The Enfield Poltergeist

It might sound awfully stupid, but I must say…

Now, will you say, frankly, what you think?

I've been in this house 13 years the 14th of December.

As far as I can make out, there was a Mr. and Mrs. Wilkins in here,

and I believe he died in here.

I don't know whether it was a heart attack or what.

Here. We should have a little talk.

I come to see my wife

but then she weren't here…

and I found out she was dead.

I'm Bill…

I'm a G-H-O-S-T.

Mark it.

And action.

Think of yourselves as a jury now.

I come along to you, and I say, "A girl has levitated.

She seemed to float round the room."

You say, "Right. You're hallucinating."

That's the usual thing. "You're hallucinating."

You know? "You're going round the bend. No such thing can happen."

But…

What's happening now?

I can't get in. There's a really strong force pushing the door.

What's happening? What? What?

Janet. Janet.

And I could see her going up and down, up and down.

She's gone from that to that in a sixth of a second.

Dragged. Like this. Like this.

She's showing being pulled forward with her hands together.

The chair, which was standing by Janet's bed, appears to have moved.

The chair's been thrown nine feet.

Help!

Now the chair gone over.

I'm Bill Wilkinson.

I come from Durants Park graveyard.

I had an hemorrhage, and I fell asleep,

and I died in a chair in a corner downstairs.

Now, that is what I call first-class evidence.

Maurice Grosse seems to imagine that the often barely audible

and very noisy sound recordings, of which he plays snatches at meetings,

constitute facts that others have to disprove

if they are to challenge paranormality at Enfield.

Now can you say, "Anita Gregory"? Come on. "Anita Gregory."

I have visited the house on four occasions.

Come on, try. I know it's hard. Say, "Anita Gregory."

The extremely uncritical attitude of Maurice Grosse and Guy Playfair

seems to me to cast doubt on their reliability

as interpreters of experience.

The cry that I so often hear is, "You want to believe, so you believe."

We're talking about assessing the evidence because this is very, very important.

First of all, a deep, gruff, male staccato voice coming from the child,

Janet, 11 years--

The Enfield case had been going on for about six months.

It was already very famous.

It had been reported in the media and on television.

Quite a lot of people were critical of the investigations,

and I know that Maurice and Guy were certainly upset by that.

From their perspective, they were spending all their time on this case.

And yet, here they saw these, you know, rather dry,

academic types in the SPR who were just expressing skepticism.

Janet didn't even know what a poltergeist was.

How is it that she spoke in the same manner as poltergeists

were reported two centuries ago?

How does a child of 11 years old cope with this sort of voice?

Janet still maintains that the only thing she feels when it talks

is a vibration in the back of her head and neck.

I've explained to her that she is talking in this voice,

but she maintains she is unaware of it.

I have, as yet, found no reason to disbelieve what she says.

We've seen, quite clearly, time and time again,

that the voice talks through her without any movement of her lips whatsoever.

I mean, people who should know better say, "Well, that's ventriloquism."

Well, you produce me the ventriloquist who can talk without even a tremor

on his lips and articulate correctly.

I'd like to see it.

I mean, absolutely impossible.

I mean, if she was a ventriloquist, she'd be world's number one.

Mr. Ray Alan.

Thank you so much for having me.

Ladies and gentlemen, I apologize. I've had a couple.

One evening we're at the house.

I've looked out the window,

and this unbelievably expensive car has pitched up outside.

This chap got out. I thought "I recognize him."

Yes, it was TV ventriloquist Ray Alan.

Ventriloquist.

What is going on?

The managing editor of the Mirror sent Ray Alan round.

I can only assume the motivation was to discredit that whole saga.

I was horrified when I found out.

He was there to work out whether it was physically possible

for Janet to make those voices.

Ray Alan was a very funny man,

but if you were choosing a team of people to gather evidence,

you wouldn't put Ray Alan in the team.

He wouldn't have been sympathetic.

He took them off into a room on their own,

so no one ever knew what was said in there.

I think the family were looked down on.

