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Strange  Stories of the Unexplained

Even the briefest ghost story can send chills up your spine, but the unexplained is far more than just haunted houses. If you've had any experiences with any of the below strange and unusual experiences, or even something not listed here, please submit your story.Your experience doesn't need to have a dramatic ending or resolution. It doesn't need to be the most exciting or scary tale. You don't need to be an award-winning author. If something unexplained happened to you, that's enough. If you're brave enough to be vulnerable and share your story, that's what matters.I can't wait to read your story of strangeness.

Episode 36: The Boy at the Bottom of the Stairs

Oh, I didn't hear you come in. What's that? You've got a true strange story of the unexplained you'd like to hear narrated on the show? Email it to me madamstrangewaysmail uh.com welcome strangers, strangelings and strangeketeers to Madam Strangeways where I, Madam Strangeways, narrate your true strange stories of the unexplained. And as always, solicited or not, usually not. I share my strange thoughts and observations and drag you down a slew of strange rabbit holes, kicking and screaming if absolutely necessary. Today I've got one new spine tingling true strange story for you. But first, the strangest of shout outs to my Patreon patrons. TJ Hodder, GMADmusic, Ted, Keith and Tori. Thank you so much to my feral fiendish 5 for supporting the show. Do you want to hear your name at the beginning of every episode? Or how about an exclusive sticker or even access to Madam Strange Notes aka Strange Bonus Content? Join the Patreon today at madamstrangeways.com or patreon.com madamstrangeways and now on to our true strange story here on Madam Strangeways. M.The Boy at the Bottom of the Stairs By OMG REAL UFO it seemed like a lot of you liked my post about the whispering girl. I don't have any other paranormal experiences myself, but my Auntie Linda does and honestly, it's one of the scariest true stories I've heard. So my Auntie Linda is a very straight talking woman. She never believed in ghosts or the paranormal until she experienced something. So this encounter was about 20 years ago. My Auntie Linda was working at a care home in Wales. Now the care home is really old and it's been a few different buildings in the past. The building is over 100 years old, so my Auntie Linda was doing a night shift. So she started working around 6pm and then would finish the next day around 9am um, she was doing her rounds and checking that all of the residents were asleep and all seemed fine. She went upstairs to the staff room to get ready to go to sleep. She was locking the staff room toilets upstairs before she went to bed. Now the staff toilets are directly opposite the stairs, so when she locked them she turned around facing the stairs. She then noticed what looked like a little boy sitting at the bottom of the stairs. He was wearing old fashioned clothing, maybe something from the 1920s and was facing away from her. Startled, she called out to ask if he was okay. Then all M of a Sudden, the boy turned to face her. Now, her description still freaks me out to this day. She said when he turned to look at her, it looked like his jaw or something was broken because his jaw was hanging from his mouth. He gave her direct eye contact. Now, you know how kids run up the stairs sometimes using both their hands and feet. This kid started to run towards my auntie up the stairs. She screamed in terror and as soon as she screamed, the M boy disappeared. My auntie then ran out of the building and called her manager to say she's not staying the night. When the manager asked what happened, she said she saw something at the bottom of the stairs and they ran towards her.Her.Her manager then said, oh, you've seen Benny. Turns out the little boy was a boy called Benny who had died from falling down the stairs in the building years ago. Some of the residents at the care home said he visits them sometimes and sits on their beds. Honestly, scared the shit out of me as a child. This story did. And my auntie to this day swears what she saw really happen. From that point onwards, she didn't dismiss the paranormal anymore.Buh, buh buh. Benny and the jaws, or lack thereof perhaps. Um, thank you so much OMG Real ufo for letting me read yet another one of your stories. This is the second story, actually. If you go back and listen to episode number Mumble Mumble. Um, I did read another one of OMG real UFO's stories. And actually that was the second story that I read.This.This story about poor Benny and his lack of jaw. This is the story that I read first from OMG Real ufo. But because at the beginning it references an earlier story, I was like, well, now I gotta read both stories and I gotta start chronologically. So now this is actually the first story that I read that really hit me because it's so spooky. So look, OMG Real ufo. Your aunt, or aunt, uh, is definitely a victim here. And she was so smart. Because you know what she did what I love, you know, I love to do it. Absolutely not. Absolutely not. Two of my favorite words. Absolutely and not. They have to be together though, because I can't say absolutely to a ghost situation. It's going to be an absolutely not for me and also for your aunt. Aunt. She made the right choice there. But poor Betty Benny is the real victim here. Poor Benny. Benny, first of all, doesn't have a jaw. So listen, there's not going to be any jawbreakers being enjoyed by poor little Benny. Kids love jawbreakers. I never loved A jawbreaker, personally. But I imagine, you know, what, like uh, ghost kids from the 20s and 30s, you know, they loved a hard candy. You know, they loved them like barley sweets and lemon drops. Those sound like those are things. Those are old style candies. You know, he loved those. And he can't even enjoy a jawbreaker. You know what? You know what? Maybe a jawbreaker was involved. No, he fell down the stairs.Okay, okay. So no spectral jawbreakers will be enjoyed by poor Benny. And also of all the places to get stuck as a ghost is a care home. Like, no wonder he goes and sits on the patients beds. He ain't got nothing else to do, you know, it's sad. Poor Benny. What a. What a tragic end. I, you know, I think someone said in the comments, I think there's only one comment, but I think someone said like, oh, imagine those poor old people who are waking up and they have, uh, this terrifying, terrifying young child ghost sitting on their bed. I, however, I think that they would not be terrified because they, here's the thing about old people is they have seen some shit. And also they're really lonely.So I bet they were thrilled. I bet they looked forward to Benny visiting them at night or anytime. I bet they were thrilled to have him. And they probably told their stories for the 5000th time to him. And he probably had a great time too. So I think you have to answer, you have to ask the question. Okay. When it comes to hauntings, right, there's residual hauntings and there's intelligent hauntings. So, ah, a residual haunting is sort of like a ghost repeating the same thing over and over as if on a loop or like on, um, a record, right? And it's just repeating over and over and over again. Sort of like the stone tape theory, which is, you know, as I've mentioned, the theory that you have, uh, something that happened over and over enough or that was traumatic enough or you know, violent enough that it sort of stuck in time. And so that's that kind of like residual haunting where the ghost is not interacting with you. It's literally just pretending like it's living its life and nothing new has changed and it doesn't know that it's dead. That sort of thing, then intelligent haunting, that would be some interaction. So whether or not it's knocking or whether or not it's