16:58
  Leyla Zmeskal: Not me. I mean, I would have said that. But I'm like that can't be like that simple. But yet it was. Anyway, the woman police constable Carolyn Heaps along with police constable Heims said that they heard the knocking on the walls, but they couldn't find any explanation for it. She's also said that she saw a chair slide across the room saying it came off the floor, maybe a half an inch, I would say, I saw it slide off to the right about three to four and a half feet before it came to rest. And she even like wrote an affidavit about it. She inspected the chair for hidden wires, but could find no explanation for what she saw. Eventually, the officers left telling the family that there was nothing they could do as they could find no one breaking the law. So over the next few days, the activity increased with marbles and Legos flying around the house.
• 17:51
  Leyla Zmeskal: Margaret said which is the older of the of all the kids said we couldn't understand what was happening. We went through periods where we would just couldn't believe what happened.
• 18:01
  Leyla Zmeskal: We didn't like to be on our own in the house or anything. There were strange little noises in the house. You couldn't make out what was going on. None of us got sleep. Eventually they called in a priest and a medium and it did nothing to stop the activity.
• 18:21
  Leyla Zmeskal: So on September 4, which is just a few days later,
• 18:26
  Trisha Smith: Right.
• 18:27
  Leyla Zmeskal: The Nottingham's actually called the Daily Mirror in hopes that they would put her in touch with someone who could help. They even had to try to convince them to come out and send a reporter because they're like, you're fucking crazy. So after they did that, Douglas Benz and photographer Graham Morris visited the house. Upon visiting the house, Graham described it as chaos, saying that things started flying around, as soon as Janet entered the room, people were screaming, Morris got hit by a flying Lego over his right eye. And he is convinced that the objects weren't being thrown or moved, like being just thrown by the family. He even moved to the corner of one of the room to get a better view of every person in there, saying none of them were doing anything.
• 19:23
  Trisha Smith: Hmm,
• 19:24
  Leyla Zmeskal: So some events, now this is where I'm like I don't understand this part. But okay, some events were even captured on camera. One image shows Janet apparently being thrown across the room, although he wasn't actually in the room with the camera. So I'm not sure how that happens. Other show the her face distorted in pain.
• 19:42
  Leyla Zmeskal: Eventually the BBC also went to the house, but the crew found their equipment had failed and the tape was twisted, and the recording had been erased could have been just the equipment at the time and had been flawed or could have been something else.
• 19:58
  Trisha Smith: Okay,
• 19:59
  Leyla Zmeskal: You don't know.
• 19:59
  Trisha Smith: So the one so okay, just to recap the one guy was taking did was it on a timer? Like he set it up on a timer for them to,
• 20:09
  Leyla Zmeskal: Maybe, I mean because there's pictures.
• 20:13
  Trisha Smith: But he wasn't in there?
• 20:14
  Leyla Zmeskal: Well that's what the article says.
• 20:16
  Trisha Smith: Okay and BBC also took video but the video all of it got erased.
• 20:23
  Leyla Zmeskal: Yeah, like somehow like the components in there were twisted.
• 20:26
  Trisha Smith: Did they see anything when they recorded, like did they report that they saw anything while they were,
• 20:32
  Leyla Zmeskal: Like objects being moved around.
• 20:34
  Trisha Smith: Okay like they just didn't get a record just in Okay,
• 20:36
  Leyla Zmeskal: Yeah after that the Daily Mirror and the Hodgins called the Society of cynical research Oh, physical sight cynical. It is called the SPR.
• 20:53
  Trisha Smith: SPR.
• 20:54
  Leyla Zmeskal: They called the SPR.
• 20:55
  Trisha Smith: Okay.
• 20:56
  Leyla Zmeskal: In early September, the SPR Secretary PR got in touch with a new member of the group called Maurice Grace grace say gross see? Just gonna say grace. See?
• 21:11
  Trisha Smith: So it's like, gross with an E at the end.
• 21:14
  Leyla Zmeskal: Yeah. Okay. Yeah.
• 21:14
  Leyla Zmeskal: He said he was since he's a new member. He's like, I'll take whatever you got, you know if it's interesting. Sounds good.
• 21:19
  Leyla Zmeskal: I'll do it. And that's what he did. So. But Grosse was also, before he got into the paranormal he was a successful inventor, which I thought was interesting. He was responsible for the rotating advertising billboard.
• 21:38
  Trisha Smith: Oh,
• 21:39
  Leyla Zmeskal: Yeah, I was.
