The Enfield Poltergeist: Haunting on Green Street

[EPISODE 37] Haunting at Green Street: The Enfield Poltergeist Revealed

Kyle Risi: So soon after, Janet began producing a series of really disturbing bloody pictures. This is one of the nine pictures that she drew. nine pictures that she drew. Just Describe that for me. Um... You can see it . 

Adam Cox: I mean, I'm, I see some blood, but I am drawn to the penis. 

Kyle Risi: This big giant penis that is drawn on this thing.

Kyle Risi: What? Yeah, 

Adam Cox: what is 

Kyle Risi: this? 

Kyle Risi: Oh. 

Adam Cox: She is one horny 

Kyle Risi: child. Yeah, she's a big penis man. Jeez, wow. Oh, I'm staring

Kyle Risi: Welcome to the compendium. An assembly of tales that will make you question what lurks in the dark.

Adam Cox: Well, a lot of things could luck in the dark, not what, uh, serial 

Kyle Risi: killers. Yeah, it could be another episode about serial killers. Werewolves? It could be werewolves. aliens? It's not aliens this time. In today's episode of the Compendium, I'm going to be telling you about the Enfield Poltergeist, which is a tale that stands as one of the most captivating and chilling supernatural stories in pretty much history, really.

Kyle Risi: And what sets the Enfield case apart is not just the sheer intensity of the events that I'm about to tell you about but the remarkable volume of eyewitness testimonies and documented evidence that is about to follow. So first of all, I guess probably should ask you the question, do you even know anything about the Enfield poltergeist?

Adam Cox: No, nothing. you never heard of the story before? 

Kyle Risi: Nope. Never. So I can tell you now that this story. Inspired films like Steven Spielberg's The Poltergeist in 1980. Okay. And specifically The Conjuring 2. 

Adam Cox: Ah, with Elaine 

Kyle Risi: and Ed Warren. Oh, that's a little bit of a loop back, isn't it?

Kyle Risi: To a previous episode 

Adam Cox: that we did. Yeah. 'cause they, the film Annabelle, 'cause they got hold of the Annabelle Doll. Mm-Hmm. . and the Conjuring film series was based on them. So were 

Kyle Risi: they involved in any way? I think it's a, like a, it's more of an anthology of different stories, isn't it?

Kyle Risi: Okay. And I think the Conjuring two is about this haunting that's happening. There's an entity in their house, and that's what this is about. Also, what's brilliant about this story and what's really captivating is that what I said earlier on is the amount of documentation that supports or goes with this case.

Kyle Risi: Now, when I was doing the research for this episode, I think a lot of people conflated the fact that there was tons and tons of documentation with evidence because those aren't the same thing, right? 

Kyle Risi: Something could be really well documented. But it doesn't necessarily mean that these things happened. Yeah. Because I always come at these things with a bit of scepticism. Now, of course, if you want to lean into this, then fine, you can lean into it and, really suspend your disbelief. But ultimately, I'm not really someone who believes in ghosts. 

Adam Cox: Has this story changed your opinion? I

Kyle Risi: think you'll be getting a sense of what I feel as we go through. Okay. It is a really captivating story and remember My skepticism towards ghosts and spirits and things like that hasn't always been like that when I was a kid I really believed in Aliens and demons and all sorts of things.

Kyle Risi: I was quite I grew up in quite a spiritual household So these things were very commonplace in terms of our belief structure But now when I look back at it, I'm like, oh really did I really believe that? But at the same time I'm not against it if I came across first hand evidence that a ghost existed Then maybe I will change my mind.

Kyle Risi: But right now there has never been a case where I have actually come face to face with a ghost. 

Adam Cox: Have you? Yeah, no, I've heard people that I know that have said that they've had like a spooky experience or they thought that Seen a man that then disappeared or whatever, but I've never had that happen to me before 

Kyle Risi: exactly and it's gonna be something that you experience within your realm of reality. Otherwise, I don't know. It's just anecdotal It's just I don't know. It's just hearsay, isn't it? 

Kyle Risi: So yeah the Enfield poltergeist now What's crazy about this case is that police officers, journalists, paranormal investigators and even neighbours were all drawn into the strange happenings that seemed to centre around these two small girls that were living at number 284. Green Street in Enfield, North London. 

Kyle Risi: And it is a story that's intrigued the world for more than 45 years, because this happened in the late seventies and people are still really captivated by the story.

Kyle Risi: So today I want to tell you about the events that took place over a 19 month period when the Hodgson family were relentlessly plagued by a series of paranormal events and why the Enfield poltergeist continues to be the subject of debate, skepticism, and of course, fascination. 

Kyle Risi: So I'm really excited about today's episode because, again, as a child, when I wasn't running wild and free with the Buffalo and the wide South African plains. I was nose deep in these mysteries of the unexplained and this was one of them. You were running 

Adam Cox: around on the African 

Kyle Risi: plains. I know, we have this conversation every week. Yes, I was wild. I was like Donnie from the Elijah Thornberry.

Kyle Risi: Is it the Wild Thornberries? The Wild Thornberries, yeah. That was me. So just believe it, all right? But yeah, so it's really great that I get to revisit it. But through a lens of, maybe a more rational adult, I guess. Okay. 

Kyle Risi: So, before we do that, should we get on with the introduction?

Kyle Risi: Sure.

Kyle Risi: For those of you tuning in for the very first time, I am your host, Kyle Risi. 

Kyle Risi: And I'm your co host, Adam Cox. 

Kyle Risi: You're listening to 

Kyle Risi: The Compendium, an assembly of fascinating and intriguing things. We are a weekly variety podcast where I, Kyle Risi, tell Adam Cox. All about a topic that I think you'll find both fascinating and intriguing from groundbreaking events to unforgettable people.

Kyle Risi: We do this all in a one hour ish episode, giving you just enough information to stand your ground at a social gathering. But before we jump in to the Enfield Poltergeist... 

Kyle Risi: I think it's time for all the latest things, would you not say? Let's do it. 

Kyle Risi: So Adam Cox, what have you got for me 

Adam Cox: this week? Well, this week I discovered what could be the world's most inconvenient convenience store. What? Okay. So, there is a National Geological Park in China called, Shania Zhai. And there is a wooden shed, which is on the side of a steep cliff, which has now been nicknamed the, yeah, this inconvenient convenience store. it's placed 120 meters above the ground.

Adam Cox: Oh, Jesus. And it's pretty unique. and it takes apparently about 90 minutes to climb the cliff to 

Kyle Risi: reach the convenience store. What, just for like a tin of beans or something? Uh

Adam Cox: well, They're stocked up with bottles of water. So a guy zip lines down, I think, each day to refill.

Adam Cox: So there's only one, there's only there's only one storekeeper, And they've got these kind of metal spikes sticking out of the rock around the, shed. What do you mean? What are they for? that's so people can rest and have a bottle of water and kind of hold on to before they make their 

Kyle Risi: way to the rest.

Kyle Risi: Oh, hang on. So he's conveniently gone. Do you know what? There's a lot of people that just seem to stop halfway up this steep hill for a drink of water if I like Build an inconvenient convenience store, which is really convenient that it's halfway up to supply people with bottles of water That's what's happening here.

Kyle Risi: Is that what you're saying? Well, I guess 

Adam Cox: he's seen an opportunity, but I would say it's a bit more steep than a hill. Hang on Oh, you have a picture? I've got a picture and there are some people here clinging on whilst they're resting for you know to 

Kyle Risi: rehydrate Oh Jesus, it's basically just a shack that is like tethered against the rock face.