messing with you, like hiding things or even, you know, a poltergeist would technically be considered an intelligent haunting. But in some way where there's an intelligence there and it's not Just over and over and over again. Now stay with me here. Because although Benny did turn and look at Auntie, and even though Benny did run up the stairs toward her, I don't know that that necessarily means that he was doing so intelligently. I don't know that that means that he was aware of her. Or was this just one of his loops that he did? Because if you think about it, kids, uh, with nothing else to do, and there's stairs around, they're gonna be running up and down the stairs. That's gonna be their whole thing. Especially like, oh God, like clambering up the stairs on his hands and feet. That's so scary. I don't know that he was trying to scare Auntie. I think that's kind of like, ah. I think that's like a horror movie trope at this point. You know, I guess the concept of, like, humans moving in a way that seems inhuman, you know, maybe not impossible, like, maybe not full on head spinning around 360 degrees a la the Exorcist. All right?But doing humans moving in a way that they shouldn't move is just kind of uncanny and it gives you the heebie jeebies, right? So, you know, like, maybe he was trying to scare her, but I don't think he was. I think he was just being a kid. If this is a haunting, if this is a ghost, I think he was just being a kid and that this might actually be a residual haunting. And you may say, oh, but hold on, madam. Um, excuse me. Benny went and sat on the beds of patients. Yeah, but like, if this house has been used as a hospital for a long time, then it's fair to say that actually this is just, again, this is just a residual thing and that he was sitting on various beds and etc before. So, you know, let me know what you think. Let me know. Do you think this sounds like a residual or an intelligent haunting? Madamstrangewaysgmail.com, let me know. But also, what I find the most compelling about these kinds of haunting stories is that it's like you don't share the detail.Assuming this is true. Okay, I am assuming that omg. Real UFO is correctly and truthfully relaying the story from his aunt, who accurately and truthfully relayed the story to him without embellishment, whether that embellishment was purposeful or accidental. Because as I've said before. Yes, you're right. Good point. That every single time we access a memory, we're actually writing over it. We're saving over the memory. And so actually, you can't trust a single memory that you have because every time you think of it, it's altered.And so truly, what reality and memory? I don't know. Great question. Aside from that, assuming that all of this is true and this is exactly how it happened, I think it's always so spooky when a story is effectively someone accidentally discovering the built in lore, especially at their workplace. I don't know why. Work stuff is just. It's like, uh, work sucks already. And then what? Now I'm going to be haunted during work hours? I mean, I guess I would prefer to be haunted on an employer's dime than in my free time, personally, if I had to choose. So. Okay, it's fine. I just find these stories very, very spooky. Very spooky. Uh, you know, okay, look, from a.From a naturalistic or a mundane standpoint, could you argue that Auntie. Auntie did hear about Benny and kind of forgot or like, wasn't really paying attention? Um, maybe heard that there was some kind of ghost or, you know. Sure. And then forgot? Yeah, but I mean, you would think, you would think that that would be an included detail. Although here's um. The thing about humans is that we do love a good narrative. We love a good narrative. And so it is a better narrative for her to not mention that she had already heard the story of Benny. So I couldn't blame her for leaving that part out. And I'm not even saying she would be doing it consciously. She may subconsciously. That's how much we love narrative, is that we kind of subconsciously alter what we share with people.And I know I will find myself doing it. And I'll be thinking, well, that's not like I am leaving out this detail, but it does make it better. Like, as I'm saying it, I find myself doing it, but it just happens. And so I would have to then go back and be like, okay, hold on. I. You know. No, and then I got to get semantic and be like, well, technically, this thing. Okay, no, no, no, no, it's fine. So from a naturalistic standpoint, I think the easiest. The easiest explanation for this would just be that, you know, OMG, um, real UFOs aunt had actually heard the story of Benny and then experienced it in that order. However, like I said, you know, I do like to take these stories at face value. So I guess a different naturalistic explanation, you know? I don't know. I don't know. M. I don't know. Besides, you know what? Besides Anti just sharing a scary story and wanting to scare the shit out of her nieces and nephews, I feel like that's. I feel like that might be it. Uh, I mean, look, I'm not saying I would do the same in her shoes, but I also couldn't blame her. So I think those are the two most naturalistic explanations for the story would just basically be it's a better narrative to tell it a little differently and maybe misremembering it over time and not even remembering that that happened the other way, uh, because that's how memory works. Or she just wanted to scare you guys. It's one or the other. Or there was really a ghost with his jaw missing named Benny. Now, how hard do you have to fall down the stairs for your jaw to be hanging off? Right? All right, so you. Okay. You may have noticed if you are a listener of the show, that I do have a soft spot for whales. I just feel like whales get slept on. I feel like in terms of the uk, everybody is all about, you know, England, jolly old England, and, you know, Ireland and Scotland, and then no one really talks about Wales. So I have a soft spot for Wales.But I don't want this to turn into a one hour episode where I tell you interesting facts about Welsh folklore and ghosts and hauntings and etc. So do you want to hear more about Welsh folklore and Welsh ghost stories? Let me know madamstrangewaysmail.com I would be happy to do another episode like a Wilsapalooza. Um, a Welsh. There's. I don't know, there's something there. I would be so happy to do that. So let me know madamstrangwaysmail.com.But what I am going to do, because I thought this was really interesting, so what I am going to do is explain, like who, what, when, where, why, how manor houses would even become care homes in the UK and why so many of them would be haunted as hell. All right, so, okay, in a nutshell. In a nutshell. Nope. Yes, this is a nutshell. I assure you. What I am telling you is a nutshell. I spent too much time this morning researching this. So this is. I assure you, this is a nutshell. Um, okay, so there's. First you gotta. Okay, okay, okay, okay. Who M. How do I start this social hierarchy? All right, you've got the peerage and the landed gentry and they are the ones that own these m. Manors or houses or estates, um, et cetera. And also when I'm talking about a house, I need you to understand that what I am saying is not like an American house. It's not like 1300 square feet or less. I mean, this is like a mansion. Or, you know, what you might even consider to be like a castle. It's huge. All right, so you've got the peerage that owns these manors and houses, etc. And these are like hereditary titles, like duke, marquise, uh, earls, viscounts, barons, lords, etc. Ah.So they are the ones that pass their titles down, like through birth, um, otherwise known as primogeniture. Then you also have the landed gentry. So the landed gentry, uh, don't have noble titles and are basically quote, unquote, lower class or lower or quote unquote lower class or quote unquote commoners. So they're, they're one tier below the aristocracy, but they own land. Now, they may own land because someone else, a really long time ago owned land. And then it gets passed down. And so someone's great aunt dies, and they're the only one that's surviving in their family. And so now they have inherited land. Land. So because they have land, it's not just land, you understand the land. The land. You understand the land includes, you know, houses, estates, et cetera, and also farmland. Okay? So you've got this massive house that requires a huge amount of workforce to run.And on top of running the house, you also have the farmland, which is. Which includes tenant farms run by tenant farmers who rent the land. So they basically pay the landowners for the right to farm that land. These houses would also effectively kind of support the nearest town or village by giving the people that worked or, uh, the people that lived their jobs or, you know, they need resources, they need food, they need, et cetera, to run this house. They think Downton Abbey, basically, as an American, I think that's probably the easiest. I don't remember if Downton Abbey if the family h

