Welcome back to At Sixes and Sevens, I am not Tommy and I'm not Rio.
Today we're diving into one of the most infamous hauntings in history,
which some of you might know, called the Enfield Poltergeist.
This is an interesting one.
This is like one of the most famous cases like out there.
The Enfield Poltergeist is in the late 1970s.
This case captivated the world with its strange occurrences and even stranger witnesses.
Now, from what I've kind of read and what I've researched about,
it's your classic tale of all your ghostly shenanigans that happened in movies,
like paranormal activity and all the basic kind of moving furniture or whatever.
They're all inspired by this.
Oh yeah. But it's more like your average family reunion,
but minus the awkward small talk with the family and just with a bit more,
you know, levitation and demonic chants.
That sounds rather pleasant, I'd say.
I wouldn't say it's pleasant. Not for them.
It's on my nerves. Yeah, so you just stop going, rawr, you know what?
Like, no. But the story itself revolves around a family called the Hodgson family,
who lived in kind of just a modest home in Enfield, North London, which is, well,
to be fair, it's actually not that far from me, which scary to think about, but we'll digress.
Now that is terrifying. Like, I love creepy places and all that, but to know that something
like that can happen so close to, even though you didn't grow up back then,
it still happened so close to where you grew up.
Well, yeah, I mean, at that point I could just pick up, pick up, I could just drive my killer
right to a haunt site. What was the name for it? Is it Haunt Site? The site of the haunts?
I think it's just... Haunted House?
Yeah. I'd say that's the correct terminology.
Haunted House sounds a bit better, yeah.
Yeah. Possessed.
Possessed, yeah.
Let's just go with that.
Yeah, I like that. So let's get started with the mother of God.
Let's get right into the news.
Peggy Hudgens. She was raising her four children.
Can anybody guess the names of the children? I bet you can. If you go back to 1970s and think of
four very common names like Margaret, Janet, Johnny and Billy, hey, by the way, that's the names of
the kids. Really? That was so generic. Very, very generic. I know, right?
Oh, God. Imagine being the mother.
I know. Gosh. Honestly, I wouldn't say they're bad names. There's worse names.
No, they're not bad names, but they're so generic and, you know,
could have at least spiced it up with, I don't know, something like Janiel.
Janiel? Like...
Janiel. Like January and Daniel. Like Janiel.
I thought it was Jack Daniels just mixed into one word.
Oh, of course the alcohol. I could see that.
That's, that's just me, you know?
She was raising her four kids when things took quite a paranormal turn.
Hmm. I mean, to be fair, it's just imagining juggling four kids and then having to deal
with furniture leaving their own. What?
I just imagined her juggling like four kids in the air.
Oh my God. No. Just like, all right, it's your turn, Johnny.
She's like, Margaret, Janet, Johnny, Billy, Margaret, Janet, Johnny, Billy.
They've made a song and it's like a daily routine. Come on kids, it's time to juggle.
She's like, ah, shit, Janet's levitating. She's not coming back down.
She started flying somehow and I'm not sure why.
Oh, but you know.
Oh gosh. Sorry, my apologies. Go on. It's just my imagination.
I was just saying, like, talk about multitasking where, you know, you've got,
you're juggling four kids and you've got moving furniture flying all over the place. Yeah.
What you're trying to say for people that can't take it seriously is she's trying to erase four
children and have to deal with furniture, get and move left, right and center by itself.
Yeah. Trying to raise four children. Yeah.
Dealing with, I don't know, Harry Potter kind of stuff where just
just, I'm glad it's just flying all over the place.
It's like when you try and, when you try and pronounce, for example, a Polish name,
when you try and pronounce a Polish first and surname, you know, the table starts
floating because my God, I have to pronounce.
Hedowski. Oh my God.
God damn it. Not again. There goes grandma.
The furniture's moving again.
It's like that scene from Harry Potter where the auntie gets really fat and she floats away.
Oh my God. That doesn't remind me. I don't want to be traumatized again.
Oh my goodness. But as I said earlier, it all began in the late 1970s. To be specific, it was
August 1977. And it all started with something simple as strange knocking sounds
on doors and walls. Just, you know, they would echo through the house. Just
standard knocking. That's it. You know, basically the British version of a ghost saying,
excuse me. It could have just been like the postman.
Chat chat. But can you open the door, please?
I'm trying to give you me a poster. Literally.
I'm just kind of like picturing in my head, like a typical evening where the kids are settled down
and you know, suddenly out of the blue, a chorus of mysterious knocks just begins echoing all
throughout the house. It's like you've got jungle drums, but instead it's on the walls.
It's too banjy, but part two.
You're like, oh no, here come the rhinos.
Oh my God. Oh no.
Oh. Peggy thought it might just be the kids playing tricks, you know,
like typical kids who play jungle drums. Oh yeah, yeah. The little mischievous kids.
Exactly. You know, it's what you expect having four kids, you know?
I mean, if like the knocking got worse and if it intensified, I think at that point, it's just,
I feel like Peggy herself would suspect that her kids are just being a bit of cheeky.
