So Supernatural - HAUNTED: Enfield Poltergeist

Episode Date: August 1, 2025

In the late 1970s, a quiet suburban home in Enfield, London, belonging to the Hodgson family got a new roommate—a poltergeist. The entity seemed to latch on to their 11-year-old daughter, Janet, who experienced levitation, violent attacks, and had strange voices speak through her. The case was heavily investigated by paranormal researchers who agree an evil spirit was present, but some think there’s another explanation regarding Janet’s supernatural abilities. For a full list of sources, please visit: sosupernaturalpodcast.com/haunted-enfield-poltergeistSo Supernatural is an audiochuck and Crime House production. Find us on social!Instagram: @sosupernatualpodTwitter: @_sosupernaturalFacebook: /sosupernaturalpod

I don't know about you, but children are so fascinating to me. Despite being completely unreasonable most of the time, I'm only shocked to find how wildly intuitive they are, whether it's them knowing when you aren't feeling like yourself or talking to someone who maybe isn't there, or memories that they seem to have that you can't explain. A lot of kids seem in tune with something that we as adults can't quite access, or at least we've lost our ability as we've gotten older,

which may be why hauntings or more specifically poltergeist activity seems to latch on to younger people. Like in the late 1970s, when a family in London realized their four little kids weren't just experiencing apparitions or hearing voices in the night, things were physically moving around their house.

I mean, furniture, rearranging, Matches, spontaneously igniting, toys flying across the room. And while more than 30 people reported seeing supernatural activity, their 11-year-old daughter, Janet, seemed to be at the center of the chaos. And that's why I wanted Rasha and Yvette to cover today's case. Because I'm curious, are we just completely underestimating kids and their abilities to deceive us? Or do they really just have a stronger connection

to the paranormal. I'm Ashley Flowers. Welcome back to So Supernatural. Hi, everyone. I'm Yvette Gentile. And I'm her sister, Rasha Pecorero. And today's story is one that I find extra spooky, not only because it's about a ghost, but because it involves young children, too. That's right. It's about a family that lived in the London suburb called Enfield.

The mother, Peggy Hodgian, had been raising her fortunate. all under the age of 14, mostly on her own. There's Margaret, Janet, Johnny, and Billy, and they've been living in this same house for about a decade. Their father has been out of the picture since he divorced Peggy in 1974. And sure, as we all know, divorce is hard on any family, but for the most part, their days are quiet and peaceful. That is, until the night of August 31, So according to the family, that evening, at around 9.30 p.m., 10-year-old Johnny and 11-year-old Janet wake up after hearing a noise in their shared bedroom. It almost sounds like someone is rearranging their furniture in the dark. They bravely climb out of bed, flip on the lights,

and start pacing around trying to figure out where the sound is coming from. When Peggy hears her children walking around past their bedtime, she naturally goes to their room and and tells them to go back to sleep. She turns out the lights, but before she has the chance to leave the room, she hears it too. It's a scraping noise, exactly like you would hear

if you were dragging heavy furniture across the floor. Immediately, Peggy turns the lights right back on. But everything is exactly where it's supposed to be. Peggy is definitely creeped out by this, but she probably figures it's just the piping or something. something, so she turns off the lights again, and the sound starts right back up. But now there's another sound along with it, like someone's actually tapping on the wall from the other room. And that's when Peggy notices something else. The dresser in the kid's bedroom

is moving on its own. Oh, hell no. Yeah, exactly. And this is happening right in front of Peggy's eyes. It literally scoots away from the walls, turns, and then heads right for where she's standing in the doorway. Like it wants to push her back into the hallway. Peggy is freaking in shock. So, I mean, all she can really do is stand there and stare as the dresser gets closer and closer. Finally, it's almost completely blocking the doorway. And it's standing between Peggy and her kids. So she literally has no way of getting to them. And this seems to kick her mama bear instincts into high gear because she starts pushing against the chest,

trying to force it back into the room so she can get inside. And she wants to make sure her kids aren't stuck in the room without her. But it's like this dresser is bolted to the floor, or like some unseen person is holding it down. No matter how hard Peggy pushes and shoves, it doesn't even budge. It doesn't even wobble. Luckily, it's left this tiny little gap along the side that the children can sort of sneak past. And they manage to wiggle out of the room before anything worse happens.

