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THE TRUTH ABOUT THE CONJURING · CelinaSpookyBoo

0:00
Speaker 1: Have you ever felt a chill run down your spine
0:02
Speaker 1: when something goes bump in the night?
0:03
Speaker 2: Imagine this.
0:04
Speaker 1: It is late in the night, 1977, a quiet house.
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Speaker 2: In North London.
0:08
Speaker 1: Suddenly, there is violent knocks on the walls, and a
0:10
Speaker 1: heavy wooden dresser scrapes across the floor on its own,
0:14
Speaker 1: as if pushed by invisible hands.
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Speaker 2: You rush to.
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Speaker 1: Your children's bedroom, and you find them huddled in a corner,
0:20
Speaker 1: wide-eyed and shaking. And then, right in front of you,
0:23
Speaker 1: the dresser slides forward again, trying to trap the girls
0:27
Speaker 1: in the room. Sounds like a scene from a horror movie, right?
0:30
Speaker 1: But for the Hodgson family of Enfield, this was real life.
0:33
Speaker 1: This is the true story of the Enfield Poltergeist, the
0:37
Speaker 1: infamous case that inspired The Conjuring 2. And trust me,
0:41
Speaker 1: the reality might be even stranger and scarier than the movie.
0:49
Speaker 1: Let's start with the family at the heart of this mystery.
0:52
Speaker 1: Peggy Hodgson was a single mother raising four kids in
0:55
Speaker 1: a modest council house at 284 Green Street in Enfield, London.
0:59
Speaker 1: Her daughters, Margaret, 13, and Janet, 11, they shared a room,
1:03
Speaker 1: and her two younger sons, Johnny and Billy, were just kids.
1:07
Speaker 1: They were an ordinary family, until the night of August 30th, 1977,
1:12
Speaker 1: when the extraordinary burst into their lives. Peggy initially thought
1:16
Speaker 1: that the kids were just roughhousing when she heard commotion
1:19
Speaker 1: in the girls' bedroom, but when she opened the door,
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Speaker 1: she found Margaret and Janet cowering in fear.
1:25
Speaker 2: The furniture moving by itself.
1:27
Speaker 1: Peggy herself witnessed a chest of drawers wobble and slide
1:31
Speaker 1: away from the wall as if pushed by unseen hands.
1:34
Speaker 1: She tried to shove it back, but it wouldn't budge,
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Speaker 1: almost as if invisible force was resisting her. Frightened out
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Speaker 1: of their wits, the Hodgsons ran next door to their neighbors,
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Speaker 1: Vic and Peggy Nottingham, for help. Vic marched into the
1:48
Speaker 1: house to investigate. Because who wouldn't want to play Ghostbuster
1:51
Speaker 1: at one o'clock.
1:52
Speaker 2: In the morning, right?
1:53
Speaker 1: Yeah, he heard strange knocking sounds echoing from the walls too.
1:57
Speaker 2: Doesn't that sound fun? Just a little party at your
1:59
Speaker 2: neighbor's house?
1:59
Speaker 1: Demons? Great. It wasn't just the Hodgson kids' imagination. Something
2:03
Speaker 1: truly bizarre was happening in that house. Not knowing what
2:06
Speaker 1: else to do, Peggy Hodgson called the police. And here's
2:09
Speaker 1: where things get officially spooky. Even a police constable who
2:13
Speaker 1: responded reported seeing a chair wobble and then slide on
2:17
Speaker 1: the floor with no obvious cause.
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Speaker 2: Think about that.
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Speaker 1: A seasoned police officer watching the chair move without anyone
2:24
Speaker 1: near it. The officer even signed an affidavit about this later,
2:28
Speaker 1: but after a thorough check of the premises, the police
2:30
Speaker 1: were literally stumped. No burglars, no intruders, literally no explanation.
2:35
Speaker 1: One officer basically said, well, something moved that chair, but
2:39
Speaker 1: it's not exactly a police matter. I can imagine the
2:42
Speaker 1: cops scratching their heads and likely thinking, ghosts?
2:45
Speaker 2: Not in our job description. Amen. That's a mine. Stay
2:48
Speaker 2: away from my business.
2:50
Speaker 1: This was just one night of what would become a
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Speaker 1: nearly 18-month ordeal for the Hodgson family. As a friend
2:55
Speaker 1: telling the story, I want you to really picture it.
2:58
Speaker 1: A hard-working single mom and her kids in a tiny home,
3:02
Speaker 1: suddenly thrown into a real-life nightmare. They have no idea
3:06
Speaker 1: what's going on, only that it's terrifying. In Margaret's words,
3:10
Speaker 1: years later, we didn't understand what was happening.
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Speaker 2: It's frightening.
3:13
Speaker 1: We didn't like to be on our own in the house.
3:16
Speaker 1: And who could blame them? Furniture was moving by itself,
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Speaker 1: knocks and bangs.