Kyle Risi: Yeah. What if like the ground opens up like while he's in the shack and like it gives way and he just falls all 

Adam Cox: the way down? I have no idea how it's supported. I'm guessing there's some kind of metal spike sticking out to kind of the floor essentially. Sure. But, I don't know how far off you have to climb in order to get to the top, but maybe it's 

Kyle Risi: halfway?

Kyle Risi: that looks pretty damn high to me. Yeah, but 

Adam Cox: 90 minutes to get there and then you've still got to climb another however many meters after that. At 

Kyle Risi: least you got a drink of water, I guess. Damn. Yeah, that's my latest thing. Well, thank you very much. So, my latest thing. I don't know how to even start this. Maybe I'll just play for you the video that sent me down this rabbit hole of amazement. I'm intrigued. So let me just get this up. 

Kyle Risi: You know a lot about R. Kelly. I know a lot about Michael Jackson. I used to go to Neverland Ranch when Brian White was there. When Brian White would come into LA, I was the physician responsible. They would call me and say, he's at Neverland Ranch, you need to go make a checkup on him.

Kyle Risi: The standup comedian is in doing his skit, Uhhuh , and he's talking about r Kelly. He makes a connection to Mark Jackson. Someone in the audience has experienced a Mark Jackson. Yeah, so what he's talking about is that there is this really famous case of this young 13 year old boy I think who contracted HIV in the 1990s, and of course, as you know, is a death sentence.

Kyle Risi: Back then he was ostracized from his school, et cetera, et cetera. Michael Jackson took him in. Mm-Hmm. . And he would get a lot of his care. at the Never Never Ranch. So he would go to the Never Ranch and he would kind of just hang out there while Michael Jackson was either there or away in Europe.

Kyle Risi: And this guy here is saying that he was the physician that was hired to go to Never Never Ranch to kind of check in on Ryan White, essentially. Physicians, that's a doctor. Yeah, basically it's just, just a doctor. Yeah. And that's where we're at. So get this. Weird? Did it just seem fun, or were you like, something's weird?

Kyle Risi: Oh no, it had a weird vibe. Did you suspect anything? No, but Ryan White would be there alone, and I'd go, where's your character, where's Michael Jackson? And he'd go, oh, he's in Europe. And I'd just be alone and never land. Oh, it sounds like a nice, like, resort at this point. I mean, if Michael wasn't even there, that was probably a good time.

Kyle Risi: Did you ever get to meet Michael Jackson? Oh yeah. Yeah, what was he like? He had a deeper voice. Really? So that voice was like, the voice he talked up here, that was not his real voice? Then he comes back and goes, Where's the fucking gifts?

Kyle Risi: Get that fucking doctor out of here.

Kyle Risi: So hold up. Basically, that was, that's not Michael Jackson's voice. That, hee hee, that voice isn't Michael Jackson's voice. So that sent me down this major rabbit hole where I found so many first hand accounts of people saying that's not Michael Jackson's voice, that his voice is way deeper than he's been leading on.

Kyle Risi: In fact, here's a couple clips.

Kyle Risi: Jackson's real speaking voice has been much speculated, with many of those that knew Michael Jackson more intimately attesting to his much deeper, more masculine, natural voice, including director Spike Lee, Liza Minnelli, and others. And his voice is deep as shit. It wasn't, it was between where you think Michael Jackson is and Prince.

Kyle Risi: It was in between that, it was just like, It was kinda like, do I have a, I don't have a deep voice. Listen, so, uh, I think Michael's was, uh, like a, So what kind of cartoons are you watching?

Kyle Risi: It was dead pan like that though It was looking square in my ass. So what kind of cartoons are you So yeah.

Adam Cox: That makes sense. Now, I say that makes sense I guess we've thought that was his voice, right? But then he But why would you lie about it? I don't know because he obviously changed his image and as, regardless how 

Kyle Risi: he got the Why would his voice be exempt from that? 

Adam Cox: Yeah. he was, he's a black man.

Adam Cox: yes, he had the skin condition which made his skin white or although it, everyone there's rumored to believe that 

Kyle Risi: So that's what he thinks white people sound like. Well, possibly, I don't know. One more clip here of another guy talking about his absolute amazement when Michael slipped and they saw his real voice.

Kyle Risi: Okay. Listen.

Kyle Risi: Looked up and said, damn, I thought those motherfuckers weren't going to never leave. Now he says, hold up. And he says this, not in, damn, I don't think these motherfuckers are going to never leave. He says it like a black man would say, damn, I thought the motherfuckers were going to never leave. He got up and walked out.

Kyle Risi: And my friend was saying, he was sitting there like.

Kyle Risi: So this is what I'm talking about, the shape shifting thing. That voice really surprised me. His wife on Michael Jackson, she says time and time again That voice was a construction. It was a strategy. It was a mask Yeah, so that wasn't his voice. It makes sense But 

Adam Cox: so weird to because it was like this has felt like it's been Does it feel like it's been kept pretty quiet 

Kyle Risi: throughout the years?

Kyle Risi: Yeah, it's so bizarre, isn't it? I almost feel like the illusion's been shattered, but exactly what you said is spot on, because he changed his appearance, so why would his voice be exempt from that as well? 

Adam Cox: Unless he's had surgery on his voice box. 

Kyle Risi: no, he clearly hasn't because he keeps slipping.

Kyle Risi: Yeah. Keeps slipping out of his character. Is there any clip 

Adam Cox: out there where he, where we can 

Kyle Risi: actually hear it? There is a few, but he kind of slips out very quickly. And then he realizes and then he goes back to the high register. Wow. So he would also sometimes, he used to do this thing where, and he'd never met him before by the way, but he had this habit of just calling Russell Crowe up in Out of the Blue, making prank phone calls, especially when he was at a hotel.

Kyle Risi: So he would call up and say, can I be put through to Russell Crowe's hotel room? Put him through and then he'd pretend that he was the manager and then troll Russell. Crow. But he would have this really deep registered voice and he sounded like a black guy.

Kyle Risi: And then he'd be like, Oh, Russell, it's just me. It's just Michael. And he was like, but it was just really weird. And then people were like, yeah, that would happen. He would do that all the time. He was very good at shape shifting his voice. Why was he doing it to 

Adam Cox: Russell Crowe? 

Kyle Risi: I don't know. It's just really random.

Kyle Risi: I think he just like. Page through like a book of all the celebrities that he knows. He's like, I'm gonna target Russell Crowe. And Russell Crowe was all these years like, I've never met him. I don't understand why this is happening. 

Adam Cox: I can imagine him, when he reveals it, he's 

Kyle Risi: like Hee hee, hee hee, surprise!

Kyle Risi: Motherfucker! So yeah, I just, I fell down that rabbit hole this morning and uh, yeah, I've been in it ever since. Michael Jackson's voice isn't his real voice and my mind is just blown.

Kyle Risi: And that's all the latest things.

Kyle Risi: So, Adam, tell me, what do you know of what a poltergeist is? It's a 

Adam Cox: ghost? It feels, I mean, it feels like a ghost that's a bit of a nuisance.

Kyle Risi: I think that's a pretty good assessment here, really. unlike a ghost, which is often tied to a specific location or a piece of history, Typically, a poltergeist is categorized by like physical disturbances, and it's like this invisible force that can make itself known through sounds, movements, and various unsettling kind of capabilities to manipulate its environment, basically.

Kyle Risi: So poltergeists are not known for subtle hauntings. Instead, they are like typically startling and aggressive, really. They go out of their way to really cause this mischief, as you said. And they're said to knock on walls, they're said to throw objects, uh, across the room and create kind of chaos where once there was like calm.

