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Good evening.

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The most remarkable case of poltergeist activity

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this century took place in 1977.

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It occurred in North London, and it's

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known across the world simply as the Enfield Poltergeist.

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As you'll discover, it was one of the best documented

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and longest lasting cases.

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It provoked a storm of controversy.

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Was it the definitive proof of supernatural forces?

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Or was it at best a hoax at worst a fraud?

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See what you think.

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We've reconstructed the case from the testimony of witnesses

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and investigators who were present at the time,

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including for the first time an in-depth interview

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with the family themselves.

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It was a warm summer's evening when it all began.

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Peggy Hodgson had just put the children to bed

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and was looking forward to a quiet night.

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She had no idea that her world was

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about to be turned upside down.

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Come on, now.

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Go to sleep.

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It's late.

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What's going on with all this noise?

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It weren't us, ma.

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I heard you moving around.

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It's not us.

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Oh, now, don't lie.

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I heard you.

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Now, get to sleep.

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I've had enough of this.

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It's all the noise, ma.

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What's all that love?

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Oh, my god.

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All of you downstairs now.

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Come on, get your dressing gowns and slippers now.

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But where are we going to go?

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Don't go.

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I don't know.

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Come on, let's get out of it quickly.

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Come on.

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Billy, come on, help me out.

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Peggy Hodgson took the children to the safety

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of a neighbor's house.

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Janet, come on.

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Come on.

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I found it really very nerve-racking.

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I was trying to keep calm because of the children,

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you know, not to frighten them more than they were already

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were, but it was very difficult.

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No, I can't forget it.

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I can put it out of my mind now, only now.

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But before, I mean, most of my early 20s and in my middle 20s,

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I couldn't even talk about it like this.

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I'd be in tears all the time.

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At her wit's end, Peggy called the police.

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It was WPC Caroline Heaps and a colleague who answered the call.

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Well, we've done a complete search of the house,

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including the loft.

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And we can't seem to find where the knocking's coming from.

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Oh, dear, I'm so sorry to put you to all this trouble,

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but I was really frightened.

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Yeah, it's no problem.

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Well, I see I'm on my own.

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I mean, my husband left last year,

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and I've got no one else to...

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My kids are here, and I don't know what to do, you see.

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There's probably some very simple explanation for all this.

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It's an old house.

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In full view of the Hodgson's, their neighbors and two police

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officers, a chair slid across the floor.

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The Hodgson's had a sleepless night,

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and there was no let-up the following morning.

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Janet, did you throw that?

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No.

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Billy?

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Margaret, was it you?

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No.

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The fear that went through you, it could bring on trouble.

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Anyone older, an heart attack, I think.

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It was that frightening.

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Over the following nights, the activity continued unabated.

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Oh.

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HE SOBS

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Within days, the National Press had picked up on the story.

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No, John Birkin, Peggy's brother, I live a few doors down.

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Thanks for coming.

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I don't quite know what you can do.

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One of the first to arrive was photographer Graham Morris.

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They were genuinely upset.

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I mean, they were sort of frightened.

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The kids were all right, a couple of them, I think, had gone to sleep

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by the time we got there, but all the other people were...

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were bristling a bit, and they were on edge.

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So we didn't really know what was happening, and then we were told,

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bit by bit, what was going on, what had happened.

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Hey, fellas, come back. You've got to see this. Come on.

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Help!

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Basically, it was down to my reactions if I could catch anything.

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And then got hit on the...

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hit on the forehead by a Lego brick.

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Well, that brought it home, yes.

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It became personal, then.

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But, no, it was weird as all these things started flying around.

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The bits and pieces that were flying around, not just as it hit me,

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but, yes, it was a strange feeling I've ever experienced.

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Into the chaos now stepped Morris Gross,

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the local investigator for the Society for Psychical Research.

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As soon as he arrived, he realized that he'd been handed an exceptional case.

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Morris Gross, Society for Psychical Research.

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The atmosphere when I got there was absolutely chaotic.

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Everybody was in a terrible state. Nobody knew what was going on.