Yeah. And like who would blame her? Like at the end of the day, it's not every day that your home
turns into like a ghostly carnival. It sounds like something that would be put into beetle juice.
Oh yeah, really it would. My name is a rhumba,
Pete. And it's just like the kids just playing the drums or something.
Start samba and just go,
ah. That's so culturally appropriate. I'm sorry.
So things escalated from one to a hundred like quickly. When one night a chest of drawers moved
across the room all on its own. None of the kids were there. The mum wasn't moving anything.
I don't know how, but the drawers themselves just moved from one side of the room to the other.
Right. I'm sorry, but a chest of drawers, especially like in the seventies. So that's
like old heavy wooden furniture. Oh, they're like massively heavy, like iron bolted kind of things.
Yeah. And like, I'm- With all the clothes in them as well.
Exactly. I'm pretty sure it was full as well. So I'm sorry, but not one, two, three or four of
the kids could move it all together. And I'm guessing the mother would struggle to move it.
And for it to move across the room, that's terrifying.
I mean, that ghost must have some supernatural strength.
Well damn, that ghost is built. I kind of want to, I kind of want to see this ghost, you know.
I just imagine like a Henry Cavill-esque ghost. I can see that.
Oh my God. Right. Let's stop exciting all the single moms and let's move on.
For all your single moms out there, keep watching.
It gets better.
We just described your dream man as a ghost. Don't worry women, he's single, but he's dead.
But no, that's like, see when that happened, that's, that's when Peggy knew she was screwed.
She was in for more than just, you know, she was in for a good night, but with Henry Cavill.
I know, right. But no, she knew she'd expect more. Like she knew it was just more than, you know,
the usual sibling kind of squabbles, you know? Yeah. No, of course you wouldn't kind of imagine
the moving chest of drawers from one side of the room to the other. Like imagine how much shock
she would be in. Like you're putting the kids to bed. Everything's nice. The furniture just
starts rearranging itself. Like it's auditioning for something like, woo! Opening the cupboards,
you know, clothes are flying out all over the place. The kids are trying to suffocate under
the covers. It's like that scene from Beauty and the Beast when the chest of drawers like starts
dressing Bella and you know, they're all getting her prepared and they start dancing about it and
all that. I bet you that's, that's what happened. But the horror and supernatural version of it.
Exactly. You know, rather than Beauty and the Beast and you know, happy ever after it's,
you're doomed. That's that. Go to sleep. But when a chair reportedly flew across the room,
Peggy's heart must have skipped a beat at that point. I would have been absolutely terrified.
So it moved from a chest of drawers and other small or bigger bits of furniture moving about
to actual furniture getting chucked across the room. You know how we were saying this,
um, this ghost was buff. Yeah. Right. Just humor me for a second. What if this ghost was a WWE
wrestler? Just wanted a smacker on the head with a chair. The Rock? It could be The Rock. It could
be John Cena. It could be Rey Mysterio. Who knows? The Undertaker would be kind of cool.
To be fair, it could be The Rock or Dwayne Johnson. He wanted it too. I mean, he's alive, so.
But I think, I think that was just the way of the ghost was saying, just kind of shut up, kids,
clean up, clean yourselves up or go to bed. I can't be bothered with you. So I'm just going to hold
your roof. The ghost felt bad for the mother raising the kids on her own. The ghost is like,
you know what? I want to chuck this chair at them to get them to go to bed and I'm going to help the
mother out here, you know, raise them with some, some consequences. Yeah. Right. As we go back to
the single mothers, oh my God, that's all coming back. Henry Cavill hit me up. I'm not a single
mother, but I could be, I could be for you. Um, but the reports of these events just began to
spread, you know, it started drawing attention with the neighbors and you know, you'd walk it
onto the streets and your neighbor would be like, so Betty, did you get a table put back into place?
Cause I heard you were moving furniture last night again. He's like, absolutely not. No. And it was
Henry, you know, I didn't know you had a man again. So yeah, it's the poltergeist just living about,
you know, it's fine. But also moved onto the media. If you're thinking about it as well,
how would the neighbors react to seeing furniture flying across a window?
Either one kid is super strong or there's like so much more going on there that probably needs
to be investigated. Yeah. See if I saw furniture fly across the room, um, at a neighbor's house,
I think to myself, I'd be like, all right. Yeah. That's, that's a domestic.
Just imagine if they had Twitter or like TikTok or anything back then just recording it and just
being like, yeah, this is just casual occurrence for my neighbors. Hashtag Enfield,
poltergeist just had a wardrobe levitate. What's your ghost story?
