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The Enfield Poltergeist

I think there's so much going on with this case. Social, emotional, mental manipulation (and I'm not always clear by whom and towards whom...) and I'm with much of what @Paul_Exeter says, that Janet could well have known about 'Bill' in advance. Also, it would be interesting to know whether the children (ALL of the children) had ever taken any interest in or had any reading material about poltergeists.
 
Found this about Bill, a lot of detail, photographs and the fact not all the details he revealed through Janet were correct:

"So the entity got two items right (name and place of death) but three items wrong (age, cause of death, and most importantly place of burial). The items it got right could have been known to Janet, whereas she was unlikely to know the items it got wrong, especially the cemetery, which was not the one on her doorstep.'

https://www.xenophon.org.uk/billwilkins.html

This is a great bit of research and I find it rather damning that significant facts about Bill were incorrect and also that the neighbours would have know both Bill and Janet's family, this giving us a source for the correct information.
 
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Paul_Exeter said:
Found this about Bill, a lot of detail, photographs and the fact not all the details he revealed through Janet were correct:

"So the entity got two items right (name and place of death) but three items wrong (age, cause of death, and most importantly place of burial). The items it got right could have been known to Janet, whereas she was unlikely to know the items it got wrong, especially the cemetery, which was not the one on her doorstep.'

https://www.xenophon.org.uk/billwilkins.html

This is a great bit of research and I find it rather damning that significant facts about Bill were incorrect and also that the neighbours would have know both Bill and Janet's family, this giving us a source for the correct information.
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Another thing - would 'Bill' have referred to himself as Bill or William? Bill was no doubt what his friends and family called him (and probably how he was talked about among the neighbours, 'old Bill, who died in the house', but what did he call himself?

My dad's name was James. Universally known (except to my mum) as 'Jim', but he always called himself James.

I dunno, but it just strikes me that Janet had heard 'Bill' talked about...
 
Archive Interview with Janet and Margaret during which Janet 'channels' a spirit who tells the knock-knock Dr Who joke. Have to say it is pretty unimpressive in many ways. Despite her adopting a head tilted forward posture and her hands being in her neck area you can see her vocal cords moving/being manipulated yet she doesn't seem in any distress, in fact quite the opposite:

https://www.historyvshollywood.com/video/janet-and-margaret-hodgson-interview/

We catch sight of one of the two boys (Johnny and Billy) who seem of the right age to get up to trickery but were seemingly ignored throughout by the two male researchers.
 
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Paul_Exeter said:
I am still puzzled as to why all the focus was on these two girls and the two other children are hardly mentioned.
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A couple of years ago, on an Amityville Facebook page, a guy who knew surviving brother Bill, wrote how he unwittingly spent a night in the house in 1999 (Janet's bedroom no less) when Bill suggested he stay over on a drunken night out (he was still living in the house with his mother Peggy at the time)

The writer then sees an Enfield Poltergeist documentary a year later, and realises he spent a night in a famous haunted bedroom!

According to him, Bill says nothing happens in the house when the two sisters are not there.

Here are some of his posts. His typing isn't the best (I've tidied it up a bit) plus it can be confusing with the two Bill's in the story - Janet's brother and the ghost!

I stayed in the Enfield house in 1999 night with me mates and who was a fork lift driver said stay at mama house better than paying for a cab home. It was not until a year later I seen it on the T.V. I rang Bill and said you didn't say that was the Enfield house, he said you didn't ask, anyway it's ok Janet does not come here now it peace. It was the ouija board that did it. Bill mother dies in 2001 in the same room as old Bill die. Janet never return to the house or her older sister.

