The Enfield Poltergeist Case 1977

[The Pair of Cats]

My appologies if this has been posted before but i thought that a revisit of this case may be interesting.



---------- Post added at 06:14 AM ---------- Previous post was at 06:09 AM ----------

Here are some additional vids to this case.


Including a "debate" with Prof Chris Green.

 

[xLordSummerislex]

Fascinating case, that doc actually sprung to mind when I saw the thread title. Despite the girls being caught out hoaxing (probably more under the pressure to perform than anything), there is a residue of odd events that had mutliple witnesses.
I remember I first read about this in"Great Ghosts Of The World" by Nigel Blundell when I was about 8, shared the shit out of me as up til that point ghosts were something that happened in cobwebbed castles, not council houses like what I lived in!

 

[Hoffmeister]

if you're in the UK you can just watch it on 4od.
Was going to post it myself here actually.

 

[The Pair of Cats]

Interestingly the case was investigated for around 14 months. Quite a few independent witnesses were involved and from various backgrounds, from newspaper journalists and photographers, to a policewoman as well as various members of the Society for Psychical Research.

 

[Tom From Hong Kong]

There is also the testimony from an independent neighbor who claims to have seen the older of the two girls levitating while looking from the street into the girls' bedroom window. One of the spookiest ghost stories I have ever heard!

 

[Aaron LeClair]

I posted it long ago, neener neener.

Glad to see a new thread on it though. Beats the orb/dust photos I see plagued on the net.

The Entity case is another interesting one.

IIRC it was a cop that saw what Tom mentioned above.

 

[Angel of Ioren]

This is a really interesting case, apart from the girls being caught trying to intentionally trick the investigators several times, which was documented along with all the crazy things they could not explain. It's too bad they had no one like Derren Brown or James Randi or Penn & Teller around to investigate it. It would have been interesting for someone that specializes in the art of tricking people to have witnessed the events. That's why I am always weary when it comes to poltergeists - magicians fool us all the time into thinking that we see things that we can't understand. You can't bullshit a bullshitter, so I wonder what a professional magician would have found. I'm a huge fan of science, but even a scientist can be fooled by a magic trick, just ask Randi.
It really is too bad though, because we'll never know what really happened, will we? People like me will say it remains unexplained, and many others will say it's proof of the spirit world.
Thanks for the vids Phil.

 

[xLordSummerislex]

Are there any recent poltergeist cases that are on a par with this in terms of levels of actvity and evidence? That one in the Australian outback, Humpty Doo or something maybe?

 

[Hoffmeister]

About this case, I have to say by the way, that when they show a clip of the little girl, whilst the voice is talking, it really looks like she is moving her mouth and throat.
Thats what makes me think it was probably all a hoax, but its a really intriguing case.

 

[Tom From Hong Kong]

Personally, I am always reluctant to try to "debunk" a case if I am not there, onsite and in person, talking to the participants and witnesses contemporaneously (which is never, given that I am an armchair researcher, at best). That doesn't mean my bullshit meter doesn't go off, but I personally refuse to say with authority that an apparently honest witness is not telling the truth, or didn't perceive something correctly, all based upon a few YouTube videos. Indeed, that is the modus operandi of Shermeer, McGaha, et. al.

Case in point: what would people say about quantum mechanics in the year 1900? You would have been laughed off campus if you held up as fact the fundamental tenets of quantum mechanics given how quarky it is (it probably would have been called magic rather than science).

 

[The Pair of Cats]

Thanks Aaron. I knew that this case had been previously presented but was unsure as to when (how long ago).

The Society For Psychical Research released "The Enfield Poltergeist Investigation Report", which was headed by Mary Rose Barrington. The report concluded that (paraphrasing) "...there was every reason to think that there was poltergeist activity in the house although there was a lot that was, at best, unproven."

---------- Post added at 03:04 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:57 PM ----------

There is a second documentary via You Tube that delves into the case a little more deeply.
At one point professional and TV ventriloquist Ray Allen showed up at the house to advise the investigators as to whether he thought that Janet was using ventriloquism in regards to the "voice".

 

[Angel of Ioren]

Personally, I am always reluctant to try to "debunk" a case if I am not there, onsite and in person, talking to the participants and witnesses contemporaneously (which is never, given that I am an armchair researcher, at best). That doesn't mean my bullshit meter doesn't go off, but I personally refuse to say with authority that an apparently honest witness is not telling the truth, or didn't perceive something correctly, all based upon a few YouTube videos. Indeed, that is the modus operandi of Shermeer, McGaha, et. al.

Case in point: what would people say about quantum mechanics in the year 1900? You would have been laughed off campus if you held up as fact the fundamental tenets of quantum mechanics given how quarky it is (it probably would have been called magic rather than science).

I love the quantum mechanics argument. The truth is, they would not have been laughed out of the lab in 1900 because there were lab results that were pointing to the theory already. That's the thing, quantum mechanics is science - people had a theory, they proved it with results - falsifiable ones! Imagine that!
Anyway, no one is saying that these people are liars, except for the parts where they were lying. All I'm saying is that it would have been interesting to have an expert in fooling people there to see if they were doing the same. What's wrong with speculating? Inferring that a ghost was doing this is speculation too.