A day in the life of a poltergeist. Hashtag, hashtag what it's like to have a poltergeist
roommate. Oh, that'd be sick though. You'd be alone, but at the same point you wouldn't
because you'd have someone always there. Either way, the local media around kind of Enfield began
to swarm to this house just eager just to see what actually was happening. Of course, nothing's
changed. Oh yeah. No, if you would be interested, if you heard some, you know, some furniture was
flying around, you'd instantly go there and check it out. Wouldn't you? You wouldn't say, oh no,
I'm just going to leave it. You want to go and see what happens and how kind of supernatural it
actually is. You've got a good point. It's quite funny that, you know, everybody, as you said,
swarmed around and were interested in what was going on and sticking their noses through the
windows. It's like, Peggy should have charged them like admission fees. She's like, five pounds to
see the poltergeist chuck a chair. 10 pounds to see the poltergeist chuck a table. 20 quid to see
the poltergeist chuck Janet. To juggle the kids. Yeah. Go back to that one. Or if you get hit,
you get a refund at least. Or to get hit is even more. Yeah, you charge extra. To get hit by a
table, it's 50 pounds. Sounds like the greatest showman to me. Just one big scam.
Well, I wouldn't say it's a scam because it actually did happen. That's very true.
Good point. I think we should get into the investigators because I think this is where
it gets interesting because it's, I think they're like world renowned investigators, I believe.
I think they're like very famous ones. Before we do that, I'm just going to mention the ages
of everyone here. So, you know, Peggy, I don't know her age. I couldn't really find it,
but Margaret was 15, the oldest out of the four. Janet was 11. Johnny was 10 and Billy was seven.
And this all happened. So, very dangerous. Yeah. Between 1977 and 1979. I'm trying to think how
old they'd be to this day, but imagine if they still were. Yeah. Math doesn't math, does it?
Yeah, no, I'm not a great mathematician. Going back to the investigators though.
Mm-hmm. The most famous among them were, I'm going to butcher these names, were Maurice Gross
or Gross and Guy Lyon Playfair, which sounds like the most carnival based name.
It's very true. He literally has Lyon in his name and Playfair.
Yeah. I know that's the French name. They came there to see the juggled children
in the chucking of chairs. That's literally down their alley. She was like,
yeah, welcome to the kind of the weird circus. My name's Guy Lyon Playfair.
But he was from the Society of Physical Research, which I've never heard of that before actually.
The SPR, I guess. I've never heard of that either, honestly. I'm guessing it fell apart.
They went to the circus or something. SPR, SPR, SPR, SPR, some change.
Cause we're not an actual thing. But it's, it's the Society of Physical Research, but they arrived
with ghost hunting gear. Like they were ready to capture evidence of the supernatural. You know,
they came with all these EV detectors and all of that cool stuff that I really want to get myself
because... Oh yeah, like the stuff you got Phasmophobia and all that. Like, yeah, yeah.
The cameras, the tape recorders, you know, the 17th version of a ghost hunting toolkit.
Yeah, literally. That's it. That's the dream, honestly.
That's the thing. Like I watched Sam and Colby religiously. Like I was literally watching them
not long before starting this recording and oh my God, like see the stuff they do. It's incredible.
I was watching it with goosebumps the entire time and it's something that I want to do one day as
well. And I was going to say, what episode are we going to go to a haunted place and be like,
with all the gear and be like, yep, this is what we're doing today. I'd hate it. I'd love it. But
oh, you'd love it. But I'd be screaming and be like, I want to get out of here as soon as possible.
I've got a few side stories that we can talk about in a, you know, side stories episode.
And just about haunted places. It'll all be available for free. Eventually. So don't worry.
But the investigators were greeted by the Hutchins. Hodshins? I cannot pronounce this. Anyway,
I'm just going to say the children. By the kids. Yeah. By the hogs. Yeah. By the hogs. I like that.
But they were greeted by the kids who were less thrilled to have them in their home.
Cause it turned into like a paranormal kind of petting zoo, like a circus. Once again,
where people are just walking. They still had to live there, didn't they? Exactly. It wasn't just
they had somewhere else to live. They had to live in that place. While the whole poltergeist and
haunting was going on. Yeah. It's not really fair. Imagine growing up in a house that's just got
strangers going in and out. Well, no, just imagine a kid and suddenly having to perform for a bunch
of adults with cameras. Like, well, it's basically what we do nowadays, but back then it was this
whole new thing. Where if someone came into your house with a camera, it's like, what is this thing?
Mm hmm. Why is this man holding a crucifix and a candle levitating in my living room?
What is going on? It sounds like a, it sounds like a chant, like a sacrificial lamb or something. I
don't know. Strange. Oh, that's called throat singing. Oh, I can do that actually.
So can I, but not today. That will be on the page.
Yeah. Just us throat singing for like four hours straight.
Um, but you know, what really kept the story alive kind of was multiple eyewitness, eyewitnesses,
who actually saw things that they couldn't explain. So, you know, people would come around and try and
see things and just have a nosey, but they would physically see things and, you know, they'd become
eyewitnesses after just having a nosey. Yeah, but they couldn't say anything. Like they couldn't
explain what happened because it was so like starstruck. I think it's interesting because
they saw everything happened, but it's almost like a ghost has taken them over and like, they
don't want to explain it. Like maybe the ghost possessed them in that sense. Maybe I don't know.