If I new it was the Enfield house I dont think I would of stay there even tho I'd had a good drink that night It was about a year later I see it on T.V I phone Bill and you didn't tell me Its the Enfield house he said you didn't asked .I know he mama die in 2001 in same corner as old Bill die sitting in her chair Bill did say it nothing to do with old Bill who live here lot of people die in bedrooms it the same thing nothing to worry about them things happen

Once Janet left, it all die down, but when her and her sister come to the house things start to happen. Bill moved from the house now he would be 53 now, I dont know where he move too

Peggy was is mam, Bill the little lad who play with the leggo blocks he would of only been about seven years old then, Bill was the ghost and dirty dick that what Janet said but it was old Bill who die in the chair and in 2001. Bill mum die same room same place in the room only difrent chair but as Bill said it life people die in bedroom only difrent beds he right when I think about

He live their for a short while on his own He new his mam would put old Bill out and dirty Dock she was a lovely lady alway made you at home.

When two sister was together things started to happen. It was Janet the one that would start it off. They never went into the house together, toilet would flush so I was told. When I stay their for one night I got no bother in that same room it was not until about a year latter I seen in on T.V I phone Bill and said you didn't tell me it was the Enfield house the house with the big write up in 1977. He said you didn't asked then he laught it off. I live in the North of the UK this how I lost contact with him, his mam die in 2001, I stayed in the house in 1999 I'd did have good drink with lads that hope read this and remembers who I am let to have chat with an old mate, I know Bill lived in the house for about two years then he moved id love to catch up with him.

The sister would not go in the house I think it because there mother die in their. God bless Peggy lovely lady would welcome anyone in her home God bless her.
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sherbetbizarre said:
A couple of years ago, on an Amityville Facebook page, a guy who knew surviving brother Bill, wrote how he unwittingly spent a night in the house in 1999 (Janet's bedroom no less) when Bill suggested he stay over on a drunken night out (he was still living in the house with his mother Peggy at the time)

The writer then sees an Enfield Poltergeist documentary a year later, and realises he spent a night in a famous haunted bedroom!

According to him, Bill says nothing happens in the house when the two sisters are not there.

Here are some of his posts. His typing isn't the best (I've tidied it up a bit) plus it can be confusing with the two Bill's in the story - Janet's brother and the ghost!
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Thanks for posting. I found this interesting about Bill the brother of Janet:

"Bill the little lad who play with the leggo blocks he would of only been about seven years old then,"

Are these the same lego bricks that would seemingly appear out of nowhere and hit people in the downstairs room/s? So where was young Bill when this was taking place?

I do want to believe but I have huge reservations with how Grosse and Playfair conducted their research and also in general how the two younger boys seem to have been overlooked. Okay, these two boys may not have been the target of the poltergeist activity, but they could certainly have been in on the joke with their siblings.
 
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Robbrent said:
With regards to Bill, entities don't tell the truth it seems they are incapable of it, they best you will get is nearly right they revel in ambiguity
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Has anyone ever investigated why this might be? It seems generally pointless - I can understand a little 'misdirection' by an entity, but just outright lying about facts that are easily checked?

Seems like a downright waste of energy to me.
 
catseye said:
Has anyone ever investigated why this might be? It seems generally pointless - I can understand a little 'misdirection' by an entity, but just outright lying about facts that are easily checked?

Seems like a downright waste of energy to me.
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Some people are just gits when they are alive, why should this change when they die?
 
gordonrutter said:
Some people are just gits when they are alive, why should this change when they die?
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Absolutely true. Although I feel the get-out clause of 'oh, they were obviously lying because... dead,' may be a wee bit convenient? Wouldn't Occam's Razor dictate that Janet just didn't know stuff or got stuff wrong?
 
Robbrent said:
With regards to Bill, entities don't tell the truth it seems they are incapable of it, they best you will get is nearly right they revel in ambiguity
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If there's no truth to tell, say because the person claiming to channel the entities is making it up, the mystery is solved. :nods:
 
catseye said:
Has anyone ever investigated why this might be? It seems generally pointless - I can understand a little 'misdirection' by an entity, but just outright lying about facts that are easily checked?