Peggy Usain bolts down the hallway to wake up her other two kids, 13-year-old Rose and 7-year-old Billy. She tells them all to go downstairs. and take their betting with them because they are getting the hell out of this house. Thankfully, Peggy is close with their next-door neighbors, the Nottingham's, so she feels comfortable enough to go right next door and ask if they can all spend the night there instead. Now, I can only imagine how shock the neighbors are when their doorbell rings around 10 p.m., and the entire Hodgson family is standing there in their PJs.

But sensing this is some kind of emergency, the Nottinghamms, of course, let them all in and tell them to make themselves at home. Then, once Peggy's calmed down a little bit, she tells them everything that had just happened. And they don't believe her. They think Peggy was just imagining things, like maybe she overreacted to an ordinary sound, like maybe the heater was turning on, or a wild animal was crawling across the roof. Still, they can tell that Peggy is incredibly upset. So Mr. Nottingham says he and his wife will go over to her house and take a look around.

They'll even bring their 20-year-old son Gary with them. When they first get to the Hodgson's home, the Nottingham's don't see anything out of the ordinary. And it's not clear to me if they ever check Janet or Johnny's room or if the dresser is still lodged in the doorway. But I do know that at one point, they hear something strange in one of the other rooms on the first floor. And as soon as they set foot inside, Mr. Nottingham's like, did you hear that? It's four consistent thuds, like someone is actually knocking on the wall. Mr. Nottingham's first thought is maybe someone's playing a prank. I mean, there could be a neighborhood kid standing outside, pounding on the house, like, who knows?

So he walks out into the yard and paces around. He doesn't see anyone. He doesn't see any kids. And while he's watching and confident that he's there alone, Mrs. Nottingham and their son, Gary, hear more thuds inside. And there's no real logical explanation for any of this that they can actually see. By this point, the Nottinghams are starting to believe Peggy. They tell her she was absolutely right.

There really is something strange happening in her home. And that's when Peggy does the only other thing she can think to do. She calls the police. Right away, two officers report to the Hodgson's home. One of those officers is Constable Carolyn Heaps, and the other is her male partner whose identity isn't public, so we're just going to call him Fred. When they get there, Peggy, the Nottingham's, and a couple of the kids are back there in the living room, all literally shaking in their pajamas. And Peggy has no problem just blurting out, I think this house is haunted. Then she and Mr. Nottingham show the police what's going on.

Peggy sits in the center of the room with the officers, and they turn off the lights. And the second the room goes dark, the thudding noises start up again, just like clockwork. There are four distinct pounds, then a pause, then four more pounds from an entirely different wall. Well, the officers start combing through the entire home, and at one point Carolyn comes back to the living room where 10-year-old Johnny is standing, and he points to a chair that's several feet away, too far for either of them to be touching it. But it's moving, and it's moving all on its own, scooting across the floor. It travels about three feet, and as soon as it comes to a stop, Carolyn, she starts examining the chair from top to bottom. She's checking to see if

there's, I mean, I don't know if there's a string attached or some kind of motor that could be powering it. But no, it's just an ordinary chair, which is enough for Carolyn to call her partner and say, y'all, it is time to get the heck out of here. In fairness, she and her partner are totally stumped. I mean, they're not Ghostbusters. They're not qualified. to deal with whatever is going on here in this home. So officers, Fred and Carolyn, tell Peggy basically, sorry, it looks like you have a haunted house on your hands. We can't help you.

And they just leave. Meaning the Hodgson family is dealing with something even the police can't handle. But I have to say, I don't know if I'd call the police if I was having a haunting in my home. I would call someone else entirely. But the police are witnesses. So there's that.

they did see something. There is that, but it won't be long until all of London hears about what's happening in Peggy's home, because her next move is to go to the press. And let's just say, the spirits, or whatever, is inside her home, are just getting started. On August 31, 1977, The Hodgson family in Enfield, England, hears pounding on the walls and sees their furniture moving on its own. The mother, Peggy, contacts the neighbors and the police, but none of them know how to help her and her family. And the bizarre activity doesn't seem to be just a one-night occurrence. The next day, Peggy is back at home when she notices some marbles and Legals flying through the air. Her kids are right there in the room with her, so Peggy is back at home.