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Speaker 2: And empty rooms.
3:20
Speaker 1: And the Hodgson's were desperate and scared. Little did they
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Speaker 1: know that their household was about to become the center
3:26
Speaker 1: of one of the most famous paranormal cases in history.
3:30
Speaker 1: After those first disturbances, Things in the Hodgson house went
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Speaker 1: from weird to utterly off the freaking charts, my dude.
3:38
Speaker 1: The activity escalated quickly, almost as if whatever poltergeist, ghost,
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Speaker 1: or force was there wanted more and more attention. Loud
3:46
Speaker 1: knocks continued at night, often in patterns of three or
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Speaker 1: four wraps that would travel from wall to wall. Objects,
3:53
Speaker 1: they literally started flying across the rooms with alarming aim.
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Speaker 1: In fact, when the Hodgson's reached out to the press
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Speaker 1: for help, a Lego brick zoomed through the air.
4:04
Speaker 2: Oh no, a poltergeist! Definitely not Atom!
4:08
Speaker 1: A Lego brick zoomed through the air and smacked a
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Speaker 1: photographer in the actual face leaving him with a notable bruise. How?
4:15
Speaker 2: How hard does a Lego have to be thrown at
4:17
Speaker 2: you to get a bruise on your face? That's hard.
4:19
Speaker 2: I don't know. I don't know.
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Speaker 1: By this point, the story had attracted the attention of
4:23
Speaker 1: a reporter and photographer from the Daily Mirror, a major
4:27
Speaker 1: British newspaper. At first, when the news crew arrived, the
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Speaker 1: house was quiet, embarrassingly quiet, for hours. You can imagine
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Speaker 1: the Hodgson's anxiety. Like, of course, the ghost decides to
4:38
Speaker 1: play dead. when the reporters show up. The reporters were
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Speaker 1: packing up to leave, thinking that this was all a
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Speaker 1: wild goose chase, when bam, that Lego incident happened right
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Speaker 1: in front of them. The Poltergeist had made its presence
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Speaker 1: known in dramatic-ass fashion. With that startling proof, the Daily
4:55
Speaker 1: Mirror folks said, okay, something really is going on in here,
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Speaker 1: and they contacted the society for Psychical Research, SPR.
5:03
Speaker 2: The SPR, it was like Ghostbusters of the real world.
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Speaker 1: A group of researchers who investigate the paranormal claims. They
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Speaker 1: dispatched Maurice Gross, an inventor turned paranormal investigator.
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Speaker 2: To Green Street. Would that be Grossy? Grassi. Let's say Grassi.
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Speaker 2: For the rest of this, we're calling him Grassi. Sorry.
5:22
Speaker 2: To Green Street to study the case.
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Speaker 1: When Grassi arrived early in September 1977, things really hit
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Speaker 1: a new level of strange. Over the next few days
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Speaker 1: and weeks, new phenomena kept the family and investigators on edge.
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Speaker 2: Grassi reported witnessing over 2,000 thousand separate paranormal events in
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Speaker 2: that house. That's a lot, okay?
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Speaker 1: Whoa. And we're talking furniture flipping over by itself, cups
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Speaker 1: of water appearing mysteriously filled and thrown, sudden cold breezes
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Speaker 1: and foul smells.
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Speaker 2: Not farts, ghosts, okay?
5:54
Speaker 1: Even small fires igniting spontaneously on shelves only to extinguish
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Speaker 1: on their own. Bed sheets would be ripped off empty beds.
6:02
Speaker 1: and toys would zoom across the rooms like missiles. Neighbors
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Speaker 1: would come by, drawn by the commotion, and end up
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Speaker 1: witnessing heavy armchairs tipping over without anyone near. On one occasion,
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Speaker 1: an enormous cast iron fireplace and an entire bed were
6:17
Speaker 1: found flipped on their side in an upstairs bedroom. These
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Speaker 1: were far too heavy for the young kids to move,
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Speaker 1: yet there they were, tossed about like dull furniture. Honestly,
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Speaker 1: if I hadn't heard of these witness accounts, I probably
6:30
Speaker 1: would have thought they were making this up too. And
6:32
Speaker 1: we can't forget Janet. Janet was an 11-year-old, and she
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Speaker 1: was at the epicenter of all of this. As weeks
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Speaker 1: went by, Janet began to fall into weird trans-like states.
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Speaker 1: She would wake up in strange places, like on top
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Speaker 1: of a dresser, or down at the bottom of the stairs.
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Speaker 2: Oh my God, there's a demon in me. I don't sleepwalk. Adam,
6:49
Speaker 2: call the Daily Mirror. She had no memory of how
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Speaker 2: she got to these places. Ding, ding, same.
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Speaker 1: She started speaking in gravelly, creepy old man voice that
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Speaker 1: literally no little girl should be able to produce. Imagine
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Speaker 1: your tween daughter suddenly starts talking like a grumpy old
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Speaker 1: man who chain smokes cigars.