Like I think even local police officers who were there were called to the Hodgson house,
just claimed to see that the chairs have been moving on their own.
So even the police claimed to see things. That's incredible. Interesting. How would you even deal
with that though? I know, right? Dispatch. I've got a moving chair. What? I've got three moving
chairs. Whoa. Okay. Yeah. I know. Right. Are they inviting us to dinner? What? Well, you're so kind.
So when you walk up to the table, right? And you'd see this in movies. When a guy and a
female were to sit at a table at a restaurant, the man would walk over around the other side,
pull the chair out, let the female sit and pull the chair back in. Exactly. So what if the ghosts
were just, sorry, the poltergeists were just trying to do that, but they didn't know their own
strengths. And I don't know if anybody's ever seen Jelena Phantoms, but basically ghosts need to learn
how to control, you know, their strength and then what they can do. So, you know, they try and pick
things up. They can't, and then they really need to focus to do something. So what if these poltergeists
were just learning? The rookies. Or, well, yeah, no, adding on to that, they don't know their own
strengths. So they were trying to like just slightly tug a chair out and instead they throw it through
the window. That's what I imagine anyway. I'd love to see that. Yeah. It would be fun to see,
but I'd be scared out my headlockers. I'd run out crying. I'd be vomiting out my shits and everything.
I'd be the person who gets hit with the chair. And I'd be the one throwing it.
We don't even need poltergeists at this point.
But going back to what you said about the police actually seeing things. So one of the police,
the police officers actually ended up signing an affidavit saying that she saw a chair slide across
the room. Basically what that means is she swore, like she swore she saw it and... On oath kind of
thing. Like no lie, cap. And because she done that and she's an officer of the law, that kind of gave
the case a bit more weight, like, you know, pun intended. Oh dear, you and your puns, they're
terrible. Sorry, I'm a 47 year old. Oh yeah. So I clearly know that. But a lot of strength apparently.
But yeah, so the neighbors and the visitors and all the kind of police and everything reported
seeing all these strange things too. So it wasn't just the police, it wasn't just the family, it was
neighbors, it was visitors, it was the paranormal investigators, whatever they were. So it wasn't
just like one person making these claims, it was a whole bunch of people in like a circle almost.
So then you had more trusted sources, of course.
Yeah, exactly. So if one of them said it, I said, I'll prove your point. And then it actually does
it. Like, oh wait, what? This again, you know, it contributed to the media for frenzy. It drew in
more curious onlookers and more paranormal enthusiasts as well, just, which made more
and more people come out there, but also made more and more people see it for themselves,
which made more and more eyewitnesses. You know, so it was this big, big circle.
And which also made the kids a bit more annoyed because they have, what, so many people coming
to see that house now. And it's a rotation, like it's a revolving door of people be like,
yeah, I want to see this poltergeist house. The children would be really pissed off.
Especially that the poltergeist was, was a friend, you know?
Oh. It was, you know, if, if you're lonely
and you don't really have a father figure going up.
Wait to point it out. I know I am. Jesus.
Listen, you don't really have a father figure going up. You know, you make friends with
Shadow.
Oh yeah. It's a single mum, isn't it? Yeah.
So what the kids done, they decided to name the poltergeist Fred.
Oh God. So generic again.
And you know what that done?
What?
It made him more active. You know, more objects were thrown and now the interesting thing starts.
The strange voices echoed through the halls.
So naming a ghost makes him speak apparently.
Yeah. Because what if that wasn't his name? Actually, that wasn't his name.
Do we know what the name was?
Bill.
Bill. Yeah.
Was it by any chance a-
It wasn't the kid called Billy. It was Bill.
No, no, no, no. But was it a triangular kind of ghost, a triangular pyramid or was it an
actual person?
It was an actual- it's a poltergeist. It's not a triangular thing.
Yeah, but it could have been a triangle, you know, crack the cipher and all that. But like,
going back to it, can you imagine living in a house where your ghost has a name?
The amount of things you could say is like, Fred, can you stop throwing my shoes again?
I'm trying to go to school, man. You're just ruining my day. I'm trying to get to work.
You're throwing my shoes about and I can't do anything.
Go on in or do that. Go on in and stop.
Can you stop that? I'm just trying to get my food and you're just, you know, flinging the fork all
over the place.
That is brilliant. You know, the kid's saying, Fred, um, can you pass me a fork, please?
Can you pass me the salt, please? Just start moving across the table.
Right.
What a great father figure this ghost is.
The children also, um, often claim to see strange apparitions,
adding an extra layer of creepiness to an already tense situation.
So like a sleep paralysis demon?
Yeah, kind of.
Oh, Bill. They've just named this.
Fred.
Yeah, Bill, Fred or whatever it was.
Oh yeah, they named it Fred didn't they?
Oh, it wasn't just objects. Um, as well, I know you said about like just objects, but the,
um, the Hudson children, but especially Janet, I think Janet wasn't the other one, was she?
Uh, Janet is the, um, the 11 year old.
