The Enfield poltergeist was a claim of supernatural activity at 284 Green Street, a

council house A council house is a form of British public housing built by local authorities. A council estate is a building complex containing a number of council houses and other amenities like schools and shops. Construction took place mainly from 1919 ...

Brimsdown Brimsdown is a neighbourhood of eastern Enfield in the London Borough of Enfield, north London, on the west side of the mid-to-lower Lea Valley. Geography The east of Brimsdown, that is, east of the eastern Lea Valley line is one of the borough ...

Enfield Enfield may refer to: Places Australia * Enfield, New South Wales * Enfield, South Australia ** Electoral district of Enfield, a state electoral district in South Australia, corresponding to the suburb ** Enfield High School (South Australia) ...

, London, England, United Kingdom, between 1977 and 1979. The alleged poltergeist activity centred around sisters Janet (11) and Margaret Hodgson (13).Storr, Will. (2015)
"The Real Story of the Enfield Haunting"
''

The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally. It was f ...

''. Retrieved 3 May 2015. Some members of the

Society for Psychical Research The Society for Psychical Research (SPR) is a nonprofit organisation in the United Kingdom. Its stated purpose is to understand events and abilities commonly described as psychic or paranormal. It describes itself as the "first society to co ...

(SPR), such as inventor

Maurice Grosse Maurice Grosse (6 March 1919 – 14 October 2006) was a British paranormal investigator. Famous for his involvement in the Enfield Poltergeist case from 1977 to 1979, he has been portrayed in several films and television series, including ''The ...

and writer

Guy Lyon Playfair Guy Lyon Playfair (5 April 1935 – 8 April 2018) was a British writer, best known for his books about parapsychology and his investigation of the Enfield poltergeist. Early life and work Born in Quetta, British India, he was one of two sons o ...

, believed the haunting to be genuine, while others such as

Anita Gregory Anita Gregory (née Kohsen; 9 June 1925 – 7 November 1984) was a German-born British psychologist and parapsychologist.John Beloff John Beloff (19 April 1920 – 1 June 2006) was an English psychology professor at Edinburgh University and parapsychologist. Biography Beloff was born and brought up in London, and was from a Russian Jewish family. His parents were Semion ...

were "unconvinced" and found evidence the girls had faked incidents for the benefit of journalists. Members of the

Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal The Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI), formerly known as the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP), is a program within the US non-profit organization Center for Inquiry (CFI), which seeks to "pro ...

(CSICOP), including stage magicians such as

Milbourne Christopher Milbourne Christopher (23 March 1914 – 17 June 1984) was a prominent American illusionist, magic historian, and author. President of the Society of American Magicians, an honorary vice-president to The Magic Circle, and one of the founding m ...

and

Joe Nickell Joe Nickell (born December 1, 1944) is an American skeptic and investigator of the paranormal. Nickell is senior research fellow for the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry and writes regularly for their journal, ''Skeptical Inquirer''. He is also ...

, criticized

paranormal investigator Ghost hunting is the process of investigating locations that are reported to be haunted by ghosts. Typically, a ghost-hunting team will attempt to collect evidence supporting the existence of paranormal activity. Ghost hunters use a variety of ...

s for being credulous whilst also identifying elements of the case as being indicative of a hoax. Hyde, Deborah
The Enfield 'Poltergeist': A Sceptic Speaks
''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

''. 1 May 2015. Retrieved 2 May 2015. The story attracted press coverage in British newspapers, has been mentioned in books, featured in

television Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertisin ...

and radio documentaries, and dramatized in the 2016 horror film ''

The Conjuring 2 ''The Conjuring 2'' (known in the United Kingdom as ''The Conjuring 2: The Enfield Case'') is a 2016 American supernatural horror film, directed by James Wan. The screenplay is by Chad Hayes, Carey W. Hayes, Wan, and David Leslie Johnson. It i ...

''.

Claims

In August 1977, single parent Peggy Hodgson called the Metropolitan Police to her rented home at 284 Green Street in

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

, claiming she had witnessed furniture moving and that two of her four children had heard knocking sounds on the walls. The children included Margaret (13) and Janet (11). A

woman police constable The history of the Metropolitan Police in London is long and complex, with many different events taking place between its inception in 1829 to the present day. Pre-1829 London policing Before the passing of the Metropolitan Police Act 1829, la ...

reported witnessing a chair "wobble and slide" but “could not determine the cause of the movement”. Later claims included disembodied voices, loud noises, thrown toys, overturned chairs, and children levitating. Over a period of eighteen months, more than thirty people, including the Hodgsons' neighbors, psychic researchers, and journalists, said they variously saw heavy furniture moving of its own accord, objects being thrown across a room and the sisters seeming to levitate several feet off the ground. Many also heard and recorded knocking noises and a gruff voice. The story was regularly covered in the ''

Daily Mirror The ''Daily Mirror'' is a British national daily tabloid. Founded in 1903, it is owned by parent company Reach plc. From 1985 to 1987, and from 1997 to 2002, the title on its masthead was simply ''The Mirror''. It had an average daily print c ...