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Speaker 2: Why is all of this resonating with me?
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Speaker 1: I don't know, baby. Let's figure it out.
7:10
Speaker 2: I need to go to bed.
7:11
Speaker 1: The voice claimed to be Bill Wilkins, a spirit of
7:14
Speaker 1: a man who had died in that very house years before.
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Speaker 1: In fact, the voice coming out of Janet's mouth famously rasped. Creepy, right?
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Speaker 2: Later on, a man who heard the recordings of this
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Speaker 2: voice recognized it.
7:40
Speaker 1: And said it sounded just like his father, William Bill Wilkins,
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Speaker 1: who indeed had lived in the Hodgen homes years prior
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Speaker 1: and had died of a freaking hemorrhage in that freaking chair. Guys,
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Speaker 1: and the details match because Bill Wilkins had gone blind
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Speaker 1: due to the hemorrhage that caused his death at 284
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Speaker 1: Green Street in 1963. long before the Hodgins family had
8:02
Speaker 1: moved in. The family insists that they did not know
8:05
Speaker 1: about Bill Wilkins at the time, so either an 11-year-old
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Speaker 1: girl was somehow privy to this morbid trivia, or is
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Speaker 1: pulling an elaborate prank with a voice that sounded eerily adult,
8:14
Speaker 1: or perhaps it honestly is something paranormal. Imagine hearing that
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Speaker 1: raspy voice echoing in the dark of night from your
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Speaker 1: child's room, a voice that isn't theirs. Imagine Janet's mother
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Speaker 1: hearing her little girl growl out the words of a
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Speaker 1: dead man. At times, researchers even filled Janet's mouth with
8:31
Speaker 1: water to see if she could still talk without using
8:34
Speaker 1: vocal cords. And unbelievably, that deep voice still emanated gurgling
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Speaker 1: out words without her lips moving. How do you explain that?
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Speaker 1: You can't, I know you can't. The poltergeist activity seemed
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Speaker 1: to target Janet the most, levitating her into the air
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Speaker 1: on several occasions as witnessed by neighbors and even a
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Speaker 1: lollipop lady, that's a crossing guard in London apparently, outside,
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Speaker 1: who claimed she saw Janet floating inside her bedroom window.
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Speaker 1: Famous photographs show Janet apparently levitating above her bed, mid-screen
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Speaker 1: while her sisters are in the room with looks of alarm.
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Speaker 1: Skeptics later noted that the photos could just be Janet
9:14
Speaker 1: jumping off her bed, and indeed they do show her
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Speaker 1: at mid-air with limbs astrew like a kid who might
9:19
Speaker 1: have bounced off the mattress. But witnesses insist that she
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Speaker 1: was thrown by an unseen force and that she sometimes
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Speaker 1: landed in weird places like on top of a dresser,
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Speaker 1: which is not consistent with a simple jump. The most
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Speaker 1: frightening moment for Janet herself She later said it was
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Speaker 1: when a curtain wrapped itself around her neck when she
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Speaker 1: was in bed choking her, as if some entity was
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Speaker 1: trying to strangle her. Her mother had raced in and
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Speaker 1: ripped the curtain away before her daughter could be harmed.
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Speaker 1: Fires that started would stop and water would appear out
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Speaker 1: of nowhere. Heavy furniture was levitating, disembodied voices, attempted stranglings.
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Speaker 1: This is stuff of nightmares or movies. And it was
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Speaker 1: happening again.
10:00
Speaker 2: Nightly in Enfield.
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Speaker 1: Eyewitnesses and investigators said this really honestly did happen. And
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Speaker 1: as the strange happenings continued, more people got involved. drawn
10:09
Speaker 1: by either curiosity or a genuine desire to help this
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Speaker 1: poor family. What makes the Enfield case stand out is
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Speaker 1: how many eyewitnesses there were. We're not relying on just
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Speaker 1: the family's word. Over 30 people eventually claimed that they
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Speaker 1: saw or heard something inexplicable in the house. Neighbors, journalists,
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Speaker 1: the mailman, police officers, psychic researchers, and even the lollipop lady,
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Speaker 1: they all became a part of this story. Foremost among
10:34
Speaker 1: the investigators were Maurice Grosset and Guy Lyon-Playfair, members of
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Speaker 1: the Society for Psychical Research, who effectively moved in with
10:43
Speaker 1: the Hodgsons for long stretches. Grosset was an approachable, down-to-earth guy,
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Speaker 1: and he had a personal motivation. He had tragically lost
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Speaker 1: his own daughter not too long before, and some say
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Speaker 1: he was hoping to find proof of the afterlife. Guy
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Speaker 1: Lyon Playfair was a journalist turned ghost hunter who would
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Speaker 1: later write a book about the cases titled This House
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Speaker 1: is Haunted. These two men became like unofficial uncles to
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Speaker 1: the Hodgson's kids, trying to protect them and document the
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Speaker 1: phenomenon at the same time. Grasset and Playfair spent over
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Speaker 1: a year on the case, logging incidents, trying to catch
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Speaker 1: poltergeists in action. They recorded hours upon hours of audio,
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Speaker 1: including those creepy Bill Wilkins voice sessions. Grasset even devised
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Speaker 1: clever little tests, like scattering flour on the floor to
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Speaker 1: see if furniture had moved by itself, or if somebody was.