Okay. So she was, she was a mid-born, um, but she claimed to see shadowy figures lurking in the
house, like in the dark of night, she saw shadowy figures move about the house.
Oh, that's nasty because right now where, where I'm sitting is like, it's rather quite dark in my
room and it's just, you know, one little light.
You can just imagine it.
Yeah, literally. I just seen it in the corner of my eye. I'm like, ah, nah, I'm not going to
think about that tonight.
And then words of St. Nickelback, I'm a Burnish housewife.
St. Nickelback.
I'm a Burnish housewife. That's what I'm gonna do. If I see anything like that, this bitch is going
down down down down down.
Cause we all just don't want to be poltergeist living.
Oh my God.
That is incredible.
Oh God. But no, like shadowy figures. It's like having an uninvited guest. It just won't leave.
It's like a squatter.
But one that you can't touch.
A ghostly squatter. Yeah. You physically can't move him out. He's just staying there for life now.
But I think one of the most unsettling aspects was like this strange deep voice that Janet
seemed to channel during the haunting.
What do you mean? She went from, hi, my name's Janet to, yo, what's up bitch?
Basically, yeah. Got a high pitched voice, but it's almost like the demon or the holtergeist
or whatever you want to call it spoke through her as a megaphone.
Oh nice. It's like Lilo and Stitch. Like when Stitch puts his nail on that thing and is a megaphone.
Yeah. But imagine a 12 year old girl.
Context.
She's getting kicked right across the room.
Be gone, bitch. Go away.
Be gone.
I'm a child of God. But apparently at times it sounded like an old man speaking through her.
You know, which, which obviously baffled even though even the most experienced
investigators, you know, they probably had never heard anything like it.
Yeah. I think that was at the point where the voice itself identified it. The
paranormal encounter is Bill. So that's where I think the name came from.
I think he was like a previous occupant of the house. That's what I've looked at anyway.
Interesting. Because that kind of proves that, you know, Janet didn't make this up because she
named the poltergeist Fred and all of a sudden it said its name is Bill. So, you know, if she wanted
to kind of keep going with the story and keep making up, she would be like, my name's Fred.
But it said a different name, which kind of proves that it's real.
Or she got everything completely wrong that he wanted to correct her in the only way he knew
how. And that was like through, well, just possessing her. Imagine. God damn you're so stupid.
You had one job. Get my name right.
He would say things like, just before I died, I went blind. Then I had a hemorrhoid, hemorrhage.
I was said a hemorrhoid. I had a hemorrhage and I fell asleep and died in the chair in the corner
downstairs. Creepy, right? Maybe not my voice, man. Can't really do it.
No, no, no. But a better voice than that. But very kind of deep and raspy. Yeah.
Imagine that coming from your little sister. So you were one of the siblings at that point.
All you can hear is just like that. I'm sorry. I wouldn't even let her finish
this sentence. I'd just sucker punch her right in the face.
Like, Hey, yo, what? Who are you? Just smack her with a pillow and just try to like shut her up.
And then she gets up. She's like, Oh, sorry. I burped. Or like I had an air bubble in my
throat and made me sound weird. I'm like, you still getting punched, bitch. Don't do that again.
Sorry. I'm going through puberty. My bad.
That was terrifying. It really is.
But no, she apparently spoke in this voice, like this horrible, raspy, gravelly voice for hours.
That must be your voice. I know, right? If I scream in the car for an hour, I come back and I'm like,
Hello? Help! Somebody, I can't talk. But you know, a child especially,
his voice isn't filled. Oh God. I don't even want to think about it. No damage it could do to vocal
cords. Exactly. She would do it without showing signs of strain. Oh yeah. It's bizarre.
I'm not even, I don't think anyone could do that. The only person who could do something like that
is, you know, professional screamers or professional. Yeah. Exactly. Like Oliver
Sykes, Chester Bennington, Toby Duncan, you know, people like that, but not a 12 year old,
11 year old girl who's just going, ah, for hours on end. And if she can do that, she needs to be
the new lead singer of Linkin Park. Oh, fully. I wholeheartedly agree with that. She'd do so well.
You know, just giving up and then screaming for like an hour straight instead.
Like, and today we have Janet AKA Bill. Janet AKA Bill Hodgson.
Exactly. Moving on though, the haunting itself. So moving back to the haunting,
it reached its peak during a seance that was held in the home. The atmosphere itself was like thick
with tension in like scenes you'd see in a horror movie, I think. Where everybody's like sitting
around the table and they're just kind of, they know something's going on. They know something's
going to happen. It's that eerie. That tension, that kind of built up like what is going to happen.
Is it going to be a jump scare? Is it going to be, what's his name? Henry Cavill.
Going back to good old Henry. Oh yeah, we need to.
But no, apparently during this event, Janet reportedly went into a trance like state.
And it's like the ghost was auditioning for our role in Ghostbusters.
Bill Murray burst down and goes, it's time for you to get in the trap. Just throw so many things
and start grabbing her with the proton pack. Yep. Sure. That's how we do it. That's how we dealt
with ghosts back in 1970s. What she does, she was standing in the corner with a Hoover on her back.