• 21:42
  Trisha Smith: Okay.
• 21:42
  Leyla Zmeskal: However, he grew increasingly interested in the paranormal after a series of meaningful coincidences that follow the death of his daughter, Janet and August of 1976, due to a head injury, in a motorcycle accident. So that's how he got started, and his interest in the paranormal. So on September 5, he visited the house and told Peggy to just you know, chill out, you're going a little crazy, just calm the fuck down. And while you're calming down, write down everything that happens, and I'll be back in three days. So three days later, Grosse and along with three Daily Mirror reporters, heard a loud crash, and were then convinced that the Hodgins were telling the truth, and he agreed to take on the case. And while visiting the house, he and others saw marbles flying through the air and landing on the floor without rolling door and drawers opening and closing, various objects moving on their own. So I guess he was like there for a couple of days and Grosse, he realizes that, hey, this is a little over my head.
• 22:56
  Leyla Zmeskal: I'm still new at this. I need some help. So he reached out to SPR for assistance. And on September 12, poltergeists, expert and paranormal investigator, Guy Playfair joined the investigation, and those two will be throughout the whole 18 months. They are the two main investigators of this of the Enfield haunting poltergeist. So as things continue to escalate, Playfair and Grosse tried to communicate with whatever that was causing the activity. It started by asking for knocks in response to questions, which eventually led to the most disturbing part of the hunting when the poltergeists took control of Janet causing her to go into a trance like state, so it can communicate through her and at first it was just whistles and like little dog like barks. And then it would develop into a harsh, guttural man's voice, like an elderly male voice.
• 24:04
  Trisha Smith: Okay, yuck.
• 24:05
  Leyla Zmeskal: Yeah, Janet said that it felt like the voice was coming from the back of her neck. Then it started using words. First, it would say more Maurice's name. And then it started progressing to give clues as to who the entity was.
• 24:21
  Leyla Zmeskal: Like, that's weird. So weird progression.
• 24:23
  Trisha Smith: It just feels yeah, cuz I mean, it's almost like it's messing with them.
• 24:29
  Leyla Zmeskal: Yeah, that's a good one messing around. So the voice claimed to be Bill Wilkins, who had once lived in the house and he died at 72.
• 24:40
  Leyla Zmeskal: When asked how he died, he said, Just before I died, I went blind. And then I had a hemorrhage and then I fell asleep. And I died on a chair in the corner downstairs.
• 24:57
  Trisha Smith: Ew, did they know somebody had died in their house.
• 25:03
  Leyla Zmeskal: I'm gonna get to.
• 25:03
  Trisha Smith: Okay.
• 25:04
  Leyla Zmeskal: Now you can hear the voice.
• 25:07
  Trisha Smith: Really?
• 25:08
  Leyla Zmeskal: Yeah, it was actually recorded on audio tape.
• 25:11
  Leyla Zmeskal: And that whole story was later corroborated by Mr. Wilkin son.
• 25:16
  Leyla Zmeskal: Terry, he did indeed die from hemorrhage in the chair at that house.
• 25:23
  Trisha Smith: Okay,
• 25:23
  Leyla Zmeskal: So how would Janet know that part though?
• 25:25
  Trisha Smith: This was 1977. So it would have been five years earlier, she would have been six years old,
• 25:32
  Leyla Zmeskal: Like, How would she know that?
• 25:33
  Trisha Smith: Right like that somebody at school told her? I don't know,
• 25:36
  Leyla Zmeskal: I guess,
• 25:37
  Trisha Smith: I mean, how many kids are like, unless they're like, Ooh, you live in the house? Somebody died in?
• 25:42
  Leyla Zmeskal: Yeah, but they would also have been six.
• 25:44
  Trisha Smith: Right, true.
• 25:45
  Leyla Zmeskal: You know, like,
• 25:46
  Trisha Smith: Yeah,
• 25:47
  Leyla Zmeskal: Yeah,
• 25:48
  Trisha Smith: I don't know.
• 25:49
  Leyla Zmeskal: So between August 77, and October of 78, Grosse and Playfair made extensive observations and kept very detailed records of all the paranormal activity, they recorded over 2000 unexplained events, they try things like wiring the bed down to the to the floor to stop the bed from moving, only to find that the wire snapped, and the bed still moved, many mediums were brought in to communicate with the spirit or spirits within the house. One was Annie Shaw. And she suggested that several entities were feeding off the energy of the family, especially Janet's. Several other psychics were involved, including Dono Mailing, who suggested that Grosse's involvement in this case, was due to the grief of the sudden death of his daughter two years earlier. And he should just like leave it alone, because it's feeding things. But whatever you believe the activity started to decline by the spring of 1978. And that said, after like another medium came in and kind of like talk to the spirit calmly. And then another priest came to the house. And then after that, the activity like started decline and become a little quiet.