Kyle Risi: And while a ghost might be content to simply appear and disappear, a poltergeist seeks out opportunities to interact with the physical world in the way that is undeniably, tangible to those around it, so it's very obvious that these things are happening. And the difference between a ghost and poltergeist usually is likened to the difference between a whisper.

Kyle Risi: and a shout if you will. Okay. So one is a mere presence and the other is like it's demanding your attention. Right. Right. So that's probably the best analogy that I could find. 

Adam Cox: Like slamming doors, like things being thrown against the wall. 

Kyle Risi: Exactly. Exactly. And it's this distinction that defines the events that take place in Enfield during the Enfield Poltergeist case that spanned over A 19 month period. our story starts in 1977 in the quiet neighbourhood of Enfield, North London, which becomes the backdrop for a story that would soon capture the world's attention. It was here, on Green Street, that Peggy Hodgson, a single mother grappling with the aftermath of a very difficult marital separation, moved into a modest counter house with her four children.

Kyle Risi: You got that in your mind? Yeah. So the Hodgson's were much like any other family in the area, but what they encountered in their new home was anything but ordinary because not long after settling in to the tranquility of their new life, an incident would take place, marking the beginning of a series of very unexplainable events.

Kyle Risi: One evening, With the kids in bed, Peggy Hodgson was getting the last few chores of the day done before heading to bed herself, when all of a sudden, she heard what sounded like the children fighting upstairs. Peggy made her way upstairs to see what all the commotion was about, but when she walked into the children's bedroom, they were visibly upset, and they were complaining that the bed had started shaking out of nowhere.

Kyle Risi: Putting this down to obviously the kids just acting up, Peggy demanded that the kids settle down and just go to sleep, thinking no more about it, and then Peggy went to bed. Okay. So how would you feel if that just happened to you? Kids are causing a ruckus upstairs, you go upstairs, you would just think they were just fighting, right?

Kyle Risi: Probably, it's 

Adam Cox: probably not, it's probably not the first time that they've done that, you know, caused a bit of commotion at bedtime. 

Kyle Risi: He's picking on me. He's spitting on me. He's touching me. It's these types of things that you expect to happen at bedtime, right? 

Adam Cox: Yeah. Yeah. So unless there's something like earthquake, probably wouldn't think of anything.

Kyle Risi: Exactly. So the next night at a similar time, Peggy hears a shuffling noise. This was followed by four loud knocks. When Peggy went to investigate the source of the noise, a chest of drawers floor towards her.

Kyle Risi: Now startled, Peggy pushed the chest back into place, but then it immediately slid towards her again. Once again, she tried to push it back into place, but this time the chest would not budge. And it was almost as if, like, a hundred kilograms had just been piled onto the cabinet. Just like, in an instant, and she just couldn't move it.

Kyle Risi: Now frightened, Peggy decided to gather the children as quickly as she could, and she fled the house to the neighbor's house at 282 Green Street. Here lived the Nottingham family, and Peggy knocks on the door and was greeted by Vic and his son, Gary. So what are you thinking?

Adam Cox: I don't know. I'm always, like you, a bit sceptical I'd look 

Adam Cox: for a rational explanation, 

Kyle Risi: well, there are people that take that exact same logic as you do and they investigate and they try various things to try and understand what's happened, which we'll come to see in a moment.

Kyle Risi: But Vic and Gary reassure Peggy that everything will be okay and they agree to go and investigate the situation over at Peggy's house. When the pair enter. They are immediately struck by the eerie stillness that is felt throughout the house. It was almost deafening, as if kind of like at any moment a pin would fall to the ground and its sound would amplify itself throughout the house.

Kyle Risi: But as they ventured deeper into the house, they began to hear a series of knocks growing increasingly louder. One second the knock would radiate from within the walls of the house. The next from the ceiling, and then the next from the adjacent wall of the house. 

Kyle Risi: Now, thinking that someone was playing a prank on them, they decided to call the police, and at around about 1am, two police officers arrived in the dead of night, and the police tried to investigate the source of the knocks, checking the walls, the attic, and the pipes throughout the entire house.

Kyle Risi: But they ultimately found nothing to explain the strange noises. But... While the officers were gathered in the living room with the family, the lights suddenly went out, startling everyone in the room. And when the lights were turned back on, the Hodgson's elder son pointed to a chair that was standing next to the sofa, which was wobbling slightly from side to side.

Kyle Risi: And then immediately the chair began to slide across the floor towards the kitchen and it moved approximately three to four feet before coming to a rest. And one of the police officers. Decided that she was going to place a marble on the floor to test how level the flooring was.

Kyle Risi: Sure, okay. But the marble never rolled away, and the floor was perfectly level. And remember, this police officer, both these police officers, signed affidavits, sworn affidavits. about what happened that evening. 

Adam Cox: So how many witnesses have we got here?

Adam Cox: We've got. So we've 

Kyle Risi: got Vic and we've got Gary. I think his wife might be involved as well. We've got the Hodgson's family, and we've got these two police officers at this point. 

Adam Cox: Okay so there's quite a few people that would have witnessed 

Kyle Risi: this. Okay. Now.

Kyle Risi: The officers again looked for more clues that might indicate why the chair had moved across the room in the way that it did. But since no crime had been committed at 284 Green Street that evening, the officers had no choice but to leave. 

Kyle Risi: Now the next night, Vic Nottingham from next door, he went back to the house to check in on the family. And while he was there, through the air, narrowly missing him. Now, over the next few days, various other people that were visiting the Hodgson's home to offer support and comfort would also report being attacked by flying LEGO bricks and marbles and even coins all seemingly being flung through the air from where they were resting.

Kyle Risi: And when they would pick these items up, they would always be really warm, often hot to the touch. 

Adam Cox: Interesting. So at first I was thinking it was one of the kids playing a bit of a prank, just hiding behind the sofa and throwing a LEGO brick or something. 

Kyle Risi: Yeah, but it could happen. It's plausible. That was my immediate thought as well.

Kyle Risi: some trickery must be happening here. Now, at a loss as what to do on September the 4th, Peggy called the Daily Mirror in the hopes that the press might be able to offer some expert help in exchange for the story because she wasn't getting the help that she needed. Right. Immediately when I read that she was calling the press, I was like, okay, that's not the first thing you do.

Kyle Risi: What? They explained that they were at the point where they were at a loss, no one was helping them, they didn't know what to do, and they needed someone who could put them in contact with someone that could help. 

Adam Cox: Yeah, I guess there's no, back then there probably wasn't anyone in like the Yellow Pages or anything like that to call would you normally call like the church? Just call them up and go like, Hi, can you come bless my house?

Adam Cox: Probably. 

Kyle Risi: I mean, a clergyman did come as well, and he was also attacked. So we have someone else who I would deem quite credible, right? Also claiming that he'd been attacked. But then at the same time, it's... His credibility could be potentially diminished by the fact that he was a member of the clergy and he's invested in the fact that there are evil demons and spirits that exist out there.

Kyle Risi: So, I don't know, do we discount his, him as a credible witness potentially? I don't know, you'd think they'd be trustworthy. Mmm, but anyway.

Kyle Risi: So the Daily Mirror responds by dispatching a reporter and a photographer called Douglas Bence and Graham Morris to visit the Hodgson's home. it was a slow day when the call came in from Peggy, and although sceptical, Douglas and Graham soon changed their mind. Because Graham says that after visiting the home and finding nothing, they were both speaking to Peggy in the kitchen when the children arrived home.