if the family had tenant farmers, but pretend that they did if they didn't in the show. So, you know, it's basically like a little mini ecosystem. And that's more or less how these houses worked. However, with the decline in farming, not only due to apparently an agricultural depression in the 1870s, um, aside from that, you also have the Industrial Revolution happening. And so, you know, cities are booming and jobs are moving to the cities rather than out in the countries. And aside from the Depression, you know, these farmers need jobs and so they're going to the cities. Uh, so this is reducing the, um, rural labor pool. Literally every single time I say rural, I always think of the rural juror, uh, from 30 Rock. I think of it every single time. The Rudger. Uh. All right, so it's reducing the rural labor pool, Right? So they're moving to the cities, so there's no one to work the fields, and there's no one to pay to work the fields. Right. And then the people in the villages and the towns are also moving to the cities, and so now there's no one to work at the houses.And then also, by the way, some of these estate owners, like, you know, how at least in America, I'm sure everywhere you've got the term house poor. So that would happen where, yeah, maybe you own all this crazy amount of land and you have this estate, um, with houses and farmland, but you don't have any money. You have no money, you know, especially if you inherited it as, uh, the landed gentry. And some families actually even had multiple estates, um, you know, smaller houses, larger houses, et cetera, um, all around the UK So sometimes they just didn't have a use for some of these houses.And I think in some cases they would just start selling them off just to get some cash flow, you know, because all the tenant farmers are gone, so they're not getting any rent, so they need some money. So maybe that's why they were selling it. Or they just want more money. Maybe they had plenty of money and they just wanted more, because what else. What. What is more human than that? Just wanting more. So, um, I'm about to potentially enter enemy territory because although I love history, I am no Tony Soprano, okay? I don't watch World War I and World War II documentaries for fun, you know, Ken Burns, I know, does a great job, but it's just not my thing. Although I do love history. However, I don't know if I am fully qualified to talk in detail about World War I versus World War II in terms of the amount of injured, uh, or the technology that was invented between World War I and World War II. And that was the reason why there were far less injured soldiers that needed room in hospitals in World War II versus World War I. Uh, but you know what? Just imagine that I just spoke very eloquently about it and that you fully understand. And obviously, if you fully understand, that means I fully understood. Okay, good. I'm glad we had that talk. So in World War I and World War II, we needed extra hospitals. More in World War I than in World War II, we just. We just. We as in the royal we. We as, uh, um, in the United Kingdom during the World Wars.So, like I said, some of those estates were donated temporarily, some were permanent, and some were so badly damaged that they just had to be, you know, razed to the ground. Um, Raz. Were they razed? I like saying that word, but I don't think that. I don't think they were burned. They were just demolished. Okay, it's fine. Don't worry about it. I need to play Civ 5, I think, is. How many Sims are there? Civ 5 is my favorite. It's fine. Don't worry about it. Continue. Continue with the episode. Okay, so wartime Requisition is more or less in a nutshell, what just happened there. So in World War I and World War II. So, in fact, by the end of World War I, over 1400 auxiliary hospitals had opened across the United Kingdom, many in private homes. So just to give you an idea, some of those places after the wars remained in use as hospitals or convalescent homes or elder care, as in this case, this care home. So especially because, um, out in the country, you've got that, like, crisp. The crisp country air, the clean air, like I mentioned, I think in the last episode or two episodes ago, one or the other, where, you know, the rich would go to convalesce to recover from their illness. So a lot of these manor houses, uh, were out in the country where the air was nice and clean, as opposed to, like, London, where it was awful and choking.But here's what I will say is that. OMG. Real UFOs. Auntie. Auntie said that Benny was dressed like the 1920s. I don't think it's a stretch to say that she probably wasn't a fashion expert and a history expert. So I think it's safe to say that Benny could have been dressed like, for instance, the year 1918. And for those of you who are also not Tony Sopranos when it comes to history, World War I spanned from 1914 to 1918. So I ask you, did he lose his jaw falling down the stairs, or did Benny suffer this injury because of a bombing? Just some food for thought. Just some food for thought. So, see, aren't you so glad you waited till the end of the episode? Aren't you glad you listened to the end? Because, come on, we know that the care home was at least 100 years old in the 2000s. Early 2000s, right? So that would be 1900, okay? And it was probably older than that because everything in the UK is super old. So it was probably older than that. So to me, this is my pet theory. And I don't want to be talked out of it. So. Omg. Real ufo. If you have information that, um, doesn't jive with my theory, you know what? I don't need to hear about it. You can just keep that to yourself. You don't need to tell me. I'm just kidding. Please tell me.If you have more details, I would love to hear it. Madamstrangewaysmail.com and if any of you listening have ever experienced anything spooky, or if your family has a ghost story that they like to tell, I would love to hear it. Go ahead. Email me at madamstrangewaysmail.com or you can go to the website at madamstrangeways.com foreign thank you for joining me. For more true strange stories of the unexplained, remember that you can feel afraid and not be in danger. You're safe here with me, probably. Please follow the podcast, leave a rating on Spotify or Apple, or tell your friends and foes about the show. It would mean the world to me. The underworld, obviously. I mean, come on, was that not.Was that not clear?Madame Strangeways is produced and narrated by me. Madame Strangeways theme music is by Marina Ryan at marinamakes Co. Cover art is by Andrea Chisel Roldan at cultoftetty on Instagram. You can submit your own true strange [email protected] or or email it to madamstrangewaysmail.com See you soon, she said ominously.