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And this was one of the good things as far as I was concerned about the case,

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is that when I got there, I realized it must be genuine.

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Now, Peggy, if I'm to help you with this, I need you to make a record...

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The investigator was convinced that a poltergeist had moved into the Hodgson's home.

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He knew that his first task must be to try to calm the family's nerves.

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It's going to be all right.

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Then I explained to Mrs. Hodgson and the children as best as I could

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what poltergeist would know when it was about.

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Janet made me laugh because Janet even didn't even know what it was.

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She used to call it a polka dice.

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And I say to her, Janet, it's not a polka dice, it's a pol...poltergeist.

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But she didn't grow it. She didn't get it for quite a long time.

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It wasn't long before the investigator had an experience of his own.

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What's this?

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I thought, my God, nobody's thrown that because there was nobody in a position to throw it.

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Now, if you drop a mile upon the floor, it bounces.

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He used to hit the floor and stop, dead.

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And when you touch them, they were hot.

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Now, this is typical of all the psychokinetic phenomena

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concerning small objects that's ever been reported in poltergeist cases, that they were hot.

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Maurice Gross then began his own investigation of the family

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to see who, if any of them, might be behind it all.

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Oh, I watched him like a hawk.

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I brought him my tape recorders, and I had those running all the time.

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And I watched everybody.

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And I realised nobody was doing anything.

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But did the children never play up?

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Being young girls and with so much attention, it seems hard to believe.

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Well, you two look very comfortable down there.

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Of course they played around sometimes. They're children.

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And any psychologist would tell you that children will imitate what's going on around them.

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But you can't fool people day after day, week after week,

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scientists and people coming in and countries and everything.

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Nobody ever seeing anything done by the children.

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As the strange activity continued into September and October,

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the list of witnesses grew longer and longer.

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They included David Robertson, a physics research assistant from Birkbeck College, London.

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Janet, can you tell me if anything else has been moving around besides all the magazines?

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Well, some leg guys have been flying around.

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That ashtray flew across the room and struck me on the side of the head,

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and I could not quite a blow.

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And at that time I concluded that I had observed something paranormal

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and it probably wasn't wise to carry on with that line of experimentation.

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Janet and her sister Margaret seem to be at the centre of the activity,

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but were they responsible for it?

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Their uncle believed something was manifesting itself through Janet while she was in a trance.

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They actually yanked one of these old-fashioned gas fires literally out of the wall.

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And at one time, Maurice and me were trying to restrain Janet,

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who seemed to be, I'm no expert, I only say in a trance-like state,

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and the power was, the strength was unbelievable.

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As summer turned to winter, the disturbances grew more violent,

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and then Janet started having fits.

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One night was particularly bad and the doctor was called.

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He thought she was having some sort of fit.

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He gave her a 10-milligram injection of valium.

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Now, a 10-milligram injection of valium will knock her an adult out, let alone an 11-year-old child.

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And she immediately, more or less, went to sleep, unconscious went to sleep.

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With Janet fast asleep, the adults returned to the living room.

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Don't step!

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Graham Morris took this picture on entering the bedroom with the startled John Birkham in the foreground.

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There she was, curled up on top of a very old-fashioned type radio set.

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She was like, she was on it.

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But the amazing thing was, she was asleep.

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Over the next few weeks, Graham Morris was able to take a number of pictures

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even while he was out of the room by pressing a remote control button.

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The pictures show the children coming out of bed, but are they playing up for the cameras?

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The pictures are genuine. There's no doubt about that.

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What the motive was behind them coming out of bed, I mean, people talk about them levitating.

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I find that very hard to believe.

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It looks like we're jumping, but believe me, I know that there's something pulling us up,

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and we're in this position where we're so terrified, trying to hang on to something

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that mayhem was let loose, and we just trying to hang on for dear life.

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The Hodgson's felt helpless, victims of a force they could neither see nor predict.

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I did feel, one time, we'd call it for life.

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I thought, well, this is worse than the war. At least the war ended,

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but this is going on and on and on.