• 27:11
  Trisha Smith: Okay,
• 27:12
  Leyla Zmeskal: So was it really a poltergeist? Or could have just been a hoax?
• 27:16
  Trisha Smith: Well how, if it was a hoax? How are they getting these objects to move on their own, unless you have an explanation for that.
• 27:27
  Leyla Zmeskal: Some people believe that the family invented it all, they were going through a tough time. The divorce between Peggy and her husband wasn't amicable at all. And it definitely had an effect on the kids, even Grosse and Playfair admitted that Janet and Margaret had sometimes tried to trick them, but insisted that those times were few and far between, saying that they knew when the girls were doing it. And they would get when they were caught the girls admit it. Like they would catch the girls like bending spoons and, you know, things like that. Janet later admitted that they made up about 2% of what happened. So she admitted that they did elaborate. Janet also admitted to playing with a Ouija board with Margaret, just before the activity started in the house.
• 28:22
  Trisha Smith: Always starts with a Ouija board.
• 28:25
  Leyla Zmeskal: Mm hmm.
• 28:27
  Trisha Smith: Yeah.
• 28:29
  Leyla Zmeskal: Some say that there was a torn out magazine article found in the house and Janet heard of Matthew Manning, do you know about that? It was another child focus of poltergeist phenomenon. It said that, in the article, the activity like Matthew Manning's mom said the activity started with things going missing. And that's how things started with the Enfield poltergeists, like the first thing that went missing was a teapot. And it said that that was the first thing that went missing with the Enfield haunting. So did she get, you know, an idea from that? Who knows? Some believe that Janet's gruff voice could be explained by ventriloquism and that she was just a little girl who wanted to cause trouble and was very, very clever.
• 29:21
  Trisha Smith: Okay.
• 29:21
  Leyla Zmeskal: I mean, if you're going through a hard time and, you know, bad situation with your divorced family, and all of a sudden, now you're getting this attention,
• 29:29
  Trisha Smith: Right. But at the same time, I could see that working if it had just been her mother or her sister or her uncle, or neighbor who witnessed things, but you're talking police officers and these strangers that are coming in, reporters, what were they gaining? Maybe they too, were like, ooh, if we break a story that becomes famous or what I don't understand.
• 30:00
  Leyla Zmeskal: Right, but they were part of the, like the
• 30:00
  Trisha Smith: Oh, Paranormal Society like investigation society, they're really wanting to find out if this is true or not. And you
• 30:06
  Leyla Zmeskal: So she, even after everything, she still know, if Janet only admits that 2% was faked, what about the other 98%? Grosse and Playfair believe that there were too many things that happened that could not have been faked. Things that would happen when there were a lot of people around or times when things happened in empty rooms when the kids were somewhere else. All of the things they heard and saw the police officers statement, many family members and their direct neighbor believed that the activity was real. They had no doubts about Peggy's integrity, integrity, the family didn't seem like they were out to gain anything from spreading their story either. I mean, so far from the other stories we read with the Warrens, like, you can see like they were out for gain.
• 30:57
  Leyla Zmeskal: That doesn't seem like it was the case and with this family, and they really never made any money out of it anyway. In fact, Peggy actually died in that house.
• 31:10
  Leyla Zmeskal: lived there. She didn't they didn't like get a bunch of money and like move away and you know, start a better life, you know.
• 31:16
  Leyla Zmeskal: And then after she died, a lady by the name of Claire Bennett and her four children moved in.
• 31:21
  Leyla Zmeskal: She said she never saw anything, but felt uncomfortable, saying that there was definitely some kind of presence in the house. I always felt like someone was watching me. She said her sons would wake up in the middle of the night and say that they would hear people talking downstairs. And after Bennett found out the history of the house, I guess at first she didn't know. But when she found out the history of the house, she said it all of a sudden made sense. And the family moved out two months later, but one night, the night before they were supposed to move out of her house, one of Claire's sons said that he woke up and said, I saw a man come into the room. I ran into mum's room and said, We've got to move and they did the very next day. Wow. Yeah. So now, the house is now occupied by another family and they don't want to be identified.