Peggy asked them, are they throwing their toys around? But everyone insists they didn't touch the Legos or the marbles. Sure enough, after that, according to Peggy, she physically sees objects lift off the ground and fly across the room all on their own. She even calls the nodding hams and asks them to come over again, and supposedly they witness this as well. And at this point, Peggy realizes that she needs help. And given how last night went down, she's not going to get it from the police.

So that same day, Vic Nottingham reaches out to a pretty big newspaper on Peggy's behalf, a tabloid called The Daily Mirror. Now Peggy's goal isn't to be famous or to get a lot of press coverage. She just wants her house back. And a traditional paper wouldn't cover a story like hers. So she figures that reporters at the mirror probably see a lot of words. weird things in their line of work. And maybe someone there can tell her what you're supposed to do

when you're living in a house that is all of a sudden haunted. Well, the paper is pretty quick to respond, and they send a reporter over within just a few days. The reporter doesn't have any advice, but they do interview Peggy, and afterward, the Daily Mirror publishes an article on The Haunting. It ends up running on September. 10th, 1977, which is about a week and a half after the initial activity started.

But even before the article runs, someone from the paper calls a contact of theirs who's a paranormal investigator. And they end up passing the story along to another paranormal investigator, someone new in the field named Maurice Gross. And Maurice's story is equally as interesting. So let's backtrack a bit just to a little over a year earlier. August 4, 1976. That day, Maurice and his wife Betty were relaxing on a beach somewhere when this wave of absolute dread just washed over Betty. She had this intense sensation that something terrible was about to happen, but she didn't know what. The next day, around 3.30 p.m., Betty's sister was napping when she had her own terrifying nightmare. It was

about a young family member dying in front of her eyes, and she was unable to stop it, meaning two of Maurice's relatives, his wife and his sister-in-law, both got these mysteriously bad feelings just 24 hours apart. Then, at 4.10 p.m. that day, Morrice's family gets this horrible phone call. Their 22-year-old daughter, who was coincidentally also named Janet, was in a terrible motorcycle accident and had been rushed to the hospital. Not long after that, sadly, Janet passed away from her injuries. And it felt like those strange premonitions had actually come true. Now when Maurice goes to his daughter's funeral on August 7th, he just can't shake the feeling that he could have anticipated her death. Maybe he could have even prevented it if he had somehow

acted on those premonitions. So, of course, he's probably feeling a whole lot of guilt. But as a way of dealing with his grief, Maurice turns to the supernatural. Because he figures if there's some force out there that can send people glimpses of the future, maybe other supernatural phenomena are real too. And if the paranormal is real, Maurice only wants one thing from it to see his daughter once again. So he thinks to himself, Janet, if you're out there, prove it to me by making it rain. He was looking for a sign like so many of us do. I know Yvette and I do. At this point,

London is in the middle of a multi-week drought and he has no reason to think that it will rain anytime soon. And the morning after asking for that sign from Janet, he wakes up and the grass is dry. There's no sign of rain. That is, until Maurice goes to the second floor bathroom, which looks out over the roof of the kitchen. And that is completely soaked. He even has his wife Betty come to look at it too. They both agree, the yard is dry, the sidewalk is dry, but their roof, and only their roof, is drenched with water. There's no other explanation to them aside from the fact that it must have rained during the night on their head.

house and nowhere else. From that point on, Maurice is convinced that his daughter is still out there, some way, somehow. And he wants to learn about how all of this supernatural stuff works. So right away, he joins a group called the Society for Psychical Research. The organization has been around for almost 100 years at that point since 1882, and they're based in London and they investigate all kinds of supernatural incidents, including hauntings. They're all about following the scientific method and using an evidence-based approach.

