RedHanded - Episode 4 - The Enfield Poltergeist - What Really Happened?

Episode Date: July 11, 2017

Today we dip our eager feet into the paranormal with this puzzling case that left the police, occult experts and an entire nation transfixed and terrified. With so much evidence of ghostly goings on, from demonic voices caught on tape, possessed children screaming and barking to flying furniture scaring police and reporters, what was really happening to 11 year old Janet Hodgson?   See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. They say Hollywood is where dreams are made. A seductive city where many flock to get rich, be adored, and capture America's heart. But when the spotlight turns off, fame, fortune, and lives can disappear in an instant. Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, welcome to episode four. I'm Hannah. I'm Saruti. And this is Red Handed. And before we get going on this one, I would like to put out a bit of a caveat. I do not have a house that has a cupboard specifically for violins.

If you don't know what I'm talking about, you can go back and listen to our mini-sode. Saruti and I got locked in a cupboard in my house, which we happen to the violin cupboard good good joke you do have violins in here though we have three violins in here but it's not just for violins it's not like we have a million cupboards and this one just happens to be the violin cupboard so the Enfield Poltergeist case it's a good one it is a good one it is a good one so we're taking a break from murder because we've had quite a lot of it and everyone needed a break after suzanne capper especially saruti and i yeah i think it took its toll on us and anyone who does kind of you know a lot of true crime research you know that it can get a bit heavy so we're gonna go for a really intriguing case though the enfield story i so i'd say that the enfield case is would you agree hannah arguably one of the most famous

and undoubtedly definitely in this country the the most thoroughly documented poltergeist case. I think the Amityville Horror is probably the most world famous poltergeist case, but in the UK, Enfield, definitely. I think maybe the Pontefract Monk is like, I don't know, would you say that's more famous? It is. I'd say that the Pontefract Mon um monk case is more famous but that one felt a bit more sort of friendly he was a bit more cuddly people liked him around that town i feel like the enfield one really put enfield on the map as one of the most haunted areas after this story came out alongside things like amtaville and i think this poltergeist definitely was a lot more

sinister it's like quite a lot of um poltergeist case like you hear quite a lot of like there's be a haunted pub and like mugs get moved around and stuff but It's like quite a lot of poltergeist cases, like you hear quite a lot of like, there'd be a haunted pub and like mugs get moved around and stuff, but everyone's like, oh, don't worry about it. It's just Mr. Jackson. It's no big deal. But this case is interesting because that's not how,

it's not something they learned to live with. It was something that they wanted to stop. Absolutely. And I think this is a really interesting case because, you know, if you're a skeptic, definitely like I am, it's interesting because this was the first one to allegedly have

actual recordings of voices on tape there were eyewitnesses there's photographs and there's police interviews like genuine like police constables have go into the house and say i don't know what i've just seen i know but we'll we'll come on to what we think might have been going on there well at least what i think was going on there but i think you know a bit of background into poltergeist so poltergeist comes from the German words polten to make a racket and geist, which is ghost or spirit. So it literally translates into kind of noisy spirit

or noisy ghost. They do sound quite fun. I think the negative connotations of it do mainly come from the film Poltergeist. I think that's why spirits in general, you're much more likely to be afraid of them rather than just accepting, I think. And I think that's why spirits in general, you're much more likely to be afraid of them rather than just accepting, I think. And I think...

No, I don't think anything. No, you don't think anything? No, I don't think anything. Ladies and gentlemen, Saruti doesn't think anything. Saruti has no thoughts. Okay, so let's crack on to the first event. The so-called haunting began on the 31st of August in 1977 and continued for 14 months at 284 Green Street in Enfield, North London, home to single mother Peggy Hodgson and her four children, Margaret, who was 14, Johnny, who was 10,

Billy, 7, and Janet, who would be the main focus of the poltergeist activity, and she was 11. The family became so terrified they took to sleeping in the same room downstairs, along with investigators from the press and the Centre for Psychicalical research poltergeists are often associated with unhappy homes i think the best example of that in like folklore is have you seen an american haunting yeah obviously that whole film is about it's about sexual abuse it's about negative energy in a home manifesting in a supernatural way yeah and i think that's quite common it's something that comes up quite a lot poltergeists are often associated with girls who are about to hit puberty same thing with exorcisms you often find that most and can you name me one

famous possession case that wasn't a pubescent girl because you've got emily rose you've got the german one they're all based on what's her name oh I don't remember she was just anorexic and abused by a person absolutely and I think at this point also you see that a lot more women do kind of outwardly suffer from symptoms like this and also this is roughly the kind of age where things like that take grip I don't necessarily think that there was any sort of abuse or even mental health problems going on with this case. I think it was incredibly intelligent little girls who their dad had left them. They felt abandoned.