'' newspaper until reports came to an end in 1979.

Investigations

Paranormal

(SPR) members

and

reported "curious whistling and barking noises coming from Janet's general direction." Although Playfair maintained the

haunting The list of reportedly haunted locations throughout the world, that are locations said to be haunted by ghosts or other supernatural beings, including demons. Reports of haunted locations are part of ghostlore, which is a form of folklore. Ar ...

was genuine and wrote in his later book ''This House Is Haunted: The True Story of a Poltergeist'' (1980) that an "entity" was to blame for the Enfield disturbances, he often doubted the children's veracity and wondered if they were playing tricks and exaggerating. Still, Grosse and Playfair believed that even though some of the alleged poltergeist activity was faked by the girls, other incidents were genuine. Other

s who studied the case included American

demonologist Demonology is the study of demons within religious belief and myth. Depending on context, it can refer to studies within theology, religious doctrine, or pseudoscience. In many faiths, it concerns the study of a hierarchy of demons. Demons may b ...

Ed and Lorraine Warren Edward Warren Miney (September 7, 1926 – August 23, 2006) and Lorraine Rita Warren (; January 31, 1927 – April 18, 2019) were American paranormal investigators and authors associated with prominent cases of alleged hauntings. Edward was a ...

, who visited the Enfield house in 1978 and were convinced that the events had a supernatural explanation. Janet was detected in trickery; a video camera in an adjoining room caught her bending spoons and attempting to bend an iron bar. Grosse had observed Janet banging a broom handle on the ceiling and hiding his tape-recorder.Couttie, Bob. (1988). ''Forbidden Knowledge: The Paranormal Paradox''. Lutterworth Press. pp. 62–64. According to Playfair, one of Janet's voices she called "Bill" displayed a "habit of suddenly changing the topic—it was a habit Janet also had". When Janet and Margaret admitted "pranking" to journalists, Grosse and Playfair compelled the girls to retract their confession. The two men were mocked by other researchers for being easily duped. The psychical researcher Renée Haynes had noted that doubts were raised about the alleged poltergeist voice at the SPR conference at

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a College town, university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cam ...

in 1978, where video cassettes from Enfield were examined. SPR investigator

Anita Gregory Anita Gregory (née Kohsen; 9 June 1925 – 7 November 1984) was a German-born British psychologist and parapsychologist.sensational story.

John Beloff John Beloff (19 April 1920 – 1 June 2006) was an English psychology professor at Edinburgh University and parapsychologist. Biography Beloff was born and brought up in London, and was from a Russian Jewish family. His parents were Semion ...

, a former president of the SPR, investigated and suggested Janet was practicing

ventriloquism Ventriloquism, or ventriloquy, is a performance act of stagecraft in which a person (a ventriloquist) creates the illusion that their voice is coming from elsewhere, usually a puppeteered prop known as a "dummy". The act of ventriloquism is ve ...

. Both Beloff and Gregory came to the conclusion that Janet and Margaret were playing tricks on the investigators.

Other

, an American stage magician, briefly investigated the Enfield occurrences and failed to observe anything that could be called paranormal. He was dismayed by what he felt was suspicious activity on the part of Janet, later concluding that "the poltergeist was nothing more than the antics of a little girl who wanted to cause trouble and who was very, very clever." Ventriloquist

Ray Alan Ray Alan (18 September 1930 – 24 May 2010) was an English ventriloquist and television entertainer from the 1950s until the 1980s. He was associated primarily with the dummies Lord Charles and Ali Kat and later with the puppets Tich and Quack ...

visited the house and concluded that Janet's male voices were simply vocal tricks.

Skeptical interpretations

Criticisms of investigations

Skeptic

of the

(CSICOP) examined the findings of paranormal investigators and criticized them for being overly credulous; when a supposedly disembodied demonic voice was heard, Playfair noted that "as always Janet's lips hardly seemed to be moving." He states that a remote-controlled still camera—the photographer was not present in the room with the girls—timed to take a picture every fifteen seconds was shown by investigator Melvin Harris to reveal "pranking" by the girls. He argues that a photo allegedly depicting Janet levitating actually shows her bouncing off the bed as if it were a trampoline. Harris called the photos examples of common "gymnastics" and said, "It's worth remembering that Janet was a school sports champion!" Nickell pointed out that a

tape recorder An audio tape recorder, also known as a tape deck, tape player or tape machine or simply a tape recorder, is a sound recording and reproduction device that records and plays back sounds usually using magnetic tape for storage. In its present ...

malfunction that Grosse attributed to supernatural activity and which SPR president

David Fontana David G. J. Fontana FBPsS (1 November 1934 – 18 October 2010) was a British psychologist, parapsychologist and author. He was Professor of Psychology at Cardiff University. He was also visiting professor at Liverpool John Moores University and ...

described as an occurrence "which appeared to defy the laws of mechanics" was a peculiar threading jam occurring with older model

reel to reel Reel-to-reel audio tape recording, also called open-reel recording, is magnetic tape audio recording in which the recording tape is spooled between reels. To prepare for use, the ''supply reel'' (or ''feed reel'') containing the tape is plac ...

tape recorders. He also said that Ed Warren was "notorious for exaggerating and even making up incidents in such cases, often transforming a 'haunting' case into one of ' demonic possession.'" In 2015,

Deborah Hyde Deborah Hyde (; born 1965) is a British sceptic, folklorist, cultural anthropologist, Ufologist, fellow of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, and editor-in-chief of '' The Skeptic''. She writes and lectures extensively about superstition, c ...

commented that there was no solid evidence for the Enfield poltergeist: "The first thing to note is that the occurrences didn't happen under controlled circumstances. People frequently see what they expect to see, their senses being organised and shaped by their prior experiences and beliefs."