She was Henry the Hoover. The British Ghostbusters, Henry the Hoover.
Ghostbusters. Investigators though, they claim to capture chilling EVPs during this time.
Yeah. So I think that EVP is the machine that like reads signals and it lights up green or red.
Not EMP. Oh yeah. Not what you were trying to say.
Oh no. The EVP is the voice one.
Oh, okay. Oh my gosh. What does it say? Electronic voice phenomenon thing.
Oh, okay. So it picks up like frequencies like he said. Yeah. And it like kind of translates
it into words. Sam and Coby explained it better. I'm bad at explaining it. But yeah, it actually
captures real words from the other side. What the, you know, the poltergeist and what he was
trying to say. Yeah. The spiritual side. Yeah. The EVPs are known for capturing frequencies and
it's a way of spirits communicating with us through electronics.
Oh, that's got to be... That gives me goosebumps just thinking about it.
I know, right? Like especially that it's like, you know, the house is speaking itself.
You know, it's, you don't know a hundred percent that it's a specific spirit. It could be the
history of the house because a lot of houses hold within them. So it could be, you know,
the house was speaking to them through the EVP, you know, sharing its deep dark secrets.
Or alternatively, it could be the house going, please fix my leaky pipe.
Tommy, we did not need to know about your leaky pipe, okay?
Oh no. That was the only thing I could think of. I was trying to think of like, you know, fix my
plastering or like paint the walls or fix my wallpaper. But I went for leaky pipe instead.
Gorgeous.
Yeah. But the real kicker was when Janet began speaking as Bill. Like obviously
going back to that where Bill would speak through her, that was when
all of the events would happen and all of kind of everyone felt like this was the peak of the
haunting. Jesus. So while they were all like having a, you know, family gathering around the
table with the investigators, with the EVPs and everything. And you know, this probably
the investigators were being skeptics at this point. They're like, okay, let's see how much
of this is real. And the first thing that happens, the EVPs, they hear creepy stuff through that.
And then the next thing that happens is Janet just, you know, being, oh, by the way, I'm
possessed by a ghost who died in his very chair. He's right here, but I can't really show him. I'm
just, you just have to take my word that I'm possessed by him. Exactly. That's a brilliant
gathering. But you bring on to a great point with the skeptics and the criticism, like there were
a lot of people who actually didn't think, and obviously if I heard it, I'd be like, yeah, sure.
I doubt it because you wouldn't really see it until, you know, you wouldn't believe it until
you see it. Yeah. No, of course. Like, well, some believed the stories of the family and others.
Others accused them of faking an entire ordeal. Like, you know, the classic, the dog ate my homework
kind of excuse. And he said it was a poltergeist has possessed me. It's like, imagine trying to
get out of your homework that way. Actually, imagine you just, you know, remodel the house,
you move cabinets all over the place. And then all of a sudden you find going to the kid's room and
everything's all over the place. It's an absolute riot. You're going to think it's the kids and the
kids later. Was it me? I swear it was a ghost. Yeah. Right. It's like getting the belt out.
I physically didn't move it because I don't have the strength to, mother, think about it logically.
No. Literally. Yep. But they pointed out to the children's behaviour,
because obviously you wouldn't really blame the mother in that situation. Yeah. You blame to the
kind of the kids. You know, cause you think that they were just like attention seeking, but at the
end of the day, who would have wanted to be the star of their own ghost show? I swear MTV did a
whole section on it. And you know, there's many YouTubers like Sam and Colby, TGF did it. Oh,
I was thinking of MTV, MTV cribs. MTV cribs. Here's the poltergeist. MTV haunted house. Yeah.
Yeah. Absolutely. I agree. It's fair enough. They might, might be attention seeking, but
come on, let's be realistic. They can't fake all this stuff. They're at the end of the day, they're
15, 11, 10 and seven. I think there's not much you can do at that age. One of them has a void
imagination, but the rest don't. Yeah. Well it's like 11 years old, cause that's how old Janet is.
And Janet's the one that's getting targeted by Bill. 11 years old, you don't have an idea, but
you know, being possessed or all this ghostly stuff or anything like that, you'd
thinking about it, you'd have nightmares, nevermind reenacting it.
Oh, I mean it wouldn't happen very rarely, but.
Yeah. And because of all the skeptics, you know, the investigators and all the people that came out
to kind of see what was going on with their 1970s ghost toolkit, as you called it.
They got a lot of hate and scrutiny. Like many would call them asking questions about their
methods and their motivations as well. They'd question their job.
I understand that because I don't think everyone would be convinced at the same point.
Oh yeah, absolutely.
People who doubt it point out that Janet had been caught on occasion bending spoons or faking other
stuff. So there's no solid proof. There's no video. There wasn't anything like that.
Who doesn't bend spoons every so often though?
I'm a spoon bender.
That's your new title, the spoon bender. You've got Avatar, the air bender, water bender, fire
bender, Janet, Janet the spoon bender.
