On the night of the 31st August 1977, something began inside an ordinary council house in Enfield, North London, that would develop into one of the most famous—and fiercely disputed—poltergeist cases in history.
At around 9:30pm, 11-year-old Janet Hodgson and her brother Johnny told their mother that something was moving in their bedroom.
Peggy Hodgson went upstairs to settle them. Then she heard the knocking.
According to the eyewitnesses, a chest of drawers appeared to move roughly 18 inches across the bedroom floor without anyone touching it.
Alarmed, Peggy took the children downstairs and called neighbours Vic and Gary Nottingham into the house. They searched for an explanation for the mysterious knocking but could find none.
Eventually, the police were called.
And what happened after they arrived would become one of the most intriguing pieces of testimony associated with the Enfield case.
WPC Carolyn Heeps later provided a signed statement describing what she witnessed in the Hodgsons' living room:
“I saw the chair slide across the floor towards the kitchen wall. It moved approximately 3 to 4 feet and then came to rest.”
After examining the chair, she added that she “could find nothing to explain how it had moved.”
The police eventually left. Whatever was happening at 284 Green Street, it wasn't a police matter.
But it was only the beginning.
Joining me to revisit the Enfield Poltergeist is Tony Hayes, an experienced investigator of spontaneous paranormal phenomena and member of both the Society for Psychical Research (SPR) and the Association for the Scientific Study of Anomalous Phenomena (ASSAP).
Tony has investigated reports of spontaneous paranormal activity since 1989. With a background in science, physics, government service and policing, he is Case Manager and Lead Investigator for Paranormal Investigation UK, where he works with a small team of psychical researchers. He is also jointly involved with the SPR in the investigation of an ongoing poltergeist case in Essex, which has reportedly included the extraordinary appearance—or apport—of more than 460 coins inside the property.
Together, we return to Enfield.
Rather than simply retelling the familiar story, we examine the evidence, the witnesses, the investigators and the controversies that have surrounded the case for nearly half a century.
You'll hear original recordings connected with the Enfield investigation, alongside commentary from those involved in investigating the extraordinary events.
We explore recently uncovered details and ask what they might mean for our understanding of the case.
We consider the arguments of sceptics who believe incidents were fabricated or exaggerated—and the evidence cited by those who maintain that fraud cannot adequately account for everything reported inside the house.
And we examine the strange range of phenomena associated with Enfield and what the case can tell us about the difficulties of investigating alleged poltergeist activity.
Furniture moved.
Knocks travelled through the house.
Witnesses came and went.
Investigators recorded hours of testimony and extraordinary sounds.
Some incidents were undoubtedly controversial.
Others remain considerably harder to explain.
So, nearly half a century later, what are we to make of the Enfield Poltergeist?
Was it an elaborate hoax that grew beyond the control of those involved?
A complicated mixture of genuine phenomena, human behaviour and occasional trickery?
Or does the surviving evidence suggest that something genuinely anomalous happened to the Hodgson family?
On 31st August, we return to the night it all began—and to a case that, 49 years later, still refuses to go quietly.
Website Episode Link: https://www.podpage.com/haunted-history-chronicles/the-enfield-poltergeist-revisited-with-tony-hayes/
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