Episode 35: The Enfield Poltergeist

Welcome, um, strangers Strange Cetra, Strangerinos and Stranger Rangers. Is that something? No?Okay. Welcome, um, to Madam Strangeways, where I.Usually narrate your true strange stories of the unexplained and share my strange thoughts and observations while dragging you down strange rabbit holes kicking and screaming. You're the one kicking and screaming. I'm doing the dragging.This, however, is a deep dive episode.About the allegedly true case files of Ed and Lorraine Warren, speaking specifically the.Story of the Enfield Poltergeist.I'll still drag you down a slew of strange rabbit holes, though. Fear not.But first, a strange shout out to my Patreon patrons. TJ Hodder, GMAN Music Ted, Keith and Tori.Thank you so much to my feral.Fiendish five for supporting the show.Do you want to hear your name at the beginning of every episode? Or how about an exclusive sticker or even access to Madam Strange Notes, aka Strange Bonus Content? Join the Patreon today at madamstrangeways.com or.Patreon.Com madamstrangeways and now on to the true strange story of the Enfield Poltergeist here on Madam Strangeways.Poltergeist was reported at 284 Green Street, Enfield on 1 SeptemberThe Enfield poltergeist on Thursday 1st September at approximately 1am I was on duty in my capacity as a policewoman when I received a radio message to 284 Green Street, Enfield. I went to this address where I found a number of people standing in the living room. I was told by the occupier of the house that strange things had been happening during the last few hours and that they believed the house was haunted. Myself and another police constable entered the living room of the house and the occupier turned off the lights. Almost immediately I heard the sound of knocking on the wall that backs onto the next door neighbor's house. There were four distinct taps on the wall and then silence. About two minutes later I heard more tapping, but this time it was coming from a different wall again. It was a distinctive peel of four taps. The police constable and the neighbors checked the walls, attic and pipes but could find nothing to explain the knockings. The police constable and the neighbors all went into the kitchen to check the refrigerator, pipes, etc, leaving myself and the family in the living room. The lights in the living room were switched off again and within a few minutes the Eldest son pointed to a chair which was standing next to the sofa. I looked at the chair and noticed that it was wobbling slightly from side to side. I then saw the chair slide across the floor towards the kitchen wall. It moved approximately three to four feet and then came to rest. At no time did it appear to leave the floor. I checked the chair but could find nothing to explain explain how it had moved. The lights were switched back on. Nothing else happened that night, although we have later reports of disturbances at this address. WPC Carolyn Heaps didn't know the half of it. In the days following her visit to Green street, the unexplained activity escalated. Um, marbles and Lego bricks catapulted around the room as if launched by invisible trebuchets. The knockings continued. The settee in the living room was upended. Mrs. Hodgson, the single mother who lived there with her four children, called a local priest who blessed the home. And yet the activity only intensified. The Hodgson family was on edge all hours of the day and night, with the crashing and chaos always worst at bedtime. Out of desperation, the Daily Mirror was called out. The reporter and photographer were so shocked by the flying objects and furniture moving that they wasted no time calling the Society for Psychical Research, the world's oldest organization dedicated to studying claims of psychic and paranormal phenomena. Morris Gross was sent to investigate immediately. He was convinced this was no hoax. He explained to the family that this was what was called a poltergeist, something none of the family had ever heard of before. Shortly after, another SBR investigator, Guy Lyon Playfair, joined the investigation. M the presence of the two men seemed to only provoke the poltergeist. It was not happy. Phantom faces were seen through the windows. The knocking sounds ramped up until they shook the whole house. The settee that had been thrown prior began to levitate off the floor. Janet, the second oldest child, was bodily ejected from her bed night after night. Other times she would be forcibly thrown through the air, terrifying the 11 year old girl. Even more terrifying, multiple curtains in the home began to wrap themselves around her neck to strangle her. The furniture in the home may have been to blame. Mr. Hodgson, before leaving, his family had bought some pieces of furniture that had belonged to a man who had, after killing his young daughter, taken his own life. Afraid it was possessed by a harmful spirit, they took all of the offending furniture and decor and burned it in the back garden. It didn't help. The knocking in the home seemed to become sentient. Gross would ask it questions and it would answer One knock for no, two knocks for yes. From there, it escalated again. The poltergeist began to speak in a low, gruff voice. That voice came primarily from Janet, though sometimes her older sister, Margaret. They said that when the voice spoke, it felt like it was coming from the back of their necks and that they had no control over what the voice said. The voice was rude and vulgar and sounded nothing at all like how the girls normally spoke. The spirit claimed to have been a man named Bill Wilkins. When he was alive, he claimed he had lived in their house on Green street and was there looking for his wife. Then he told the frightened family, just.Before I died, I went blind. Then I had an hemorrhage and I fell asleep and I died in the chair in the corner downstairs.As it turned out, the poltergeist had been right. Bill Wilkins lived and died at, uh, 284 Green Street. Janet began to fall into trances and had fits. She drew violent artwork. She shrieked and screamed threats of death as multiple grown men had to hold her down. Mrs. Hodgson reported that a knife had gone missing from the kitchen, and she was understandably worried that Janet had taken it. The family suffered sleepless nights in constant states of hypervigilance, with the only reprieve being a short family vacation. And when Janet was sent to a psychiatric hospital for testing an observation, though the activity nearly stopped in her absence, it picked up again when she returned to Green Street. The poltergeist was not yet through with her. It seemed a Swedish medium who had attempted to cleanse the house on a prior visit returned to try again nearly a year after everything started. He sat in Janet and Margaret's bedroom and spoke to the spirit haunting the house. That time, it listened.Um.But some things never really leave you. The story of the poltergeist that ruled the Hodgsons lives for so long would follow the family forever.Deep Dive podcast explores true case files of Ed and Lorraine WarrenWelcome to the latest Deep Dive episode about the true case files of Ed and Lorraine Warren. This is the fourth episode in that series, uh, and though for some reason I have accidentally decided to do the cases alphabetically instead of chronologically, um, I do recommend listening to the other episodes if you're interested in tasty little morsels about the Warrens, which I have sprinkled throughout. So it starts with Amityville, then Annabelle, then the Conjuring One, AKA the Perrin family. And now we're on to the Conjuring 2, the Enfield Poltergeist. As the theme of this podcast is scaring you, while also reminding you that you can feel afraid and not be in danger. Revealing the true aspects of the Warrens case is a perfect fit. I talk about it in a little