Kyle Risi: As the children filed in, almost immediately, Objects began hurtling themselves through the air as if propelled by unseen hands and out of these objects a single Lego brick had hit Graham above the right eye with such a force that it left a mark. Wow, that's quite... For a Lego brick, right? Yeah.

Kyle Risi: So, we've just had the kids arrive home. I mean, it could still be plausible that the kids are playing the city buggers because it didn't start until they got home. As we'll find in so many of these cases around poltergeist is that the activity typically revolves around one person and in particular, in this case, Janet.

Kyle Risi: Oh, okay. What did Janet do? She's a bitch. Who does she piss off? So Graham describes how small marbles and often other kid related items whizzed around the kitchen as if they had a mind of their own. And in his statement, Graham was 100 percent sure of what he saw in that kitchen that night and still maintains to this day that it just was not possible that another family member was responsible for the chaos that unfolded in that kitchen. 

Kyle Risi: So, after hearing the story back at the Daily Mirror, George Fallows, a senior reporter and a photographer, David Thorpe, were dispatched back to the house to investigate further.

Kyle Risi: And at first, George believed that Peggy might be staging some of these paranormal events so that she could get the council to move the family to a new council house. But again, when George and David got to the house, it was very apparent according to their statement that something was seriously wrong and just weird in the house.

Kyle Risi: In George's report, he said that because of the emotional atmosphere at the house and in the neighborhood ranging from hysteria through to terror to excitement and tension, it was very difficult to record any satisfactory data. But nevertheless, He was satisfied by the reaction to the past events and their testimony that something was definitely amiss Especially considering the number of people that have witnessed something in the house over the last few days So do you think there's still credibility there?

Kyle Risi: How are you feeling now? Do you feel like something must be up? 

Adam Cox: I guess so for the these people to be involved I'd be interested to know if their stories all line up.

Kyle Risi: So George, sensing how eerie the situation was, he recommended that the Hodgson family reach out to the Society for Physical Research. They're called the SPR and they're an organization that was known for investigating the unexplained. Now, the SPR connected the family with a guy called Maurice Gross, who was a newcomer to the Society and had joined following the tragic death of his daughter in the previous year.

Kyle Risi: Now, during his first visit to the Hodgson's home, Maurice first hand witnessed just how terrified and exhausted the family were with the situation, who were all visibly shaken and confused by the, just the constant unrest within the house. No one was sleeping. Now on the first evening, Maurice and another member of the press waited patiently for any disturbance to begin.

Kyle Risi: then at 1. 15am the silence within the home was broken by a loud crash coming from the children's bedroom and when they investigated both sisters Janet, 11, and Margaret, 13, were still asleep but a chair had flipped over and moved about a metre across the room okay. So, okay, maybe it was the kids that did it and now they're pretending to be asleep.

Kyle Risi: I don't know. I guess so. Now, two days later, on the 10th of September, the Daily Mirror publishes a story coining the Hodgson home, the House of Strange Happenings. So this is an actual headline, and immediately following this, more and more publications became interested in the story, in particular, the BBC, who sent their reporter, Ros Morris, from the Radio 4 show, The World This Weekend.

Kyle Risi: Now, the family agreed to let Ros and Maurice conduct an all night vigil at the Hodgson home. Again, another sudden loud crash echoed from upstairs. Rushing to investigate, they found that a chair had been thrown across the room but this time it shattered on impact, which absolutely terrified Janet and Margaret who were sleeping in that room at the time.

Kyle Risi: And as Peggy consulted girls in the living room, a cascade of marbles and Lego bricks just started pinging around the room. And common household items like teaspoons or boxes just seemed to leap up from the countertops as if animated by some kind of unseen force. The activity appeared to be centered around the girls, following them wherever they went.

Kyle Risi: Because they were now downstairs, right? And that's where the activity now was. And the evening's events climaxed when the family's sofa rose four feet into the air, only to crash back down overturned. 

Adam Cox: Okay, wow, so this feels like everything's stepped up a notch. Yeah. It's getting more wild, and then, but then even the BBC agreed to go and report on this.

Adam Cox: that feels, that's a big deal I imagine back then. It is a big deal, yeah. And so these reporters, they had witnessed this? 

Kyle Risi: All of these reporters had witnessed it, and they all added their own testimony to some degree. That something was amiss. They either saw something, they felt something, or they believed that whatever was happening was definitely real.

Adam Cox: So the only thing I can think of, let's say if this family is pulling a bit of a prank, it's quite an elaborate prank now. And of, enough for, I mean I don't know, it's 40 years ago so I don't know if you'd have the creativity or ideas or tools to be able to do what they're doing right now. Yeah, I guess so.

Adam Cox: Hmm, okay, I'm believing it just a tad more.

Kyle Risi: Maurice arranged for a camera to be rigged up in the girl's bedroom to try and capture any paranormal activity that was manifesting itself around the Peggy sat with the girls until they felt safe enough to drift off back to sleep, but it wasn't long before another commotion broke out. This time, Janet had been dragged from her bed screaming and then flung through the air. What is incredible is that rig that was set up was triggered just in time and captured on film. The moment where Janet was flung through the air. Tell me what you think. Okay.

Adam Cox: Um, okay. So there's three photos. So the first one I'm guessing that's, is that Janet? She's in a red dress and she's got her arms. Out to the side. Is she being flung or is she 

Kyle Risi: jumping? Jumping off the bed! Yeah, I don't... And now imagine, so those are the three images, right? So imagine for a second running that through your mind as a gif.

Kyle Risi: That looks like a jump, doesn't it? That looks, the way that, 

Adam Cox: So her legs are positioned slightly behind her, with her like leaning forward, it's almost as if she's jumping forward. Yeah. The next image, her legs are slightly higher up, she's jumping off the bed and then they fall down as if she's about to land.

Kyle Risi: Yeah. Now, people have said they put those into a gif kind of formation to show that she's jumping off the bed. But I don't buy that's the case because that would suggest that the pictures were taken in succession, like, Chkoo, chkoo, chkoo. Yeah. But

Kyle Risi: each shot, they're different. Which means that this was three separate occasions. That these pictures were taken. Oh, yeah, I didn't 

Adam Cox: see that. I mean she's screaming So it doesn't look like she's having a fun time and then even the, there's a bed in the background Where her 

Kyle Risi: siblings are sleeping.

Kyle Risi: Siblings 

Adam Cox: are sleeping and like in one shot Is it her brother that's got something on his head and they're looking at her as she's jumping and then another shot You can't even see him Very well. And the last shot, he hasn't got that on his head and he's, they're in different 

Kyle Risi: positions. Yeah. it's strange, right? This is probably one of the most famous pieces of evidence that we're going to go through today. But still, I look at that and I go, that looks like she's jumping off the bed, right?

Adam Cox: Looks like she's jumping and things have moved in a way. Like, where did that Yeah, there's the, the quilt covers are different, so that is not within a few seconds of each other. Yeah, 

Kyle Risi: for sure. We'll include these in the show notes if you guys wanna have a little look and get, let us know what you think.

Kyle Risi: If you wanna 

Adam Cox: look at a series of lies, , 

Kyle Risi: Hey, we don't know this. So, realizing that they were out of their depth, Morris asked the SPR for help in investigating the Poltergeist at 2 8 4 Green Street. So the SPR enlisted a guy called Guy Playfair. Who along with Maurice would make a total of 189 visits to the house over the next 18 months. 

Kyle Risi: Now, when Guy arrives at the house. He found the family all gathered outside, too afraid to go back inside due to the evening's latest activity. Peggy decided that she was going to spend the night at her brother's house who lived just up the road.

