The Enfield Poltergeist — Britain’s Most Famous Poltergeist Case

In August 1977, strange events began inside an ordinary council house at 284 Green Street, Enfield.Peggy Hodgson's children claimed their beds were moving. Knocking sounds came from the walls. Furniture appeared to move by itself. Neighbours were called into the house, followed by the police and WPC Carolyn Heeps later reported seeing an armchair move across the living-room floor.What followed became one of Britain's most famous and controversial paranormal cases.Investigators Maurice Grosse and Guy Lyon Playfair spent months at Green Street, witnessing and recording extraordinary phenomena. Objects were reportedly thrown, furniture moved, and eleven-year-old Janet Hodgson began producing a strange, deep voice that claimed to belong to a former resident named Bill Wilkins.But there is another side to the story.Janet and her sister were caught faking some incidents, and several famous pieces of evidence have much simpler possible explanations.Sceptics have argued that the entire case can be explained by tricks, exaggeration and credulous investigators.Yet some incidents were reportedly witnessed by neighbours, journalists, police officers and others outside the Hodgson family.So what really happened at 284 Green Street?This episode of Ghost Tales by the Fireside goes back to the original Enfield Poltergeist case, separating the documented events from the mythology that has grown around them and asking the question that still hangs over Green Street nearly fifty years later:If some of it was faked… was all of it?