All national newspapers were skeptical, I think, of paranormal stories.

The Mirror was under pressure.

If you want to knock it as a story, you'll knock it.

The story was run that Ray Alan said they put on the voices themselves.

They giggled and laughed about it.

You know, they'd play tricks.

Friday, March the 31st.

This morning, Mrs. Hodgson phoned me

about the article in the Daily Mirror printed yesterday.

She said that Margaret was most disturbed at the accusations.

I reached the family at00 noon.

Now, Janet, please come over here. Janet, please pay attention.

Come on. Look, this is very serious.

Now, listen. Did you, Janet, say to them that you had faked the voices?

-So-- -No.

No, because they didn't ask me, and I haven't faked 'em anyway.

How did he get that idea then? I mean, what exactly happened?

Said that he'd been up here

and that you'd given them a long confession to practically everything.

Margaret. Will you come over here, Margaret dear?

What did he say to you, Margaret?

Come on, Margaret. This is terribly important.

You must tell me.

Come on, don't worry about it.

What did he say to you?

He was saying--

I don't know what he was talking about.

He was just saying things I didn't understand.

-What was he saying? Sa-- -Well, you see, words I didn't understand.

You didn't understand what he was saying, Margaret?

-No. -And so what did you say to him?

I was just daydreaming,

thinking about what I need for school tomorrow.

I wasn't listening to him at all.

And I was thinking what I need. And I'm going like this all the time.

-Yeah. -Nodding, that's all.

Okay, so you were nodding your head?

-That's right. -Yeah.

-Yeah, I was just daydreaming. -I see.

Now, listen, I'm going to ask you a question.

He said that you said you and Janet had got together to fake the voices.

Now, is that true? Yes or no?

No.

-You definitely did not say it? -I did not say that even if I nodded.

-You definitely didn't say it? -I didn't say it with my own mouth, no.

-You didn't say it with your own mouth. -No.

Do you think the voice might have said it?

As far as you know--

My voice didn't speak once while they was in here,

so I don't know why they picked on me.

Well, listen, Mr. Grosse and I have got to know absolutely everything

that wasn't quite genuine, you know?

Otherwise, it's gonna make a lot of mess in our work.

You must understand it from our point of view, you know?

That we're trying to defend you against these people,

so we've got to be absolutely certain.

I was always a nervous child.

I was never that strong.

I always cry at a bat of an eyelid if someone said something wrong to me.

I remember approaching teenage years and being very scared and frightened.

And I couldn't understand why this was going on and what it could be.

And that really emotionally upset me.

Now, Margaret, have you at any time faked the voice at all?

No. Never.

-You absolutely never? You have not? -Yeah, I'm quite sure.

Now, do you think that Janet has ever faked the voice?

-Not that I know of, no. No. -Not that you know of.

Have you ever faked any of the physical things that have happened?

No.

-Definitely not? -Definitely not.

Not even one of them?

No. On my life.

On your life. Right. Thank you.

Why would I say it was a fake?

How could I say it was a fake? I can't.

Come on, Margaret. I said you can go to sleep as well.

Go on then. Good girl.

My father had three children, and we were all quite naughty.

And we played games, and he knew--

knew perfectly well when a child was playing a game.

No, thank you.

I don't want you turning my tape recorder as far as…

For someone to come along and say that everything was a game.

That Janet was the greatest ventriloquist in the world.

That she was the greatest magician in the world.

That the two of these girls were so brilliant

at their deception capabilities, that they could fool,

you know, professionals in--

Of every standing is, frankly, laughable.

Things escalated with the press quite fast.

It was disturbing.

Papers were coming after us. They were saying different things.

Some was okay, some weren't.

There was all different people coming in the house, and that scared me.

Hello?

No, I'm speaking from the uncle's house, which is about five houses along.

There's no telephone in the other house.

When the story became more well-known in the United States,

there was a lot of pressure, and they were very fragile, this family.

Mrs. Hodgson?

Peggy, there's a million people waiting for you…