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Speaker 2: Sneaking in to push it.
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Speaker 1: No human footprints were ever found in the flower, by
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Speaker 1: the way, and some of the chairs still did move.
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Speaker 1: They kept cameras rolling and continually challenged the entity to
11:44
Speaker 1: perform on cue. Sometimes it obliged, sometimes it didn't. Ghosts
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Speaker 1: don't exactly perform like trained seals, but Grossi said that
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Speaker 1: in total, he had witnessed more than 2,000 freaking paranormal
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Speaker 1: incidents in that house, okay? He described seeing doors slam
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Speaker 1: shut with no wind, marbles and toys jumping off the floor,
12:02
Speaker 1: often warm to the touch immediately after, which is very weird.
12:06
Speaker 2: I guess ghosts are like a microwave.
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Speaker 1: Chairs tumbled, drawers opening by themselves, and of course, hearing
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Speaker 1: that gruff, disembodied voice echoing from the walls. Despite being believers,
12:17
Speaker 1: Grasse and Playfair.
12:18
Speaker 2: Were not entirely gullible.
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Speaker 1: In fact, they caught the children trying to cheat on
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Speaker 1: a few occasions and weren't shy about it. Once Grasse
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Speaker 1: walked in to find Janet banging a broom handle on
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Speaker 1: the ceiling, to fake knocking sounds. Another time a hidden
12:34
Speaker 1: video camera caught Janet bending spoons, a classic prank, and
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Speaker 1: attempting to bend an iron bar, presumably to fool investigators
12:43
Speaker 1: that it was telekinesis at work. See?
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Speaker 2: Sometimes it's a bad case. I think it's a little
12:48
Speaker 2: bit of both. We're going to see.
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Speaker 1: Whenever the girls fake something and got caught, Grasset and
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Speaker 1: Playfire would scold them.
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Speaker 2: Like strict dads, obviously.
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Speaker 1: Janet later admitted that, yes, she and her siblings had
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Speaker 1: faked maybe 2% of the phenomenon just to test the
13:04
Speaker 1: investigators or see if they could get away with the joke.
13:07
Speaker 1: In their words, oh yeah, once or twice we faked
13:10
Speaker 1: phenomenon just to see if Mr. Grasse and Mr. Playfair
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Speaker 1: would catch us. Janet confessed, they always did. And 98%
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Speaker 1: of the time, the weird stuff was real. And even
13:20
Speaker 1: the little pranks that they attempted were quickly busted.
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Speaker 2: Interesting.
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Speaker 1: The case also attracted big names in the paranormal world.
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Speaker 2: Most notably, Ed and Lorraine Warren.
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Speaker 1: Yes, the famed American demonologist couple portrayed in the Conjuring films.
13:36
Speaker 1: they made a cameo in this story too. In real life,
13:39
Speaker 1: the Warrens showed up briefly in Enfield in 1978, and
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Speaker 1: by all accounts, their visit was a short one. Ed
13:46
Speaker 1: Warren was fully convinced it was a demonic haunting, saying,
13:50
Speaker 1: no doubt about it, those who deal with the supernatural
13:52
Speaker 1: know the phenomenon are here. But British investigator Guy Playfair
13:57
Speaker 1: later recalled, with a bit British dry humor, that Ed
14:01
Speaker 1: also tried to persuade them that there was money to
14:04
Speaker 1: be made from this case. book deals, movie rights, the
14:08
Speaker 1: whole works. Playfair claims Ed essentially said this could be
14:12
Speaker 1: a goldmine. And then the Warrens left.
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Speaker 2: So while the Warrens publicly stood by the Hodgson haunting.
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Speaker 1: As real, some UK researchers viewed them as, well, a
14:22
Speaker 1: tad opportunistic.
14:24
Speaker 2: A tad opportunistic. A tad opportunistic. What is it? Say it.
14:31
Speaker 2: Just go.
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Speaker 1: In fact, one skeptical analysis bluntly noted that Ed Warren
14:36
Speaker 1: was notorious for exaggerating and even making up incidents, often
14:40
Speaker 1: transforming a haunting into a demonic possession. Ouch. Regardless, the
14:44
Speaker 1: Warrens' brief appearance at Enfield has been greatly embellished in fiction.
14:49
Speaker 1: In The Conjuring 2, they basically are the main heroes.