So, Maurice feels absolutely confident that if there's answers out there, this is how he'll get them. For the next year or so, Maurice studies their methods and learns how to gather all the data. And for any of you who are interested in this, there is an incredible Netflix series called Surviving Death, and it talks all about this. Anyway, by 1977, Maurice is ready to conduct a real paranormal investigation. He's just waiting for someone from the society to give him his very first assignment. And as soon as they hear about the infield haunting, they tell Maurice that this is going to be his case. So he gets in touch with Peggy and sets up an appointment to investigate her house. In the beginning of September, he arrives in Enfield and starts by searching the entire house,

just like the police did before. But he doesn't find anything unusual. So he ends up giving Peggy some advice. He tells her she should keep a detailed record of every strange thing that she experiences going forward. Odd noises, furniture moving on its own. own any time something strange like that happens in her home. Basically, he wants her to write down the date, the time, and exactly verbatim what happened. Maurice also offers to spend some time at Peggy's place, observing the phenomena for himself. He's even willing to stay up all night long,

sitting in the living room, just in case something happens after dark. And this is really key. He puts tape recorders all over the house. So if there are any strange noises, even if they happen in a completely empty room, Maurice will have a documented record of them. Well, one night early on in their research, Maurice and a few other investigators try snapping some photos all around the house. Except they can't get their cameras to work, and y'all know we've talked about this a lot.

And even though all of the batteries were fully charged earlier that, day, everything is now dead. It's weird, to say the least, but not unheard of in these situations. Then one night in late October or early November, one of Marisa's colleagues is at the house, a man named Guy Playfair. And while he's working, 11-year-old Janet is in the other room, and all of a sudden he hears a loud crashing sound. He runs over to check on her, and he sees Janet standing next to a chair that's lying on its side, like it just tipped over, and she looks like she is shaken to her core. She tells Guy that she saw an old man appear in the chair before her. She didn't recognize him, but as soon as he realized she saw him, he flew into a rage.

He leapt out of the chair, put his hands on her face, covering her mouth and nose. so she couldn't breathe. Janet struggled and knocked over the chair, and apparently that's when the old man disappeared and she could actually breathe normally again. Another night, the house is silent and everyone's asleep, except for the society members who are helping Maurice monitor the property. Peggy's oldest, 13-year-old Margaret, gets up to use the bathroom.

She makes it about halfway down the stairs when she's, starts screaming for help. When the paranormal investigators end up making it to the stairs, they see Margaret frozen mid-stride. She has one leg on the step and the other extended behind her. It's almost like someone pushed a pause button right before she could take her next step. But Margaret can talk and she says something is holding back her leg, preventing her from physically moving any further. When the adults tug on her arm to try and pull her down the stairs, she does not move. I mean, let's think about that for a second.

Margaret is standing on one leg, on the stairs, with people physically pulling on her. There's no way she could hold that position on her own. It's almost like some invisible force is holding her there. Eventually, Maurice manages to tug Margaret in just the right way for her to get free of whatever's holding her. But that leaves Maurice convinced some unforeseen force is tormenting the Hodgson kids. Janet's 12th birthday is a few days later on November 11, 1977. The moment she gets home from school that day, all of the furniture in the house starts shaking. But later, when she goes to sit down on the couch, it instantly flips over on top of her.

I mean, thank goodness she's under 24-7 surveillance, even when Peggy isn't around, because a couple of investigators see this happen, and when they try to pick up the couch and put it back where it belongs, it takes two of them. That's how heavy it is. So it's not like Janet could just turn it over on her own. Then from that night onward, every time Janet tries to go to sleep, the same thing happens with her bed. It's constant. constantly flipping over on top of her. Once it knocks her down to the ground, so hard that it knocks her in conscience, the paranormal investigators have a little medical training, so they treat her at home without having to take her to the hospital. But clearly, this is a dangerous situation, not something Janet would fake or just do for attention. And get this, the bed flipping continues every single night for a while. that is when she's able to stay in bed

because on December 15th about a month after Janet's birthday Janet tells one of the society members something interesting she says that sometimes she floats straight up out of bed on her own at night and according to her it happens all the time while the society member thinks this is a pretty big deal and he really wants to capture it on film so he tells Janet that the next time this happens she needs to tell someone right away she agrees and he leaves the room to let her get ready for bed just seconds later he hears

janet call out i'm being levitated the society member runs back into the room just in time to see her come crashing down on the bed like he just missed her floating mid-air so he asked janet if she can do it again. And she tries. She jumps on her bed like a little kid, but she doesn't levitate. That's when it probably dawns on him. This isn't going to happen while he's physically around her. And since this is 1977, there weren't exactly any camcorders or iPhones yet. So he's got to find a way to get a photograph of her while it's happening and he's completely out of the room. So he fixes this contraption to snap a picture from a distance, and he actually does manage to capture something. This image shows Janet in the center of the room about two or three feet off the ground.