Janet, Janet the spoon bender.
The four nations attacked. Yeah.
Oh my goodness. That's, I love that. She should be in the, the animations, you know,
just bending spoons.
The last spoon bender.
Just throwing them at people.
But you know, it didn't help her case that, you know, fair enough, she was a spoon bender.
But she also admitted to faking some of the events.
Oh come on.
I know, though she claimed the majority of the hauntings were real. At that point, you know,
I don't blame the people. It's like, oh, okay. So you fake that. So what else have you faked?
Kind of thing. I mean, I think they also pointed out that the voice, you know, like obviously the
deep manly raspy voice could have been also like a simple vocal trick, which, you know, the kid
figured out somehow. Cause I'm not going to lie. They can be very good at mimicking things. And
yeah, I think that's one of the things that she could have faked. But if you're doing it for hours
on end, I don't think you could. Yeah. She's not vocally trained. She, no, her mother wasn't a
singer. She wasn't either. Yeah. And it's the 1970s, you know, they probably didn't have the
vocal coaches they have nowadays, you know, to have a vocal coach, you'd actually have to be
in Hollywood or central London, have a ton of money to be able to afford it. You know,
but yeah, it's not good.
Was there another kind of a, oh, what was the other one? I couldn't remember what it was. They
had another incident which skeptics just went completely mad about because they thought it was
fake. Oh yeah. The photographs of Janet so-called floating, the levitation. That was it. Yeah.
Yeah. The infamous levitation incident. It was questioned because there was...
Exactly. There was a photograph of Janet so-called floating, but they believed that
it was just her, you know, jumping on her bed, jumping off her bed kind of thing. But then
you're not going to be floating straight up. I've not seen the photo. I couldn't find them anywhere.
If it was a clear photo of her floating, the number of the camera, because obviously you've
got the motion, haven't you? So if you're jumping, then you'd see motion movement, but if it's like
a still photo... Which I imagine it was quite a still photo. Oh, I'd like to imagine that.
It would have straight away been dismissed if it was blurry, just being like, yeah,
it's clearly her jumping. It's only like recent technology can get a good still photo of something
moving fast. Like somebody jumping can make it look like they're floating, but not in 1970s.
So I think in this case, like a lot of people believed it, but at the same time, there was a
lot of people who doubted it. And I mean, I'm not saying that I believe everything that was said,
but there's a couple of things which I'd still doubt as well. Yeah, it's only natural to have
questions in your head because we're used to the typical daily occurrences and whenever we're faced
with something that's as bizarre and as weird as this, we will ask as many questions as we can. And
as we can, and good enough, we are firm believers of all the paranormal and everything. We're still
going to ask so many questions, you know? Oh yeah. Instead of asking just the what, we ask the what,
the why, the who, the hell, the where. We go deep into it. But speaking of, what was it?
All of this concluded within the children, didn't it? So the mother was purely untouched.
She just saw all the things that happened. And the case itself had a lasting impact on the kids in
the family. Obviously, as it would, you'd be traumatised. So they gained fame from it because
it was the house of horrors. But it also came with all of its challenges and the long-term effects.
As honestly any kind of case like that would, even nowadays, if I was to post on Facebook
being like, oh my God, my chair just started hashtag floating, people would ask questions
and be like, Billy, can I come round and see? And all that. I'm just going to the ghost house, mom.
Yeah, literally nothing has changed nowadays. It's going to terrify them. If it was real,
it's going to absolutely terrify them. And everywhere they're going to stay, they're going
to be absolutely petrified. Not only did that haunt their house at the time, but also haunted
their future. I think it was Janet that was later described how the events affected her.
So she spoke up about it and kind of like stated to the news that it was both frightening, but also
at the same time fascinating to understand. She was scared, but also she found it interesting and
she kind of wanted to delve deep into it more, which is... It's only natural. Yeah, it is.
It's the wonder of the world, isn't it? It's a weird thing in humans and all of us,
we're all fascinated by weird things. So for her, it was kind of like binge watching a scary or
weird series, but in real life kind of thing without the Netflix and chill.
Oh God. Well, it would be Netflix and chill, but it'd be chills down your spine.
Oh, exactly. Yeah, that was a good one.
It'd be real life and chills. Real life and chills. That just suffer.
But think about carrying that weight around as you grow up. Just even consider that.
It's not just a childhood story that you can just write off. It will be a part of them for life
and until the grave, maybe even after the grave, they'll haunt someone else. You never know.
Yeah. It's kind of like Macaulay Culkin is always known as Kevin from Home Alone.
She'll just always be known as the kid from the poltergeist that was possessed by a...
She'll always be called Bill.
Old, yeah, Bill. You can't do anything in your life apart from starting... Actually, no,
you can't do anything in your life to forget about it.
No, but I mean, the only thing you can do is go to the media and kind of
tell your story and see if you can inspire other people or at least show it out, couldn't you?
Yeah, but a lot of them did kind of just distance themselves from the haunting as they got older.