• 32:15
  Trisha Smith: I don't blame them,
• 32:16
  Leyla Zmeskal: I don't, honestly I would be like, I don't either,
• 32:19
  Trisha Smith: Right,
• 32:20
  Leyla Zmeskal: Saying that, hey, we've got kids. They don't know about it. And we don't want to scare them. And that's exactly what I would want to do. Well, now that you know the story, or like,
• 32:31
  Trisha Smith: Where are the Warrens?
• 32:32
  Leyla Zmeskal: Where are the Warrens in this story? And how much do they really actually have to do with it? Turns out not really a lot. It's rumored that upon hearing the events of the Enfield, poltergeists, Ed Warren called and tried to convince the Hodgesons that there was money to be made, which the family declined, however, the Warrens decided to show up unannounced and uninvited.
• 32:56
  Trisha Smith: Oh wow.
• 32:57
  Leyla Zmeskal: Yeah, they stayed for only one day. And when they were there, they apparently tried to convince Playfair that there was again, a lot of money that could be had if the Warrens were involved. And even Playfair said that when he first met Ed Warren, he thought he was full of shit.
• 33:15
  Trisha Smith: Wow,
• 33:16
  Leyla Zmeskal: Yeah. So even though there was no real record of the Warrens involvement in this case, they still tried to capitalize on it. Ed would go on to say that those who deal with the supernatural day in and day out know the phenomena are there. And there's no doubt about it. Therefore, when people tell me, they don't believe in ghosts, or spirit forces, what they're really saying to me is that they're not familiar with the data on the subject, yet the data is there. Should one care to look in fact, much of it has been collected under such rigorous conditions as to make a lot of other scientific research pale in comparison. Like to me that just sounds like a bunch of words thrown together to kind of make someone go what?
• 34:09
  Trisha Smith: Okay.
• 34:13
  Leyla Zmeskal: He then went on to say that when they started the investigating the Enfield case there were inhuman spirit phenomena were in progress. You can't record the dangerous threatening atmosphere inside that little house. But you can film levatations, teleportations, and dematerializations. All the ations, of the people and objects that were happening there, not to mention hundreds of hours of tape recordings made of the spirit voices speaking out loud in rooms.
• 34:57
  Trisha Smith: Let me guess, all the tapes were missing?
• 35:03
  Leyla Zmeskal: When I read that I'm like, I just fucking did this story and not once did I read anything about teleportations and dematerializations. What the fuck is he talking about? Mr.
• 35:14
  Leyla Zmeskal: I'm blowing in for a few hours to get some info and blow off.
• 35:19
  Leyla Zmeskal: So just like with their other movies, The Conjuring two takes a lot of liberties with the timeframe and especially the content of the Warren's involvement with this case.
• 35:30
  Trisha Smith: Yes their participation level, zilch.
• 35:35
  Leyla Zmeskal: Except to try to get the the family to bring them on so they can become all you know, famous, famous. So in the end, whether you believe the explanations of the Enfield poltergeist as a true spirit entitly, or maybe a child with kinetic abilities, telekinetic abilities, some people have done that, or even if you're more skeptical opinion, thinking it was all a hoax conjured up by a little girl looking for attention, this case still remains one of the most spectacular of all the paranormal cases, and Britain's the most well known. And it's considered to be one of their most documented.
• 36:17
  Trisha Smith: Well, if they I mean, it clearly sounds like they documented things, you know, whether or not they were hoaxes or,
• 36:27
  Leyla Zmeskal: Right,
• 36:27
  Trisha Smith: You know, but if they haven't been able to prove whether they were or not, I mean, it still opens it up for possibility.
• 36:35
  Leyla Zmeskal: Right. And, you know, was there activity on the house, I, there probably was some things in the house that were just strange, as we, as we've talked about before with some of these other cases that yeah, there was probably some weird stuff going on. This particular case doesn't seem to be as sensationalized or spiraled out of control as some of the other Warren now, unless you see the movie,
• 37:01
  Trisha Smith: Right.
• 37:02
  Leyla Zmeskal: And then it's like, ridiculous,
• 37:05
  Trisha Smith: Right.
• 37:06
  Leyla Zmeskal: But if you're just going by the facts of the case, it doesn't sound like anything was blown way out of proportion. And even the two investigators Grosse and Playfair, they were smart enough to know when the girls were, were playing tricks. And they said that because they just wanted to see if they could get caught and see if they can trick them.