Kyle Risi: And while his wife Sylvia was making tea for Peggy and the girls, a Lego brick had manifested itself out of nowhere right in front of her face before dropping to the ground. And it was at this moment that the family realized that whatever this entity was, it could follow them wherever they went.

Adam Cox: Sure. Do you know what I would have done at this point? Any kind of loose Lego, or marbles, or anything like that, I'd either get rid of, or I would put in like a container where they can't just like pop out.

Kyle Risi: Why have you got Lego lying around when you know, like, it's a hazard? Exactly, 

Adam Cox: and a poltergeist is around. I would, they're not really being forward thinking here. 

Kyle Risi: No, they're But hey, in this case, this Lego brick manifested itself of nowhere. Maybe they did put it all in a container. And it's like, hey, I'm a fucking ghost.

Kyle Risi: Let's grab some Lego blocks and then manifest it in front of like, Sylvia's face. Take that, bitch. Maybe that's what they did. Maybe. Hmm. So while Peggy and the kids were staying at Peggy's brother's house, Maurice and Guy kept up their investigation. This time, they were in the girl's bedroom when they saw something eerie.

Kyle Risi: It was an impression that appeared... To kind of like manifest itself on the pillows as if an invisible small child had just lay down on the bed Now after sharing this with the family Peggy revealed to Morris and Guy that Much of the furniture including pieces in the girls room Was from a home where a four year old girl had been smothered by her father And they began to think that maybe the spirit haunting them was connected to this furniture, which might explain why toys Were being thrown at visitors, especially men.

Kyle Risi: It seemed as though whoever was throwing the toys wanted to keep men away, so hoping to put an end to these frightening events. Peggy just decided to get rid of all the furniture that was linked to this small girl but even after that, the strange happenings didn't stop at all.

Kyle Risi: Mm-Hmm. . There was almost no pause. Right. Okay, so what's going on here? 

Adam Cox: I don't know. I'm still really 

Kyle Risi: sceptical. You're still sceptical. Good. I like your brain, boy. So it looked like the strange going ons in the house was mostly happening around Janet. Now Guy says that this isn't unusual in a poltergeist case, which often involves girls and young women. 

Kyle Risi: a lot of bullshit is about to come up. Okay. So, he says that two scientists, Pierre Bravetto and Vera Maxia, wrote about this in a 2008 paper titled, Some Conjecture About the Mechanics of Poltergeist Phenomena. And they suggest that kids might cause poltergeist activity by sending energy into the area of physics that can be really hard to see.

Kyle Risi: They call this kind of the quantum mechanical vacuum. Bullshit. Yeah, I don't remember studying this in class. No, exactly. they also suggest that when kids hit puberty, their bodies change a lot, including how their organs work. And this messes with the electrons around the kid, which makes weird things happen.

Kyle Risi: That definitely wasn't in sex ed. Bullshit, again. And in another study, Alan Gould and Tony Cornell, who studied more than 500 cases of poltergeist, said that in 64 percent of cases, small objects were often observed moving. Less often, but still pretty common, were knocking noises, Which were heard 48 percent of the time and in 36 percent of cases much bigger items like tables chairs would move around Okay, that's 500 documented cases of other unrelated unconnected poltergeist activities These are the things that they have in common basically, right?

Kyle Risi: Okay Now, people who saw what happened at Enfield said that they heard knocks that sounded empty. This is interesting. And these noises were coming from the walls in the house. Now in their study, they talk about how the knocks that would manifest themselves around poltergeist activity was almost always different from the ones made by physical things.

Kyle Risi: Because when a person knocks, the sound is loud at first and then gets quieter, right? It's like a wave. But the knocks at Enfield, they don't fade away in the same way. They had a different sound wave pattern that stays strong before just disappearing. So what do you think of that, 

Adam Cox: uh, I'm trying to think of it. Sometimes it, depending on what you knock on, right. If it's like a hollow box or just a thick piece of wood or something, you can get a different sound from that. 

Kyle Risi: A lot of the language that's used in these studies, just sound impressive, but I don't think they're actually saying anything meaningful. I don't know, it's weird. I just think it's just a lot of interesting words that they've thrown together. Yeah, I, uh, 

Adam Cox: yeah. This is, it doesn't make, I don't buy it. 

Kyle Risi: Okay. So.

Kyle Risi: So out of the 500 cases that they looked at during their studies, it was always noted that the poltergeist activity often kicks off after someone goes through a big stressful change or event. Now for the Hodgson family, life was really tough. Their dad had just recently left. And so that was what brought them to 284 Green Street.

Kyle Risi: And the girls Didn't have a good relationship with their father at all often Talking about how afraid of them they were now the youngest child Billy wasn't with the family because of behavioral problems and he was actually off at boarding school and So all of this meant that the family was already fractured and unstable at the time that this activity started so that kind of fits in with what some of the Studies are saying. 

Kyle Risi: It is also said that there is a tendency for the person at the centre of the activity to exhibit symptoms of repressed anger or distress, which is exactly the type of behaviour that Janet was exhibiting.

Kyle Risi: In Janet's case, she would often display increasingly behaviour towards people. It was not uncommon for Janet to just suddenly run across the room and bash her head on the wall. And this behaviour was so frequent that Peggy and people close to Janet feared that she would potentially kill herself.

Kyle Risi: Just knock herself out. Just knock herself out and cause, I don't know. Serious harm. Yeah. So. All of this seems to be textbook and common amongst these different studies and I use quotation marks because I have no idea what these studies entailed, really, and, and how scientific they were, because a lot of them will come from these different societies like the SPR and it's probably just a bunch of amateurs all getting together to like analyze some of these cases, right?

Kyle Risi: So I don't know how credible some of these are. I don't know. But you have a lot of people reporting the same stuff from all around the world. So there must be some credibility to this , especially considering the separate accounts, have so many similarities. Obviously I'm skeptical, but 500 cases, there must be something there, right?

Adam Cox: True. But then I guess, could you not argue that? I don't know, there's ghosts and poltergeists aren't a new thing of the seventies or anything like that. So there's going to be all this documented stories in the past about like hauntings and stuff like that, might have inspired someone.

Kyle Risi: I think that's really fascinating because a lot of people suggest that the story of the Enfield poltergeist was born out of the recently released exorcist movie that they would have been very much aware of. Yeah, yeah. So could that have been a case of reality imitating art. Yeah, because 

Adam Cox: the, well, one of the main characters in The Exorcist is that girl who's chained to the bed and the father comes around to kind of exorcise her and stuff, right? 

Kyle Risi: As long as you're not referring to the scary movie parody of it, because that's a very different exorcise that he did to her. 

Adam Cox: But you, yeah, the original Exorcist, had this myth element that made people like go crazy, go kill themselves and 

Kyle Risi: all sorts. Come on, I don't think for a second that that wasn't just marketing.

Kyle Risi: Absolutely. 

Adam Cox: That's part of it. I mean, I'm sure people were shocked. Yeah. But to leave the cinema and then, I don't know. 

Kyle Risi: I remember accounts of my mum telling what her experience was like watching the Exorcist and she was petrified. We've watched The Exorcist and it's funny. Yeah, I 

Adam Cox: guess it's because of the effects and stuff like that.

Kyle Risi: Possibly, yeah, so there could be something else in play. Like a whole new generation has never seen that before, so that might be brand new to them. And because people were more religious back then, so maybe those things are playing in it as well. 

