Enfield Poltergeist
A London council house was the site of a widely reported poltergeist case.
1977 CE · 51.63, -0.08 · status: disputed
The account
Investigators recorded knockings, moving furniture and a child's altered voice over 18 months.
The sceptical view
The children later admitted some pranks; investigators disagree on how much was faked.
The researched reading
A well-recorded case in which some trickery is proven on camera and admitted. A minority of incidents were never explained, but known faking makes the rest hard to trust.
| Explanation | Weight | Why |
|---|---|---|
| A hoax or fabrication | 52% | A video camera in the next room caught Janet bending spoons and trying to bend an iron bar; investigators saw her bang a broom on the ceiling and hide a tape recorder; the sisters admitted some faking (Janet later said “about two per cent”), and the ventriloquist Ray Alan and SPR assessors Anita Gregory and John Beloff judged the “Bill” voice to be produced by the girls. |
| Perception, memory or mind | 20% | A stressed household (recent divorce) plus press, investigators and neighbours who expected a poltergeist; observers’ memory of when and how objects moved is unreliable and was reconstructed in interviews. |
| Genuinely anomalous | 13% | Some incidents witnessed by police and investigators (a chair sliding, objects thrown when the children seemed watched) were never shown to be faked; the SPR still regards the case as unresolved. |
| A cultural story | 8% | The case grew through Playfair’s book, television and the 2016 film; later versions are more dramatic than the 1977–79 records. |
| Something in the surroundings | 5% | Old-house noises and drafts may account for some early knockings. |
| A known natural phenomenon | 2% | No natural process explains thrown objects. |
Official position: No official finding; SPR investigators split, with Grosse and Playfair convinced and others concluding the girls were faking.
How the account grew
Knockings and moving furniture in a north London council house in 1977 became an 18-month tabloid and psychical-research story; the girls were caught faking some effects and admitted pranks, while radio, a mock-documentary, a Hollywood film and several series retold it with different emphases.
| Year | Who | Added |
|---|---|---|
| 1977 | Peggy Hodgson; a police constable; Daily Mirror | Furniture moves and knocking is heard; a constable sees a chair 'wobble and slide'. Over 18 months more than 30 people report gruff voices, thrown toys and levitating children. |
| 1978 | Society for Psychical Research conference; Anita Gregory and John Beloff | Video from the house is examined; Gregory calls the case 'overrated' and suspects staging for journalists; Beloff suggests ventriloquism. Janet is filmed bending spoons. (dropped: The girls' admissions of pranking are withdrawn under pressure from Grosse and Playfair.) |
| 1978 | Rosalind Morris, BBC Radio 4 | A radio documentary, The Enfield Poltergeist, broadcast on 26 December after repeated visits to the family. |
| 1980 | Guy Lyon Playfair, This House Is Haunted | An 'entity' is blamed, while some incidents are conceded to be faked; a voice is linked to a man who died in the house in 1963. |
| 1992 | BBC, Ghostwatch | A controversial mock-documentary based on the case. |
| 2016 | The Conjuring 2 | Recasts the story around Ed and Lorraine Warren as demonic haunting; their visit had been brief. Chris French lists five reasons to consider it a hoax. (dropped: The SPR investigators' doubts fall out of the popular version.) |
| 2019 | Melvyn Willin, The Enfield Poltergeist Tapes | The SPR catalogues and digitises Grosse's recordings. |
| 2023 | Apple TV+, The Enfield Poltergeist | Actors lip-sync the original tapes in a recreated house alongside living witnesses. |
Connections in the atlas
- Enfield poltergeist house
- This House Is Haunted
- Rosenheim poltergeist
- Joe Nickell
- Poltergeist
- The Conjuring 2
- The Smurl haunting
- Joe Nickell’s investigations for CSICOP
- Borley Rectory