• 37:27
  Trisha Smith: Well, and if they're doing that and getting caught, chances are they weren't able to pull off the stuff that they weren't, you know what I mean?
• 37:35
  Leyla Zmeskal: Right,
• 37:36
  Trisha Smith: Like the stuff that happened that they try to blame on the girls chances are they weren't doing that, because,
• 37:42
  Leyla Zmeskal: Right,
• 37:42
  Trisha Smith: They would have been caught.
• 37:44
  Leyla Zmeskal: They say about the ventriloquism, they said that she the voice would only come through like when her hand was over her mouth or when she was in a room with no one else and somebody even suggested that they caught the girls getting set up to do the voice by stuffing sheets in their mouth or like clothing in their mouth to make that grumbly voice but if you're shoving something in there when you see like the cheeks like puff out or the you know like,
• 38:12
  Trisha Smith: And have you ever played that game where you stuffed marshmallows in your mouth and you have to say words?
• 38:18
  Leyla Zmeskal: Yeah,
• 38:18
  Trisha Smith: You can't.
• 38:19
  Leyla Zmeskal: You can't do it.
• 38:19
  Leyla Zmeskal: You can't do it. But it goes back to how would she know that how the old man died, his name, how would she know that?
• 38:29
  Trisha Smith: How were they able to get things to fly around,
• 38:33
  Leyla Zmeskal: Right,
• 38:33
  Trisha Smith: Without a source or string or anything like that?
• 38:38
  Leyla Zmeskal: They said that she was, Janet was also into sports as in school so she could have been very quick but they said I don't know.
• 38:48
  Trisha Smith: So quick you couldn't even see her.
• 38:50
  Trisha Smith: Well and you also said that the marbles would fly through the
• 38:50
  Leyla Zmeskal: You couldn't even see her, she fast, she missed her called for sports. See, we tie that back into sports. But um, Grosse said that when an object would fly like a marble and you would pick it up it felt hot right like there was some heat to it so, air and then land but not roll, Yeah,
• 39:16
  Trisha Smith: Which is weird.
• 39:17
  Leyla Zmeskal: That's not odd at all.
• 39:19
  Trisha Smith: No,
• 39:19
  Leyla Zmeskal: You know I don't even, I don't even know how you would be able to attempt that unless that you would have some kind of magnet inside the object and a magnet hidden underneath the flooring so that way when you,
• 39:32
  Trisha Smith: They don't have the money for that.
• 39:34
  Leyla Zmeskal: But yeah, back then like that's a lot of forethought to construct,
• 39:39
  Trisha Smith: For a 10, 11, and 12 year olds.
• 39:40
  Leyla Zmeskal: Yeah, to construct that kind of you know, prank Yeah, I don't know. That's why there's still a lot of controversy around this but Janet even admitted you know, hey, we did make some of it up but we got caught it each time.
• 39:53
  Leyla Zmeskal: But then why would they do that?
• 39:53
  Leyla Zmeskal: Because when they went to school, the kids were bullied about this situation. They were like the ghost girl and the ghost boy, you live in the ghost house, so it didn't make them popular in school. In fact, they were bullied, you know, because of it. If they were out to make money, why would they be like, oh, yeah, Warren's come in and where we're gonna all get together. We're gonna, you know, let the Warrens take over because they were just coming off the Aminityville case at that time at this around this timeframe like they were just done with the Aminityville. So things that are already like for the Warrens, they were already on the rise. You know, Grosse and Playfair did write a book together, it didn't turn into movie. Years and years later, James Wan, I think wrote the script or wrote the movie for Conjuring two based off of the Warrens, and
• 40:49
  Trisha Smith: Right,
• 40:49
  Leyla Zmeskal: Which we know that they just blew in one day on invited stayed and try to capitalize on as much as they possibly could and and left who knows.
• 40:59
  Trisha Smith: That will make it so much easier to get started on discussing the actual Warrens
• 41:07
  Leyla Zmeskal: Yes,
• 41:08
  Trisha Smith: Next week.
• 41:08
  Leyla Zmeskal: Yes.
• 41:09
  Trisha Smith: So that was a good story, though. I mean, I'd like to look into it. I'm wondering like, did they ever? Has anybody ever pulled all that research in modern day like with the technology we have now,
• 41:22
  Leyla Zmeskal: I think of one article that I read, it said that, you know, they could digitize the tapes like they we have this, but I don't think it's ever
• 41:31
  Trisha Smith: Nobody's,
• 41:32
  Leyla Zmeskal: I don't ever want to do it gone through,
• 41:34
  Trisha Smith: Especially they can't even get to the get into the home anymore.