Adam Cox: I guess it's possessed child, or say possessed child, something happening to a child. That was what happened in the movie, 

Kyle Risi: so. Yeah, yeah. towards the end of November, during one of Janet's fits of rage, a doctor was called to the house to administer 10mg of Valium in order to sedate her. Now after being sedated, Janet was then seen levitating through the room before being dumped onto a radio console before being discovered by John, who's Peggy's brother. Take a look at this picture. 

Adam Cox: Okay, so that's a sedated Janet, so she's a bit floppy I guess. But what is she doing? Is she? So she's supposed to be being held up in the air and there's like a man holding her down almost? 

Kyle Risi: No, so what's happening here is this is Janet. She's been dumped on this radio console. So this is a big piece of furniture that's got a radio built into it. Right. And she's out of it. And this is a picture that someone's taken and they're just, I guess they're about to help her. Right. What are you thinking? 

Adam Cox: Yeah, it's a very weird photo. It's more believable that maybe something weird's going on compared to the other photos, but she could just be laying on that.

Kyle Risi: Look at her arm. That's an arm of tension right? She's holding herself up like if she's supposed to be out of it at this moment in time, that arm is propping herself up. She's 

Adam Cox: not completely relaxed as you see. No. Yeah. 

Kyle Risi: And that's definitely propping her up. So I actually have just noticed that and I question the validity of that. And also, I 

Adam Cox: also question the parenting because if this was going on for like several months now. They're still in this house. Why have you not got your kids out of there? But they're not, they've been in like the news and the press. Surely, I don't know, neighbors would have done something to get them out or whatever if it was that 

Kyle Risi: bad. Yeah, that's true. That's a really great point. 

Kyle Risi: So soon after this, Apparitions started to appear and they were not only seen by people in the house but also passers by as unconnected to the family.

Kyle Risi: So a neighbor claims to have seen an orb of light burning in the Hodgson's window before just fading away. 

Kyle Risi: Another neighbor along with Peggy saw the same elderly woman staring at them from different windows independently of each other. Janet's brother, Johnny, he saw an old man with gnarly teeth staring back at him from the bottom of his bed in the middle of the night.

Kyle Risi: In all, it was 15 different people on different occasions had seen some form of unexplainable apparition during this haunting period. Right, okay. So Maurice and Guy persuaded the Hodgson family. to let Janet go for some tests to see if the spiritual entity that was haunting them was latching onto her.

Kyle Risi: They brought in a physicist named John Haste. And he used a piece of furniture called, I think called a Blundell couch, which measures various electrical signatures around Janet. And they found that when any unusual activity was taking place around Janet, her weight, would significantly change in ways that didn't seem to make sense.

Kyle Risi: And in one instance, when her weight went up, a light bulb burst in the room that she was in. Okay. Did you just roll your eyes? Just 

Adam Cox: like, I don't know, I'm a bit like, I feel like they're just wasting people's time. Do you think? 

Kyle Risi: Mate, so, although the council would not re home the family, they did agree to send them away on a week's long break during half term to collect a non c.

Adam Cox: Oh good, they needed a break from all the acting. 

Kyle Risi: They did! And of course... Yeah, okay, fine. I did, I honestly didn't think you'd be this sceptical. Sorry. I genuinely 

Adam Cox: didn't. I really wanted to believe it, but now I'm just like... There's a 

Kyle Risi: part of me that does kind of believe it. 

Adam Cox: I have a lot of questions, but I'll save them to the 

Kyle Risi: end.

Kyle Risi: Great. I can't wait. so during their time away, the only recorded incident that occurred was the sound of a dog barking from Janet's bed. So when the Hodgson's family returned from their holiday, Maurice wanted to see if he could try and communicate with the spirit using a knocking system. It would be one knock for no, and two knocks for yes.

Kyle Risi: This is what happened. He asked. Thank you. Are you a male spirit? Knock, knock. Okay. Did you used to live in this house? Knock, knock. Was it more than 50 years ago? Knock, knock. Are you unhappy? Knock. Why are you here? Is it because you want to give us a special message? Knock. Are you having a game with me? And then in that moment, the spirit threw a pillow at Morris.

Kyle Risi: What? Why are you laughing? That was supposed to be scary. A pillow? 

Adam Cox: Yeah, a pillow. Where's the lego gun?

Kyle Risi: So on Monday the 10th of November, on Janet's 12th birthday, Guy invited an Argentinian psychic to visit the home. Now, he had with him a magnometer, magnometer, which he used to look for anomalies now, during his visit, Janet's pillow was thrown around the room several times.

Kyle Risi: And when this was going on, the magnometer just started going absolutely wild. The psychic decided to leave several pens and bits of paper around the house and called out to the entity to leave a message. And almost immediately after he left, messages started appearing all over the house.

Kyle Risi: One was found by Peggy that read, I will stay in this house, do not read this to anyone, or I will retaliate. 

Adam Cox: So conveniently the messages appear after he leaves and then one that says like yeah I'm gonna stay but don't tell anyone. Yeah don't 

Kyle Risi: read this letter to anyone. So the next message was found in the living room table and it said can I have a teabag? So Peggy places a teabag on the table which rips apart and later Peggy's ex husband would visit. And Peggy would show him the messages, but in that moment, Peggy realizes what she's done by going against the will or the wishes in the message. So in a panic, Peggy frantically darts around the house apologizing for showing her ex husband the message.

Kyle Risi: And a few hours later, another message appears saying, It's fine. Don't do it again.

Adam Cox: I was just a bit mad earlier. It's fine. Don't worry about 

Kyle Risi: it. Basically he was saying like, I know him, so it's fine. Just don't do it again. Scary, huh? So at the end of November, a Brazilian psychic medium named Luis Gasparato was invited to see if he could help the family. Now, Luis showed the family and Janet how they could potentially communicate with the spirit.

Kyle Risi: He taught Janet how to go into a deep, relaxed, trans like state and then produce these drawings by channeling the entity's energy. Now, he taught Janet how to do this because of course, She was the most connected to it, right?

Kyle Risi: So there's no point in him doing it. So soon after, Janet gave it a try herself and in these trance like states, she began producing a series of really disturbing bloody pictures. This is one of the pictures I was able to find.

Adam Cox: So this is what Janet had 

Kyle Risi: drawn? One of the nine pictures that she drew. Describe that for me. Um... You can see it . 

Adam Cox: I mean, I'm, I see some blood, but I am drawn to the penis. 

Kyle Risi: This big giant penis that is drawn on this thing.

Kyle Risi: What? Yeah, 

Adam Cox: what is 

Kyle Risi: this? So it's basically a man and there's loads of blood and that's kind of remnants of a lot of the pictures that she drew. It's not the picture that I'm about to talk about, but this is the only one I could find.

Kyle Risi: Oh. 

Adam Cox: She is one horny 

Kyle Risi: child. Yeah, she's a big penis man. That's like, almost like if that was straight up, that would come straight up to its chest, right? Jeez, wow. Oh, I'm staring

Kyle Risi: so, in one of the drawings, she had written the name Watson over and over on one of the pages, and it turned out that the Watson family had once lived in the house, and the wife had died from a tumour in her throat, in a similar way to kind of one of the bloody pictures that Janahan had drawn. Now, on the 3rd of December...

Kyle Risi: Morris and his team decided to try and communicate with the entity again. This time, they wanted to see if it would actually speak back. Okay. At first, all they got was some whistling and barking noises. But then, the entity found a way to speak through Janet herself.

Kyle Risi: For a brief moment, a gruff voice. It called itself Joe Watson, spoke through Janet, however, as quickly as the voice appeared, it disappeared. But the next night, when they tried again, a new voice had emerged. This one said its name was Bill Wilkins, and the voice seemed to materialise itself from behind Janet's neck.

