“Before I died, I went blind, I had a hemorrhage. I blacked out and died in a corner on the ground floor” - such a revelation from the other world makes you numb with horror. But even more terrifying is that this rough, husky male voice came from the lips of 11-year-old Janet Hodgson. Preserved tape recordings made 2 years after the death of the owner of the voice, Bill Wilkins. Everything that happened in the distant 1970s in Enfield, located in the north district of London, was very reminiscent of a horror movie scenario. But the events, unfortunately, were quite real. The phenomenon almost immediately became known as the Enfield poltergeist. The public was shocked, excited and puzzled by this terrible story. The street in Enfield where it all happened (modern photo)
About 30 people witnessed the poltergeist with all the classic moments of its manifestation. It was getting colder in the room, things and furniture were moving in the air, making unimaginable sinusoids at the same time, inscriptions suddenly appeared on the walls, puddles on the floor, and matches ignited by themselves. In addition, an unknown force grabbed those present by the leg, then by the arm, preventing them from moving. But the most terrible sight was the girl who began to speak in the voice of the deceased Wilkins. And even after death he did not skimp on obscene expressions. Of course, there were also skeptical people who believed that all this was just a well-prepared hoax, a trick. But to prove that this is so, no one could. But the son of the deceased fully confirmed the words of his father, which came from the girl. Conversation recording. The girl answers questions in a male voice and calls herself Bill. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OWgImgIRic#t=17
THE FIRST CALL The actors of the tragedy that broke out on August 30, 1977 were the mother and four children of the Hodgsons: Johnny, Janet, Billy and Margaret. The family, shortly before the events, moved into a small apartment building in Enfield. As usual, in the evening the mother put the children to bed and was about to leave the nursery, when Janet began to complain that her and her brother's beds somehow vibrated strangely. Mrs. Hodgson did not attach any importance to the girl's words, and, as it turned out, in vain. In the evening of the next day, upstairs, where the children's bedrooms were, there was some kind of indistinct noise. The alarmed mother rushed into Janet's room, where she thought the sound was coming from.
Entering the room, the woman froze in fear. The heavy chest of drawers moved across the floor on its own. Trying not to scare her daughter even more, she tried to return the furniture to its place, but no luck. The chest of drawers resisted, someone or something continued to push him towards the door. Janet later mentioned this evening in her notes and added that when the chest of drawers moved, she distinctly heard the shuffling of someone's feet. And her sister Margaret recalled that the house was increasingly filled with strange sounds, so the children could not sleep for a long time. And sometimes it became so scary that they were forced to run out into the street in only bathrobes and slippers so as not to hear or see what was happening. Covering their tracks The woman and children were very frightened and turned to neighbor Vic Nottingham for help. It seemed that nothing could frighten this strong, big man. However, when he entered the neighbor's house, he heard the same sounds that, according to him, rushed from everywhere - from the walls, from the ceiling. Then Margaret recalled that she had never seen a neighbor in such confusion and horror. Nor did they help the police, whom Mrs. Hodgson called after Vic left. The perplexed police officers said that it was not their job to investigate such cases. A frame from the British mini-series (3 episodes) "The Enfield Haunting" (The Enfield Haunting), released in 2015 based on this story
We can say that all this looks like a fiction, a rigged trick, as skeptics claimed, only some of the eyewitnesses managed to take a few pictures of what was happening. One of them shows how the poltergeist lifted Janet and threw her with such force that the girl flew off to the other side of the room. In the photograph, the distorted face clearly shows that she is in great pain. It is unlikely that a child would intentionally hurt himself. The photographer Graham Morris himself said that when a poltergeist appeared in the house, real chaos was created, people screamed in fear, things moved through the air, as with telekinesis. Janet during another poltergeist attack
But not everyone was lucky to get video and photo materials. Later, a film crew from a local television channel was specially invited to the house, who installed cameras everywhere in the house to record the appearance of the poltergeist. When, a few days later, they began to look at the footage, they found that all the equipment was faulty, and what they managed to shoot was erased. "THIS HOUSE IS OBSESSED" It became clear that specialists were indispensable here. The unfortunate family turned for help to the Society for Psychical Research, which had existed in the UK for more than a century and was engaged in the study of human abilities, namely psychic and paranormal. As a result, two specialists from this society, Guy Playfair and Maurice Grosse, began to stay in the house permanently. By the way, on this occasion, they later released the book This House is Possessed. In his book, Grosse wrote that, as soon as he was in the house, he immediately realized that all this was not at all someone's joke. He noted the constant feeling of anxiety, fear and anxiety in which the whole family lived. The author saw with his own eyes how parts of a children's designer and a fragment of marble flew around the room. Grosse was surprised that these objects were hot.