• 41:37
  Leyla Zmeskal: Yeah,
• 41:38
  Trisha Smith: But still, you know, you would think somebody out there would be like, I want to find out if this is for real?
• 41:46
  Trisha Smith: Or what can I find out about tapes and photos and video,
• 41:50
  Leyla Zmeskal: Right.
• 41:50
  Trisha Smith: You know,
• 41:51
  Leyla Zmeskal: There's a really popular photo of Janet supposedly being levitated or hurled across the room. But, I mean, when you look at it, it's like, could it be that she was jumping off the bed, and I was just caught on camera that way, or, you know, who knows. But what I find interesting is, is that Peggy never left the house like after all that, you know, she never capitalized on trying to get money or trying to better her lifestyle with this elaborate story. She lived in that house until she died and her son lived there with her.
• 42:33
  Leyla Zmeskal: And they always said that there were still things happening in the house, like odd feelings and sounds and things. But it was just never to that extent as it was even until the day she died and her son left the house, he still believes that there was something still in the house and obviously from the family that moved in afterwards, she felt the same thing.
• 42:59
  Trisha Smith: Wow.
• 42:59
  Leyla Zmeskal: There you go.
• 42:59
  Leyla Zmeskal: That's the Enfield Poltergeists and,
• 43:01
  Trisha Smith: That was a good story for sure.
• 43:02
  Leyla Zmeskal: You can read like, it's interesting to read the police officer statement.
• 43:06
  Trisha Smith: Right.
• 43:07
  Leyla Zmeskal: But there's a little bit of controversy with that, though. Apparently, the state the official statement was written like 40 days or something after the initial events. So could,
• 43:18
  Trisha Smith: Do you think she was influenced?
• 43:20
  Leyla Zmeskal: I don't know if it was influenced? Or maybe just 40 days afterwards, you know?
• 43:24
  Trisha Smith: Yeah.
• 43:24
  Leyla Zmeskal: But you're still putting yourself on record,
• 43:26
  Trisha Smith: Right.
• 43:27
  Leyla Zmeskal: As a police officer.
• 43:28
  Trisha Smith: 40 days later, if you saw a chair move across the room on its own, like picked up and moved. You'd still remember that. Yeah, pretty accurately.
• 43:34
  Trisha Smith: So you know, I still, that's weird that she would wait that long, but also,
• 43:43
  Leyla Zmeskal: Well, I think that the gaining media attention, uh,
• 43:46
  Trisha Smith: She had to make a statement,
• 43:48
  Leyla Zmeskal: Like yeah, you better write this one down, you know, just for,
• 43:52
  Trisha Smith: Shits and giggles.
• 43:53
  Leyla Zmeskal: Yeah, posterity.
• 43:53
  Leyla Zmeskal: But it was still interesting nonetheless.
• 43:57
  Trisha Smith: Definitely. Now I want to look at the picture too.
• 44:00
  Leyla Zmeskal: Yeah.
• 44:00
  Trisha Smith: So all right.
• 44:00
  Trisha Smith: Well, we'll be back next week then with all the dirt on the Warrens. It's not really dirt.
• 44:07
  Leyla Zmeskal: Not really dirt, maybe a little mud on their faces,
• 44:13
  Trisha Smith: We don't really know very much about the the Warrens that nobody else. I mean, you know, everybody else can find out the same thing, but it's interesting.
• 44:20
  Leyla Zmeskal: It's very interesting.
• 44:20
  Trisha Smith: Because there's a lot of books about them. They wrote themselves so they all sound really good.
• 44:30
  Leyla Zmeskal: I feel like they didn't think that they were the shits at all. I'm ready to go have another Highball?
• 44:39
  Trisha Smith: I think that sounds great.
• 44:41
  Leyla Zmeskal: All right.
• 44:41
  Trisha Smith: Till next time, cheers.
• 44:43
  Leyla Zmeskal: Cheers.
• 44:44
  Leyla Zmeskal: Hey, like what you hear.
• 44:45
  Diane Black: Check us out on Instagram,
• 44:47
  Trisha Smith: Or send us a message at Boozy Banter with Friends.com
• 44:50
  Leyla Zmeskal: Thanks for listening.
• 44:52
  Trisha Smith: Until next time,
• 44:53
  Diane Black: Late-a.