I Was A Ghost Club Investigator

[Archaeoastronomer]

It must have been early 1978, when i got a phone call from Maurice Grosse to stand guard in Green Street, and to do as much of a night shift as i could, i remember it was a week day, so i had to go to work the next day, i wasn't keen but i wouldn't let Maurice down.

It was cold, misty and wet when i arrived, Janet had gone to bed, i spent some time sitting close to the fire drying out my clothes. Just after 10:00pm there was banging and screaming coming from upstairs, so i quickly climbed the stairs to the girls bedroom.

Both girls were sitting up in bed looking really scared, Janet's bed was lifting and rocking, about 6 inches before dropping on to the floor heavily, Janet was in bed so there wasn't a way she could have done that herself!
I looked under the bed for wires or fraud but found nothing, i sat with the kids for a while, then went back downstairs to keep warm. When normal is extraordinary, it is strange what you get used to experiencing!

 

[brownmane]

I find it interesting the fact of how quiet and soft Janet's speaking voice is compared to the gruff voice of "Bill". I don't know anything about speech nor voice development, but wonder if it would be possible for someone who speaks so softly (and I am also referring to video of Janet in her older years as well as at the time of incidents) to subsequently change quite a different tone and volume. If it was only Janet's voice from years ago, I would think that she was changing it for the camera, but her regular adult voice and speech is still similar.

 

[Who me]

Hi arch welcome to the forum .
In the time you were involved in the phenomena nothing happened in your own home

 

[Paul_Exeter]

I find it interesting the fact of how quiet and soft Janet's speaking voice is compared to the gruff voice of "Bill". I don't know anything about speech nor voice development, but wonder if it would be possible for someone who speaks so softly (and I am also referring to video of Janet in her older years as well as at the time of incidents) to subsequently change quite a different tone and volume. If it was only Janet's voice from years ago, I would think that she was changing it for the camera, but her regular adult voice and speech is still similar.

You make a good point.

What is massively frustrating beyond belief is that here we have a girl channelling the voice of a dead man not once, but many times over a long period. It is quite feasibly proof of life after death.

So where were the scientists and academics? Why weren't the girls being observed by a top university team who had the money for film cameras and voice analysis equipment? There would have been a Nobel prize and eternal fame for any scientist who was able to prove life after death through Janet and become famous for eternity - something most academics and scientists crave.

Because without validation it just becomes another UFO-type case where extraordinary claims are made by the witnesses yet the only attempts at investigation are by self-styled investigators. The story inevitably makes the tabloids. the general public ridicule it/don't want to face the evidence and it is lost to time and sh*te, massively exaggerated Hollywood movies loosely based on what happened.

We have colour film of World War 2 from 45 years before this Enfield case and I remember watching cinefilm of a friend's 1970s family holidays in the 1980s, so to be honest I'm struggling with the idea that nobody connected with the case could borrow or raise the funds for even a decent cinecamera to catch all this footage of levitating beds. A young Steven Spielberg was running around with a Super 8 and a version with sound was released in 1973:

"Although the original Super 8 could only produce silent films, in 1973, a version with sound was released."

https://www.thedailybeast.com/from-spielberg-to-abrams-super-8s-hidden-hollywood-legacy

We are told that a film camera was too expensive and yet Maurice Grosse was not exactly on the breadline:

"His most successful invention was the rotating advertising billboard. In 1961 Grosse founded his own design and engineering consultancy business which became responsible for launching many patents throughout the world.[2]"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_Grosse

I am not saying this case is bogus, a long way from it. but I have to challenge the frequently-made assertion by its proponents that film equipment was too expensive in 1979, and this casts a shadow over the statements that Janet channeled the dead man "for hours at a time" and the levitations, although as ever I would like to be proven wrong

 

[catseye]

You make a good point.

What is massively frustrating beyond belief is that here we have a girl channelling the voice of a dead man not once, but many times over a long period. It is quite feasibly proof of life after death.

So where were the scientists and academics? Why weren't the girls being observed by a top university team who had the money for film cameras and voice analysis equipment? There would have been a Nobel prize and eternal fame for any scientist who was able to prove life after death through Janet and become famous for eternity - something most academics and scientists crave.

