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What IS the truth about the Enfield Poltergeist?
#1
Anyone need to get in the mood for Halloween?  This story should do it! 

It is said to be a case that still 40 years later has not been debunked.  Some really scary things went on with this family in their home in Enfield, North London.  Like, when the deep raspy voice of an old man came out of an 11 year old girl, things being tossed across the room by unseen hands, and voices heard when no one was there.  tinysurprised 



Quote:The rasping male voice sent a chill through the room. Hauntingly, it delivered a message from beyond the grave, describing in graphic detail the moment of death.
‘Just before I died, I went blind, and then I had an ’aemorrhage and I fell asleep and I died in the chair in the corner downstairs.’
The eerie voice — which can still be heard on audio tapes today — is purportedly that of Bill Wilkins. The recording was made in Enfield, North London, in the Seventies, several years after his death. 

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Janet Hodgson, aged 11 at the time, appeared to be possessed. It could have been a scene from the film The Exorcist - but it was real

Most horrifying of all, however, was that the voice was coming from the body of an 11-year-old girl, Janet Hodgson. She appeared to be possessed. It could have been a scene from the film The Exorcist — but it was real.
What was going on? This was the case of the Enfield Poltergeist, which held the nation spellbound 30 years ago, puzzling policemen, psychics, experts in the occult and hardened reporters alike.

It involved levitation, furniture being moved through the air, and flying objects swirling towards witnesses. There were cold breezes, physical assaults, graffiti, water appearing on the floor, and even claims of matches spontaneously bursting into flame.

A policewoman even signed an affidavit that she had seen a chair move. There were more than 30 witnesses to the strange incidents.
Most inexplicably, the young girl at the centre of the events seemingly acted as the mouthpiece for Bill Wilkins, a foul-mouthed, grumpy old man who had died in the house many years before. His son contacted investigators to confirm the details of his story.
The events unfolded for more than a year behind the door of an ordinary-looking semi-detached council house, on a suburban street filled with similar houses, and left those they touched permanently scarred.
Naturally, many questioned whether it was all a hoax — but no explanation other than the paranormal has ever been convincingly put forward.

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The events unfolded for more than a year behind the door of an ordinary-looking semi-detached council house
Now, the episode is to be revisited in a film, planned for release at Halloween next year.

Just what happened in Enfield, then, all those years ago? Where are the Hodgsons now, and have they escaped their ghosts? Could they have made the whole episode up? And who lives at 284 Green Street now?

The story, as the Hodgson family told it, begins in 1977. Peggy Hodgson was unusual, at the time, in that she was a single mother to four children — Margaret, 12, Janet, 11, Johnny, ten, and Billy, seven — having split from their father.

It was the evening of August 30, 1977, and Mrs Hodgson was keen to get her children into bed. She heard Janet complaining from upstairs that her and her brothers’ beds were wobbling.
Mrs Hodgson told her daughter to stop mucking around. The following evening, however, there was an altogether more bizarre disturbance.

Mrs Hodgson heard a crash from upstairs. Cross, she went to tell her children to settle down.

Entering their bedroom, with Janet’s Starsky & Hutch posters on the wall, Mrs Hodgson saw the chest of drawers move. She pushed it back, but found that it was being propelled towards the door by an invisible force.
It seemed as if some supernatural presence was trying to trap the family in the room with the heavy oak chest.

Many years later, Janet would tell a Channel 4 documentary: ‘It started in a back bedroom, the chest of drawers moved, and you could hear shuffling. Mum said: “I want you to pack it in.”

‘We told her what was going on, and she came to see it for herself. She saw the chest of drawers moving. When she tried to push it back, she couldn’t.’

Janet’s sister Margaret explained how the activity increased.

‘There were strange little noises in the house, you couldn’t make out what was going on. None of us got slept.
‘We put on our dressing gowns and slippers and went next door.’
The family appealed for help from their neighbours, Vic and Peggy Nottingham. Vic, a burly builder, went to investigate.

He says: ‘I went in there and I couldn’t make out these noises — there was a knocking on the wall, in the bedroom, on the ceiling. I was beginning to get a bit frightened.’

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Most of the activity centred on 11-year-old Janet. She went into violent trances, which were awful to behold

Margaret adds: ‘He said: “I don’t know what to do.” I’d never seen a big man like that looking scared.’
The Hodgsons called the police, who proved to be similarly mystified. WPC  Carolyn Heeps saw a chair move.
She said at the time: ‘A large armchair moved, unassisted, 4 ft across the floor.’

She inspected the chair for hidden wires, but could find no explanation for what she had seen.
Eventually, the officers left, telling the family that the incidents were not a police matter, as they couldn’t find anyone breaking the law.

Next, the Hodgsons contacted the Press. Daily Mirror photographer Graham Morris, who visited the house, says: ‘It was chaos, things started flying around, people were screaming.’

Some of the events were captured on camera, and the images are disturbing. One shows Janet’s elfin form apparently being thrown across the room.
In others, her face is distorted in pain.

The BBC went to the house, but the crew found the metal components in their tape equipment had been twisted, and recordings erased.
Next, the family sought help from the Society for Psychical Research (SPR). It sent investigators Maurice Grosse and Guy Lyon Playfair, a poltergeist expert who subsequently wrote a book, This House Is Haunted, about the affair.

The author Will Storr spoke to Grosse, who has since died, when researching his own book Will Storr vs The Supernatural, which also features the case. Grosse told him: ‘As soon as I got there, I realised that the case was real because the family was in a bad state. Everybody was in chaos.