It's probably not ghosts. But it wasn't the picture of happiness. No. It wasn't a happy home. No. So, as we mentioned, the father had left the family and only visited the children to kind of hand over child support money and on more than one occasion would also bring his new girlfriend,

which obviously upset everyone. He sounds like an absolute piece of shit. I know. I think he wasn't a great dad. The little boy, Johnny, was actually eventually sent to a school for troubled youths and the reason for this was never really made clear, but this led to the mother, Peggy, displaying a sort of deep-seated mistrust for the state authority and as she viewed them as taking

her child away and so it was like you said hardly a happy family situation. So on the 31st of August 1977 at about 9 30 p.m Peggy heard a shuffling noise coming from the room where the children were supposed to be asleep so she went to Janet and Billy's room to investigate and she asked the children what all the noise was about and Janet told them that their beds had gone all funny and began to shake up and down. Peggy went back to her room only to hear more shuffling coming from Billy and Janet's room accompanied by knocking. She went and asked again what the noise was

and Janet told her it was a chair. So Peggy took the chair downstairs. I would be furious. I can just see her being like oh fine then I'll just I'll take the fucking chair like just go to sleep kids are the worst I would be beside myself and the noise continues and Peggy describes it at where she would go on to later describe it as someone walking in slippers so like a shuffley noise moving across the floor and she goes back upstairs

one once again to question the children for a third time when and when she opens the door the chest of drawers by the bedroom moved 18 inches into the room before coming to rest and we're telling this as if as if these things happen this is what she alleged was happening right yeah yeah yeah I'm just saying. Just suspend your disbelief for one moment, Cerise. Come with me on a journey. No. Okay, I'm listening.

The chest of drawers then moved towards the door as if it was trying to block Peggy's entry into the room and she tried to push it back, but she couldn't. Peggy rushed the children downstairs and after some deliberation goes to their neighbours, a married couple called Vic and Peggy, who are always referred to, and this is so adorable, as Peggy next door. So she says to Peggy and Vic next door, she says someone's lurking around and it isn't

any of us. So Vic then goes over to the Hodgson's house to put Peggy's mind at ease but the knocking continues and seems to be following him around the house. He thought that it must have been coming from outside but there was no one there to be seen. So Vic starts to run out of ideas, and so they decide to call the police. Now, two police officers arrive at the house to investigate what they thought was, you know, a standard domestic disturbance, only to be met with a room full of people who looked very much like they'd seen a ghost. Now, by this point, there's just some knocking going on. Yes, I know that the mother, Peggy, thinks that she's seen a chest of drawers move.

The kids have been, you know, the birds have gone all funny. But the police come in and say that these people look terrified. That seems like a large jump to make. Okay. Earlier this afternoon, we were locked in a cupboard and we were too embarrassed to call the fire brigade. Yeah. If you're going to your neighbour's house,

you'd have to be terrified. Like, you would never go to your neighbour's house and be like, there's stuff falling. But what terrified them? That's the thing. Why would they make it up? I don't know. Well, well.

What purpose does that serve? I don't know. We'll come on to that. But Peggy explains that she thought her house was haunted and that things were moving around on their own. She's telling the police this. See, this is where... Why would you bother embarrassing yourself in front of the police?

No, I believe that she's terrified. But I don't... It's not a ghost. It's not a poltergeist that's terrifying her. It's, you know, it's not those things. So obviously the police constables assigned to Cerruti's school of scepticism. Bloody good!

The police come round and they're like, shit, your haunted i didn't call us imagine so they didn't believe her and vick next door suggested turning off the lights to see if anything if anything would happen good one vick yeah i mean that's a bit oh let's just turn off the lights and all get really hysterical what was that guy's name who used to do the British version of Ghost Hunters like oh um people are screaming something McKenna

something like that someone I don't know wasn't that the guy who talked about diets no that's um oh yeah Paul McKenna will make you thin. That's what I mean. Paul McKenna will make you thin by terrifying you with ghost stories. Anyway, anyway.