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It seemed the family could only wait while the poltergeist planned its next move.

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Quite a story, but the greatest drama was yet to come.

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After the break, the poltergeist speaks, and you'll have to judge for yourselves.

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Is this the voice of a dead man?

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And I fell asleep, and I died in a chair.

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By September 1977, the extraordinary goings on in Enfield were front page news.

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Reports were coming in of flying objects, sliding furniture, and possessed children.

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And it was all going on in broad daylight, in front of dozens of witnesses.

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How was it going to end?

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The Hodgson's semi was turning into a war zone.

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Events were becoming more dramatic by the day.

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Maurice Gross decided he had to try to get in touch with the force

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before he did any serious harm.

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His chance came when the knocking started up again.

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I thought, well, if it could knock, and it could make all these noise,

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and do things, perhaps we can get some sort of communication with it.

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Now, I know you can hear me.

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I want you to answer one knock for yes, and two knocks for no.

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Can you hear me?

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Did you die in this house?

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How long ago did you live here?

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Are you having a game with me?

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Are you having a game with me?

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That was a very good answer.

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I was actually, you know, taken aback.

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But I was also, my sense of wonder at the time is, you know,

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I can't put it into words, but that's extraordinary.

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If the knocks were to be believed, the Hodgson's poltergeist

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was an old man who had died in the house years before.

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Maurice felt he was making progress.

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Maurice, it's nearly eight.

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It's a couple of two, and I'm just going to see the kids.

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But then in December, when he thought there could be no more surprises,

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the most extraordinary episode of the case occurred.

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It started to speak.

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The voice phenomenon started on December the 10th.

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I remember that day all too well.

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December the 10th, 1977.

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I was sitting in the room in the lounge

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with Mrs. Hodgson and the children,

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and suddenly a dog barked in the room.

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Maurice?

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Come on, my name's Maurice. Let me hear you say it.

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Maurice.

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Even I was taken aback.

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You know, it really was quite a shock to listen to hear it.

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The following reconstruction is based on the tape recordings

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taken by Maurice Gross at the time.

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Everyone very quiet and very still.

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Where are you in the room at this moment?

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On top of Janet.

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Why are you lying on Janet's bed?

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Why can't she feel you?

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I'm invisible.

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Why are you...

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First of all, I thought it was Diskana voice coming from...

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Yeah, you know, nowhere.

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Then I realised the voice was coming from Janet.

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I said, Janet, that voice is coming from you.

248
00:14:42,360 --> 00:14:44,360
She says, no, it's not.

249
00:14:44,360 --> 00:14:46,360
I said, all right, it's not coming from you.

250
00:14:46,360 --> 00:14:49,360
Where is it coming from? She says it's coming from behind me.

251
00:14:49,360 --> 00:14:53,360
Now, I want you to take a sip of this, but don't swallow it.

252
00:14:53,360 --> 00:14:55,360
All right?

253
00:14:57,360 --> 00:14:59,360
The investigators were mystified.

254
00:14:59,360 --> 00:15:01,360
Numerous tests were carried out on Janet

255
00:15:01,360 --> 00:15:03,360
to try to find the source of the sound.

256
00:15:11,360 --> 00:15:13,360
What is your name?

257
00:15:14,360 --> 00:15:17,360
My name's Bill.

258
00:15:18,360 --> 00:15:21,360
At one time, the voice is going in the room,

259
00:15:21,360 --> 00:15:24,360
and I'm talking to the room and asking him to show himself.

260
00:15:24,360 --> 00:15:26,360
He's saying, I can't. I'm dead.

261
00:15:26,360 --> 00:15:28,360
I said, no, what about that? I've seen dead bodies.

262
00:15:28,360 --> 00:15:31,360
They've got no head and that type of thing.

263
00:15:31,360 --> 00:15:34,360
And it ended up calling me before I get go away.

264
00:15:34,360 --> 00:15:36,360
Well, we need to find out where the voice is going.