Because without validation it just becomes another UFO-type case where extraordinary claims are made by the witnesses yet the only attempts at investigation are by self-styled investigators. The story inevitably makes the tabloids. the general public ridicule it/don't want to face the evidence and it is lost to time and sh*te, massively exaggerated Hollywood movies loosely based on what happened.

We have colour film of World War 2 from 45 years before this Enfield case and I remember watching cinefilm of a friend's 1970s family holidays in the 1980s, so to be honest I'm struggling with the idea that nobody connected with the case could borrow or raise the funds for even a decent cinecamera to catch all this footage of levitating beds. A young Steven Spielberg was running around with a Super 8 and a version with sound was released in 1973:

"Although the original Super 8 could only produce silent films, in 1973, a version with sound was released."

https://www.thedailybeast.com/from-spielberg-to-abrams-super-8s-hidden-hollywood-legacy

We are told that a film camera was too expensive and yet Maurice Grosse was not exactly on the breadline:

"His most successful invention was the rotating advertising billboard. In 1961 Grosse founded his own design and engineering consultancy business which became responsible for launching many patents throughout the world.[2]"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_Grosse

I am not saying this case is bogus, a long way from it. but I have to challenge the frequently-made assertion by its proponents that film equipment was too expensive in 1979, and this casts a shadow over the statements that Janet channeled the dead man "for hours at a time" and the levitations, although as ever I would like to be proven wrong

Being honest, I was a teenage girl and we used to put on stupid voices and talk in, what would to onlookers have been, weird, gruff voices. Don't know if we could have kept it up for hours, but we could certainly do it for quite a while and would hold entire conversations like that. Nothing supernatural, just kids being kids and a bit daft. I know it used to give me a sore throat afterwards!

 

[Paul_Exeter]

Being honest, I was a teenage girl and we used to put on stupid voices and talk in, what would to onlookers have been, weird, gruff voices. Don't know if we could have kept it up for hours, but we could certainly do it for quite a while and would hold entire conversations like that. Nothing supernatural, just kids being kids and a bit daft. I know it used to give me a sore throat afterwards!

It is my biggest problem with this case and I am not someone who wants to disbelieve the testimony. Lets be honest, the photos we do have of the girl 'levitating' in her bedroom are hardly convincing and we have two honest eyewitnesses from outside the house yet they were looking up into the window of a house from some distance away and at ground level, so not exactly a full view of what was going on at the time.

Andy Gilbert (Credible Witness 1 & 2) has a fascinating case of two Police officers who were called to a locked and known to be empty house of a recently deceased man as there was a hell of a racket coming from inside. They were provided with a key by a relative and on entering both clearly saw every single item in the front room suspended inches from the ground but which then crashed down heavily, just as Archaeoastronemer describes at the Enfield house

My issue is that Enfield was a Ghost Club investigation so where were the cameras...? Is there even a single photo of the bed levitating from inside the bedroom itself? That would be good evidence: a clear photo of the bed rocking inches above the floor and if not, why not...? Why didn't every member of the team have a camera on them, loaded with film and ready to be used at an instant...?

Sorry if this sounds harsh, but this and many others events at that house were an opportunity to obtain credible evidence

 

[MrRING]

Thanks for your remembrances @Archaeoastronomer they have added to the reporting of the era.

Regarding Super 8 sound, I think it was still fairly expensive and not something that just everybody had. I come from the poorer side of the spectrum, and while we had Super 8 film, we didn't have the sound stuff. Aside from expense in getting new cameras and projectors, the processing could have been out of the range of local shops to do, at least in the part of the country I live in.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_8_film

In the beginning of 1965, Super 8 was introduced as a silent format. Over time, several companies began to offer sync sound options for Super 8 filmmaking. Two companies introduced comprehensive sound systems for Super 8. These were Super8 Sound Inc. led by Harvard film professor Bob Doyle[35] and Optasound led by Richard Leacock at MIT. With double system, as it was called, sound and picture are recorded separately. This was fine for more professional applications and for education about film production, but for consumers it was simply too complex and expensive.[36]