So, as soon as he turned the lights off, four loud knocks came from one of the walls and then two moments of silence and then four more from the opposite side of the room. This is Janet. Guy Lyon-Playfair, what a name, moments of silence and then four more from the opposite side of the room this janet guy lion playfair what a name who is the author of this house is haunted which details if it's everything you need to know about the case but it is quite boring because there's so many things that happen

over the space of 14 months there's only so many times you can read about marbles flying around so i read it so you don't have to he claimed that the light from the street lamp was enough for everyone to plainly see each other to see if there's no funny business going on i would assume uh they all searched the house finding nothing and no one out of place until the two constables witnessed a chair wobbling on its own before sliding four feet, just as the chest of drawers had done earlier that evening. So why would the police lie? It's not lying, but it's like eyewitness testimony

is just some of the worst... It's the worst testimony. It means nothing. It's the worst, weakest form of evidence because we... OK, there's the worst weakest form of evidence because we okay there's the eyewitness memory side of things and then it's also what people see in real time or what they think they see because we have this thing called like top-down processing which is how we like deal with something that's happening in front of us and it is completely informed by our beliefs and by our past experiences and things like this and i think

there's also a thing that i was reading about called i've forgotten something blindness basically and it means that no it's about top-down processing how we see things and then on top of that the reason eyewitness testimony is so shit is because the way that we the way that our memory works so it's like we think that our brains act like a video recorder it records something and then we just play it back on cue but it's not it's those memories get fragmented because every time you access a memory every time you remember something you're remembering the last time you remembered it so it's like chinese whispers in your own head so and just the fact that you know psychologists during the satanic panic we proved that we could implant memories in people all those recovered memories and things like that like i just think the memory side of

things makes eyewitness testimony so poor and also the hysteria and this like the way that our opinions of what we're seeing can be formed around what we're thinking even in the book play fair he says that he uses kramer a psychiatrist's case study as an example. And he says in there, the poltergeists never seem to haunt atheists. Right. Actually, I used to be a teacher in Costa Rica. And my students, obviously it's Catholic country. My students were very open to the idea of not believing in God.

And they would debate that with me very openly. But as soon as you brought up demons, they'd be like, no teacher, they're real. They couldn't quite disconnect. And you can't really have one without the other. You can't. You can't. But I think it's that idea of being open to that being real makes it much more likely that you'll see it. Oh, absolutely, yeah.

And also that idea of, like, people seeing things. So later on in the story, you know, Peggy next door would say things like a rod just materializes in front of her eyes but it didn't really it was because we have this thing like you when you see something and you notice it for the first time it looks like it's the first time you're seeing it and there's a word for it like accidental blindness or something like that when you see something and you realize that it's there it's almost like it's materialized in front of us and because we we're not capable of processing everything that's going on around us at all times so i think that there are just like a myriad of things that could have been

causing all of this like from hysteria to the way that people's belief system was built at this time and also just the fact of like eyewitness testimony being one of the main things that this whole case is built on is the weakest form and the reason we believe eyewitness testimony being one of the main things that this whole case is built on is the weakest form. And the reason we believe eyewitness testimony is because of the horror and the shock and the emotion that is given off by the person that's telling the story. Do you know what it reminds me of? It's like, you know, have you ever had it where you learn a new word and you've never heard this word before? And then after you've learned it, you see it everywhere. Of course. Absolutely. And I think there's so many things that play into this and I can't believe that it was because something was actually going on.

But, hey, there is more to this than eyewitness testimony, which we will go into because, you know, they're recordings, photographs, so we'll try to go through them as kind of methodically as possible. Yeah. So the police, after seeing this chair slide across the floor, they say, it's now well after midnight and the police say there was nothing they could do, unsurprisingly, and they left. Yeah, absolutely. Well, as you would. So the Hodgsons now decided they were all going to sleep in the living room.