Seems like a downright waste of energy to me.
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I don't know why they do it, but they certainly do (for the best evidence see the late Joe Fisher) all I can say is they don't appear for our enjoyment and to enhance our knowledge they are classic tricksters misdirection and ambiguity are their stock and trade, that's why so many high level adepts take all kinds of precautions when dealing with them
 
Robbrent said:
I don't know why they do it, but they certainly do (for the best evidence see the late Joe Fisher) all I can say is they don't appear for our enjoyment and to enhance our knowledge they are classic tricksters misdirection and ambiguity are their stock and trade, that's why so many high level adepts take all kinds of precautions when dealing with them
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Then what is the point in contacting them in the first place?
 
catseye said:
Then what is the point in contacting them in the first place?
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I think most people contacting them aren't particularly critical thinkers, and will believe whatever any communicating entity tells them. I think there are plenty of seance groups around, I overheard some acquaintances talking about one a while back, and none of them thought deeply about what was going on; they just accept they are in communication with dead relatives, full stop. Attempts at contact are either to offer comfort - that dead people still exist in some capacity, or for the excitement involved in playing with the unknown.
 
Paul_Exeter said:
Thanks for posting. I found this interesting about Bill the brother of Janet:

"Bill the little lad who play with the leggo blocks he would of only been about seven years old then,"

Are these the same lego bricks that would seemingly appear out of nowhere and hit people in the downstairs room/s? So where was young Bill when this was taking place?

I do want to believe but I have huge reservations with how Grosse and Playfair conducted their research and also in general how the two younger boys seem to have been overlooked. Okay, these two boys may not have been the target of the poltergeist activity, but they could certainly have been in on the joke with their siblings.
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Reminds me a bit of the Cottingley Fairies. One admitted it was faked, years later but said it was to convince the adults of the things they had seen and insisted that one photo was genuine, or had something paranormal about it (going from memory here - the child's hand is elongated in a way Kodak couldn't explain, I think?)

At Enfield, there were a couple of more credible witnesses, IIRC, who did see something that may have been anomalous - the journalist who saw the flying Lego might have been one of them and wasn't there a woman walking past the house, who claimed to see Janet apparently levitating? Not sure if she could really have seen what she thought she saw from the angle she was, but would be testable, I guess?
 
Ghost In The Machine said:
Reminds me a bit of the Cottingley Fairies. One admitted it was faked, years later but said it was to convince the adults of the things they had seen and insisted that one photo was genuine, or had something paranormal about it (going from memory here - the child's hand is elongated in a way Kodak couldn't explain, I think?)

At Enfield, there were a couple of more credible witnesses, IIRC, who did see something that may have been anomalous - the journalist who saw the flying Lego might have been one of them and wasn't there a woman walking past the house, who claimed to see Janet apparently levitating? Not sure if she could really have seen what she thought she saw from the angle she was, but would be testable, I guess?
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The two independent witnesses outside the house who claim to have witnessed Janet levitating add credence to the case, however their view must have been limited (there are photos of the bedroom windows) and there were environmental factors such as light and the weather to consider. If it wasn't Bill then my money is on Margaret lying on her back on the bed and positioning her legs under Janet's lower back to push her up and then lower her down (i have seen teenagers do this in non-poltergeist circumstances) or something similar. To be honest, Margaret and Billy could have been out of sight whilst giving her the bumps.

When you take into account the photos of Janet leaping about the room then I don't feel the above is farfetched. There might very well have been actual genuine poltergeist activity in that house, but Grosse and Playfair turning the spotlight on those two girls in the way that they did led to them playing up to their 'audience' as in fact any other children in those circumstances might.
 
An interesting article that mentions skeptic Anita Gregory and her disagreements with Grosse over what she saw as blatant faking:

"She went away very, very sceptic,” Janet nodded. Gregory wrote that Janet and her sister wouldn’t allow anyone in the bedroom with them during their “possessions” when they’d speak in gruff voices of the “spirit”. Eventually, she was allowed in, “provided I faced the door and covered my head with the girls’ dressing gowns,” she wrote, at which point “slippers and pillows were shied at me.”