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Speaker 1: But in reality, they were minor players in the heavy
14:55
Speaker 1: lifting that was done by the folks like Grasse, Playfair,
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Speaker 1: and the Daily Journalists on the scene night after night.
15:03
Speaker 1: Whether it was a ghost, a telekinetic teen, or some combination, Morris, Lightgrassay,
15:07
Speaker 1: and Playfair were convinced the events were real. It was
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Speaker 1: the strangest thing. It was all true, he insisted. Absolutely
15:13
Speaker 1: everything that happened was true. They couldn't have made it up.
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Speaker 2: They were a very poor family who were.
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Speaker 1: Frightened to death and just wanted this to stop. For
15:20
Speaker 1: a hardened news photographer to say that on the record
15:23
Speaker 1: is pretty striking. By early 1979, after roughly a year
15:27
Speaker 1: and a half of chaos... the phenomenon finally quieted down. Janet,
15:31
Speaker 1: at the epicenter, was sent away from home for a while,
15:35
Speaker 1: first to a mental hospital for evaluation, where, notably, then
15:38
Speaker 1: the activity had paused, and later to live with a
15:40
Speaker 1: family friend. Perhaps that separation helped calm things. Eventually, the
15:44
Speaker 1: poltergeist episode simply ended as abruptly as it had begun,
15:47
Speaker 1: which is super common with poltergeists. No definitive, ah, here's
15:51
Speaker 1: the ghost, climax. It just stopped. And from the get-go,
15:54
Speaker 1: the Enfield poltergeist was a media sensation. We often hear
15:57
Speaker 1: about ghost stories that only come out years later, but
16:00
Speaker 1: this one hit the newspapers in literally real time. The
16:04
Speaker 1: Daily Mirror ran the initial exclusive, splashing the story, The
16:09
Speaker 1: House of Strange Happenings.
16:10
Speaker 2: Across its pages. The public was hooked.
16:13
Speaker 1: Soon other papers, like The Daily Mirror and The Sun,
16:16
Speaker 1: followed their own headlines. But the Hodgson home became a
16:19
Speaker 1: bit of a circus. Journalists, photographers, self-proclaimed experts, and curiosity
16:24
Speaker 1: seekers gathered at the outside of 284 Green Street, hoping
16:28
Speaker 1: to catch a glimpse of flying furniture or ghostly action.
16:31
Speaker 1: British national newspapers covered the case regularly until 1979, when
16:36
Speaker 1: reports finally died down.
16:38
Speaker 2: This was the late 1970s.
16:40
Speaker 1: No internet babies, no Twitter, no viral TikToks, no Instagram Reels. Yet,
16:44
Speaker 1: the Enfield case became world famous, through good old-fashioned press
16:49
Speaker 1: and TV coverage. It got to the point that any
16:51
Speaker 1: mention of the poltergeist on TV or radio would bring
16:54
Speaker 1: up the Enfield as a prime example.
16:56
Speaker 2: There were radio interviews.
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Speaker 1: One particularly spine-tingling moment came when the Hodgkins and Maurice
17:01
Speaker 1: Grosset were on the LBC radio show playing a tape
17:05
Speaker 1: of Bill's voice.
17:06
Speaker 2: Come on, say it for me, Dr.
17:07
Speaker 1: Bill. When a caller phoned in to say that he
17:13
Speaker 1: recognized the voice as his dead father, which we know
17:17
Speaker 1: is Bill Wilkins. Can you imagine listening to the radio
17:20
Speaker 1: and realizing the ghost that everyone is talking about is
17:23
Speaker 1: your freaking dad?
17:24
Speaker 2: And of course, that literally made headlines too.
17:27
Speaker 1: Public reaction at the time was split, much like it
17:30
Speaker 1: is today and when any of these cases get attention.
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Speaker 2: Many people are fascinated and sympathetic to the Hodgins. Here
17:36
Speaker 2: was a normal family.
17:37
Speaker 1: Thrust into the spotlight by something utterly bizarre and terrifying.
17:41
Speaker 1: Neighbors and strangers sent supportive letters or dropped off toffees
17:45
Speaker 1: for the frightened children, as if dealing with a ghost
17:48
Speaker 1: was hard to recover from, just like an illness. But
17:51
Speaker 1: there was also skepticism and ridicule. The tabloids, while sensationalizing
17:55
Speaker 1: the story, also ran jerky cartoons about flying teacups. Some
17:59
Speaker 1: skeptics accused the Hodgson children of being little actresses, seeking fame.
18:04
Speaker 1: or suggested that Peggy Hogson was an overwhelmed mom concocting
18:08
Speaker 1: a story to get better government housing. It got quite
18:11
Speaker 1: nasty in some press quarters. Yet, despite the doubters, no
18:14
Speaker 1: one ever definitively debunked all the evidence. There were just
18:17
Speaker 1: too many independent witnesses and recordings that the case couldn't
18:20
Speaker 1: be entirely dismissed. Even those who thought the girls' fake
18:24
Speaker 1: stuff had to concede something unusual had happened in the house.