And then the poltergeist, apparently, got used to new people and made a real orgy: the sofa flew from wall to wall, the rest of the furniture crawled around the room, and at night someone pushed the sleeping household and their guests out of the warm bed. One day the men heard Billy scream. The boy screamed that someone was holding his leg and he could not escape. In the literal sense of the word, adults had to fight with an invisible force in order to take the child away from her. The family was on the edge, especially the knocking, which did not subside for a minute, acted on the nerves. It became louder, then quieter, moved from the walls to the ceiling and back. In the end, the inhabitants of the house began to sleep in the same room and never turned off the light. For two years, the researchers worked at the Hodgson home and carefully recorded their observations. As it turned out later, in two years they witnessed more than 1.5 thousand cases of poltergeist. THE KNOT IS TIGHTENED I must say that paranormal activity was directed not only at family members, but at everyone in the house - guests, policemen, neighbors, journalists. But 11-year-old Janet suffered the most. When the girl plunged into a trance state, it was a terrible sight. After Janet did not remember anything and was very surprised when she was shown pictures of the poltergeist. She had her own point of view on what was happening.
She believed that the power that possesses her is not evil. And the poltergeist did not want to harm the family, rather, he wanted to become a member of the family and find peace of mind in this. And he had no other way to express it, except through Janet and Margaret. Once a curtain was wrapped around the girl's neck, and the mother with difficulty unraveled the knot that had begun to tighten. And on another occasion, someone tore out the grate with force and threw it into a far corner. Janet believed that Wilkins, who died in the house, was angry at the misunderstanding and was defending his territory. Why did Janet choose the poltergeist? In her opinion, the reason is that she was playing with the Ouija board. There were, of course, moments that cast doubt on the authenticity of events. For example, researchers once found that children were sitting quietly in their room and bending spoons. Or they are not allowed to enter the room when Janet speaks in a male voice. But a few years later, the children admitted that if they had faked the pranks, it was only a couple of times to see if the researchers could distinguish a real poltergeist from a fake one. To the credit of Playfair and Grosse, they always succeeded. LIFE AFTER CONTACT It is worth saying right away that Janet is doing well now, she is married and lives in Essex. But the girl had to undergo treatment in a psychiatric hospital. She now describes her impressions of the events of those years as traumatic. Her portrait flaunted on the cover of the Daily Star with the caption "Possessed by the devil." At school, Janet was teased by peers, at home it was just scary, plus enduring concern for her family, and, as it turned out, not in vain. Her brother Billy was called the "freak from the haunted house", no one wanted to communicate with him. He died of cancer at a very young age, at the age of 14. Soon after, her mother also died of cancer. And Janet's son died in his sleep when he was only 18 years old. Now Janet continues to assert that all the events of those years are real, this is not an attempt to earn fame and money. She recalls that even when everything in the house was calm, someone's presence and a studying look were still felt. And I am sure that if the poltergeist is not provoked, as in her case, with a board for spiritualism, then you can completely coexist with him. Currently, new tenants are living in the house, but something is happening there or not, it is not known.
The rough male voice made everyone in the room go cold with fear. Having shown up, he brought news from behind the tombstone, describing in detail the moment of his death.
"Before I died, I went blind, I had a hemorrhage, I passed out, and I died in the corner below."