She's upright and pretty far off from her bed. It is actually a pretty wild photo. If you Google Janet Hodgson levitating, it comes right up. The freakyest part about this photo is her facial expression. It's one of pure terror. By now, it seems that this spirit is actually latching on to Janet in ways that will soon manifest into what appears to be a full-blown possession. In the fall and winter of 1977, paranormal researcher Maurice Gross is investigating a poltergeist in a London suburb called Enfield. The spirit seems fixated on the second oldest daughter, 12-year-old Janet Hodgson.

It's been knocking on her walls and tossing her off of furniture. And at one point, she tells the investigators she's been hearing a man's voice in her room. Perhaps the same ghostly man who seemingly attacked her just weeks prior. While Maurice and the others set up a recorder in the bedroom. And sure enough, they record a male voice speaking. It's clearly an adult, not any of Janet's siblings. And it uses some very adult language, think lots of curse words and rude phrases. Sometimes the voice is so loud that Maurice can actually hear it from down the hall.

So one night when he catches it, he burst right into Janet's room. And he realizes the voice is coming from Janet herself. The words are coming out of her mouth, yet they sound like they're from an adult man. They're incredibly gruff and very deep. After this very bizarre event, Janet admits that this isn't the first time it's happened. She's been noticing something else taking over her body, and she calls it the voice. And now that the researchers know about the voice, it starts popping up more frequently. Whenever Janet is alone in a room, she often starts speaking in that deep male-sounding tone.

If someone's in a room with her, it only happens if their back is turned or if they're not looking directly at her. For this reason, it's hard to say if there's any physical change that comes over her when the voice takes control, like, you know, if her mannerisms or her facial expressions change. But once the investigators figure out the rules, they set up some recording equipment, then they try talking to Janet with their backs turned, in hopes of seeing what the voice has to say. Some of these sessions last for hours. And when they're done, Janet doesn't show any sign of throat strain or discomfort. The researchers even set up appointments with medical doctors and therapists, just in case she is

faking it and hurting her vocal cords in the process. But they all agree that Janet is physically fine, and they have no idea how this is even possible. Though her doctors aren't quite ready to chuck her symptoms up to a haunting, in fact, at least one physician diagnoses Janet with schizophrenia. He puts her on medication, but that doesn't help. She keeps getting flung from the bed and speaking with the voice. Which is especially terrifying for Janet's mother Peggy. Peggy's biggest fear is that the government might take Janet away from her and commit her to a mental health hospital. She doesn't want to lose any of her kids.

Plus, she also doesn't think a facility like this will actually help Janet. So she begs Maurice and his team to stop the voice once and for all. Maurice and his colleagues debate all of the evidence they've gathered. so far, and they conclude that the house isn't haunted by an ordinary ghost. It has a poltergeist. You guys may recognize that term from the 1982 Steven Spielberg film Poltergeist. But in 1977, before the movie even came out, the Hodgson's have no idea what that word means. Maurice explains that it's some kind of dark or mischievous spirit.

And they tend to move items around and make noises, the sort of things that the Hodgson family has already been dealing with. But beyond that, nobody's entirely clear what holtergeists are. They could be demons or angry ghost or some other kind of entity. And they also tend to attach themselves to certain people, especially children who are troubled. It's pretty rare for them to actually possess anyone, but Maurice fears this poltergeist might have a very unusual connection with Janet. In fact, Maurice has a very personal theory about that. He thinks Janet Hodgson, who lives in the Enfield House,

is actually being haunted by the spirit of his very own daughter, Janet Gross. That's why the family was able to be able to be able to be in the endfield house, is actually being haunted by the spirit of his very own daughter, Janet Gross. That's why the family was able to live here for almost a decade without any problems, because Janet only died a year ago. And maybe she's here now to try and get her father's attention. He thinks she may have attached herself to the other Janet because she sees herself in this girl. I mean, after all, they do have the same name. That's part of the reason Maurice has been throwing himself into the investigation this entire time.

