The Enfield Poltergeist: Did an 11-year-old girl fool parapsychologists?
A Peculiar Situation
In Brimsdown, Enfield, London, England, Peggy Hodgson lived with her four children in a rented council flat at 284 Green Street. In August of 1977, their lives would be turned upside down when a mysterious haunting took hold of them and wouldn’t let go, up until 1979. These events would further go on to inspire the movie, The Conjuring 2.
Peggy Hodgson was a single mother and divorcee. She had two daughters, Janet aged 11 and Margaret, aged 13, as well as two sons, Billy and John. She had separated from their father 3 years ago and had found herself in council housing. The family was struggling financially and Peggy struggled to find work as a former housewife with no skills outside the home. They often had to go without necessitates and the children’s father wasn’t present in their lives.
The Haunting Begins
On August 31st 1977, at around 9:30 PM, Peggy would go to check on Janet and Margaret to make sure they had gone to bed. She had reported hearing loud noises coming from their bedroom and described what sounded like feet shuffling about and knocking coming from the floors and walls. At first Peggy thought it was just the children staying up past their bedtime.
When she went to check on them and scold them for being noisy, she found Janet and Margaret huddled in the corner in fear. The children claimed that their chest of drawers was moving on its own and as Peggy stood there, it slid out from behind its usual spot against the wall. When she tried to push it back, it wouldn’t budge, like an invisible force was keeping it there.
Shocked, Peggy gathered the children quietly and fled to a nearby neighbor’s house, the Nottingham’s. Peggy Nottingham and her husband Vic were good friends of the Hodgson's and often helped wherever they could. At first, not believing their claims, the Nottingham family would go over to investigate. Where they too experienced the same knocking noises the girls had heard. Vic even reported that the knocks seemed to follow them around the house. Unsure of what to do, they urged Peggy to call the police.
WPC Heaps and PC Hyams arrived at approximately 1 am to investigate. Unlike other supposed hauntings, who rely mostly on family testimony, there is actual evidence of a police report made about that night. WPC Heaps would go on to testify later that she too had heard knocking coming from the walls, and saw a chair wobbling from side to side, before sliding across the room. The police checked the whole house but couldn’t find a source for the mysterious knocking. Though unsettled, the police couldn’t really do anything about a supernatural disturbance and quickly left.
The Hodgson family would be left to sleep in the living room for the next few days, terrified to sleep on their own. In the coming days, the paranormal activity ramped up significantly. The knocking and unexplained noises continued but now marbles and Lego pieces were being thrown around the house. The Nottingham family would witness this as well, with one family member noting that the marbles being thrown were hot to the touch.
By the 4th of September, Peggy, still very unsure of who to contact or what to do, contacted the Daily Mirror, a national newspaper in an attempt to find help. The following day, journalist Douglas Bence and photographer Graham Morris were sent out to visit the house. They too witnessed the Lego pieces flying around the house. One even hit Graham Morris on the forehead, leaving a bruise the supposedly lasted for days.
Convinced of the ghostly activity in the house, more reporters were sent out by September 7th. Senior reporter George Fallows, having sympathy for Mrs. Hodgson after hearing the knocking himself, contacted the Society for Psychical Research to look into the haunting for them.
Maurice Grosse and Guy Lyon Playfair
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| Maurice Grosse and Guy Lyon Playfair |
Maurice Grosse and Guy Lyon Playfair were one of the first investigators to actually look into the Enfield Poltergeist. By October, the house had nearly become unlivable, with any and all object that wasn’t nailed down, being thrown around the house. This included toys, cutlery and other small household objects. The knocking had also become more intelligent, with it sometimes being able to answer yes or no questions asked by the investigators.
However, they soon started realizing that the bulk of the paranormal activity was centered around 11-year-old Janet. With the activity worsening when she was around. Playfair also noted that whistling and barking sounds would come from her general direction as the haunting progressed.
Janet had always been the more rebellious of the girls and her behavior had become increasingly worse in the months following the haunting. While Maurice Grosse refused to use the words possessed, he did note that she seemed to be taken over by an otherworldly force at times.