265
00:15:36,360 --> 00:15:38,360
It seemed the mystery would be cleared up

266
00:15:38,360 --> 00:15:40,360
when the investigators borrowed a laryngograph

267
00:15:40,360 --> 00:15:42,360
from the University of London.

268
00:15:42,360 --> 00:15:45,360
It's a machine that closely monitors voice pastors.

269
00:15:45,360 --> 00:15:48,360
And we found the voice was not made by the larynx,

270
00:15:48,360 --> 00:15:52,360
but by the false vocal fold, which is above the larynx here.

271
00:15:52,360 --> 00:15:55,360
And you only use it when you lose your voice

272
00:15:55,360 --> 00:15:58,360
and you talk like that.

273
00:15:58,360 --> 00:16:03,360
Right. Janet used to produce this voice

274
00:16:03,360 --> 00:16:08,360
for up to three hours at a time without even any distress whatsoever.

275
00:16:08,360 --> 00:16:10,360
Well, you do that for a couple of minutes

276
00:16:10,360 --> 00:16:12,360
and you're in dead trouble, you throw it.

277
00:16:12,360 --> 00:16:14,360
My name's Bill.

278
00:16:14,360 --> 00:16:18,360
Do you know that you're dead?

279
00:16:18,360 --> 00:16:20,360
Shut up.

280
00:16:20,360 --> 00:16:24,360
Maurice tried to find out more about the person behind the voice.

281
00:16:24,360 --> 00:16:26,360
I want you to tell me whether you remember

282
00:16:26,360 --> 00:16:30,360
what happened to you before you died.

283
00:16:30,360 --> 00:16:34,360
I had a haemorrhage and I fell asleep

284
00:16:34,360 --> 00:16:38,360
and I died in a chair in the corner downstairs.

285
00:16:38,360 --> 00:16:41,360
Could this really be the voice of a dead man?

286
00:16:41,360 --> 00:16:44,360
For some observers, it was too much.

287
00:16:44,360 --> 00:16:47,360
The case seemed to be degenerating into a circus.

288
00:16:47,360 --> 00:16:50,360
Graham Morris was one witness who began to have his doubts

289
00:16:50,360 --> 00:16:52,360
about the poltergeist.

290
00:16:52,360 --> 00:16:56,360
I'd like to give a good reason why such and such happened.

291
00:16:56,360 --> 00:17:00,360
I just thought it got a bit farfetched with voices.

292
00:17:00,360 --> 00:17:03,360
I'm not saying the voices weren't real.

293
00:17:03,360 --> 00:17:07,360
I'm just...what was being...

294
00:17:07,360 --> 00:17:12,360
the interpretation of the voices and just what went on.

295
00:17:12,360 --> 00:17:15,360
Morris Gross himself came under suspicion,

296
00:17:15,360 --> 00:17:18,360
accused by some colleagues of keeping the phenomena going

297
00:17:18,360 --> 00:17:20,360
at the family's expense.

298
00:17:20,360 --> 00:17:24,360
Here we were producing evidence for a fantastic case

299
00:17:24,360 --> 00:17:27,360
and at the same time we were able to help the family.

300
00:17:27,360 --> 00:17:29,360
Well, what more could we do?

301
00:17:29,360 --> 00:17:34,360
So, you know, one time somebody came along who said,

302
00:17:34,360 --> 00:17:37,360
leave the family alone, go away.

303
00:17:37,360 --> 00:17:39,360
Everything will be all right.

304
00:17:39,360 --> 00:17:42,360
We did it. We went away for two days

305
00:17:42,360 --> 00:17:44,360
and all hell was at loose

306
00:17:44,360 --> 00:17:47,360
and she was delighted to see us come back again.

307
00:17:47,360 --> 00:17:49,360
So what else could we do?

308
00:17:49,360 --> 00:17:55,360
Well, he helped us extremely well.

309
00:17:55,360 --> 00:17:57,360
And with that his help,

310
00:17:57,360 --> 00:18:00,360
I don't think any of us would be here now properly,

311
00:18:00,360 --> 00:18:03,360
not live in there, maybe not in that house,

312
00:18:03,360 --> 00:18:06,360
maybe not having the life they're having now,

313
00:18:06,360 --> 00:18:09,360
maybe not even thinking right.

