The Enfield Poltergeist

andyw · Joined: 13 Nov 2008 Posts: 215 Location: Caterham, Surrey

Tonight 9pm on the Paranormal Channel on Sky they are repeating The Enfield Poltergeist programme. It's also available on You Tube.

A must see!

FAFFY · Joined: 07 Dec 2008 Posts: 20 Location: England

Wasnt that case proved to be a fake.....?

bitterbuck1 · Posted: Mon Dec 15, 2008 1:55 am Post subject:

Andy or Faffy, can you give us some insight on this?
Thanks.

YB · Posted: Mon Dec 15, 2008 4:14 pm Post subject:

We had this discussion before... with a picture I believe and it was proven a fake.

andyw · Joined: 13 Nov 2008 Posts: 215 Location: Caterham, Surrey

Well i can't see how it was faked and i guess those who were involved are still adamant that it was for real unless they all confessed which will be news to me. I am reading the book written by one of the investigators and it is interesting reading.

Some things are just too fantastic for even believers to believe but that doesn't mean it didn't happen.

So what was the proof that it was faked for 14 months?

YB · Posted: Sat Dec 20, 2008 10:12 am Post subject:

Do a search on the forum for it. If memory serves, it was discussed.

Baruc · Joined: 07 Dec 2008 Posts: 24 Location: East Anglia

The case is unusual in that it also featured strong witnesses.

Whilst some of the images produced are open to debate (please remember that we're talking about young children here who will play to their audience), some of the phenomena recorded was very curious.

I think that it is wrong to dismiss the case as a fraud, especially as it's never been proven anything of the sort, even after very close scrutiny.

Kind Regards
Baruc.

YB · Posted: Sat Dec 20, 2008 5:29 pm Post subject:

I'm open to opinion.

Baruc · Joined: 07 Dec 2008 Posts: 24 Location: East Anglia

Sitting on the fence, it's not proven either. But to suggest that it's been proven that the case is fraudulent is incorrect.

Kind Regards
Baruc.

FAFFY · Joined: 07 Dec 2008 Posts: 20 Location: England

Wasnt a secret camera hidden in the girls bedroom which caught them jumping of the beds, they then claimed they had been attacked.

The poltergeist that for several years disturbed the home of a family in the Enfield section of London in the 1970s has become one of the best-documented incidents in modern parapsychology. The story began in 1977 when Mrs. Harper and her three children moved into their new residence in Enfield. One August evening after putting the children to bed, Mrs. Harper was called to their room and witnessed a large chest of drawers move. She returned it to its place, and it moved again. Knocking was heard. She called the police, and they also heard the knocking coming from the walls and saw a chair move. The phenomena continued for the next week. A priest and a medium were called in. They could do nothing and the knocks and unusual movements of objects continued. Next they invited the news media. Their patient waiting was finally rewarded with a host of flying objects, including a pan that hit the photographer on the forehead.

At this point the Society for Psychical Research was called in. Thus, for the next 13 months, Michael Grosse and Guy Lyon Playfair made extensive observations and kept detailed records of the paranormal phenomena. They recorded over 2,000 unexplained events. They also tried means such as wiring down a bed to stop the phenomena. In the case of the bed, the wire was snapped and the bed moved regardless. They were continually frustrated in their attempts to photograph or make sound recordings of the phenomena.

A medium, Annie Shaw, was brought in to communicate with any possible spirit entity who might be in the house. She suggested that there were several entities feeding off an energy leakage in the aura of Mrs. Harper and one of the children, Janet, who had been especially associated with the unusual happenings. Shaw fixed the leakages and the phenomena were quelled for a short period, but when they reappeared a few weeks later, they reached a new level of violence. Over the next months Grosse and Playfair observed and recorded, and gradually focused upon Janet. In December of 1977, a voice began to speak through her. He claimed to be an old man whose family had once lived in the house. In succeeding weeks Janet levitated on several occasions, was bombarded with objects, and had a pillow stuffed in her mouth.

The number of incidents began to decline in the spring of 1978. By this time several additional psychics had been involved, including Dutch psychic Dono Gmelig-Meyling. He brought to light an outside factor, Grosse's involvement in the case was due to his grief reaction to the untimely death of his daughter two years previously. Grosse and Playfair went on to write a book, This House Is Haunted (1980). Two years later Janet was given a test at Birkbeck College, and to the surprise of all she was able to move the marker on a weighing machine by a kilogram.

Explanations of the Enfield poltergeist have divided those who accept a paranormal explanation between those who attribute it to a spirit entity and those who attribute it to telekinetic power emanating from one or more of the children, especially Janet. A more skeptical perspective was offered by Anita Gregory, who tried to explain the phenomena away as having been fraudulently produced by the children, though a number of the incidents do not seem to yield to such an analysis. The case remains one of the most spectacular in parapsychological records.

Baruc · Joined: 07 Dec 2008 Posts: 24 Location: East Anglia

Hi Faffy,

I think that the picture you're referring to is the one with the girls on / in bed, one of them 'levitating', but more likely jumping.

From memory, without referring back to my material on the case, I think that although the camera was discrete, the girls were aware that there was a camera in the room.

One of the investigators , Guy Lyon Playfair later said that despite the circumstances they found themselves in, the girls were still children at the end of the day and they had caught them trying to play tricks on the investigators. However, this still did not detract from the case and would not explain a lot of what was witnessed at the house.

Obviously, what we know is only from what we see in the public domain, but I was just keen to make the point that the case was not disproved and it would be incorrect to state this.

Kind Regards
Baruc.

andyw · Joined: 13 Nov 2008 Posts: 215 Location: Caterham, Surrey

The girls had indeed tried to play tricks themselves but were always found out. This still didn't account for the 2,000+ unexplainable 'happenings' where the children were either in sight or not even in the house.

There was a time when the papers tried to debunk the case as fraud by bullying the children into saying it was them but if you read the book you will see why that didn't stand up. It still doesn't explain the multitude of other events.

Stuff happened even outside when they went shopping, for example apples and other fruit rolling off the shelves in green grocers shops.

You really need to read the book written by Guy Playfair as it is an almost blow by blow account of all the weird things that happened.

YB · Posted: Tue Dec 23, 2008 4:54 pm Post subject:

I got to find this other post where I commented on that pic. I pulled out a few tell tale signs that she was NOT levitating. From memory, her hair was in a position similar to when one is jumping and not levitating, same with her leg position.

sacredt · Joined: 11 Jan 2009 Posts: 10

i think this is a real paranormal happenings

flossy · Posted: Wed Jan 14, 2009 7:16 pm Post subject:

i found a few pictures, and i see what you mean about her hair Wink

im not convinced

especailly on the 3rd and 4th picy