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/11571607/The-real-story-of-the-Enfield-Haunting.html
 
Paul_Exeter said:
An interesting article that mentions skeptic Anita Gregory and her disagreements with Grosse over what she saw as blatant faking:

"She went away very, very sceptic,” Janet nodded. Gregory wrote that Janet and her sister wouldn’t allow anyone in the bedroom with them during their “possessions” when they’d speak in gruff voices of the “spirit”. Eventually, she was allowed in, “provided I faced the door and covered my head with the girls’ dressing gowns,” she wrote, at which point “slippers and pillows were shied at me.”

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/11571607/The-real-story-of-the-Enfield-Haunting.html
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Sounds like my brother when he was young. 'I can make myself invisible.'

'Prove it.'

'I can only do it when you're not looking...'
 
Paul_Exeter said:
When you take into account the photos of Janet leaping about the room then I don't feel the above is farfetched. There might very well have been actual genuine poltergeist activity in that house, but Grosse and Playfair turning the spotlight on those two girls in the way that they did led to them playing up to their 'audience' as in fact any other children in those circumstances might.
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The researchers admit that the kids played tricks because they are children.

Even the article you posted:

Paul_Exeter said:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/11571607/The-real-story-of-the-Enfield-Haunting.html
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Janet states that the kids felt that they failed if something didn't happen and that they got tired of all of the people coming and going (I can't quote the article as the website is now asking me to subscribe for a month, after I'd read it once) and so they did fake some.

I believe the Bill entity was faked. When reading the about the initial odd events, they did not have anything to do with a spirit. They were physical in nature eg furniture moving.

I think the kids were put into a situation that, as kids, should have been more protected from the press, the psychic researchers etc. It seems that mom was not aware of how children should be protected, and probably did not have the resources to do this. These were the 70's and awareness of how children could be exploited was not known by parents.

Once the media, Playfair and Grosse got involved, what kind of choice did the kids have to say at times they were faking? The pressure was on them to produce. And once they admit to some faking, then all their real experiences are not believed and they become liars for the rest of their lives. Society is not kind.

The other question that has never been answered is what were the agendas of Playfair and Grosse? Doubtful that they had the best interests of the kids at heart. More like exposure of their research and of SPR.
 
brownmane said:
The researchers admit that the kids played tricks because they are children.

Even the article you posted:


Janet states that the kids felt that they failed if something didn't happen and that they got tired of all of the people coming and going (I can't quote the article as the website is now asking me to subscribe for a month, after I'd read it once) and so they did fake some.

I believe the Bill entity was faked. When reading the about the initial odd events, they did not have anything to do with a spirit. They were physical in nature eg furniture moving.

I think the kids were put into a situation that, as kids, should have been more protected from the press, the psychic researchers etc. It seems that mom was not aware of how children should be protected, and probably did not have the resources to do this. These were the 70's and awareness of how children could be exploited was not known by parents.

Once the media, Playfair and Grosse got involved, what kind of choice did the kids have to say at times they were faking? The pressure was on them to produce. And once they admit to some faking, then all their real experiences are not believed and they become liars for the rest of their lives. Society is not kind.

The other question that has never been answered is what were the agendas of Playfair and Grosse? Doubtful that they had the best interests of the kids at heart. More like exposure of their research and of SPR.
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Also Grosse and Playfair were undoubtedly asking them leading questions that by their nature provided 'fuel' for the children's imaginations, e.g. something along the lines of. "Has the poltergeist spoken to you yet?"

I also remember that as a child myself and my siblings were much more aware of what was going on in our house than our parents ever gave us credit for, especially in terms of listening in on conversations downstairs. Would not surprise me if Janet and Margaret had listened in on Grosse and Playfair talking to mum about what a poltergeist was, how it might develop and the theory about polts and girls going through puberty (including menstruation).

Seems to be a good case that was too eagerly and intrusively investigated and thus the children felt under pressure to perform.
 