more depth in the Annabelle episode, but in a nutshell, I have a personal grievance with the Warrens, even though I never met them directly. Okay, it's fine. I can say, you know what? I don't need to meet someone to not like them. So when I was a wee madam growing up in the mumble, um, mumble, mumble, my mother got caught up in the fear mongering of the ripples left by the satanic panic. So as a child with undiagnosed complex PTSD and intense anxiety and mild ocd, the last thing that my strange little brain needed was from my mother, an authority figure telling me that demons existed and that I needed to be constantly vigilant against their satanic forces. She wasn't doing it maliciously. All right, I understand. I get it. Uh, nobody, nobody's pobody's nerficed. I understand. She wasn't doing it maliciously. She thought she was protecting my soul. But as um, questionably well intended as she may have been, it still cost a lot of damage that I am still now having to undo and figure out. So I have to ask myself if this is all just some spooky butterfly effect? I guess. Would a spooky butterfly be like a death's head moth? Um, all right. So I have to ask myself if this is all some death's head moth effect. If the Warrens hadn't found their niche by way of using haunted houses as a gimmick to sell people paintings to get their foot in the door, would my Catholic raised mother have ever been exposed to crazy demon warfare rhetoric in the first place? Maybe. I mean there were a lot of cultural bits and bobs that fed into the satanic panic. Obviously it wasn't just the Warrens, but as a result there's very little I hate more than fear mongering. Especially spiritual and or paranormal fearmongering, which was the real product Ed and Lorraine Warren peddled fear mongering.The Enfield Poltergeist is the most well documented account of paranormal activityThat being said right up top, I do want to say that you may have noticed in the story that I just read that the Warrens are not really in this story. They're really only in it for a tiny blip. They visited Enfield for like between a day and four days split between 1978 and then again in 1979 after the activity had stopped. Um, and the Warrens visits were, were not only uninvited, but they were so unnoteworthy. That at least prior to the press junket for the Conjuring 2, none of the Hodgsons even recalled meeting them. So it's not Ed and Lorraine at the focus of this story, as the Conjuring 2 would leave you to believe, but actually the Hodgson family and the two psychical researchers who were ultimately responsible for catapulting this story to what has become today. The Warrens weren't really involved. And though they weren't actually all that involved in this story, Ed still somehow manages to come off like a greedy con man, as you'll see. I thought though that this would be, um, a perfect opportunity to show you that you don't actually need to have bad intentions to do harm, especially when it comes to the supernatural or paranormal. Ed and Lorraine were always after fame and fortune, regardless of what their apologists will claim, and they employed fear mongering and flimflammery, which is a technical term, to get it. So as you'll hear, the Warrens do try to sink their weird little flim flammy claws into the case. But Ed and Lorraine's charm, um, they don't seem to work. It doesn't seem to work. The charm does not seem to work very well in foggy London town. But I will say I can, I can totally picture this Odd couple style Britcom starring Morris Gross, the psychical researcher, as the laced up Englishman and Ed Warren as the loud, slobbish, oddball American. I gotta say, I would watch it. I would watch it. I bet they'd have some good monster of the week stories. But I think Ed Warren saw the Enfield case for what it truly was. Game recognizes game and all that. Now I'm not. Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay. I'm not saying that poltergeists definitely don't exist. That is not what I'm saying. However, it is my personal opinion that. It's my personal opinion that the Enfield case is not the ironclad case that so many make it out to me. I would love to hear your thoughts, by the way, if you had thoughts going into the episode, I'd like to hear them. And if they're any different from the thoughts you had after the episode, wow. I would definitely really like to hear from them. Um, hear from you, I should say. Email me madamstrangewaysmail.com now, the Enfield Poltergeist being the most well documented account of paranormal activity ever, particularly in British history.There's such an overwhelming amount of claims in this story, like truly overwhelming information overloadThere's such an overwhelming amount of claims in this story, like truly overwhelming information overload, etc. There is so much stuff happening in this story that this would have to be a 42 part episode series. This would have to be a 42 part series if I wanted to cover everything, which I do, but I'm not going to because you know what? I'm no Dan Carlin. Or, um, am I? Maybe I am. Maybe I am Spooky Dan Carlin. I don't think so though. Uh, you know what though? If you want to hear more, if you want to hear even more detail about the Enfield case than you hear in this episode, let me know madamstrangewaysmail.com in the meantime, however, I will just keep it to this one single episode. However, unfortunately, as much as it pains me, that means that I can't cover every single aspect of this story. And even some of the ones that I really wanted to, they're left on the cutting room floor. It pains me. So before we get to the good stuff, uh, let's take a peek at the two strange men at the forefront of this case who practically moved into the Hodgson home. Which is weird. Okay, it's weird. I understand it's in the pursuit of, of science and psychical, etc. But it's weird.Morris Gross and Guy Lyon Playfair are psychical researchersAll right, so Morris Gross. And Morris is actually spelled Maurice, but every single person that talks about him says Morris. So I'm going to say Morris, um, Morris Gross and Guy Lyon Playfair, which is such a cool name. I would not have expected him to be a psychical researcher though. All right, so they are both members of the Society for Psychical Research in London. And can I just say, I love psychical. What a fun word. Fun to say, fun to type. Sounds very smart. Like which would you rather be a member of? The Society for Psychic Research or the Society for Psychical Research? Obviously the latter. Obviously the latter. So good job naming that in 1880 something when that was founded. Good job guys.Gross and Playfair investigated the Hodgson home between 1977 and 1978Okay, so back to these two. Morris, Gross, Guy, Lion, Playfair, otherwise known. You'll hear me just refer to them for the rest of the episode as Gross and Playfair. So unlike Ed Warren, Gross and Playfair weren't angling to have their stories made into made for TV movies, let alone Hollywood films. Well, okay, hold on. Playfair had actually already published at least two books about the paranormal prior to 1977 and he did go on to write an entire book about the Enfield story afterwards that would later in 2015 get turned into a British six part miniseries. So maybe it's not conjuring two type money, but that Ain't nothing. Um, okay, so for Playfair, while I can't say that he was entirely there out of the goodness of his heart, he also didn't completely fabricate stories just to sell books like some people. I mean, Ed Warren, if that wasn't clear. Whereas Gross, on the other hand, was already well off. He was a military man. He was actually at Dunkirk. He was literally at Dunkirk. So he was a military man turned confectioner turned inventor turned paranormal investigator, which really, that's the ideal career path for a paranormal investigator. That's just how I feel. Um, he made a good living filing mechanical patents and even founded his own design and engineering consultancy business. So he was doing well. He even drove a showy sports car. A. Ah, Ro. A, um, red. A, um, red E type roadster. I was gonna say a road. E type redster is I think what I was trying to say, a red E type roadster, which doesn't really mean anything to me, but I bet it means something to someone. Also, it sounds fancy and expensive, which it was both. Unlike the Warrens, though, Gross wasn't chasing fame and he wasn't tr