In 1973 Kodak introduced Ektasound—magnetic recording on the actual Super 8 film.[37] The sound track was added on the edge of the film opposite to the perforations. Standard 8mm had the stripe between the perforations and the edge of the film which made good contact with a magnetic head problematic. A balance stripe was added on the opposite edge to facilitate spooling of the film. The Ektasound cartridge was deeper than the silent cartridge to allow access of the camera's recording head. Thus, silent cameras could not accept Ektasound cartridges, but Ektasound cameras and projectors accepted silent cartridges. Projectors, that could record and play sound, appeared before sound cameras. The sound was recorded 18 frames in advance of the picture (as opposed to 56 frames for standard 8mm). This short distance of just 3 inches facilitated the relatively compact size of the later sound cartridges. Some projectors used the balance stripe to provide a second channel for stereo sound.

Super 8mm was also specified with an optical sound track. This occupied the same location as the magnetic track. Picture to sound separation in this format was 22 frames. Projectors and cameras obviously could not record sound in this system, but optical sound package movies became briefly popular, particularly in Europe (mainly because they were cheaper to produce - though the projectors cost more). Although the optical sound should have been inferior in quality to magnetic sound (running at 3.6 inches per second for 24 frames per second), in practice it was often much better, largely because packaged movie magnetic sound was often poorly recorded.

Questions I have about the experience:

- Considering that there is reported evidence of real paranormal activity, as well as trickery from the kids due to desire to please/boredom/they were doing it all along etc, how would you characterize the personalities involved when either was happening? For instance, based on the kids themselves, was there a major change in how they acted and behaved when they were fooling around, versus when the more realistic things everybody was treating as real (like the bed jumping up and down) happened?

- Did the kids have friends over that you saw, and did that ever seem to change the behavior or paranormal activity?

- Did the ghostly voice ever directly speak to you, or other members of the club? Or were the vocalizations more general statements directed at nobody in particular, or just the family members?

 

[Paul_Exeter]

Thanks for your remembrances @Archaeoastronomer they have added to the reporting of the era.

Regarding Super 8 sound, I think it was still fairly expensive and not something that just everybody had. I come from the poorer side of the spectrum, and while we had Super 8 film, we didn't have the sound stuff. Aside from expense in getting new cameras and projectors, the processing could have been out of the range of local shops to do, at least in the part of the country I live in.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_8_film

However Maurice Grosse was a successful businessman. Even a silent cinefilm of the bed being levitated and other activity would present credible evidence, but we don't even have a photo.

 

[Archaeoastronomer]

Hi Who Me,

I did have experiences with paranormal in my own house when i was a child but didn't when i was investigating the Enfield poltergeist.

 

[Archaeoastronomer]

Hi Weird Exeter,
and Mr Ring,

It must be understood that i was a junior investigator and wasn't at the house as much as some other investigators, we did have Daily Mirror newspaper journalists that were there but with still photograph camera's.
Video was very expensive in 1977, the work of the SPR and the Ghost Club did run as a charity, so money was a problem.


https://blog.scienceandmediamuseum.org.uk/the-first-betamax-home-television-recording-technology/

However there was an investigator who did bring down video equipment from Birbeck college, named David Robertson, who i met only a few times, strangely the video evidence now seems missing???

https://triablogue.blogspot.com/2018/05/david-robertson-on-enfield-poltergeist.html

The BBC did have a lot of problems with getting video equipment to work, when they were there.

I never saw Janet levitate, so can't comment.

 

[Paul_Exeter]

Hi Weird Exeter,
and Mr Ring,

It must be understood that i was a junior investigator and wasn't at the house as much as some other investigators, we did have Daily Mirror newspaper journalists that were there but with still photograph camera's.
Video was very expensive in 1977, the work of the SPR and the Ghost Club did run as a charity, so money was a problem.


https://blog.scienceandmediamuseum.org.uk/the-first-betamax-home-television-recording-technology/

However there was an investigator who did bring down video equipment from Birbeck college, named David Robertson, who i met only a few times, strangely the video evidence now seems missing???

https://triablogue.blogspot.com/2018/05/david-robertson-on-enfield-poltergeist.html

The BBC did have a lot of problems with getting video equipment to work, when they were there.