And in the morning, everything seemed as if it had just gone back to normal. But that night, night however marbles started to be thrown across the room once clear that none of the children were doing it but how was it clear that none of the children were doing it though i'd love to know that because that seems like a classic trick right they're waiting until it's night again they got a massive kick i mean imagine if you were a prankster kid. The police came to the house and looked freaked out. I feel like now it's time to step it up to the next level. So they're throwing marbles, or someone is throwing marbles. Marbles are flying. So Peggy, once again, runs next door. Vic and Peggy next door also witness the marbles and pieces of Leglo flying

around the living room and notice that once they came to a rest they were red hot okay all right you're giving me a look no but the police now stop in again as they had promised to do the night before and attempted to calm the children explaining it's just one of those things and there's no need to be afraid i mean yeah i don't think the kids were afraid there's a great picture what i'm going to put up on the Instagram, which is of the three children that's taken during this time. And the two kids, I think it's Johnny and Margaret, genuinely do look quite scared.

Janet standing in the middle looks excited by this. Okay, so the flying marbles and Lego continued for the next three full days. And on Sunday, the 4th of September, Peggy, who's at her wit's end now, decided that the only way to get help would be call the Daily Mirror. This is where I step into your, the Cerruti school of cynicism here. I think like, I don't know why you would call, I don't know why you would call the press in the first place.

I especially don't know why you would ring the Daily Mirror of all of them but i do think that you know their background that's probably what the newspaper they were reading also fun fact did you know that the first ever article published about the anteville horror guess which magazine it was in tatler good housekeeping that's so strange but no i can kind of i actually can understand why she calls the press because i think that the police are not being very helpful because what can the police do realistically i don't know i guess at this time a woman like her i would maybe have expected her to go to the church but she doesn't and she decides to go to the daily mirror a questionable

decision at best i would say and the mirror send photographer graham morris and he spent the sunday night with the hodgens in the house and though convinced something odd had happened nothing went on while he was there and he left about half two in the morning but surprise surprise as soon as he left the lego started flying again and peggy runs out into the street to catch him and when he returned he did manage to capture the very famous pictures of lego and marbles flying through the air and in the pictures that are really iconic it kind of does look like they are floating it doesn't look like they're on like a on a trajectory and he also got smacked in there with a brick of lego not an actual brick. But I imagine that's probably, that would probably hurt, I think.

Oh, it would. But again, the kid, Janet. But where I do have time for the photographer, though, because he, in the Channel 4 documentary, he talks about going and seeing these things flying through the air and not being able to explain it. And then he speaks about later, which we'll come on to about

when the voice starts happening he says never had time for the voice never believed it for a second so that makes me more inclined to believe there was something about the marbles and lego and maybe that was actually real because he bought into that but he didn't buy into the voice i don't know and i have i have like scrolled down to check the word I was trying to find because I added it into the notes before it's inattentional blindness when we don't see something in a room and then we suddenly see it so okay it doesn't really fit with

the explanation of the marble and the Lego bricks flying but with things like suddenly appearing in different places where they're not meant to be and things like that that really fits with that and also what I have just thought of it's pretty good for his photography career that's what i was gonna say he's like that's bullshit but my photos they're legit i don't think that a guy from the daily mirror who's gone over there to be the photographer for this potentially quite high

profile case um in terms of you know readership it's gonna say oh yeah my photos were bullshit but then why call into question the voice at all maybe because it was so ridiculous i mean we'll come on to the voice but it was recorded and you know to this day it still remains something that people like actually have time for as a case in itself so morris would go on to capture the even more iconic images of janet supposedly flying through the air we've already put those on instagram have a look at them and she's supposedly possessed by the poltergeist in these she looks like she's just she looks like she's jumping off the bed i feel like i could very easily recreate that photo we could go upstairs

right now and recreate that picture because i think there's been a lot of like analysis of that photo people have taken it apart and her lot of like analysis of that photo people have taken it apart and her sort of like positioning of her legs her arms the way her hair's moving just seems that she's pulling a very good face in it she's good at faces though she is good at faces and I think that if the story once again is built on these photos like Janet levitating above her bed which absolutely looks like she's jumping once again it, it's not a solid case, but it is a good story and it is a good picture. You don't believe in ghosts? I get it.