Unlike the Warrens, though, Gross wasn't chasing fame and he wasn't trying to fool anyone, except maybe himself. You'll find out in a second. Keep, uh, listening. And, uh, while I think that he was ultimately successful, um, in fooling himself, uh, this wasn't a victimless crime, unfortunately. So Gross and Playfair recorded around 140 hours of tape recordings between 1977 and 1978, with 180 total visits to the house house on green street and 25 all night vigils, aka sleepovers, which puts the combined investigation time at a minimum of a thousand hours. These two men were constantly monitoring the family, making audio recordings, taking pictures, occasionally recording video, though never when anything unexplained happened. Which is interesting. The Hodgson kids must have started to see Gross and maybe even Playfair as father figures. Authority figures, considering that their own father was an absent piece of shit and apparently abusive. Like I said, a piece of shit when the father had actually been there. Unfortunately for the Hodgson kids, Gross's affection was also conditional. Specifically conditional upon the quality of the paranormal hijinks. In multiple recordings, you can hear him angrily berate Janet and Margaret when the poltergeist activity doesn't go exactly to plan, or when the girls are acting like, oh, I don't know, children. And if the poltergeist activity were to stop, Gross and Playfair would leave, just like the children's father had. But Grose didn't want to leave any more than he wanted to consider the whole thing a hoax. It's why you see him time and, uh, time again. Time and time again, uh, dismiss what should have been damning evidence of trickery as some quirk of the poltergeist's abilities to control Janet. Or actually, in some cases, what he sees that should be evidence of a hoax actually somehow solidifies his belief that it's not a hoax. It's weird, but the man, I'm telling you, human brains, very powerful. So, okay, there's the sunk cost fallacy with this situation. Sure. Where, you know, he's already put this much time and effort into something. He doesn't want it to not be true. He needs it to be true. I mean, also think about it like his reputation is tied to it. Um, his future with the spr, the Society for Psychical Research. Like that's obviously tied to it as well. You don't want to have egg on your face when it comes to poltergeists. And. And maybe there was a point in which he probably should have just cut his losses. But again, sunk cost fallacy. It makes it really difficult to do that. Yeah, maybe, maybe, maybe. Maybe that's all it is. Sure. Except with Gross, it's definitely more than that. See, Gross only took up an interest in paranormal investigating after the tragic loss of his daughter at the age of 22 in a motorcycle accident. Her name was also coincidentally, Janet. In August of 1976, within a month of his daughter Janet's death, Gross joined both the Society for Psychical Research and the Ghost Club. Which, side note, the Ghost Club, also solid name, sounds like a great time, honestly. But he wasn't having a great time because he was obviously grieving for his daughter. He also became convinced, along with some of his other family members, that his daughter Janet was trying to contact him and send him a message from beyond the grave. And let's not forget, Gross is an engineer by trade. He's a problem solver. And I'm sure, I know, having done this research, that he was like a dog with a bone. But he was mourning. He was definitely in mourning. And he was absolutely, definitely not allowing himself to actually mourn. And that never ends well. Gross did insist right up until his death that losing his daughter Janet didn't in any way cloud his judgment. But I don't know. I mean, I don't know about, uh, that, uh. If Kros and Playfair had just packed up and left after a few days of monitoring, the poltergeist, would the supposed poltergeist activity have just died down on its own. I mean, we'll never know. But if you think about this time and time again, media attention of a poltergeist case ends up in escalating the alleged activity, regardless of whether it's due to spirit energy feeding off the attention of all of the humans watching, or because it just emboldens the children or people behind the activity. Now I do want to make clear because. Okay, look, it's very important to me that y' all understand that I don't think that Janet or Margaret are con artists or hucksters or flim flam mams. Mhm. I don't think that. I don't think they did anything out of malice. I think they were just kids having a really difficult time. And the problem is actually the adults in the case that were whipping everything up into the frenzy that it became. None of the Hodgsons, not even Janet, who's like the star of the show, not even Janet, has gotten rich off of the Enfield poltergeist fame. And unlike, um, Andrea Perrin, one of the children in the Perron family haunting, AKA the Conjuring one. True story. None of the Hodgson siblings ever wrote a trilogy book series. And definitely none of them took said trilogy on the paranormal convention circuit. Again, unlike, um, Andrea Perrin. But I will say Janet, Margaret and Billy were credited as consultants on the Conjuring 2 film.Janet and Margaret featured in the Apple plus documentary with Billy's nameAnd Janet and Margaret featured in the Apple plus documentary with Billy's name mentioned in the credits as well. So they must have gotten some compensation. But you know what? Good for them. Good for them for all that. For, for all that they've had to put up with for 48 years at the time of this recording. I think they've earned it. Especially Janet.We will talk about poltergeists, parakeets, psychical researchRight, so here we go. We will talk about poltergeists, parakeets, psychical research. Okay, that wasn't a written alliteration because the P is silent. Um, but on paper it looks like a great, great alliteration. Um, but when I say it out loud, it doesn't really translate. It's fine. Don't worry about it. And of course we will talk about Bill.Here is a non exhaustive list of sources used for this episodeBut first, here is a non exhaustive list of sources that I used for the episode. First, we've got this house is haunted by Guy Lyon, playfair. There is ESP's, seers and psychics by Milbourne Christopher, an American illusionist and president of the Society of American Magicians. Which reminds me of Poof, which job Bluth was a member of before he got kicked out. Um, the Enfield Poltergeist Tapes, a book by Melvin Willen. Melvin Willen being the custodian of the Enfield Poltergeist tapes in the wake of the death of Morris Gross and Guy Lion Playfair. Um, there is also, of course my favorite book, the Exorcist Effect by Eric Harrelson and Joseph Laycock. Shout out. Love it. Um, of course, the infield poltergeist documentary on Apple Plus 2023. Um, a slew of. I say slew a lot. I don't know. I don't know what it is. It's there. I just. It's fine, don't worry about it. Um, a bunch of BBC and like, UK recordings between 1977 and 1976. Um, so many sources. I'll try to link them all in the show notes. All right then, with all that sorted, let's crack on.What even is a poltergeist anyway? Let's talk about itWhat even is a poltergeist