I never saw Janet levitate, so can't comment.

Thanks for your reply, much appreciated.

This is fascinating:

"As an example, later in the case I had knocking from the bedboard right next to me when Janet was on the other side of the room and no one else on that floor of the house….They [the knocks] came from the front room bedboard next to my head. They weren't insects or anything like that. They didn't come from somewhere else. They were loud knocks on the wood right next to me, as if you hit it with the back of your hand or a hard object. No one was there faking it. It was just creepy. There isn't any doubt about this. That's why it is a bit unnerving. It was quite apparent that it was genuine….

Things in the living room would move if one's back was turned. The girls were saying their legs were being pulled, and the slippers flying off. It is difficult to know how much is genuine and how much is play. I just started putting everything that moved into a heap in the middle of the floor. That way, I could watch it all. Soon there wasn't anything left to throw, and I was watching the pile with the girls on my left. Then something heavy hits me on the side of the head and falls to the floor with a thud. It was a big plate-sized ashtray from on top of a fish tank behind Janet. Quite heavy. No, I don't think she could have reached up behind her and thrown it without being seen. Quite apart from the problem of it causing injury, hitting me with such a weighty object, it would have been going much faster under normal throwing conditions….

I remember Maurice telling the voice on one occasion to put an object through the window. He meant that he wanted the object to paranormally pass through the glass or be teleported outside, so that we would have good evidence. His poor phrasing ended up being used against him, so that an object was used to smash through the glass window, and he had to apologise and get the window replaced…."

https://triablogue.blogspot.com/2018/05/david-robertson-on-enfield-poltergeist.html

 

[Paul_Exeter]

Hi Weird Exeter,
and Mr Ring,

It must be understood that i was a junior investigator and wasn't at the house as much as some other investigators, we did have Daily Mirror newspaper journalists that were there but with still photograph camera's.
Video was very expensive in 1977, the work of the SPR and the Ghost Club did run as a charity, so money was a problem.


https://blog.scienceandmediamuseum.org.uk/the-first-betamax-home-television-recording-technology/

However there was an investigator who did bring down video equipment from Birbeck college, named David Robertson, who i met only a few times, strangely the video evidence now seems missing???

https://triablogue.blogspot.com/2018/05/david-robertson-on-enfield-poltergeist.html

The BBC did have a lot of problems with getting video equipment to work, when they were there.

I never saw Janet levitate, so can't comment.

I just remembered reading there were four children in this household, is that correct and are any of them alive today...? Thanks

 

[Dick Turpin]

I just remembered reading there were four children in this household, is that correct and are any of them alive today...? Thanks

One of the brothers died when he was quite young I believe, but I don’t if it was through injury or illness. Janet and Margaret are still alive though.

In fact, I saw Janet in the flesh some years ago. I was sitting outside a café having a cup of tea, and she came walking past.

No disrespect to her of course, but she did have a very sad and haunted look about her, and that’s certainly how she comes across in her few TV interviews she’s given………well, to my mind at least.

 

[Dick Turpin]

One of the brothers died when he was quite young I believe, but I don’t if it was through injury or illness. Janet and Margaret are still alive though.

In fact, I saw Janet in the flesh some years ago. I was sitting outside a café having a cup of tea, and she came walking past.

No disrespect to her of course, but she did have a very sad and haunted look about her, and that’s certainly how she comes across in her few TV interviews she’s given………well, to my mind at least.

Further to this. I’ve just remembered something Will Storr wrote in his WS v’s the supernatural book.

In the early part of his book when he was investigating cases in the US, (Philadelphia I think) he interviewed a woman called Kathy Ganial in which she claimed she was being haunted by Demons.

Later on, in the book when he was interviewing Janet, he thought that she reminded him of someone but couldn’t think who. Then it came to him……..Kathy Ganiel.

They both had that the same haunted look in their eyes……well according to Will Storr anyway.