The eerie voice, which can still be heard on tape, is thought to be Bill Wilkins. The recording was made in the 70s in Enfield, north London, a few years after his death.
Most frightening, however, was that the voice was coming from the body of an 11-year-old girl named Janet Hodgson. It looked like she was possessed. It could have been a scene from The Exorcist, but it was all real.
What was it? This was the case of the Enfield poltergeist, which 30 years ago intrigued the whole country, puzzled the police, as well as psychics, specialists in the occult phenomena and, to all the usual journalists.
Poltergeist displays included levitation as furniture flew through the air and things bounced around astonished bystanders. There was a cold shower, a physical assault, graffiti, water on the floor, and even matches exploding on their own.
A female police officer, under oath, stated that she saw the chair move. In total there were about 30 witnesses of strange phenomena.
Most inexplicably, the girl at the center of the action served as something of a mouthpiece for Bill Wilkins, the grumpy and tongue-tied old man who died in this house years ago. Those investigating this case met with his son, and he confirmed the details of his stories.
Many still doubt whether this case was a hoax, but no evidence has been provided for this, and the paranormal version remains the only plausible explanation.
So what happened in Anfield then, many years ago? Where are the Hodgsons now, have they got rid of their ghosts, and who lives at this address now?
The story itself, according to the Hodgsons, began in 1977. The family at that time was unusual, as the single mother had four children - 12-year-old Margaret, 11-year-old Janet, 10-year-old Johnny and 7-year-old Billy.
It was the evening of August 30, 1977, and Mrs. Hodgson was trying to put her children to bed. She heard Janet complain that her bed and her brother's were vibrating.
Mrs. Hodgson told her to stop complaining. However, something more frightening happened the next evening. Mrs. Hodgson heard a loud noise upstairs. Crossing herself, she told her children to calm down.
Entering Janet's bedroom, Mrs. Hodgson saw that the chest of drawers was moving. She put him in his place, but found that an invisible force was again pushing him towards the door.
Many years later, Janet will tell: “It all started at the end of the bedroom, the chest of drawers was moving, and you could hear shuffling. We told my mother what was happening, and she came to see everything with her own eyes. She saw that the chest of drawers was moving. When she tried to push it back into place, she couldn't."
Janet's sister, Margaret, tells how the manifestations began to increase in intensity.
“Various strange sounds were heard here and there in the house, it was not clear what was happening. None of us could sleep.
We put on bathrobes and slippers and left the house.”
The family turned to their neighbors Vic and Peggy Nottingham for help. Vic, a hefty construction worker, went to their house to do his own research.
He says: “I went into the house and heard these sounds - they were heard from the walls and from the ceiling. Then I got a little scared.”
Margaret tells: “He said: I don't know what's going on. This is the first time I've seen a healthy man so scared."
The Hodgsons called the police, who were equally puzzled.
After some time, the policemen left, saying that such incidents were not within the jurisdiction of the police.
The Hodgsons later contacted the press. Daily Mirror photographer Graham Morris, who was at the house, says: “It was chaos. Things suddenly began to fly around the room, people screamed.
Some of the incidents were captured on camera. One of the photos shows Janet being thrown across the room by something. On the other, her face is contorted in pain.
A BBC film crew came to the house, but they found that the metal components of their equipment were warped and the recordings had been erased.
The family then turned to the Society for the Study of Psychic Phenomena for help. They sent researchers Maurice Grosse and Guy Lyon Playfair, experts on poltergeists, who later wrote a book about the case called This House Is Possessed.
Grosse (who has now died) said: “As soon as I got into the house, I realized that this was a real case, because the whole family was in a bad state. Everyone was in terrible confusion.
When I first arrived, nothing happened for a while. Then I saw Lego elements flying around the room, as well as pieces of marble. The most amazing thing is that when I picked them up, they were hot.
Violent paranormal activity swirled around the researchers: the sofa levitated, furniture tossed and thrown across the room, and at night someone threw the whole family out of bed.