Lots of people don't. I didn't either until I came face to face with them. Ever since that moment, hauntings, spirits, and the unexplained have consumed my entire life. I'm Nadine Bailey. I've been a ghost tour guide for the past 20 years. I've taken people along with me into the shadows, uncovering the macabre tales that linger in the darkness. And inside some of the most haunted houses, hospitals, prisons, and more.

Join me every week on my podcast, Haunted Canada, as we journey through terrifying and bone-chilling stories of the unexplained. Search for Haunted Canada on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you find your favorite podcasts. all, that was no protection. Claudine Gay is now gone. We've exposed the DEI regime, and there's much more to come. This is The Harvard Plan, a special series from the Boston Globe and WNYC's On the Media. To listen, subscribe to On the Media wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Lindsey Graham, the host of Wondery Show American Scandal. We bring to light some of the biggest controversies in U.S. history. Presidential lies, environmental disasters, corporate fraud. In our latest series, NASA embarks on an ambitious program to reinvent space exploration with the launch of its first

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or wherever you get your podcasts. Experience all episodes ad-free and be the first to binge the newest season only on Wondery Plus. You can join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Start your free trial today. Morris attempted over the course of the haunting to photograph the furniture being thrown around, as we've heard several times. But despite being, you know, top of his game photographer at the Daily Mirror, never managed to capture it. He only managed to capture the furnishings as they came to rest, which, again, pretty fucking convenient. If we spoke through every occurrence of something moving in the Green Street house,

we'd be here for 10,000 years, so let's just get to the good bits. So the Daily Mirror are now calling the Society for Cyclical Research and asked them to send over a paranormal researcher. They sent a very esteemed member of their society, Mr Maurice Gross. So I think it's really important to know a bit of background about Maurice and the context within which and the mindset with which he comes into this case. A month before he was called to Enfield, there was a tragic incident for Maurice. His daughter, who was just 22, was killed in a motorbike accident and the cause of her death was um severe head trauma and I think the reason we

bring this up is that there was a lot of coincidence or circumstances around her death and I think you mentioned that no one none of the documentaries no in every documentary Maurice Gross just sort of swans in as this like bastion of psychical knowledge and they don't really dig into his like credibility that much yeah absolutely not that i think it discounts his his research and his tapes and stuff but like i think the reason for him wanting it to be true is very important his reason for needing this to be true i feel like it comes into and so really what happens here is the day of the accident in which his daughter dies, Maurice's son receives a birthday card from his sister wishing him happy birthday.

And we'll post a picture of this birthday card on the Instagram because I think it's really interesting. On the card, there's a cartoon on the front of the card of a disgruntled looking girl with bandages on her head predicting almost his daughter's death that's what gross thought that's what gross thought yes well that's what he thinks after and also the day of the accident apparently clocks in the house that had stood still for years began to tick family members had very vivid dreams of drowning and wind chimes would sound on still days so i don't know this is all very light why do you have a clock in your house that doesn't work i guess like like some people have like antique clocks and they don't want them ticking all day so they'll

just like have a beautiful clock in the house but it won't work or like have clocks that are all set to different times so they don't chime at the same time. But Grace began to wonder whether his daughter had in fact survived her physical death and was attempting to contact him. And the biggest coincidence? Da-da-da! Maurice's daughter was also called Janice.

So I think this is weird. I think the birthday card that comes to the brother the day of the accident with the bandages around the girl's head on the front cover and the fact that inside the card it says something weird, isn't it? Like, I was going to make it, but it landed on my head. Something like that, yeah.

We'll post it on the Instagram. I think it's interesting. And it's the fact that it arrives at the house the same day she dies from a severe head trauma by falling off a motorbike. And she's called Janet. she's called janice so i really feel like maurice comes into this case comes into this house feeling like it needs to be real because if it's not real and there is no no afterlife there is nothing more than what we see his daughter janice just gone yeah and so obviously he feels this personal connection to the case

and Gross dedicated the next two years of his life to the Enfield haunting and he has a job, he ran a business this was like his hobby, this was his spare time and it's incredibly thorough what he goes into this became like his lifeline to his daughter Janet though I think

yeah exactly and he compiled a collection of tape recordings and observations and it's the basis for every book, every film, every documentary on the subject is it's Maurice Gross's stuff that he collected. Every group of investigators who came to the house naturally assumed the children were playing tricks and somehow managing to fool the adults. Janet especially was caught out by Gross pretending to be asleep on a few occasions, even moving his tape recorder, not knowing it was rolling, and it captured her saying to her sister, let's play a trick on him.