‘When I first got there, nothing happened for a while. Then I experienced Lego pieces flying across the room, and marbles, and the extraordinary thing was, when you picked them up they were hot.
‘I was standing in the kitchen and a T-shirt leapt off the table and flew into the other side of the room while I was standing by it.’

The investigators found themselves caught in a maelstrom of apparently psychic activity, with every poltergeist trick thrown at them. Sofas levitated, furniture spun round and was flung across the room, and the family would be hurled out of their beds at night.

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The investigators found themselves caught in a maelstrom of apparently psychic activity, with every poltergeist trick thrown at them

One day, Maurice and a visiting neighbour found one of the children shouting: ‘I can’t move! It’s holding my leg!’ They had to wrestle the child from what all involved insisted was the grip of invisible hands.
The ongoing knocking was one of the most chilling aspects of the case. It would run down the wall, fading in and out as it apparently played an unnerving game with the family — who became so scared that they slept in the same room, with the light on.

Most of the activity centred on 11-year-old Janet. She went into violent trances, which were awful to behold. On one occasion, the iron fireplace in her bedroom was wrenched from the wall by unseen forces.
Family members also claim to have seen her levitating — floating clean across the room.

She told Channel 4: ‘I felt used by a force that nobody understands. I really don’t like to think about it too much. I’m not sure the poltergeist was truly “evil”. It was almost as if it wanted to be part of our family.
'It didn’t want to hurt us. It had died there and wanted to be at rest. The only way it could communicate was through me and my sister.’

Some cast doubt on the events, however. Two SPR experts caught the children bending spoons themselves, and questioned why no one was allowed in the same room as Janet when she was using her gruff voice, apparently that of Bill Wilkins.

Indeed, Janet admitted that they fabricated some of the occurrences.
She told ITV News in 1980: ‘Oh yeah, once or twice (we faked phenomena), just to see if Mr Grosse and Mr Playfair would catch us. They always did.’

Now aged 45, Janet lives in Essex with her husband, a retired milkman.
She told me: ‘I wasn’t very happy to hear about the film, I didn’t know anything about it. My dad has just died, and it really upset me to think of all this being raked over again.’

She describes the poltergeist activity as traumatic.
‘It was an extraordinary case. It’s one of the most recognised cases of paranormal activity in the world. But, for me, it was quite daunting. I think it really left its mark, the activities, the newspaper attention, the different people in and out of the house. It wasn’t a normal childhood.’

Asked how much of the phenomena at Green Street was faked, she says: ‘I’d say 2 per cent.’
She also admitted playing with an Ouija board with her sister, just before the activity flared up at the house.
She says she was unaware that she went into trances, until she was shown pictures.

‘I recall being very distressed by the photos when I was a child, I was very upset.
‘I knew when the voices were happening, of course, it felt like something was behind me all of the time. They did all sorts of tests, filling my mouth with water and so on, but the voices still came out.’


The story is quite long, so continue reading from the Source Article.

WOW, that will make your eyes get big, right?   tinyhuh
#2
Here is a short video of Janet Hodgson all grown up telling her experiences. The skeptic in the panel makes me want to slap her, but I realize this is one of those stories that is very difficult to believe unless you were there. Having had experiences of my own, it is easier for me to believe, I suppose. 

Anyway, here it is. What do you think?

#3
The Enfield Poltergeist has been well proven as a false. If you look at the photos of the girls "levitating " you can see from the wind blowing there hair they were just jumping.
A nice story but thats all it was.
#4
There was an earlier thread on the alleged activity. I think Wallfire may be correct.

Earlier Thread:
Edith Head Gives Good Wardrobe. 
#5
I would have to search, but I know that one of the girls admitted to be all being a Hoax.

But I do believe that Poltergeist are real, I was told by a Very Reliable Source,,,, they are the spirits of Giants from long ago most hide and don't show themselves others are haters of humans but most stay in the shadows, often seen and known as Shadow Ghost, you'll notice most investigators seen black shadow forms and will say how large they are.
Just My Humble Opinion
Once A Rogue, Always A Rogue!
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#6
(10-18-2018, 12:50 PM)Wallfire Wrote: The Enfield Poltergeist has been well proven as a false. If you look at the photos of the girls "levitating " you can see from the wind blowing there hair they were just jumping.
A nice story but thats all it was.

Yeah, it tells in the story that the girls admitted to bending some spoons themselves. I am sure there are more things that could have been hoaxed, but witnesses saw the chair and other things being thrown across the room, and the clincher that got me was when they had her put water in her mouth and close it, but the scary low voice still spoke... then she spit the water out.  How did an 11 year old girl know how to do this?   tinybighuh
#7
(10-18-2018, 03:54 PM)BIAD Wrote: There was an earlier thread on the alleged activity. I think Wallfire may be correct.

Earlier Thread:

We have this from the obit of Guy Lyon that states another investigation was performed and it concluded the house had paranormal events that took place.


Quote:In 1977 together with Maurice Grosse he investigated the famous Enfield poltergeist outbreak in North London. He spent 180 days and nights with the troubled family over a two-year period between September 5th 1977 and June 1978, including 25 all-night vigils. Over 140 hours of tape recordings were obtained, resulting in transcripts running to over 500 pages (a substantial number of recordings have still to be transcribed). Additionally, there were at least 30 other witnesses to strange incidents. Re-investigated in 1981-82 by a special committee assembled by the Society for Psychical Research, the Enfield Poltergeist Investigation Committee (EPIC) re-examined the witnesses and collected evidence, later issuing 194-page report reaching the conclusion that paranormal incidents had indeed occurred in the house.

OBIT


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