One day, Maurice, along with a neighbor who came in, heard one of the children shouting “I can’t move! It's holding my leg!” and they had to wrestle with what they insisted felt to be invisible hands.
The constant knocking was one of the most unnerving aspects of the case. He descended the walls, subsided and grew, as if deliberately playing on the nerves of the whole family, which was already so frightened that everyone slept in the same room with the lights on.
The main activity took place around 11-year-old Janet. She went into trances that were scary to watch. In one case, the iron grate of the fireplace in her rooms was torn out by an invisible force.
“I felt like I was being used by a force that no one could understand. I really don't want to think about it too much. I'm not sure that the poltergeist was a real "evil". Rather, he wanted to be part of our family.
“It didn’t want to offend us. It died in this house, and wanted peace. The only way it could communicate was through me and my sister.”
However, some people doubt these events. Two researchers caught the children bending spoons and asked why no one was allowed to enter the room when she spoke in her low voice, which was supposedly that of Bill Wilkins.
And indeed, Janet admits that they set something up.
In 1980, she said: “Once or twice we faked some incidents. We wanted to see if Grosse and Playfair caught us. They always bit us."
She is now 45 years old and lives in Essex with her husband.
“When I heard about the film, I didn’t really like it. My father had just died, and it was hard for me to go through all this again.”
She describes the manifestations of the poltergeist as traumatic.
“It was an extraordinary case. This is one of the most widely recognized cases of paranormal activity in the world. But for me it was pretty hard. I think he left his mark - poltergeist activity, press attention, all these people that passed through our house. It wasn't a normal childhood."
When asked how many of the poltergeist manifestations they faked, she said, "I think about two percent."
She also admitted to playing around with the summoning board just before these phenomena began to occur.
She says she didn't know she was going into a trance until the pictures were shown to her.
This was hard. I had to spend some time in a psychiatric hospital in London, where they wrapped electrodes around my head, but tests showed that everything was normal.
Levitation was scary because you don't know where you're going to land. I remember the curtain wrapped around my neck and I screamed and thought I was going to die.
My mother had to use all her strength to tear it apart. The man who spoke through me, Bill, he was angry because we lived in his house."
All this had a great impact on the family.
Janet says: “I was teased at school. They called me a ghost girl, and they threw things at my back.
I was afraid to go home. The doors were constantly opening and closing, different people came and went, you don’t know what to expect the next moment, and I was very worried about my mother. She eventually had a nervous breakdown.
Her brother was called "The Ghost House Freak" and people on the street spat at him.
Janet herself landed on the front page of the Daily Star with the headline "Devil Possessed."
Quite young, at the age of 16 she left home and got married.
Soon the attention of the press began to fade, the younger brother Johnny died of cancer at the age of only 14 years. Subsequently, Janet's mother developed breast cancer and she died in 2003, and Janet herself lost her son, he died in his sleep at the age of 18.
She rejected any suggestion that the whole story was made up in pursuit of money or fame.
I didn't want to relive this while my mom was alive, but now I want to tell my story. I don't care if people believe it or not - I experienced it, and it was all true."
Asked if the house is still haunted, she said, “Many years later, when my mother was still alive, there was always a presence there—there was always a look.
As long as people don't interfere, like we did with the summoning board, it's pretty quiet. It is much calmer now than when I was a child. But it's still there."
Who lives at 284 Green Street now?
After Peggy Hodgson died, Claire Bennett moved into the house with her four sons.
She says: “I didn’t see anything, but I felt uncomfortable. Someone's presence was clearly felt in the house, I always felt that someone was looking at me.
Her children woke up at night and heard someone talking downstairs. Claire decided to find out about the history of the house. “Suddenly everything fell into place,” she says. After living in the house for only 2 months, they moved out.
One of her sons, 15-year-old Shaka, says: “The night before we moved out, I woke up and saw a man enter the room. I ran to my mother's room and told her, "we have to leave," which we did the next day."
Another family lives in the house now, they did not want to introduce themselves. The mother simply said, “I have children, they don't know about it. I don't want to scare them."