Maybe it was the kids. It was, and even later on, Janet would go on to admit that, she would say, maybe we were responsible for like 2% of what happened. 2%? I mean, come on. The fact that they were even caught doing stuff, the fact that they admit they had hoaxed some of it, I think the kids were just up to no good. That's what they were doing. And I think it is like we were saying before, Maurice comes into this having lost a daughter, Janet, who he desperately needs to feel that he can contact, that he can find a way that she survives beyond her physical death in some external, you know, plane somewhere else. And I think Janet was an incredibly intelligent, sassy young girl. She is sassy.

She is sassy. I have TV interviews with her. Oh, she's so sassy. And I think she's lost her dad has just abandoned her and so i think maurice comes in as this wonderful lovely fatherly figure who probably projects his love of his dead daughter janet onto this he absolutely does and i think you know for both of them if this turns out to not be true if this needs to end they both lose what they need from this case yeah absolutely janet she sort of seemed to be the epicenter of the haunting and this is where the voice comes in the spirit decided when the spirit decided to speak it would only do so through janet and

things would fly off shells when she walked past and her bed would be thrown in the air but no one ever captured this on film so it is just eyewitness testimony like all of these things apart from the tapes like uh just recordings they're not film however this is my favorite bit of the whole thing I like to call this the lollipop lady levitation also do people in other countries know what we mean by lollipop lady? Do they even still exist? Yeah, there's a lollipop lady who stands at the bottom of my road. When I walk my dog, I always hear she waves at me.

Aw. So it's a little infant school. So a lollipop lady is just like a person who stands with a giant stop sign that looks like a lollipop wearing high-vis, kindly person who helps kids cross roads. Yeah. That's it. That's what a lollipop wearing hivers kindly person who helps kids cross roads yeah that's it that's that's what a lollipop lady does i don't think i've ever seen a lollipop yeah we used to have a lollipop man did you yeah when i was primary school forefront of gender equality

always so this lollipop lady and another gentleman who didn't have a fun job claimed to have seen through the window janet levitating like flat on her back flying around the room and there's an interview with the lollipop lady in one of the documentaries and this lollipop lady talks about it she said i know went home and i tried to do it and i just couldn't lift my obviously no you can't immediately is this person a credible eyewitness eyewitness testimony as we talked about incredibly flawed now this woman this lollipop lady she doesn't seem to me like a credible witness I think I so want it to be true I so want I know you do I can see you really want this to be true but it's it's not I know it's not yes

I think again you know we kind of talked about this whole idea of like top-down processing how this seems to affect a certain type of person and certain types of circumstances you know unhappy homes people who maybe have a few more religious beliefs things like that and you know we talked about the kind of inint unintentional blindness where people see things kind of materialize in front of them even though it's just because they've just realized that that thing is there and that we as humans are not very good at processing everything that's happening around us all at once and i think again the photos i've been assessing nothing nothing really proves anything okay but shall we look at what you could argue is the most convincing piece of evidence? Okay, the video recording.

The audio recording. The voice. Yeah, the voice. So this is the voice that comes through Janet. Let me hear you say my name. Come on, let me hear you say my name. What the fuck? Fuck.

Number 184, let me hear you say it. Nice. Fuck off. Okay, I don't want to listen to it anymore because i'm covered oh i've got sore throat as well that quite hurt come on come on i mean there's been a lot of gen analysis of this and they're just saying that you know there was like a famous ventriloquist who examined it and they were just like she's throwing her voice she's using like what is it like false examined it and they were just like, she's throwing out voice. She's using like, what is it? Like false voice? Yeah, it's like, it's, it's, she's not, in order to make that noise, you're not using your voice box.