314
00:18:09,360 --> 00:18:11,360
Morris Gross was accused of inciting the children,

315
00:18:11,360 --> 00:18:15,360
but he wasn't even there when David Robertson challenged the ghost.

316
00:18:15,360 --> 00:18:17,360
OK.

317
00:18:17,360 --> 00:18:19,360
Show us what you can do.

318
00:18:22,360 --> 00:18:24,360
Margaret, are you all right?

319
00:18:24,360 --> 00:18:26,360
What's going on in there?

320
00:18:32,360 --> 00:18:35,360
I saw Janet Levite in front of the windows

321
00:18:35,360 --> 00:18:39,360
and somehow the thing would have her stretched out.

322
00:18:39,360 --> 00:18:42,360
You know, it was like she'd been laying on a bed.

323
00:18:45,360 --> 00:18:47,360
At exactly the same time,

324
00:18:47,360 --> 00:18:50,360
John Rainbow, a local delivery man, was passing the house.

325
00:18:50,360 --> 00:18:52,360
His account is read by an actor.

326
00:18:52,360 --> 00:18:54,360
I remember the curtains were billowing inwards

327
00:18:54,360 --> 00:18:57,360
and a young girl seemed to be floating around in the room.

328
00:18:57,360 --> 00:18:59,360
Like she was in a bubble.

329
00:18:59,360 --> 00:19:01,360
I couldn't believe what I was seeing.

330
00:19:01,360 --> 00:19:03,360
Hazel Short was on duty outside

331
00:19:03,360 --> 00:19:06,360
when she spotted a red cushion on the Hodgson's roof.

332
00:19:06,360 --> 00:19:11,360
My attention was taken to the top window

333
00:19:11,360 --> 00:19:16,360
and I saw Janet floating or levitating up and down,

334
00:19:16,360 --> 00:19:20,360
just going up and down in front of the window,

335
00:19:20,360 --> 00:19:22,360
flat on her back.

336
00:19:22,360 --> 00:19:25,360
I thought she was putting it on.

337
00:19:25,360 --> 00:19:30,360
So I went straight home, went upstairs, laid on my own bed

338
00:19:30,360 --> 00:19:34,360
and tried to lift myself up in horrors

339
00:19:34,360 --> 00:19:38,360
and then you couldn't do it in no way that I could do it.

340
00:19:38,360 --> 00:19:41,360
Two passersby who had nothing to do with the family

341
00:19:41,360 --> 00:19:43,360
believed they saw a girl levitate.

342
00:19:43,360 --> 00:19:45,360
It seemed incredible.

343
00:19:45,360 --> 00:19:47,360
How could a young girl have faked such a thing?

344
00:19:47,360 --> 00:19:51,360
Maurice Gross remains convinced the children were not responsible.

345
00:19:51,360 --> 00:19:54,360
I thought to myself, well, how can it be the children?

346
00:19:54,360 --> 00:19:59,360
Because in the end, the situation was, if it was the children,

347
00:19:59,360 --> 00:20:02,360
we had the world's best conjurer there,

348
00:20:02,360 --> 00:20:04,360
we had the world's best ventriloquist,

349
00:20:04,360 --> 00:20:06,360
and we had the world's best everything,

350
00:20:06,360 --> 00:20:12,360
all from a little 11-year-old girl, which was, of course, ridiculous.

351
00:20:12,360 --> 00:20:15,360
By late 1978, the events began to die down

352
00:20:15,360 --> 00:20:17,360
as mysteriously as they'd started.

353
00:20:17,360 --> 00:20:20,360
Margaret thinks the poltergeist lost its hold over the family

354
00:20:20,360 --> 00:20:23,360
as they began to conquer their fear.

355
00:20:23,360 --> 00:20:25,360
Maurice reckons if you showed your fear more,

356
00:20:25,360 --> 00:20:28,360
it would attract itself to you more.

