In many ways, these pictures would appear to show an ordinary family in a very typical terraced house in London. Yet the events they claimed took place at Green Street, Enfield, were said to be very far from ordinary. In fact they became part of one of the biggest frenzies about paranormal phenomena that has ever hit the headlines.
On the evening of Tuesday, August 30, 1977 Peggy Hodgson, a 47-year-old divorced mother of four, went into her children’s bedroom to tell them to stop fighting and go to sleep. They were complaining that the bed was shaking but, thinking no more of it, she went to bed. The next night, Peggy claimed to have heard a shuffling noise like someone walking about on the linoleum in slippers and then four loud knocks. A chest of drawers slid across the floor. Peggy pushed it back and it slid forward again. She tried to push it back but couldn’t.
Now known as the Enfield Poltergeist, this was the first 'haunting' by the 'ghost of a dead man' said to have terrorized the family for 18 months throughout 1977 and 1978. It became such a huge story that it spawned a TV series, books and a 2016 Hollywood blockbuster The Conjuring 2.
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Things soon began to take a darker turn. Claims were made that marbles and Lego began to fly around the house. Then came the strangest 'event' of all. Peggy says she saw both girls levitating: "They seemed to rise up as though they were being. lifted and tossed on the floor. They were being lifted. You could see that."
The Mirror sent reporter Douglas Bence and photographer Graham Morris. Morris later said: "I thought it was an ordinary job until I walked into the house. I stood in the gloom in the kitchen and one by one they brought the children into the adults’ arms and the last one to come in was Janet. Suddenly things just took off and started flying around the room. I got hit by a Lego brick over my right eye. It gave me a lump for a few days, there was a fair bit of force. There were marbles and things left in the kitchen that were just flying around the room. I was watching all of [the family] and none of them was doing anything."
Janet seemed to be the focus of the activity and photographs by Mirror photographer Graham Morris who snapped the events, later appeared to show her being flung through the air by unseen forces. Margaret, 13, was affected to a lesser extent but was also photographed being propelled through the air with Janet.
Paranormal expert Maurice Grosse, who was called in to investigate, managed to record a gruff male voice which seemed to emerge from members of the family. Janet in particular seemed to be able to channel the super creepy voice.
He said his name was Bill and he claimed to have died in the house 15 years before. A death certificate was later unearthed which proved a man had indeed died in the house.
Many people at the time considered the whole thing to be a hoax but a proliferation of recordings and independent witness accounts meant that nobody has been able to entirely debunk the girls’ story.
Investigators from the Society for Psychical Research (SPR) concluded that Janet was indeed channelling the malevolent spirit of the previous occupant, Bill Wilkins, whose son was able to confirm the details of his death.
Peggy Hodgson, a single mother of four children - Janet and Margaret had two brothers; Johnny, 10 and Billy, seven - had contacted the society in desperation after visits by police and a priest proved fruitless.
In an interview with the BBC in 2011, Morris said he still believed both sisters were genuinely possessed at the time. “You had to see it to believe it,” he said. “They were petrified, they were so frightened.”
In 2016, the two sisters returned to the house 40 years on as part of the research for the film, The Conjuring 2 which tells a horror version of the poltergeist story. It was clear the sisters are still sticking by their stories. Janet said at the time: "I can recall the chest of drawers starting shuffling and it moved towards the door. One particular day I was seen levitating.” Margaret added: "We were al in a terrible state. It was worse as the time went on and we got more exhausted and tired."
Numerous theories have attempted to explain away the abnormal activity at the house, but the reality is, all those who claimed to have seen the poltergeist in action have stuck by their claims and that's hard for any expert to challenge!
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