One of the most famous modern bizarre cases occurred in 1977 in Enfield, north London.
Events unfolded in the Harper family, consisting of four children and a mother who broke up with her husband. It all started on August 30 when the children's beds began to shake. The next night, both the children and their mother heard as if someone was shuffling their feet in slippers on the carpet. Then there was a loud knock four times, and the heavy chest of drawers began to move. The family's neighbor searched the entire premises and, when another knock was heard, called the police. But the police couldn't do anything.
The next evening, marble sculptures and pebbles from the hostess's collection moved under the influence of some invisible force. It turned out that one of the sculptures was very hot. The Daily Mirror and the Society for Psychical Research were involved in this case. The investigation was led by Maurice Gross and Guy Lyon Play Fair.
Many could observe the movement of objects, furniture and the appearance of visions. At one stage of the investigation, "under suspicion" was the disturbed spirit of a little girl who was strangled by her father in a nearby house. Some furniture from that place was moved to the Harper house, but when mysterious events began, they decided to get rid of it.
The invited medium made several contact with the beings allegedly responsible for this persecution. The medium said that the beings absorbed the negative energy emanating from one of the children - eleven-year-old Jeannette - and her mother, who admitted that she had only the worst feelings for her ex-husband.
Psychiatrist Maurice Gross in a fight with the riddles of the house in Enfield. According to him, the girl is suffering from a poltergeist attack. Unsolved forces used all means, even lifting the girl into the air. Observers have linked this incident to the preserved energy of the deceased old man.
The strange occurrences stopped for a few weeks and then resumed in October. The researchers recorded four hundred incidents, among them the appearance on the kitchen floor of a large puddle of water with the outlines of a person.
As is usually the case with poltergeists, they can be very dangerous. One day, an iron grinder suddenly fell next to one of the children, another time, a gas water heater was suddenly torn off the wall. As soon as the poltergeist began its activity, visions appeared, notes remained on sheets of paper and on the walls.
The most mysterious events took place around Jeannette. She often convulsed, and once was even thrown out of bed. The girl went into a trance and behaved as if her throat was bleeding heavily. Then she wrote the name "Watson". The Watson family used to live in this house, and Mrs. Watson died of throat cancer. In December, a very strange voice started talking, introducing himself as Joe Watson. It was indeed a male voice. It sounded like electronic, with difficulty pronouncing every word. Later, he introduced himself as other people, as well as an old man buried in a cemetery next door.
Some members of the Society for Psychical Research (SPR) were convinced that it was all a hoax and that the children were playing the show. Yet the two investigators who worked on the Enfield case disagree. It is impossible to imagine that a family could arrange so many different misadventures. The pursuit of the Harpers died down in the summer of 1978.
The other day, the expected by many American horror "The Conjuring 2" was released, which tells about the next battle with the "evil spirits" of media paranormal researchers Ed and Lorraine Warren. By analogy with the first film, the plot of the second part is also based on a real story. This time, the well-known case of a poltergeist that occurred in the late 1970s in the English town of Enfield is taken as the basis. Then an unknown force terrorized the large Hodgson family for a long time. Traditionally, in this short article, we would like to analyze how close the film adaptation is to the real case.
According to the plot of the second "Conjuring", the Warrens come to the northern part of London (the town of Enfield) to help the mother of many children, Peggy Hodgson, to expel an evil spirit from her house. The latter not only prevents the family from living peacefully, but also poses a direct threat to the lives of Peggy's three children. In place of the Warrens, they realize that they are not faced with a simple spirit, but with a real demon, which, moreover, has its own views on the youngest daughter Jeannet. Predictably, the writers of The Conjuring 2 turned an ambiguous story into a typical horror movie with a cursed house, a possessed child, and fashionable ghostbusters. But was it really so?
Frame from the film "Conjuring 2".