Response to claims

Skeptics have argued that the alleged poltergeist voice that originated from Janet was produced by false vocal cords above the larynx and had the

phraseology In linguistics, phraseology is the study of set or fixed expressions, such as idioms, phrasal verbs, and other types of multi-word lexical units (often collectively referred to as ''phrasemes''), in which the component parts of the expression tak ...

and

vocabulary A vocabulary is a set of familiar words within a person's language. A vocabulary, usually developed with age, serves as a useful and fundamental tool for communication and acquiring knowledge. Acquiring an extensive vocabulary is one of the la ...

of a child. In a television interview for BBC Scotland, Janet was observed to gain attention by waving her hand, and then putting her hand in front of her mouth while a claimed "disembodied" voice was heard. During the interview both girls were asked the question, "How does it feel to be haunted by a poltergeist?" Janet replied, "It's not haunted," and Margaret, in a hushed tone, interrupted, "Shut up". These factors have been regarded by skeptics as evidence against the case. As a "magician experienced in the dynamics of trickery", Nickell examined Playfair's account as well as contemporary press clippings. He noted that the supposed poltergeist "tended to act only when it was not being watched" and concluded that the incidents were best explained as children's pranks. Although Grosse made tape recordings of Janet and believed no trickery was involved, the magician Bob Couttie said, "He made some of the recordings available to me and, having listened to them very carefully, I came to the conclusion that there was nothing in what I had heard that was beyond the capabilities of an imaginative teenager." All of the recordings have been catalogued and digitalised by the Society for Psychical Research and a book of their content was produced by Dr Melvyn Willin in 2019. (The Enfield Poltergeist Tapes: White Crow.) A 2016 article by psychology professor

Chris French Christopher Charles French (born 1956) is a British psychologist specialising in the psychology of paranormal beliefs and experiences, cognition and emotion. He is the head of the University of London's anomalistic Psychology Research Unit and ...

in ''Time Out'' magazine described five reasons why he believed the case to have been a hoax. His reasons are: * The two sisters involved admitting hoaxing some of the activity * The photo of Janet levitating above her bed could just as easily be explained as Janet jumping * The "spirit" of an old man who supposedly possessed Janet took a great deal of interest in menstruation * Eyewitnesses are notoriously unreliable * Other schoolgirl pranks before and after have gotten out of hand

In popular culture

* On 26 December 1978,

BBC Radio 4 BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC that replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. It broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history from the BBC' ...

broadcast the documentary
The Enfield Poltergeist
' by BBC reporter Rosalind (Roz) Morris. Morris visited the Hodgson family on numerous occasions to make this documentary. * In 1992 the

BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...

...

aired a controversial

mockumentary A mockumentary (a blend of ''mock'' and ''documentary''), fake documentary or docu-comedy is a type of film or television show depicting fictional events but presented as a documentary. These productions are often used to analyze or comment on c ...

titled ''

Ghostwatch ''Ghostwatch'' is a British reality– horror/pseudo-documentary television film, first broadcast on BBC1 on Halloween night, 1992. Written by Stephen Volk, and directed by Lesley Manning, the drama was produced for the BBC anthology series ''S ...

'' written by

Stephen Volk Stephen Volk (born 3 July 1954) is a Welsh screenwriter and novelist who specializes in the horror genre.

and based on the Enfield poltergeist. * In March 2007

Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a fourth television service ...

aired a documentary about the Enfield poltergeist titled ''Interview with a Poltergeist''. * The Enfield poltergeist has been featured in episodes of

ITV ITV or iTV may refer to: ITV *Independent Television (ITV), a British television network, consisting of: ** ITV (TV network), a free-to-air national commercial television network covering the United Kingdom, the Isle of Man, and the Channel Islan ...

series '' Strange but True?'' and '' Extreme Ghost Stories''. * The Enfield poltergeist was the subject of the 2015

Sky Living Sky Living was a British pay television channel owned and operated by Sky. The channel's programming was aimed mainly at women and young adults. It originally launched as UK Living in 1993 and closed 25 years later, being replaced by Sky Witnes ...

television series ''

The Enfield Haunting ''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...

'', which was broadcast from 4–17 May 2015. * The 2016 film ''

'' is based on Ed and Lorraine Warren's investigation of the case. * In 2018 the BBC Radio 4 programme ''The Reunion'' presented by Sue MacGregor'','' revisited the case, with interviews with witnesses Morris, Richard Grosse and Graham Morris.