You're using something else. And that's why if you do it too much, you'll go hoarse. Like false voice, false vocal cords or something like that. And it gets easily, easily recreated. Like I just made that noise. Really. I just think just think you know what in one of the documentaries an interview of this lady who spends some time with janice and i went home and i tried to speak in the voice and i was hoarse for two days and i was like well that doesn't make

it really no it doesn't and also once again it's just like it's because okay i'll give janet full credit that she committed to this act right she was like I'm gonna do this and I'm gonna go all the way and that's what freaked people out because if you did see an 11 year old girl who was claiming to be possessed behaving like that you would be freaked out and I think you know that's basically what was going on I guess some people felt that this was actually too this was actually the least convincing part of it because it almost seemed to go too far but I actually think if you're gonna to believe anything a recording in a video seems to be to me the most convincing part and apparently you know in the tape in the video

it seems the disembodied voice seems to be captured on tape and video seemingly coming from Janet without her even moving her mouth and Gross claims that this was the first time that a ghost voice had been caught on tape and like we just played it you can hear that in pretty much every single documentary there is out there and the first time gross questions janet on tape you can as we just played and kind of hear this dog barking the voice coming from janet and goes on to answer maurice's questions and i think something really, it swears a lot. It's an 11-year-old girl. She wants to swear. She wants to get away with it.

And what better way than to say that she's possessed? And later, the voice would go on to claim to be a man called Bill, who was haunting the family because he believed that it was his house. He had died in number 284 Green Street after a hemorrhage in the chair in the front room. Now, the story was corroborated by terry wilkins who came forward saying his father had indeed lived

in that house and had indeed died in the chair in the front room and was indeed called bill just as the voice described now how could janet have known about this but i think some of the interesting things here is like okay so is so is it Bill's mannerisms? Is it Bill's language and vocab and interests that come across? Because there are reports from this that Bill seems to have an interesting preoccupation with periods. Does that sound like an old man or does that sound like an 11-year-old girl that's probably going to start having her periods pretty soon? He's wanting to ask questions.

The swearing, maybe that's an old man. But apparently also he has the vocabulary of of a child now maybe he's you know a bit senile and it's gone backwards maybe um but also apparently had some of the characteristics of janet things like changing subjects very erratically but again that could be a senile old man and by all accounts bill wasn't the nicest man so you know what i think is but how could she have known that's that's what i think yeah how could she possibly have known that this man who lived in the house before when i was door peggie next door seems like a gossip. I feel like she's been talking about this at some point.

Janet has overheard a news. Janet's smart. I am smart, yeah. But that's the biggest question to me, is how did Janet know that about Bill? How he died, where he sat. And again, there's two sort of arguments for this, is that nothing ever happened to the TV, even though other furniture was thrown around,

other things were destroyed in the house. When I was a kid, I wouldn't break my TV. No, no way. Especially not back then. That would have been the equivalent to an iPhone, an Xbox, whatever the kids have got these days. But again, the son would say, well, Bill loved to sit in that chair and watch TV.

I don't know. I don't know. There are several TV interviews, I mean, you could lose hours on YouTube with this, where Bill the Ghost seems to speak through Janet, but she has quite a spectacular overbite. I mean, it is really something. She does. So even when she's speaking as herself,

you can't really see her mouth move. Like, she's got this sort of permanent smile because she has such an overbite. So even if she was... Even if she was the best French realist in the world, it's not that difficult to cover it up because even when she's actually talking, her mouth doesn't move,

let alone when she's throwing her voice. She just looks like she's constantly smiling. Maurice Gross was convinced that the voice cannot have been Janet messing around and to prove this, he asked Janet to put water in her mouth, covered her mouth with tape and the spirit voice spoke as if totally unaffected. After the experiment was finished, Janet spat out the water, proving it had been in her mouth the entire time. Never on film

Don't believe it, next Yeah, and I also feel like If a spirit's going to possess you To use you as literally a mouthpiece Doesn't it also need your mouth to speak? Because otherwise That's a good point, I don't know Couldn't the disembodied voice then

Why does it need to possess anybody at all If Bill can just send his voice out when janet can't speak i don't know that is that's smoke and mirrors so the society of cyclical research a documentary that they made with interviews as janet as an adult she's quite terrifying with oh yeah she really really is i mean not to like you know i don't want to like you know make fun of people's appearance or anything like that and we're not doing that she knows what she's doing that she's like ice white hair i know but i did also read a thing um that the person who had been involved in the interview when she had been on this morning said that she was terrified and that she was shaking like a leaf and because the woman was wondering who had been the kind of, like, producer on this morning, was saying, what possessed this woman?