anyway? Okay, firstly and most importantly, let's talk about it. What is a poltergeist? Poltergeists and humans go way back, like 800 BCE, which is basically in Homer's the Odyssey. Apparently there's a reference to a poltergeist in the Odyssey. However, the first account of what sounds like our modern day understanding of a poltergeist was actually in 800 AD ish. In Germany, which I'm just now realizing must be why Germans are the ones who got to name the poltergeist. Because poltern is German for noisy and geist is ghost. Hints. Noisy ghost or poltergeist. Also, speaking of geist, now that I'm breaking this out into two words. Geist. Okay. Also in geist is also in zeitgeist. So what is zeitgeist?Let's find out.What is zeit? Something Geist. Zeit, ghost. I don't know what zeit means. Okay, Google, what is zeit in German? Zeit means time in Germany. Time. Timeghost. Okay, that's kind of fun. And um, I love these weird little German words. Thank you, Germany for these strange words. Timeghost. Anyway, poltergeist. So another word for poltergeist that fell out of favor, but I think that we should consider bringing back in favor is rumpelgeist, meaning rattling ghost instead of just noisy ghost. But I actually read that Germans don't even use the term poltergeist or rumpelgeist when they're talking about poltergeists and ghosts in general, and instead they just say spook. Spook. Is that right? Are you German? Do you know email me. Madamstrangewaysmail.com let me know what word you use to explain a poltergeist. Anyway, etymology aside, poltergeists aren't generally considered to be ghosts at all. One theory by Nandor Fodor of Jeff the Talking Mongoose fame, not Nandor de la Renta's fame, is that poltergeists are effectively m repressed energy. I'm just going to read this verbatim from the Wiki. Poltergeists are external manifestations of conflicts within the subconscious mind rather than autonomous entities with minds of their own. Okay, that's cool. And I definitely understood everything that was just said. External manifestations of conflicts within the subconscious mind rather than an autonomous entity. Okay. Without a mind of their. Okay, that's the. I'm with you. I'm with you, Nandor. I was meeting with you, Nandor. Fucking guy. Probably the most common theory about poltergeists, though, is that although poltergeists aren't spirits themselves, they are a sort of spiritual energy that is unknowingly manipulated by a person, usually a child or a teenager, and usually one around puberty. It's especially common for people to say that girls who are starting their periods for the first time are especially attractive to poltergeists, which is just kind of weird and gross. And really, when you say it out loud the way that I just did, I hope that it does sound weird and gross. Gross, because it feels weird and gross. Not the period part that's not gross. It's almost like a lot of men especially are the types that are going to go into psychical research are scared of women's bodies. Go figure.Psychokinesis is the ability to control and manipulate things purely with mindAll right, but look in a nutshell again, okay? How many nutshells do we have? A lot of them. But the point is, the theory is that during the time of a child's life in which they are going through puberty, things are really stressful and they're feeling a lot of feelings that they've never felt before, including special kind of impotent psychokinetic rage. And they're somehow able to inadvertently channel this impotent psychokinetic rage without realizing that they're doing it. Psychokinesis being, of course, the ability to control and manipulate or move things purely with your mind. Think, um, Jean Grey or Ness from Earthbound or Smash Brothers when he's like, DK Thunder. That's him. He's using psychokinesis when he's doing that. So the standard fare for a poltergeist is what we heard in the. Infield story. So it starts off with knocking. Things get knocked over, then things start flying around, fires break out, water appears from thin air, but somehow never directly over the fires that get started. And people occasionally levitate. Some famous poltergeist cases you may have heard of are the Black Monk of, uh, Pontefraction, Borley Rectory, Jeff the Talking Mongoose. Note that's spelled G, E, F, which might be the least ridiculous thing in that story. Also the Bell Witch of Tennessee. And I had to include this. As soon as I read this story, I had to include it. Sorry, it's just I'm. I'm. Apparently I'm 12. I'm a 12 year old boy. Because I had to include the Cock Lane ghost, AKA the fanny scratcher, which I am not making up. It's an actual thing. You can Google it, uh, maybe with safe search on, but it's not. It's not X rated. That's just the name of the street. All right.There are countless poltergeist stories. Countless. Um, I mean, there's evenAnyway, there are countless poltergeist stories. Countless. Truly. There are so many. Um, I mean, there's even. You may have heard of the movie creatively titled Poltergeist, which is based loosely, ish, on the poltergeist case of the Herman family. No relation to Pee Wee, but the movie did come out not long after Enfield, so it very well could have influenced part of the movie. What a poltergeist definitely isn't, however, is the ghost of a dead man who used to live in the council house the Hodgsons lived in. Janet actually started out trying to excitedly explain the paranormal activity as the ghost of a young girl who had lived near the family before being murdered by her own father. And for a while, everyone involved with the case kept referring to the poltergeist as a female spirit, until eventually it switched between about, I mean, at least a dozen different names. And then finally they landed on Bill Wilkins, which is not how poltergeists work. So listen, look, if you have a poltergeist, you can name your poltergeist, that's fine. I'm not saying you can't name your poltergeist, but I feel like poltergeists are kind of like stray cats. So you can name a stray cat misses Meow Meow, but when she saunters by the house next door, they don't know that her name is Mrs. Meow Meow because she's a stray cat. So they call her Mr. Mistoffeles and they have no idea that she has a different name. That's how I feel. Cats and Poltergeists are just little agents of chaos and you can really just name them whatever you want, but that doesn't mean that they have a name. Okay, I know this isn't a perfect analogy. I just, you know me, I love cats. The point is, the spirit of Bill Wilkins is not a poltergeist.So which is it?Is it a poltergeist or is it a ghost? Hmm, interesting.Next, I want to give some cultural and historical context to this storyNext, I want to give some cultural and historical context to kind of anchor us in the story and really make sure that we all understand everything that is happening in the world in 1977 while this is all happening. So the year is 1977. Queen Elizabeth II has been queen for 25 years, which means celebrating her Silver Jubilee, which is apparently a super big deal. Across the pond, the Clash releases their self titled debut album. And the Sex Pistols released their album Nevermind the Bollocks, which was so cool that it was banned by the BBC and so many other radio stations to the point that it was deemed the most heavily censored record in British history. Fleetwood Mac releases their Rumors album, Queen releases We Are the Champions. And in hopefully less exciting news, serial killer Peter Sutcliffe, AKA the Yorkshire Ripper, is still active and at large, murdering women. The first Star wars film comes out. Bell bottoms are beginning to disappear though. Try telling that to Ed Warren. Soon, shoulder pads and the first pairs of designer jeans will take their place. For the first time, there are more color TVs in use in the UK than black and white TVs. There's only three channels on those televisions by the BBC1, BBC2 and nope, not BBC3, ITV. In August, just a month or so before the Enfield Haunting began, a horror anthology TV show called Supernatural aired its final episode. In my script, I have parentheses Supernatural reference here, which I definitely did not prepare. Um, Sammy, carry on my way. Okay, um, continuing. We're moving on. That's unrelated. Listen, here we go. Also on tv, Uri Geller, the famous self proclaimed psychic, has been bending spoons with his mind for years. And just three years earlier, in 1974, the Exorcist film was released and heavily protested across the UK by the Nationwide Festival of Light, a Christian public action group. And the movie was even banned from some parts of Great Britain altogether. Just one year earlier, in 1976, Morris Gross's daughter dies in a motorcycle accident. And that same month, he joins the SPR and the Ghost Club. Three years earlier, again in 1974, Mr. Hodgson leaves his wife and moves out, leaving Peggy Hodgson to raise her four children alone. And