357
00:20:28,360 --> 00:20:30,360
If something, like, little did move,

358
00:20:30,360 --> 00:20:33,360
I used to be able to say, oh, look, it's moved it again, you know,

359
00:20:33,360 --> 00:20:38,360
make a little bit light of it, although it wasn't really inside.

360
00:20:38,360 --> 00:20:40,360
You didn't feel light about it at all,

361
00:20:40,360 --> 00:20:43,360
but not letting it see that you was frightened.

362
00:20:43,360 --> 00:20:47,360
In July 1978, Janet, now 12 years old,

363
00:20:47,360 --> 00:20:49,360
was admitted to the Maudsley Hospital.

364
00:20:49,360 --> 00:20:52,360
There she underwent psychiatric tests,

365
00:20:52,360 --> 00:20:55,360
and the doctors gave her a clean bill of health.

366
00:20:55,360 --> 00:20:59,360
While she was there, for the first time, she felt completely calm.

367
00:20:59,360 --> 00:21:03,360
I think it did help her to relax, because when she came out,

368
00:21:03,360 --> 00:21:04,360
she was quite excited.

369
00:21:04,360 --> 00:21:08,360
She said, her first words, she said, they said, I'm perfectly normal.

370
00:21:08,360 --> 00:21:09,360
Nothing wrong with me at all.

371
00:21:09,360 --> 00:21:11,360
That's the very word she used,

372
00:21:11,360 --> 00:21:13,360
and I was pleased to hear it and say it.

373
00:21:13,360 --> 00:21:16,360
Janet was allowed home from the Maudsley,

374
00:21:16,360 --> 00:21:21,360
and slowly the poltergeist activity died down in the autumn of 1978.

375
00:21:21,360 --> 00:21:23,360
Maurice Gross himself left,

376
00:21:23,360 --> 00:21:27,360
confident that the family were at last free of their troublesome spirit.

377
00:21:27,360 --> 00:21:29,360
17 years on, it seems hard to believe

378
00:21:29,360 --> 00:21:32,360
that the strange events at Enfield ever took place.

379
00:21:32,360 --> 00:21:34,360
But for the investigator on the case,

380
00:21:34,360 --> 00:21:38,360
the Enfield poltergeist has changed his life for good.

381
00:21:38,360 --> 00:21:40,360
My belief was very strong,

382
00:21:40,360 --> 00:21:45,360
but the difference now is my belief is absolute.

383
00:21:45,360 --> 00:21:46,360
That's the difference.

384
00:21:46,360 --> 00:21:49,360
Nobody could shake my experiences.

385
00:21:49,360 --> 00:21:52,360
With the poltergeist case,

386
00:21:52,360 --> 00:21:55,360
it made me realize that what I was doing was worthwhile,

387
00:21:55,360 --> 00:21:57,360
and it was real.

388
00:22:02,360 --> 00:22:03,360
After the activity died away,

389
00:22:03,360 --> 00:22:06,360
Maurice Gross was left with his recordings,

390
00:22:06,360 --> 00:22:08,360
and an unanswered question.

391
00:22:08,360 --> 00:22:13,360
The mysterious voice had clearly said that he, Bill, had died in the house.

392
00:22:13,360 --> 00:22:16,360
But Maurice had never been able to confirm this.

393
00:22:16,360 --> 00:22:18,360
And then three years later, this letter arrived.

394
00:22:18,360 --> 00:22:22,360
A man wrote in to say that his uncle had died in the house,

395
00:22:22,360 --> 00:22:24,360
well before the Hodgson's moved in.

396
00:22:24,360 --> 00:22:27,360
We've traced his death certificate, and it's true,

397
00:22:27,360 --> 00:22:28,360
he did die in the house.

398
00:22:28,360 --> 00:22:30,360
His name was Wilkins,

399
00:22:30,360 --> 00:22:32,360
William Wilkins.

400
00:22:32,360 --> 00:22:35,360
But of course, everyone would have known him as Bill.

401
00:22:35,360 --> 00:22:37,360
Good night.