Sorry. What made this woman come into a situation where she clearly feels so uncomfortable? Because she was apparently shaking. She was incredibly nervous. And after the show had finished recording, this producer felt so scared for how she looked that she went up and hugged her. And she was shaking like a leaf apparently so i don't know but then someone who as a child seemed to be it's like almost this start as a joke and then this just fucked her up so much that she's now seemed like a very strange adult

because they did the society cycle they did tests on her and stuff they sort of took her off yeah yeah they do things and that's gonna fuck anyone up it is and I don't know it's weird if you can't you can see the interview on YouTube really easily you can see the interviews of her as a child it's all really interesting but I think here if you're going to say we can really apply

Occam's razor here if we're going to say that there's two possible sort of scenarios two possible options with this case one is that it was an actual haunting the other is that the girls were playing a hoax those are the only two options I think that are available here and then we have to say the one that needs the fewest assumptions made the one that is simpler is the right one and to me if we're going to apply that then absolutely it's that the girls were hoaxing this.

Because it's asking me to make too many leaps of faith. It's asking me to make too many assumptions. And also there just isn't enough evidence here. And I know people will be like, oh, but there's recordings, there's tapes, there's eyewitness testimony, there's photographs. What more do you need? But all of those really, if you break it down, seem really fundamentally flawed. I know. Like I so wanted this to be true i know it just

it just isn't sorry folks home also do not bother with the conjuring 2 it's absolutely fucking terrible it is the conjuring 1 great fantastic i've heard good things about annabelle 2 that's coming out next month oh cool yeah apparently it's meant to be really good but also ed and lorraine warren came nowhere fucking near this like and there was no pointy nose none demon that was that was such a strange addition to this and i think how this compares to emptyville i actually think emptyville is such an interesting case just because there was a legit you know six murders an entire family massacred and it was a get out clause for that guy he was just like shit i've murdered my entire family for whatever reason and probably money and other things and then now you know he concocts the story of a demon who made him kill his entire family then i love how that progresses though when it's like the next family

move in and then the lawyer's like you know can you say that all these things are happening in the house all these ghostly goings on and they try to cut him out of the deal. And it all just kicks off. I think the Abdiville horror is a fantastic story. But this is a really interesting case because this girl, 11 years old, was able to create a media sensation in this country. The story was constantly making headlines. You know, the Daily Mirror like, put one, a whole like, photographer out here on, like, you know, retainer to take photos and be with

the family. Always in the media the Society for Psychical Research, they had sent somebody out there. Maurice Gross was a really well-renowned paranormal investigator. And do you think he may have approached this case and looked at this differently, had his daughter not died a month before? Yeah, I absolutely think that. I think he may have approached this case and looked at this differently had his daughter not died a month before yeah i absolutely think that i i think he

would have been interested if i think it would have been more of a passing interest i don't think he would have dedicated two two years of his life to it no i think this was like a perfect storm so thank you very much for listening to episode four live from the cupboard from the cupboard which is where we will be coming to you from now on please Please do follow us on at RedHandedThePod, on Instagram and on Twitter. We will be, you know, announcing all the next episodes we'll be doing. We'll be letting you know first when an episode drops. So, you know, and it's a really nice community forming there. So please do go join us.

And also, please, please, please, if you like what we're doing, rate, review and subscribe us. It really helps us out, especially as we're just getting started. Okay, so we'll see you next time in the cupboard and next time we will be talking about Helen Bailey the woman who was very tragically murdered by her fiancee it's quite a twisty turn you on that one so it is so be sure to join us then thanks Thanks. Bye. I'm Jake Warren, and in our first season of Finding, I set out on a very personal quest to find the woman who saved my mum's life. You can listen to Finding Natasha right now exclusively on Wondery+. In season two, I found myself caught up in a new journey to help someone I've never even met.

But a couple of years ago, I came across a social media post by a person named Loti. It read in part, three years ago today that I attempted to jump off this bridge, but this wasn't my time to go. A gentleman named Andy saved my life. I still haven't found him. This is a story that I came across purely by chance, but it instantly moved me. And it's taken me to a place where I've had to consider some deeper issues around mental health. This is season two of Finding, and this time, if all goes to plan, we'll be finding Andy. You can listen to Finding Andy and Finding Natasha exclusively and ad-free on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. They say Hollywood is where dreams are made.

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