A council house in Enfield. A family of five.
Knocks in the walls, a chest of drawers that will not stay put, and voices that should not exist.
Local police make a note. Reporters drop by. Researchers move in with tape recorders.
People care because this is one of the most documented modern hauntings, with hundreds of hours of audio, police notations, and photos that invite both belief and debunk.
What actually happened
Activity began in late August 1977 in the Hodgson home at 284 Green Street. Single mother Peggy and her four children reported furniture moving, raps, and small objects thrown. A responding officer wrote that she saw a chair slide a short distance without obvious cause.
Cases escalated through autumn and winter: disembodied knocks that replied in patterns, objects tossed, children apparently levitated from a bed, and a rough male voice later recorded through 11-year-old Janet that identified itself as an older man and answered questions for hours.
The Society for Psychical Research affiliates Guy Lyon Playfair and Maurice Grosse made repeated visits, logged hundreds of incidents, captured audio and some photos, and produced a detailed narrative. Skeptics who visited pointed to instances where the children appeared to fake events, and to confounds like camera placement, line of sight, and expectation effects. Incidents tapered by 1979.
Brief timeline after the prose
- Late Aug 1977: First disturbances reported. Police visit and note a moving chair.
- Sep–Dec 1977: High activity window. Reporters and SPR investigators begin recordings and all-night vigils.
- 1978: Ongoing episodes, including extended sessions of the “voice.” Periods of quiet and flare-ups.
- 1979: Activity wanes. Researchers publish summaries and later books.
- Aftermath: Family moves on. Case becomes a touchstone in haunting debates.
Key claims and evidence
At issue: how much of the record reflects extraordinary events versus misreads, social dynamics, and staged moments.
- Main claims
- Recurrent knocks, object movements, and occasional child levitation.
- A gravelly voice produced via Janet’s mouth that continued for lengthy sessions without apparent strain.
- Third-party observations from police, neighbors, and reporters that something unusual occurred.
- Main pieces of evidence
- Hundreds of hours of audio tapes logging raps, thrown objects, and the “voice.”
- Investigator and press photographs, including midair shots of Janet leaving a bed.
- Written notes from police and contemporaneous press accounts.
- Main contradictions or disputes
- Several caught or admitted hoaxes by the children during the long vigil period.
- Photos that can be read as jumps, not levitation, given shutter speed and framing.
- Normal mechanisms for raps and throws in a crowded terrace house with poor line of sight.
- The “voice” potentially produced with false cord phonation, a known vocal technique.
How people interpret this
- Believer lens
Even if prank moments occurred, the volume, duration, and third-party notes point to a real focus of psychokinetic or discarnate activity. The endurance of the voice and its responsive exchanges exceed stage trickery by children. - Skeptic lens
This is a classic case of attention, suggestion, and intermittent trickery in a high-stress household amplified by investigators eager for phenomena. The audio is strong as theater, weak as experiment. The photos do not clear the bar for levitation. - Middle ground
Long, messy cases mix genuine anomalies, misperception, and pranks. The value is the archive. Some episodes remain hard to reconstruct, while others clearly show how expectation shapes what people report.
“Knock once for yes. Twice for no.”
Credibility meter (1–5)
- Witnesses: 4
Family, neighbors, police note, journalists, and multiple investigators over many months. - Physical evidence: 2
Audio tapes and photos exist, but controls are weak and staging routes exist. No instrumented forces recorded. - Documentation: 4
Extensive logs, tapes, and publications. Strong archive, variable rigor. - Expert review: 2–3
Polarized. Vocal experts and magicians offer normal mechanisms; parapsychology literature argues residual anomalies.
Overall: ~3.0
Rich public record with real third-party notes. Evidential controls are patchy, which leaves room for both anomaly and artifice.
Closing
We know a North London family lived through two years of widely witnessed disturbances, that investigators recorded hundreds of hours of audio, and that a few episodes were faked while many others were logged under all-night watch.
We do not know how many incidents reduce to normal causes, how the “voice” sustained so long without damage if it was purely trick, or whether a small core of events resists clean reconstruction.
If someone digitizes and synchronizes all surviving tapes with floor plans and camera angles, Enfield could shift from story to structured dataset. Until then, it remains the most studied modern haunting, a case that can carry two truths at once.
And if there is a nonhuman layer, it may not be Victorian phantoms but a local echo that wakes when attention pools and tension climbs. A house like a looped tape, replaying stress as sound and force. If so, it is not a visitor. It is a recording that sometimes records back.