Kyle Risi: And after a rocky start, the team were having a very clear conversation with the entity some of these sessions would last upwards of three hours now while talking to Bill Wilkins he revealed that he had died right there in the house.

Kyle Risi: At the time of his death, he was 72 years old and they inquired about how he died. And Bill described that he'd blind, he suffered a hemorrhage and then passed away while sleeping in the chair. Guy then asked why we couldn't see him and Bill's response was because I'm invisible.

Kyle Risi: Because. I'm a G H O S T. Do you want to listen to that recording? Sure. Why did you spell that out, though? I know, it's fucked up, right? Oh, you can spell! Do you 

Adam Cox: know what I mean? Just in case, you know, there's another, like, I don't know, it sounds like another word, I'll spell it out for 

Kyle Risi: you. Or there's a kid in the room who's like, oh, it's a dirty word, I can't say it, like, so you spell it out?

Kyle Risi: Yeah. Hey, have you got the C A K E? Yeah? Oh, did you get the B A double L O N S? Yeah? Oh, you got the other in the car? Okay, okay. Do you know what I mean? I do, yeah. Anyway, so here's this recording. Okay. Um, it is a little bit disturbing. Okay. But here we go.

Kyle Risi: Whether

Kyle Risi: you remember what happened to you when you died. Just before you died, and just after you died.

Kyle Risi: Two years before I died, I had a problem with blood. Then I had an hemorrhage, and I fell asleep, and I died.

Adam Cox:

Adam Cox: Okay, that sounds creepy. 

Kyle Risi: It does sound creepy. Do you want to hear the next question? Sure.

Kyle Risi: Answer me the following question.

Kyle Risi: Denise's 30p? Yes! 

Adam Cox: Now that you're here, we've got a bone to pick with you. 

Kyle Risi: Do you answer? Yeah, go on. 

Kyle Risi: Hey, did you answer it back 

Kyle Risi: there?

Kyle Risi: It's on the radio downstairs, basically. Right. 

Adam Cox: So, um, did, did he, did Bill 

Kyle Risi: move the 30 pads? I think so, yeah, I think so, he already knows where it is. And so it's 

Adam Cox: quite a deep, it's quite a deep, gruff voice. Yes. So for that to be coming from a child is very 

Kyle Risi: weird.

Kyle Risi: Interesting, yes, and we're going to talk about that in just a second. But 

Adam Cox: equally, it does feel a little put on. Yeah. Like a prank phone call. 

Kyle Risi: I just wanna play the last little bit where he spells out G O S T because it's really funny. Okay. 

Kyle Risi: I mean, it's, I know we laugh. But when I listened to that, I was on my own. I was scared. I was... It was eerie. I think, probably, 

Adam Cox: if I had seen the video and could see it coming from the girl, then maybe I would, like, treat it a bit more like, ooh, that's weird. 

Kyle Risi: Yeah, um, it wouldn't. No, it wouldn't? It would be funny.

Kyle Risi: Okay. Yeah, so we'll include that in the show notes. Have a little look. Um, but yeah, you'll see. Because she's sitting on the chair, they're in the living room, it's quite light, and she's just, they're just talking about how this voice ruminates from her, but... Let's talk about this voice. 

Kyle Risi: So later Terry, the son of Bill Wilkins, confirmed that his father had indeed died in the way described by the voice speaking through Janet. So to test whether Janet might be faking the voice, Maurice tried a couple of experiments. First he taped Janet's mouth shut, but the voice still continued.

Kyle Risi: He then asked Janet to hold water in her mouth, but even with that, they could still hear the voice coming from her throat. Now, as part of the investigation, a speech therapist examined Janet, and they couldn't definitively determine where the voice is coming from, though they noted it sounded somewhat like the false vocal cords.

Kyle Risi: Now, These are apparently located above the true vocal cords and are made of like thicker tissue. they say that the false vocal cords are used like in Mongolian kind of throat singing, which requires like a lot of skill to engage them without harming yourself. Okay. However, Janet seemed to be unaffected, speaking like this for up to three hours at a time.

Kyle Risi: So, the conclusion was that something beyond normal understanding was using Janet. As some sort of amplifier. Or... Or... She 

Adam Cox: was really good at Mongolian throat singing. Maybe. Maybe there's a hidden 

Kyle Risi: talent there. I think it was a quite a common kind of extracurricular activity at school in the 70s. Yeah. Oh, sign up for Mongolian throat singing.

Kyle Risi: You know what I mean? Yeah, it's the only explanation. It's the only explanation. So on Thursday, December the 15th, at around 11. 15 in the morning, Hazel Short, who worked as a lollipop lady, along with her friend, were walking past the Hodgson's house. Out of nowhere, a couple books flew across the room and hit the window.

Kyle Risi: Hazel said that the suddenness of it really scared her, but. Just moments later, she spotted Janet through the window and Hazel wasn't sure if there was a bed under the window, but Janet was moving up and down in a very strange way.

Kyle Risi: It looks as though she was being tossed up in the air back and forth while lying horizontally like giving someone the bumps? I think so, but she was like laying flat.

Kyle Risi: Right. Yeah, it's creepy. So then on Friday, December the 23rd, another strange and sad event occurred. The family's goldfish died. Surprisingly, the voice that claimed to be Bill admitted responsibility, saying that he had electrocuted the fish using spirit energy. Don't roll your eyes. Don't be disrespectful.

Kyle Risi: Just to the 

Adam Cox: fish. Um, okay. So he killed the fish. Why did he 

Kyle Risi: kill the fish? I don't know. It's just evil. What's a fish ever done? Exactly. But then also on Christmas Day, just two days later, the family's pet parakeet was found dead in its cage. And the same day, Janet was discovered almost unconscious with a curtain wrapped tightly around her neck.

Kyle Risi: Unfortunately, Peggy was able to quickly intervene and untangle her before the spirit suffocated her. But this was the first time that whatever this entity was, it now seemed to be actively targeting or trying to harm janet. Because also later on Janet would complain about a disembodied knife.

Kyle Risi: That would follow her around upstairs, which really frightened her. And Peggy later discovered another knife of hers that she had just recently put away, just laying on the stairs. Right. So what's 

Adam Cox: happening? That's weird. But again, this kind of makes me question, like, okay. Fair enough they stayed in the house up until now.

Adam Cox: Then their pets have died. And then one of her daughters has almost been strangled. Yeah. And knives keep appearing. Yeah. 

Kyle Risi: Get out the Get out the damn house. Get out the house. Exactly. Unless they're in on it. And they're like having to take more and more drastic measures to try and get the council to move her.

Kyle Risi: Who knows? Because you do raise an interesting point. That's your kid, right? Yeah, get out the house. Your brother lives up the road. She can stay with the brother. Maybe he doesn't want the spirit Interfering? Who knows? Maybe but... It is weird. Hmm So now on January the 15th Which happened to be Peggy's birthday.

Kyle Risi: The family discovered writing on the wall which appeared to be Made with shit. Eww. Immediately after this, they saw an apparition of a man, but only from the waist down, and he was walking up the stairs. Then the next morning, the words, I am Fred, appeared on the bathroom door, written with electrical tape.

Kyle Risi: And here is that image.

Kyle Risi: Stop laughing at these pictures! Hi, I'm Fred. Hi, Fred. Hi, I'm Fred. Just written in electrical tape.

Adam Cox: There is a somewhat child like font to that writing. 

Kyle Risi: It is. It's great. I imagine that's how the font that Andy uses at the bottom of his foot.