18:27
Speaker 1: One journalist wrote that whether it was real or not,
18:30
Speaker 1: the Enfield Poltergeist had a tremendous impact on the entire
18:33
Speaker 1: generation of children who grew up hearing about it.
18:35
Speaker 2: It became the ghost story everyone knew.
18:37
Speaker 1: Kids would dare each other to repeat the Enfield ghost
18:40
Speaker 1: said or play with Ouija boards. Bad idea, by the way.
18:44
Speaker 1: Janet herself admitted that she had played with a Ouija
18:46
Speaker 1: board shortly before the haunting began. The name Enfield Poltergeist
18:50
Speaker 1: entered into pop culture. Alright, now let's address the big
18:53
Speaker 1: ghostly elephant in the room. Was the Enfield Poltergeist a hoax?
18:57
Speaker 1: It's important to examine the skeptic side of the story.
19:00
Speaker 1: Even if I am a believer at heart, healthy skepticism
19:03
Speaker 1: keeps us all honest. After all, professional skeptics and magicians
19:07
Speaker 1: also weighed in. Melbourne's Christopher, a famous American stage magician
19:11
Speaker 1: and paranormal debunker, dropped by the Enfield house. He spent
19:15
Speaker 1: a whole day there and observed nothing paranormal at all.
19:18
Speaker 1: In fact, he was just put off by how suspicious
19:21
Speaker 1: Janet's behavior was and concluded the poltergeist was nothing more
19:25
Speaker 1: than the antics of a little girl, who was very,
19:28
Speaker 1: very clever.
19:29
Speaker 2: Another magician, Joe Nickel, from the U.S.
19:31
Speaker 1: Committee for Skeptics, he inquired and studied the case from
19:34
Speaker 1: afar and pointed out some solid critiques. For one, he
19:38
Speaker 1: noted that many incidents happened when the girls were alone
19:41
Speaker 1: or not closely watched. For example, the famous levitation photos
19:44
Speaker 1: that we've talked about. Those were taken by a remote
19:47
Speaker 1: camera with no one else in the room. and at
19:49
Speaker 1: the exact second that they had occurred.
19:51
Speaker 2: Then there's the voice. A ventriloquist named Ray Allen visited.
19:55
Speaker 1: Janet and concluded that her demonic voice was nothing more
19:59
Speaker 1: than a vocal trick. Essentially, a good ventriloquism or using
20:03
Speaker 1: false vocal cords to test her. Researchers did creative experiments
20:07
Speaker 1: like the water in the mouth test, as mentioned, and
20:09
Speaker 1: and asking her to speak with her mouth taped, though
20:12
Speaker 1: she might have just spoken through her nose. Still, skeptics
20:15
Speaker 1: argue that while her voice is eerie, an 11-year-old girl
20:18
Speaker 1: could learn how to produce deep voice with practice, especially
20:22
Speaker 1: when it got her a lot of attention and got
20:24
Speaker 1: the pesky reporters to go, wow. Skeptics pointed to the
20:28
Speaker 1: physiological and psychological factors. Some suggested Janet's puberty and family,
20:33
Speaker 1: you know, stress, a single mom, tight finances. could have
20:36
Speaker 1: led to her unconscious psychological effects, or simply a desire
20:40
Speaker 1: to spice up their dull life with mischief.
20:42
Speaker 2: A big but, things like puberty can also bring on
20:46
Speaker 2: a poltergeist.
20:47
Speaker 1: One psychologist noted how people see what they want to
20:50
Speaker 1: see in uncontrolled situations. A room full of believers in
20:53
Speaker 1: the dark, hearing a noise, might convince each other it
20:55
Speaker 1: is a ghost. Whereas in daylight, with clear observation, it
20:59
Speaker 1: might turn out to be the plumbing. Indeed, no rigorous
21:02
Speaker 1: scientific control was applied in Enfield. This was a family home,
21:06
Speaker 1: not a tech lab. Deborah Hyde, a notable skeptic, said
21:08
Speaker 1: that there is not a single piece of solid evidence
21:11
Speaker 1: because occurrences didn't happen under controlled circumstances. People frequently see
21:15
Speaker 1: what they expect to see, shaped by their prior beliefs.
21:19
Speaker 2: That's a fair point.
21:19
Speaker 1: Confirmation bias can make true believers out of even smart
21:23
Speaker 1: people when spooks are afoot. There's also infamous bit of
21:26
Speaker 1: audio where the investigators left a tape recorder running and
21:29
Speaker 1: it did catch Janet and Margaret giggling and seeming to
21:32
Speaker 1: hatch a plan to trick the researchers. Essentially caught red-handed
21:37
Speaker 1: and the audio, when confronted, the girls said that they
21:39
Speaker 1: were just joking around about how they could fool the adults.