So they wouldn't really talk about it in the media. They wouldn't really talk about it at all.
I think Janet was the only one, I think.
Yeah, I believe so. But even as she grew up, you've not really heard much from her since.
We don't even know what's going on now kind of thing.
Well, we can have a look into it, but I don't think it'll be much because, you know...
It's just standard lives they're living.
Not under the rug. Yeah, exactly. Nothing's happened to her. I think after the house,
well, they moved out of the house, I think that's where it stopped.
When they grew up and went, yeah, this one.
Exactly. You do want to just move on with your life and, you know, kind of close that chapter off and
try and leave it in the background, but you can only do what you can do.
As I said earlier, the Enfield Poltergeist case did inspire so much. It is one of the most
known cases without people knowing they know about it just because it's inspired so many documentaries,
books and movies. Like The Conjuring 2 was inspired by the Enfield Poltergeist.
We'll have to watch that again then.
Oh, I love The Conjuring series.
After reading through this and kind of looking at it, I might need to watch it again and go,
Ooh. Absolutely. But that kind of brought the haunting into the mainstream and kind of made
people aware of this stuff. And even though it's a movie and people think it's fake, but it is
inspired by true stories and events. Absolutely. I don't know. Have you ever seen The Conjuring
series by Sam and Kobe? I've seen a couple of the movies. Yeah. But obviously because I'm not a
horror fan. I mean, Sam and Kobe went to the actual Conjuring series. Oh, you're going to have
to watch that. So as everybody can tell, I'm a huge fan of them. So I'm going to talk about them
quite a lot. Especially when it comes to paranormal episodes that we do. I will be referring back and
forth to them. It's really a testament to how all of our fascination with the supernatural can turn
ordinary people into cultural icons and these celebrities. Yeah. I think, well, even though
they were on Vine, they went, I think it was Vine? I don't know. Yeah. It just started off with Vine.
Do you remember the Vine audio that's like,
like, that is Sam and Kobe. Really? Yeah. It was brought onto TikTok and it's still one of the
biggest sounds out there. But if you watch a Sam and Kobe video and then listen to that sound,
you can tell it's their voices. Interesting. I might need to actually just do some research
with Sam and Kobe then because that's, I've never heard of that before. But the story has
transcended its original context becoming part of today's pop culture in ways that
the Hutchins family never imagined. For them, it was just a phenomenon in the moment and
had enough people and media and investigators gathered around at that time. They didn't think
it's going to cause such a cultural impact on decades later. Of future generations. Yeah.
It's one of those cases that just lingers in public consciousness. Like it doesn't stop. It
just sparks even more debate, starts even more discussions decades later than actually it occurred.
Like look at us now. It is 2024 and we're doing a full episode on this. Yeah. Do we even know
what's happened in kind of recent times with it? I have no clue. I'm just focusing on the past
events. Maybe we will do a follow up episode on some of the cases that we covered just to see
what's happening now with the places. Yeah. Oh, that'd be great. Just kind of like go back on our
cases and be like, Oh, this is what happened quite recently. That'd be kind of an interesting thing
to do. Go back to a moment. Go back over all the case and kind of go through some of the recap
basically and then go to recent events. Yeah. Yeah. Like obviously there has been things in recent
years, like there's been renewed interest in the case like us and other investigators,
documentaries aiming to shed light on what really happened with the Enfield Poltergeist.
I think they're still trying to piece together like puzzle pieces and
of the Hodgson family themselves. And they're all like their ghostly roommate, you know?
Yeah. Exactly. But the truth is, is elusive much like the ghost itself.
Like what you did there. Yeah. I think it seems like every few years though,
someone comes out with a new theory or like a fresh take on the events.
So I think that's why we should go back to it. Oh, absolutely. To see what other people are
actually saying and kind of get other people's opinions on it. Yeah. Because even though it's
such an old case, people daily kind of blow the dust off it and reopen the file like us, you know?
Oh yeah. We love doing that. It just goes to show that some mysteries refuse to stay buried, you know?
I don't know. But anyway. I think that's all we have though.
Yeah. That's it. It's everything we could give you. But why don't we keep the conversation going?
We want yous to find out more information. We want yous to tell us what yous found out. Tell us,
you know, stuff we may have missed. We want to keep it going. We don't want it to end
as soon as we stop recording. We want it to keep going. Whether that's on TikTok, whether that's on,
you know, in the comment section on Spotify. Yeah. So whether you believe in the paranormal or not,
the Enfield Fort Geist remains a captivating story that blurs the light between reality and
supernatural. But also thank you guys for humoring us and joining us on kind of all these
spooky journeys and the future ones we're going to make. And just as a little PS from me,
don't forget to check onto your bed tonight, just in case, you know? It might be Henry
Camel, the sleep paralysis demon. Who knows? And don't forget where you put your furniture as well.
Make sure it's always in the right place. Yeah. Tie it down or, you know, nail it down if you need to.
Keep your furniture in a tight leash.
But anyway, stay curious, stay safe and remember the truth is often stranger than fiction.