Listening to that thing linked to above, yesterday - struck me that the photographer who was first on the scene was a good witness. That something really unaccountable happened that first night when everythiing went crazy, and the neighbour then the Mirror photographer turned up. He was frustrated that his camera didn't capture what he experienced but it sounded like at points things were almost raining down on them and he saw clearly it couldn't possibly be the girls throwing them. I think maybe the "pressure to perform" was initially to get people to take them seriously, but later, to get the investigators to leave them alone, maybe?

By the end it was just shenanigans but (in my view) something definitely happened at the start, and various points throughout.

I was the same age as the girls and fully knew what a poltergeist was, by that age but then my dad had bought 'Man, Myth & Magic' a few years earlier which I read avidly. These girls may not have had the benefit of that but on the other hand, one of the interviewees in the R4 thing - I think Maurice Grosse's son who spent a fair bit of time at the house - commented how intensely intelligent Janet was.

Janet and Margaret weren't at the "Reunion" but they played clips of them from previous interviews and Janet, in particular, seemed incredibly sincere and unwavering. I'm erring on the side of, underneath it all, there was some supernatural (or "natural" but currently inexplicable as Playfair said) activity in the house.

Apparently it subsided but took a good couple of years to tail off.

"Bill" only happened when Grosse prompted it to happen. I remember hearing rumours of who used to live in my house before I lived there, as a kid, so probably Janet did. Tight knit community on a street of council houses in the 70s. I've always assumed the girls had already heard of "Bill". The earlier poltergeist activity is one thing, that's another.

I had remembered the lollipop lady seeing the "levitation" - but what was apparent from the R4 thing, is that that was simultaneously witnessed by the lollipop lady and a man at the other side of the street. And it turned out, was the day of Janet's first period.
 
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Ghost In The Machine said:
Listening to that thing linked to above, yesterday - struck me that the photographer who was first on the scene was a good witness. That something really unaccountable happened that first night when everythiing went crazy, and the neighbour then the Mirror photographer turned up. He was frustrated that his camera didn't capture what he experienced but it sounded like at points things were almost raining down on them and he saw clearly it couldn't possibly be the girls throwing them. I think maybe the "pressure to perform" was initially to get people to take them seriously, but later, to get the investigators to leave them alone, maybe?

By the end it was just shenanigans but something definitely happened at the start, and various points throughout.

I was the same age as the girls and fully knew what a poltergeist was, by that age but then my dad had bought 'Man, Myth & Magic' a few years earlier which I read avidly. These girls may not have had the benefit of that but on the other hand, one of the interviewees in the R4 thing - I think Maurice Grosse's son who spent a fair bit of time at the house - commented how intensely intelligent Janet was.

Janet and Margaret weren't at the "Reunion" but they played clips of them from previous interviews and Janet, in particular, seemed incredibly sincere and unwavering. I'm erring on the side of, underneath it all, there was some supernatural (or "natural" but currently inexplicable as Playfair said) activity in the house.

Apparently it subsided but took a good couple of years to tail off.
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Also I have read that Janet was the school gymnastics champion (Telegraph article) which adds to the suspicions around her supposed levitations
 
Paul_Exeter said:
Also I have read that Janet was the school gymnastics champion (Telegraph article) which adds to the suspicions around her supposed levitations
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That's a good piece of the jigsaw, for sure. The lollipop lady said when she got home she tried to replicate what she'd seen, and couldn't, and does make it sound like Janet was laying flat, rising into the air, then sinking, then rising again. What struck me there was the passersby would have not known it was "D Day" in terms of puberty. So it seems they definitely saw something. But what?

ETA: Telegraph though, so I wonder if fact-checked?

ETA2: Just realised if I was still in the 70s and wanted a guaranteed witness to something, I might pick the lollipop lady. You'd know when she'd be walking to and from work and her route, in a small community. That said, as Janet was already at home and the lady presumably not at work - was it a half term or other holiday? In which case, Janet couldn't have known when she was walking back from (or to) work. Will have to get a book about the case!
 
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