21:42
Speaker 2: Not actually doing it.
21:43
Speaker 1: Hmm. An important note to make is that once the
21:46
Speaker 1: press and the researchers stopped hanging around, the haunting basically stopped.
21:51
Speaker 1: Could it be just without an audience, the girls had
21:54
Speaker 1: no reason to keep it up? Or is it that
21:56
Speaker 1: the entity's energy faded as Janet grew older? A cynic
22:00
Speaker 1: would say the timing is suspicious. Finally, skeptics often highlight
22:04
Speaker 1: that no conclusive photo or film ever.
22:06
Speaker 2: Captured the poltergeist in the act, only aftermaths.
22:09
Speaker 1: The best that we have are those levitation shots, which again,
22:12
Speaker 1: are super debatable. and many creepy audio recordings. But in
22:16
Speaker 1: an age where some other hauntings have yielded convincing videos
22:20
Speaker 1: or clear EVPs, Enfield's evidence is just tantalizing and ambiguous.
22:25
Speaker 1: It is just enough to make you wonder, but not
22:27
Speaker 1: enough to prove anything. When the movie studio was making
22:30
Speaker 1: The Conjuring 2, they even brought Janet and Margaret back
22:33
Speaker 1: to the old.
22:34
Speaker 2: House in Enfield in 2016 for a visit.
22:37
Speaker 1: The sisters stood outside for the cameras, now much older,
22:40
Speaker 1: and reflected on that crazy chapter of their childhood. It's
22:43
Speaker 1: very strange being back, Janet had said, looking at her
22:46
Speaker 1: former home. After Peggy Hodgson's death, a new family briefly
22:50
Speaker 1: lived in the Green Street house. They reportedly knew nothing
22:53
Speaker 1: of the history, which is honestly a very weird, serious omission.
22:58
Speaker 2: By the landlord.
22:59
Speaker 1: The mom, Claire, later said that she felt uncomfortable in
23:02
Speaker 1: the house, as if somebody was always looking at her.
23:05
Speaker 1: Her sons, interesting, would wake up at night hearing people
23:08
Speaker 1: talking downstairs when nobody was ever even there.
23:12
Speaker 2: When the family eventually learned.
23:13
Speaker 1: About the events of 1977, it suddenly clicked why they
23:17
Speaker 1: might have felt uneasy. They moved out after just two months,
23:20
Speaker 1: unable to shake the creeps. To be clear, they didn't
23:24
Speaker 1: witness anything flying or anything dramatic, but a lingering presence
23:29
Speaker 1: and feeling. And today, another family does live there, and
23:32
Speaker 1: by all accounts, they have experienced no disturbances at all,
23:37
Speaker 1: And wisely don't invite journalists in to poke around. Maybe
23:40
Speaker 1: whatever haunted the place has finally moved on for good.
23:44
Speaker 1: Or maybe the poltergeist was only ever tied to the
23:46
Speaker 1: Hanschen kids and this particular moment in time. So I
23:50
Speaker 1: know you are all probably wondering, what do I think
23:53
Speaker 1: about this? And I'll be honest, the story does give
23:56
Speaker 1: me the chills. I am a believer when it comes
23:58
Speaker 1: to the paranormal. at least. I do believe that not
24:01
Speaker 1: everything in our world fits neatly into scientific explanations that
24:05
Speaker 1: we have made. The Enfield Poltergeist case captivates me because
24:09
Speaker 1: it wasn't just a bump in the night or one witness.
24:12
Speaker 1: It was month after month after month of weirdness with
24:15
Speaker 1: a crowd of people seeing it all unfold. As a
24:18
Speaker 1: friend of yours, I will tell you that I believe
24:20
Speaker 1: something very strange really did happen in that house. Of course,
24:24
Speaker 1: I do have my skeptical moments too. It's kind of
24:27
Speaker 1: like believing your friend's fishing story, even though you know
24:31
Speaker 1: they tend to exaggerate. You think, okay, the fish wasn't
24:34
Speaker 1: that big, but you definitely caught something. I suspect that
24:37
Speaker 1: the Hodgson kids, being kids, added some embellishments and they
24:41
Speaker 1: admitted to as much.
24:43
Speaker 2: Maybe they banged a broom to stir things.
24:45
Speaker 1: Up when activity was slow or jumped off the bed
24:47
Speaker 1: pretending to be spirits. Those bits don't shock me. They
24:50
Speaker 1: were under unimaginable pressure, living in a haunted house and
24:54
Speaker 1: under media scrutiny.
24:56
Speaker 2: If I was.
24:56
Speaker 1: 11 and could fool a bunch of grown-ups, maybe I
24:58
Speaker 1: would have tried it too. So yes, I think a
25:00
Speaker 1: few of the Enfield events were fake. But in the
25:02
Speaker 1: core of it, the truly bizarre stuff that multiple sane
25:06
Speaker 1: adults witnessed.
