The Enfield Poltergeist

It's now quarter past00.

Janet appears to be in sleep

and breathing regularly.

A year ago, a number of strange coincidences

in my personal life made me feel I should try

to understand the paranormal.

"If you get a good poltergeist case,"

I said to the Society for Psychical Research.

"Let me have it."

Then one day, they phoned me up.

I had no idea when I walked into that house,

how long I would be involved.

But I did have a strong feeling

that we were in for a pretty difficult session.

Testing. One, two, three, four.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.

The time now is55.

And I arrived at 284 just over half an hour ago.

I'm recording this in the kitchen.

Mrs. Hodgson is now going to tell me of events

that took place here on Friday night.

Oh, Billy, here, on here.

-Billy. -Is that mine?

-Yes, no sugar. Go on. -Yes.

It all started in the back bedroom.

I could hear this sort of rustling--

very light rustling sound as though there was some movement in the bedroom.

Not a heavy movement, but I sensed that something was there.

But I laid with my eyes shut until Janet woke up.

First of all, I thought it was the mice or rats or something.

I come out and stood in the doorway,

and there was a chest of drawers moving towards the door.

And I-- Well, at that time, I stood there,

and I was really, literally petrified.

Well, I went in, and I pushed it back once.

I stood back in the room and I watched, and I saw it moving.

And then I pushed it back again, and the third time I went to push it,

I couldn't move it.

…then I pushed it back again,

and the third time I went to push it, I couldn't move it.

Persons involved.

Mrs. Peggy Hodgson is 47.

A divorced mother of four children.

Her daughter, Janet, aged 11, is a reasonably bright child.

Rather excitable, with a strong imagination.

She shares a bedroom with her older sister, Margaret,

who is inclined to be overemotional.

She cries a lot.

Billy, the youngest, is intelligent, but he has a speech defect,

which makes him very difficult for me to understand.

The older brother, Johnny, is away at a school for troubled children.

I'm determined to study the paranormal in a purely scientific manner.

The introduction of a tape recorder is essential to be able

to analyze events in the cold light of day.

What was actually the first thing you saw?

John Burcombe, brother to Mrs. Hodgson…

Oh, God. The actual first thing I saw…

Deputy head porter in a hospital.

A down-to-earth, intelligent man who lives five doors away from the Hodgsons.

You see things that you can't explain, you've got a tendency not to believe them.

You've got a tendency to say, "I didn't really see 'em."

But you know you did.

His son, Paul, 12.

A lively boy.

You're the first person I've spoken to.

I just-- I've never discussed it.

It was a Sunday night.

Peggy came down and told my dad that there was lots of noise, banging--

And she was obviously really scared.

I don't know why, but I went with my dad down to the house.

It was dark.

We went upstairs and there's a massive oak wardrobe,

and that had been moved to the middle of the room.

I felt terrified.

And now, was it possible for her to push the cupboard?

-No way. No. -No way?

I see.

The first that I knew about it was a phone call

coming through to the news desk.

I was early 20s.

I was scared of the dark.

If I'd stopped to think about it, I would've run a mile.

Yes, this is bringing it back.

The house.

It was so many years ago, but this is weird.

This is very strange.

We arrived at the house at about midnight.

The family were next door with the neighbors.

I came through into the kitchen.

Here it is.

The family came in one by one.

As they came through, they all just stood 'round here.

I remember the Daily Mirror reporter, Doug Bence,

suit and tie on, hand in his pocket.

And the last one in was Janet.

And I'm here, ready,

and then as Janet was carried in--

Just unbelievable.

Just-- Things just started flying around the room.

The lingering memory is of those two girls screaming.

They were absolutely terrified.

Just mayhem.

LEGO bricks, marbles started flying around the house.

One of them struck me on the head.

Nobody moved their arm.

Nobody could've thrown or flicked that piece of LEGO.

There, I mean, that's the sort of force

and the speed and the impact that you'd need for that.

Now, you can't be stood in a corner with a camera,

watching everybody in the room, and not see somebody do that.

I think it was Thursday, the phone rang.

The Daily Mirror.

A poltergeist in Enfield.

I was, at the time, the honorary secretary

of the Society for Psychical Research, the SPR.

We used to have calls like that at least once a week.

Sometimes, twice in a day.

Who could we send?

Maurice Grosse.

Now that's an idea.

You see, Maurice was a relatively recent member of the Society,

and he was a thorough nuisance to be honest.

He was forever plaguing us with that it was a scandal

that these things so demonstrably occurring were not investigated properly.

He was impatient. He wanted action.

He wanted to be involved in investigations.

Animals.

There is only a budgerigar and two goldfish in the house.

The budgerigar belonged to an old lady who died.

And the phenomena did start shortly after the bird came into the house.

The witnesses include the next-door neighbors,

who have heard raps and knocking for three days.

This recording is being taken at30.

Your name is…

Peggy Nottingham.

And you wanna know when it first started from the--

Well, yes. You had heard all these bangs yourself.

It was banging on the side of the walls, and on the ceiling.

On the floor.

So my husband come in.

It was just a strange knock on the wall.

I went up the stairs, and as I went up the stairs,

this knock followed me.

I got three knocks. Three distinctive knocks on the wall.

I go into the front bedroom,

same thing again.

The knocks followed me.

And I didn't know what it was.

Being in the building game, I thought to myself, well,

I'll have a look around the house, I gotta be brave.

You know, and try and find out what it is. So I go through all the pipes.

No air locks or nothing like that.

Then I said to Peg-- I said to her-- I said,

"Mrs. Hodgson, there's something definitely strange in your house."

I said the best thing there is to do-- I said, "You're all coming to my house,"

and I said, "We'll phone the police."

Then when we phoned the police and they--

The police say that as they could not arrest whatever

was causing the disturbance, they can be of little help.

But WPC Carolyn Heeps has made a striking statement

about a chair in the living room.

It came off the floor nearly a half inch, I should say.

And I saw it slide off to the right, about three and a half to four feet,

before it came to rest.

I checked to see whether or not it could possibly

have slid along the floor.

I placed a marble on the floor, to see whether or not the marble

would go in the same direction as the chair did, and it didn't.

It didn't roll at all.

I checked for wires under the cushion of the chair,

and I could find no explanation at all.

For two weeks, they'd been terrorized by objects

inexplicably shooting through the air, or furniture moving

for no apparent reason.

I don't know if you read the Daily Mirror this morning,

but rather a spooky story about the family who's living in fear

of strange goings-on that are driving them from their home.

Being on the front page of any national newspaper,

not alone the bestselling one in the country, was--

I wouldn't say fame, but notoriety.

We just felt that it was such an important story.

It was just something that no one, that any of us knew,

had ever experienced anything like this before.

Relatives, friends, the police saw it.

It came off the floor nearly a half inch, I should say.

And I saw it slide off to the right, about three and a half to four feet,

before it came to rest.

I walked into the room-- As I walked into the room, the LEGO began to fly.

Marbles shooting around the living room.

Cups and saucers, books, chairs…

We was all just standing in the kitchen

all of us together.

Beds, you name it.

That's supernatural.

It's said to be Britain's most publicized haunted house.

A semi-detached in a quiet corner of Enfield.

It's all very intriguing, so we sent Rosalind Morris ghost-hunting.

Can I rearrange people, so that I can do an interview?

Is that all right? Can you sit over there?