Both Grosse and Playfair would set up cameras around the house, including one in the girl’s bedroom where most activity seemed to happen. These cameras would take images every few seconds and would depict objects thrown across the room, the girls being thrown from their beds and even Janet levitating.
By December, the haunting had progressed to a terrifying degree. Janet would now emit a low almost growling sound that would eventually form a guttural voice. The investigators would ask the voice many questions with some sessions reportedly going on for hours. During these sessions they would gain insight into the entity seemingly behind everything. It called itself Bill Wilkins and seemed to be the spirit of an older man. The voice would blurt random profanities at times and would give vague answers relating to death and the afterlife. Eventually the voice would go on to described how it had died in a chair in the corner downstairs. This would later be confirmed to be true, as a man by the name of William Charles Wilkins had in fact died in the house prior to the family moving in.
While these questions would be going on, Janet would describe a feeling of someone standing behind her, and putting their hands around her neck. While tests were performed on Janet to determine where the voice was coming from and if she was faking it somehow, nothing was deemed conclusive, and the voice continued.
The disturbances in the house went on as usual until July of 1978. When Janet was admitted to hospital for psychiatric testing. In the two months she was there, they found no evidence of any mental illness in the young girl which might have explained the strange happenings in the house. When Janet returned to the house, the activity seemed to calm down significantly before finally ceasing by early 1979.
Was it real?
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| The Enfield House |
The Enfield haunting has been widely debated and debunked among skeptics. There is evidence that points to it mostly being staged, with a handful of compelling events that have yet to be disproven or explained.
Even the images were quickly debunked. With some of the alleged levitation incidents obviously just the girls jumping off beds and furniture.
During the investigation, the Hodgson girls openly admitted to faking some events and playing tricks on investigators. Janet was even caught on camera once, bending spoons and throwing things around in the kitchen. She had even been observed tapping on the ceiling with a broom handle and hiding a tape recorder from Grosse.
Grosse and Playfair would go on to say that they were aware of the tricks and pranks the girls played but caught them out early and were sure some events were still real. When it came out that the girls were playing pranks on the researchers, both Grosse and Playfair were mocked by other investigators in the parapsychology field for being so easily duped.
Some have also explained that the mysterious voice emanating from Janet were simple vocal tricks, attributed to ventriloquism. Others have also pointed out that the answers given by the supposed spirit of Bill were childish and questions around death and the afterlife were often given vague and general responses. The supposed voice also shared mannerisms and speech patterns similar to Janet and would talk about topics more appropriate for pre-teen girls, such as menstruation.
The Unexplained
Eye witness reports from the neighbors still stand out. Unlike many other hauntings, there are reports from people outside the family. Many others had heard the unexplained knocking and the police report of a chair moving on its own stands out as well.
Unlike other true life hauntings there also doesn't seem to have been a clear motive for the trickery. The family hadn't seemingly made any money off of it and in fact, seemed to cause them even more emotional stress. Though some have pointed out that the girls simply did it for the attention. Seeing the two kindly investigators as a replacement for the father figures they lacked. It also didn't help that, Maurice Grosse's own daughter had died only a year prior in 1976, and was also named Janet.
Though one fact does stand out. Bill Wilkins was an actual person, and he didn't come from the imagination of an 11 year old girl. On October 13th of 2024, the unexplained voice of Bill Wilkins was played on an LBC radio talk show and a listener later identified the voice as that of his father, William Charles Wilkins. William had passed away in 1963 due to a hemorrhage and was later found in a chair downstairs
Final Thoughts
My personal opinion is that most of the events were staged. Like most things in life, not everything is black and white, and there are some grey areas. I believe most of the events were a hoax, orchestrated by the girls for some attention. Their home situation was rough and stressful, and they weren't receiving everything they really needed. Maybe the children had good intention in the beginning, trying to receive new housing or even some money for their mother from the media and newspapers.
Its also possible they intended it as a harmless prank that turned into something much more serious they weren't prepared for.
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