It is worth noting that the authors of the film managed to quite accurately repeat the entourage and costumes of the characters, reflect the general synopsis of the Enfield poltergeist, but this is where all the similarities end and Hollywood fantasies begin. First of all, the real events that took place in Enfield in the 1970s left many open questions and, according to some researchers, represent a skillful falsification on the part of the sisters Janet and Margaret Hodgson. Some experts even claimed that the girls surreptitiously moved and broke objects, jumped on the bed, and made "demonic" voices.
Actress Madison Wolfe (left) as Janet in The Conjuring 2 and the real-life Janet Hodgson (right).
It was the repeated levitation of the younger Janet, filmed by researchers on film, that became the hallmark of the Enfield poltergeist. The girl claimed that an unknown force picked her up from the bed and "dragged her through the air." A number of researchers took a different view. They believed that Janet was just jumping out of bed so that it would appear on the tape as "hovering in the air." It was known that the girl was engaged in gymnastics and therefore could easily do such a trick. Subsequently, Janet really admitted that she and her sister simulated some of the episodes. All this is mentioned in passing in The Conjuring 2, and skeptics, in contrast to the noble Warrens, are presented by scoundrels who do not want to help the poor girl.
However, demonologist Ed Warren claimed that he and his wife witnessed Janet's real levitations. The researcher noted that he personally saw how the girl was fast asleep, and, in the next moment, she was already floating in the air. According to the Warrens, these authentic episodes were not captured on camera. But here you need to know that the real Warrens were known for a fair amount of exaggeration in their investigations, which, however, was to the liking of Hollywood. It was the free interpretation of the materials of their cases that served as the impetus for the film adaptation of such well-known horror films as The Amityville Horrors, The Haunting in Connecticut, and The Annabelle Curse. "Conjuring 2" was no exception to this list. Moreover, as the Enfield case became widely regarded as a hoax, it was seen by some as proof that the Warrens themselves were frauds.
It was the media presence of the Warrens that served as another divergence from the real story. In the film, the famous couple are presented as the main investigators of the phantasmagoric events, although, in reality, they stayed in Enfield for only a few days. It is common knowledge that the main investigation was carried out by other people. Of these, only Maurice Gross appears in the film, who appears here as a minor hero with a comical fake nose. At the same time, the main photographer of the Enfield phenomenon, Guy Playfair, is not even mentioned in the film.
Frame from the film "Conjuring 2" (top photo): from left to right "cine" Lorraine Warren, Maurice Gross, Ed Warren and Peggy Hodgson and Warren's real demonologists in one of the investigations (bottom photo).
It is clear that the filmmakers did not seek to accurately reproduce the real events in Enfield. Otherwise, they simply would not have been able to shoot a full-fledged horror in the best American traditions. For example, the storyline with a demon in the form of a nun is entirely the fiction of director James Wan himself. It has nothing to do with the Enfield case. As well as the episode when the poltergeist smashes the whole house brick by brick, trying to kill the researchers. On the other hand, the movement of furniture, multiple flights of various objects, spontaneous opening of doors and much more shown in the film are not fiction or exaggeration. In a real case, they were documented not only by experts studying the Enfield phenomenon, but also by local police officers who confirmed the fact of such anomalous incidents. For example, Officer Caroline Heeps testified in writing that she witnessed a chair levitate in the Hodjohn home.
The real Janet showed signs of "demonic possession" (right), which was also reflected in the film adaptation (left).
I would like to note that a good, and even sometimes touching, acting allows you to empathize with them quite sincerely. As is usually the case with film adaptations "based on true events", the characters in the film are much more likeable than their real-life counterparts. The Warrens are presented as noble, brave explorers who are ready to help unfamiliar people at the cost of their lives. The Hodgsons are unconditionally shown as innocent victims of "evil forces" and unknown circumstances, to which the viewer does not even think not to trust these honest people.
Despite the noted inconsistencies with real events, as well as the ambiguity of the Enfield poltergeist himself, the horror film "The Conjuring 2" should appeal to all fans of this type of horror. The film is not exchanged for long introductions and backstory. From the very first minutes, the evil spirit attacks the frightened heroes, using all possible poltergeist tricks. The sudden appearances of the demon and other spirits make the viewer flinch, although for the most part only from the effect of surprise. In theory, the feeling of "screening real events" should only add fear, but in practice, a sophisticated viewer is more likely not to believe that such a thing could take place.