Because he sees it as a way to connect. with his daughter. It makes sense that this would be the job of a lifetime for him. But if you're an ordinary single mom or a kid who hasn't even started high school yet, well, this is the last thing that you need in your life. And by the end of 1978, about 15 months after the haunting started, Peggy just wants things to go back to normal for her and her children. So she gets the resources she needs to sell the house because she wants to put the entire Enfield poltergeist experience behind her. And once the Hodgson's are out of the house, the new residents say, nothing strange happens

there. However, it's possible that whatever was there did follow Janet, because from everything that I've read online, the family claimed the hauntings didn't stop until 1979, a full year after they moved out of the home. Now, the Hodgians freely admit they moved out in part because of the ghosts, but that wasn't their only reason. They were also sick of getting picked on. Ever since that article ran in the Daily Mirror,

everyone has known them as the family that lives in the haunted house. The kids' classmates have been bullying them at school, and a lot of local newspapers are straight up accusing them of being liars who faked the entire thing. Well, liars are not, they shouldn't be being bullied, in my humble opinion. But let's just be devil's advocate here. Maybe it was a hoax. A lot of people think that the members of the society of psychical research aren't exactly the most

credible witnesses. I mean, sure, they say they use the scientific method in their studies, but they also want to prove that ghosts exist. and that might mean they're bringing confirmation bias into their investigations. That is especially true for Maurice, who was desperate for a sign that the afterlife existed and that his daughter was still out there. Okay, listen, I totally hear what you're saying, but you also have to look at the testimony from the Nottingham's

and the police officers who responded to Peggy's call. They also backed up Peggy's story. And remember, the reporter from the Daily Mirror, Well, when he and his photographer were done interviewing Peggy, he said a Lego flew into the photographer's face, and it was with such force that it seemed like someone or something had thrown it, and it even left a mark. If the haunting was faked, there were a ton of people who had to be in on it,

and none of them seemed to have any motive. Take this story from a neighbor who lived on the same block as the Hodgson's, Her name hasn't been released to the public, but I know she's a married adult woman and we'll just call her Nancy. One day, Janet was having an unusually bad experience with the voice. She was screaming, obscenities, and straight up, levitating. But Nancy was at home and didn't know any of this. What she did know was her dog was going wild. He was scratching at the door, barking and acting extremely.

agitated. So she let him out into the backyard and the dog ran right to the corner of the fence that was closest to the Hodgson's home. And he just kept barking, almost like he could sense that there was something dark and evil there. And another time, a handyman was walking down the street during another one of Janet's episodes, he happened to pass the house and glanced in her window just in time to see her head bounce in and out of view. Given how high up the window was, he figured she must have just been jumping on the bed. There was no other way for her head to get so high up. But then he claims a bunch of objects like dolls, books, and toys levitated up toward the window too. They hovered there for a second and then moved in a circular shape. They

weren't falling, they were actually swirling. I mean, how do you fake that? Yeah, I mean, it is hard to fake, but there is one other possibility. And it's that the Hodgson's weren't haunted by a ghost or a poltergeist, but instead were being haunted by themselves. Okay, let me explain this theory. It comes from one of Marisa's colleagues at the Society for Psychical Research. He thought the Hodgson kids actually had some kind of psychic ability. They may have been knocking on the walls and moving the furniture around with their minds. This is his theory. According to paranormal studies in Inquiry Canada,

it's actually more common for poltergeist activity to be linked to young women more than it is to young men. And it might be due to one intriguing factor, puberty. As a young woman's body goes through physical and hormonal changes, it may make them prone to more, I don't know, psychic abilities, moving things with their minds without even being aware of it. So you have to wonder, with Janet turning 12 years old and being on the cusp of puberty, did she hold some sort of telekinetic powers that no one fully understood? I mean, that would certainly explain the moving objects.

but not necessarily the voice. There are still so many lingering questions about the Hodgson's account. But I do feel confident saying that I don't believe this was all a hoax. The family had nothing to gain from coming forward with this, and all the witnesses and evidence truly speaks for itself. Yes, it could have been an evil ghost or the spirit of an innocent young woman who died way too young, or psychic powers that run amok.

The point is, we still don't know what the infilled poltergeist was. But we did get a very tiny peek behind the veil, and it looks like life and death are a lot more complicated than anyone could have ever imagined. This is So Supernatural, an audio Chuck original produced by Crimehouse. You can connect with us on Instagram at So Supernatural Pod and visit our website at soo supernaturalpodcast.com.

Joining Vetting me next Friday for an all-new episode. So what do you think, Chuck? Do you approve? Thank you.