Kyle Risi: Do you know? From Toy Story. Toy Story, yeah. That kind of, yeah, writing. It's nice. Nice. Creative ghost. So now. Nearly losing all hope that the hauntings would never stop. The family called in another psychic medium on the 2nd of October that year. This was a Dutchman named Dono.

Kyle Risi: He'd become convinced that a spirit of a 24 year old woman was involved in the haunting and he pointed. To Maurice as the source. Okay. 

Kyle Risi: So before joining SPR, Maurice had a daughter also called Janet, but she died in a car crash at the age of 24. And it was this that had led him to become a member of the SPR, kind of looking for maybe connection with his daughter, etc. 

Kyle Risi: It was noted that it wasn't until Maurice joined the case that their activity really started to escalate From minor events to more serious kind of meddling But after Dono identified Maurice's daughter being involved in the hauntings the incidents kind of started to taper off before stopping all together 

Kyle Risi: That's weird.

Kyle Risi: What do you make of that?

Kyle Risi: It's just like that. It's gone. It's stopped One guy comes in a Dutchman from kind of Holland and he goes yeah, there's a 24 year old girl involved in this We'd never heard of her before there's been no indication that another female spirits other than this four year old girl had ever been involved . he then points a finger at Morris and says it's your daughter that is doing the haunting.

Kyle Risi: It just doesn't make any sense. No, so he's, 

Adam Cox: yeah, and then it tapers off. And then 

Kyle Risi: just tapers off. I don't get it. It stops without any explanation, any rational explanation. Because he's completely unconnected. The haunting was going on before he arrived.

Kyle Risi: It's not like he arrived in the scene and then started staging everything. Something was going on before. Yeah, the only 

Adam Cox: thing, the only thing it makes me think of, although it doesn't quite make sense, is that he's discovered something that's not real or they realise that, I don't know, they are putting on a bit of a show. Then he's on to them, but I don't understand how they would think that given what he's 

Kyle Risi: just said. Yeah, so let's just wrap this up and then we'll have a just quicker chit chat about a couple things that I saw in the documentary. So of course, peggy Hodgson. She never got a council house. She remained in the house until she died in 2003.

Kyle Risi: Oh, really? Yep. Janet left home at 16. Her brother John, he died in 1981 at the age of 14. Both Janet and Margaret have made several television kind of appearances in subsequent years where they continue just to insist that what they went through all those years ago was very real. In fact, Janet said in a 2011 newspaper article, years later when mum was alive.

Kyle Risi: There was always this presence that was just in that house. Something was always watching us. Even after they claimed that the poltergeist had left, something was there. And so the story of the Enfield poltergeist has been one of the most documented. Remember, documented and evidence is not the same thing.

Kyle Risi: And it's been one of the most documented hauntings in history with countless eyewitness testimonies, with both audio and video footage within his archive. Of course, the authenticity of all of this evidence has been widely criticized, but also the Enfield poltergeist is also inspired like, as I said at the beginning of this, a bunch of kind of TV shows and movies as well.

Kyle Risi: Like we said. The 1982 film Poltergeist, by Steven Spielberg, which is loosely based on the haunting that happened at Green Street. 

Kyle Risi: 2015, a three part series called The Enfield Haunting, starring Timothy Spall and Juliet Stevenson.

Kyle Risi: But also, recently, Disney Plus released The Enfield Poltergeist, which is another docudrama covering the events that took place 18 month period 46 years ago. 

Kyle Risi: what's disturbing is that when you watch the documentary, that kind of has a lot of this footage in there, like, it's very much staged, a lot of it. Like, for example, when things would fly, it's very much...

Kyle Risi: The camera is pointed to the person that the thing's been thrown at. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. Rather than, oh, it's panning over this way and then all of a sudden something happens and the camera has to quickly turn. Yeah. It's already conveniently pointing towards the door where the shoe gets thrown at.

Kyle Risi: Right. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. And then they are, like, in the bedroom and the camera is pointing to the lamp. It's the only main focus of that shot. And then the light will go out. Do you know what I mean? As if they were expecting it to go out. 

Adam Cox: I was going to ask about what, happened to the family. And it's quite interesting that you said that the daughters still don't know. adamant that something happened there, but then I guess if your family had, perhaps staged this, I'm not saying that they did, but if they had staged this, you perhaps wouldn't want to admit that there was, it was a lie?

Kyle Risi: Yeah, like you always, we always grow up thinking that like the status quo will always prevail. And we always think Oh, one day there'll be on their deathbed. And then they'll confess everything because that's just how we are taught that these things happen, right? People always realize the errors of the way But they don't and they people go to their graves with these things and I think that's all happened here.

Kyle Risi: It's fascinating story and I kind of want it to be real But some of the evidence that we've just gone through And the footage and stuff is a bit suspect. It's a bit suspect, right?

Adam Cox: I guess the weird bit that we just can't get is like, why did it, how did it stop all of a sudden? Do you think they had enough or? I think so. What's, what do people think there? 

Kyle Risi: It's a good question. I don't know. I think they just were like, I think they were maybe potentially desperate for an out. And then the first thing that came out that was plausible for them to have that out, they just latched onto it. Wasn't the great. It's out, if you know what I mean, it was just like, Oh, it's psychic medium.

Kyle Risi: And he said something like, great, this is our out. Maybe that was it. Maybe Janet was coming of age a little bit more. Maybe she was fed up with it. Maybe she was growing up a bit, realizing that she's been a knobhead. I don't know. And what, 

Adam Cox: did they get any money or anything from that, do we know? 

Kyle Risi: Not, no, not as far as I'm aware.

Kyle Risi: They didn't really have anything to gain. people thought that maybe she wanted this council house, but really she didn't get that council house, yet the haunting still continued. But I mean, for 18 months. And it did just stop abruptly. Maybe they realised, well, we're not going to get what we want, let's just stop this haunting. So I wouldn't be surprised if the council house... Was part of that.

Kyle Risi: What do you reckon? Yeah, I think 

Adam Cox: so. That feels like a motivation, right, why they'd be doing it, to try and get out, but I don't know, these kind of stories, they do fascinate me in the sense that there is some truth to them in terms of it happened, well, it was reported on, there's all these other witnesses and stuff like that.

Adam Cox: But there's just not enough tangible evidence to make me, like, really 

Kyle Risi: buy into it. Yeah, and I mean, the stuff that I covered today was just, like, a fraction of some of the things that are documented. Like, there are, there were instances where, for example, Janet was asleep upstairs, Morris was downstairs, and Janet levitated out of her bedroom and then was thrown down the stairs.

Kyle Risi: I mean that sounds terrific. It sounds horrific. Yeah. But yeah, there's loads of examples also, Janet went for kind of psychiatric kind of assessments as well. Mm-Hmm. , they didn't find anything and then she came back and that's when it all ended.

Kyle Risi: Mm-Hmm. But yeah, that's the story of the Enfield Poltergeist Haunting.

Kyle Risi: Interesting. 

Adam Cox: Interesting. Should we run the outro? 

Kyle Risi: Let's do it.

Kyle Risi: And so we come to the end of another episode of the Compendium, an assembly of fascinating and intriguing things. If you found today's episode both fascinating and intriguing, then subscribe and leave us a review. But please don't just stop there. Schedule your episodes to download automatically as soon as they become available.

Kyle Risi: We're on Instagram at the Compendium Podcast, so stop by and say hi, or visit us at our home on the web at thecompendiumpodcast. com. we release every Tuesday, and so until then, remember, not every knock is someone at the door. 

Kyle Risi: See you next time. 

Kyle Risi: See ya.