The case record
What was reported?
Reports from an Enfield family home became a major late-1970s poltergeist controversy. Investigators recorded noises, speech and alleged movements, but disagreed about how much could be attributed to ordinary actions or performance.
Maurice Grosse and Guy Lyon Playfair followed the case involving the Hodgson family. The best-known material includes a rough voice associated with Janet, photographs interpreted as levitation and testimony about displaced objects. Some tricks were acknowledged; that does not independently settle every other claim.
Reported activity began in 1977 and is generally described through 1979; year bounds do not imply activity on every intervening day.
- Reported date
- 1977–1979 reports
- Witnesses
- Residents, staff, visitors or later storytellers; distinctions described in the case narrative. · No independently established total; repeated retellings are not additional witnesses.
- Investigation
- Source authors, heritage custodians and investigators identified in the references.
Evidence in the record
The SPR review of Melvyn Willin’s book describes the archived tapes and the society’s investigation committee. It also notes laughter, sore throats and the difficulties of the evidence. Photographs capture moments without proving the route into or out of a pose; recordings preserve sounds without automatically identifying their cause.
Competing explanations
Official and research context
No official finding establishing a supernatural cause was identified in the reviewed sources.
Conventional explanations
Human vocal production, jumping, misperception and occasional deliberate tricks are conventional possibilities discussed in the record. Sympathetic investigators considered some events unexplained, while critics questioned controls. The material supports a contested report, not a diagnosis of the children or proof of an external entity.
Arguments that remain contested
The cited material records history and reported experiences; it does not establish that any unexplained detail had a supernatural cause.
Locations & timeline
Coordinates are representative. Area and route labels do not imply exact paths or object positions.
- Primary reference location
Enfield residential district, approximate area
Representative map point for Enfield residential district, approximate area; this is not an independently measured apparition location.
Representative setting for the reports or tradition · Approximate area radius: 4 km
51.653°, -0.071° · area · Approximate representative locality
Record notes
Reported haunting or folklore; historical events and later supernatural interpretations are distinguished.
Reviewed disagreement and the recording archive’s limits. Broad residential map point protects the present household.
Original dataset status: disputed