“Before I died, I went blind, I had a hemorrhage. I blacked out and died in the corner on the bottom floor."- such a revelation from the other world makes you numb with horror. But even more terrible is that this rough, hoarse male voice sounded from the lips of an 11-year-old Janet Hodgson. Preserved tape recordings made 2 years after the death of the owner of the voice, Bill Wilkins.
Everything that happened in the distant 1970s in Enfield, located in the north district of London, was very reminiscent of a horror movie scenario. But the events, unfortunately, were quite real. The phenomenon was given a name almost immediately. enfield poltergeist. The public was shocked, excited and puzzled by this terrible story.
The street in Enfield where it all happened (modern photo)
About 30 people witnessed the poltergeist with all the classic moments of its manifestation. It was getting colder in the room, things and furniture were moving in the air, making unimaginable sinusoids at the same time, inscriptions suddenly appeared on the walls, puddles on the floor, and matches ignited by themselves.
In addition, an unknown force grabbed those present by the leg, then by the arm, preventing them from moving. But the most terrible sight was the girl who began to speak in the voice of the deceased Wilkins. And even after death he did not skimp on obscene expressions.
Of course, there were also skeptical people who believed that all this was just a well-prepared hoax, a trick. But to prove that this is so, no one could. But the son of the deceased fully confirmed the words of his father, which came from the girl.
Conversation recording. The girl answers questions in a male voice and calls herself Bill.
FIRST CALL
The protagonists of the tragedy that broke out on August 30, 1977 were the mother and four children of the Hodgsons: Johnny, Janet, Billy and Margaret. The family, shortly before the events, moved into a small apartment building in Enfield. As usual, in the evening the mother put the children to bed and was about to leave the nursery, when Janet began to complain that her and her brother's beds somehow vibrated strangely.
Mrs. Hodgson did not attach any importance to the girl's words, and, as it turned out, in vain. In the evening of the next day, upstairs, where the children's bedrooms were, there was some kind of indistinct noise. The alarmed mother rushed into Janet's room, where she thought the sound was coming from.
Entering the room, the woman froze in fear. The heavy chest of drawers moved across the floor on its own. Trying not to scare her daughter even more, she tried to return the furniture to its place, but no luck. The chest of drawers resisted, someone or something continued to push him towards the door.
Janet later mentioned this evening in her notes and added that when the chest of drawers moved, she distinctly heard the shuffling of someone's feet. And her sister Margaret recalled that the house was increasingly filled with strange sounds, so the children could not sleep for a long time.
And sometimes it became so scary that they were forced to run out into the street in only bathrobes and slippers so as not to hear or see what was happening.
covering the tracks
The woman and children were very frightened and turned to neighbor Vic Nottingham for help. It seemed that nothing could frighten this strong, big man. However, when he entered the neighbor's house, he heard the same sounds that, according to him, rushed from everywhere - from the walls, from the ceiling.
Then Margaret recalled that she had never seen a neighbor in such confusion and horror. Nor did they help the police, whom Mrs. Hodgson called after Vic left. The perplexed police officers said that it was not their job to investigate such cases.
A still from the British mini-series (3 episodes) "The Enfield Haunting", released in 2015 based on this story.
We can say that all this looks like a fiction, a rigged trick, as skeptics claimed, only some of the eyewitnesses managed to take a few pictures of what was happening. One of them shows how the poltergeist lifted Janet and threw her with such force that the girl flew off to the other side of the room. In the photograph, the distorted face clearly shows that she is in great pain. It is unlikely that a child would intentionally hurt himself.
The photographer Graham Morris himself said that when a poltergeist appeared in the house, real chaos was created, people screamed in fear, things moved through the air, as with telekinesis.
Janet during another poltergeist attack
But not everyone was lucky to get video and photo materials. Later, a film crew from a local television channel was specially invited to the house, who installed cameras everywhere in the house to record the appearance of the poltergeist.