25:07
Speaker 2: I don't think that was fake.
25:08
Speaker 1: There are just too many reports of the same events
25:10
Speaker 1: from different credible people. When a police officer, a reporter,
25:14
Speaker 1: and a neighbor all see a chair move, now that
25:16
Speaker 1: is a hard one to sweep underneath the rug. When
25:18
Speaker 1: recordings exist of a voice that no little girl should
25:21
Speaker 1: physically be able to produce for hours on end, that
25:24
Speaker 1: raises an eyebrow. This case makes me feel a mix
25:27
Speaker 1: of awe and unease. Awe because even if a part
25:29
Speaker 1: of it was a genuine paranormal event, then it means
25:31
Speaker 1: that our world is a lot stranger than we often admit.
25:34
Speaker 1: It makes me wonder about the nature of reality.
25:36
Speaker 2: Was it a ghost? A demon?
25:38
Speaker 1: Some unexplained psychic ability? And it gives me unease because
25:41
Speaker 1: for the Hodgsons, this wasn't.
25:42
Speaker 2: Cool or fun. This was traumatic.
25:44
Speaker 1: A part of me feels protective over little Janet and Margaret,
25:47
Speaker 1: even all these years later. They didn't ask to become
25:50
Speaker 1: the center of a phenomenon. Whether you think they summoned
25:53
Speaker 1: something with a Ouija board, Or if it was a
25:55
Speaker 1: collective energy of the tense household or plain fakery. Those
25:59
Speaker 1: kids went through hell for a while. The fear in
26:02
Speaker 1: their eyes in these photos were real. Enfield also makes
26:04
Speaker 1: me want to reflect on how we deal with the unknown.
26:07
Speaker 1: Some people ought to believe the wildest stories. Others automatically
26:10
Speaker 1: dismiss anything as a hoax or hysteria.
26:13
Speaker 2: I stay curious. I wasn't there. So I can't know
26:15
Speaker 2: for sure what happened.
26:17
Speaker 1: But after digging into these first-hand accounts, I find it
26:19
Speaker 1: hard to believe that it was all made up.
26:21
Speaker 2: And I'll admit, I also love a good ghost story
26:23
Speaker 2: and the Enfield Poltergeist is one of the best because
26:26
Speaker 2: it is messy and human and spooky as heck.
26:29
Speaker 1: But it is not a tidy Hollywood tale. It is
26:31
Speaker 1: full of contradictions and drama and a weird way it
26:34
Speaker 1: makes it feel more authentic. Real life is messy and
26:36
Speaker 1: if I were conducting a hoax, I would probably try
26:39
Speaker 1: to make everything line up neatly. The Enfield story, however,
26:42
Speaker 1: is all over the place. both incredibly convincing and at
26:45
Speaker 1: times head-scratchingly dubious, just like.
26:48
Speaker 2: A real-life haunting might be.
26:49
Speaker 1: In the end, whether you are a headline skeptic or
26:52
Speaker 1: a true believer or somewhere in between, The Enfield Poltergeist
26:55
Speaker 1: leaves me with lingering questions.
26:57
Speaker 2: I think that's why it endures.
26:58
Speaker 1: People are still fascinated by it, still arguing at the
27:01
Speaker 1: pub or the internet forums about, hey, did Janet throw
27:04
Speaker 1: a teapot or was it a ghost? So what do
27:06
Speaker 1: you think happened to that house in Enfield? Was it
27:08
Speaker 1: a clever prank by two imaginative girls that snowballed way
27:12
Speaker 1: out of their control? Or was it a case of
27:14
Speaker 1: collective hysteria fueled by willing media? Or did a restless spirit,
27:18
Speaker 1: maybe old Bill Wilkins or something else, truly torment this
27:22
Speaker 1: family for a year and a half? The Enfield Poltergeist
27:25
Speaker 1: is a mystery that we may never fully solve. And
27:28
Speaker 1: maybe that's okay. It reminds us that the world can
27:31
Speaker 1: stay a very mysterious place. And as I turn off
27:33
Speaker 1: the lights tonight, I will be pondering those knocks on
27:35
Speaker 1: the walls and the voice in the darkness and this
27:38
Speaker 1: family's ordeal that has kept us talking about it for
27:41
Speaker 1: nearly half a century. So thank you all for joining
27:44
Speaker 1: me for this episode of The Haunted Estate and on
27:46
Speaker 1: this deep dive.
27:47
Speaker 2: Into the unknown.
27:48
Speaker 1: Stay curious, stay open-minded, and next time you hear something
27:51
Speaker 1: go bump in the night, well, it might just be
27:54
Speaker 1: the pipes.
27:54
Speaker 2: Maybe it's not. So sweet dreams. Stay spooky, Boo Crew.