When, a few days later, they began to look at the footage, they found that all the equipment was faulty, and what they managed to shoot was erased.
"THIS HOUSE IS OBSESSED"
It became clear that one cannot do without specialists here. The unfortunate family turned for help to the Society for Psychical Research, which had existed in the UK for more than a century and was engaged in the study of human abilities, namely psychic and paranormal.
As a result, two specialists from this society, Guy Playfair and Maurice Grosse, began to stay in the house permanently. By the way, on this occasion, they later released the book This House is Possessed.
In his book, Grosse wrote that, as soon as he was in the house, he immediately realized that all this was not at all someone's joke. He noted the constant feeling of anxiety, fear and anxiety in which the whole family lived. The author saw with his own eyes how parts of a children's designer and a fragment of marble flew around the room. Grosse was surprised that these objects were hot.
And then the poltergeist, apparently, got used to new people and made a real orgy: the sofa flew from wall to wall, the rest of the furniture crawled around the room, and at night someone pushed the sleeping household and their guests out of the warm bed.
One day the men heard Billy scream. The boy screamed that someone was holding his leg and he could not escape. In the literal sense of the word, adults had to fight with an invisible force in order to take the child away from her.
The family was on the edge, especially the knocking, which did not subside for a minute, acted on the nerves. It became louder, then quieter, moved from the walls to the ceiling and back. In the end, the inhabitants of the house began to sleep in the same room and never turned off the light.
For two years, the researchers worked at the Hodgson home and carefully recorded their observations. As it turned out later, in two years they witnessed more than 1.5 thousand cases of poltergeist.
KNOT TIGHTENED
I must say that paranormal activity was directed not only at family members, but at all those in the house - guests, policemen, neighbors, journalists. But 11-year-old Janet suffered the most. When the girl plunged into a trance state, it was a terrible sight. After Janet did not remember anything and was very surprised when she was shown pictures of the poltergeist. She had her own point of view on what was happening.
She believed that the power that possesses her is not evil. And the poltergeist did not want to harm the family, rather, he wanted to become a member of the family and find peace of mind in this. And he had no other way to express it, except through Janet and Margaret. Once a curtain was wrapped around the girl's neck, and the mother with difficulty unraveled the knot that had begun to tighten.
And on another occasion, someone tore out the grate with force and threw it into a far corner. Janet believed that Wilkins, who died in the house, was angry at the misunderstanding and was defending his territory. Why did Janet choose the poltergeist? In her opinion, the reason is that she was playing with the Ouija board.
There were, of course, moments that cast doubt on the authenticity of events. For example, researchers once found that children were sitting quietly in their room and bending spoons. Or they are not allowed to enter the room when Janet speaks in a male voice.
But a few years later, the children admitted that if they had faked the pranks, it was only a couple of times to see if the researchers could distinguish a real poltergeist from a fake one. To the credit of Playfair and Grosse, they always succeeded.
LIFE AFTER CONTACT
It’s worth saying right away that Janet is doing well at the moment, she got married and lives in Essex. But the girl had to undergo treatment in a psychiatric hospital. She now describes her impressions of the events of those years as traumatic. Her portrait flaunted on the cover of the Daily Star with the caption "Possessed by the devil."
At school, Janet was teased by peers, at home it was just scary, plus enduring concern for her family, and, as it turned out, not in vain. Her brother Billy was called the "freak from the haunted house", no one wanted to communicate with him. He died of cancer at a very young age, at the age of 14. Soon after, her mother also died of cancer. And Janet's son died in his sleep when he was only 18 years old.
Now Janet continues to assert that all the events of those years are real, this is not an attempt to earn fame and money. She recalls that even when everything in the house was calm, someone's presence and a studying look were still felt. And I am sure that if the poltergeist is not provoked, as in her case, with a board for spiritualism, then you can completely coexist with him.
Currently, new tenants are living in the house, but something is happening there or not, it is not known.
Galina BELYSHEVA