And also in 1974, the eldest Hodgson boy, Johnny, is sent to a boarding school for maladjusted boys for reasons unknown. But residential schools like that had become more and more common. In the 70s, the Hodgson family lived at 284 Green Street. A council house in Brimstone Enfield, London, England. They had lived there for 13 years without any activity and the council house had been built in the 1920s or 30s. What is a council house you say is. Huh, that right? Did I hear you right? Did I hear you just ask what a council house is? Well, that info dumb will gum later. But in yet another nutshell, council houses or council estates are public housing or social housing built and managed by local government, funded by the central government for working class families, the ill or the disabled. Okay, just a small info dump. You know what? We're just gonna get out of the way right now. We're gonna get out of the way right now because I have heard some Americans compare council houses to Section 8 housing in America, which really isn't true. Um, Section 8 allows tenants to choose their own housing within the private rental market, because America, whereas council house tenants reside in government owned properties that are built explicitly for the private purpose of public housing. And though this story happens in 1977 when you look to 1980, one in three households in England and Wales lived in council houses. And actually 50% of houses in Scotland lived in council houses. So at the time it was extremely common for a family, especially one with a single mother, to live in a council house. Even comparing council houses to the projects in America isn't really an apples to apples comparison either, for many reasons, but. Okay, okay, I'm sorry, I'm gonna rein it in. While we're on the topic of council homes though, historically there's actually a stereotype that families living in council estates were much more likely to experience ghostly or poltergeistly phenomena specifically, either because they were seen to be more superstitious and uneducated, which is rude, or because people said that these families living in these council homes were trying to get the local council to move them to a different, possibly better not haunted flat. The term was even coined council estate ghost and has even led to at least a handful of modern day horror movies, namely his house, which was horrifying and I couldn't, couldn't finish it. It was too scary for me. Also the discovered and creatively named A haunting in Council House, which feels a bit on the nose, but I'll allow it.The Conjuring 2 is said to be based on a true storyAll right, where were we before okay, all right. I wrote all right. Right, right, right. Enfield, London. Enfield is in North London. So it's about an hour ride north on the tube from Buckingham palace, which when I wrote this for some reason I felt like Buckingham palace was a good frame of reference for you in terms of, in terms of where in London Enfield is. Um, hopefully that's true. Uh, the time, the setting is late August. Janet will be starting at a new school the next week, something she is very much not looking forward to. And inside the council house at 284 Green Street. On the 31st of August, Peggy Hodgson calls emergency services 999 and the rest is literal paranormal history. Fiction versus reality. So if you've seen the Conjuring 2, you may think you know this story and that would be fair. Not only is the movie said to be based on a true story, but the end credits intersperse real photos taken in 1977 and 1978 alongside modern staged photos that are meant to look like legitimate photos. And I've talked before about how common it is in horror movies to claim that a story is based on a true story, regardless of how true the true story actually is. Like the Amityville Horror and the Exorcist, though for me it was the Blair Witch Project that left me psychologically scarred as I fully believed the found footage was premise. But showing the real photos beside the staged ones, uh, it's clearly intended to give the audience the impression that everything in the movie really was true. And um, not just the movie either. The movie was based on the Enfield story as published in the Demonologist by Gerald Brittle. The allegedly true case files of the Warrens. Reminder. Gerald Brittle has since writing the book called Everything in the Demonologist Complete Fiction. Ed and Lorraine didn't write their own books, you see, they had their agents hire authors to write the books for them. The tall tale told in the the tall tale told in the Demonologist is mostly nonsense, but it does provide a fairly accurate transcription of the recordings that Ed made of Janet and company. At least when it comes to the Conjuring 2, the third movie in the Conjuring franchise that earned the $321.8 million in the box office. The demon hunting elephant in the room is of course the Warrens themselves. Famous self proclaimed demonologist Ed Warren, who only started calling himself a demonologist after the popularity and widespread panic of the Exorcist, mind you. And Ed's wife Lorraine, a self proclaimed clairvoyant and light trance medium, did in fact visit the Hodgson family for like a few hours, maybe a couple days. Okay, four days at most, with most of that time being after the activity died down. The Warrens didn't even show up at enfield until like 8 months M into the investigation. The Hodgsons told Playfair that they didn't even remember talking to the Warrenson at all. But we do have audio recordings of Ed interviewing them, so I guess that that just means that the Warrens weren't that memorable.The Conjuring 2 portrays Ed and Lorraine as heroically solving Warren caseI do find it particularly noteworthy, however, that in the press kits for the Conjuring Two that Janet and Margaret both recorded video for in order to be used as promos at various media outlets, that they both tell a very different story. Suddenly Janet says that actress actually she remembers them very clearly because when Ed and Lorraine showed up, they brought with them a warm comfort and that she.Could tell that they were there to.Actually help the family, not just to gawk at them. Now, does that not fit just a little too conveniently with the sanitized Warren lore that Lorraine had baked into her life rights agreement? We even see in another promo video for the Conjuring Two that Margaret fangirls girls about seeing Lorraine. But what she actually gushes about isn't how much she missed Lorraine because she remembered Lorraine and because they had obviously interacted when she was a child going through a particularly traumatizing period of her life. No, actually, Margaret just fangirls because she says, I've seen your movies. I've seen you in the movies. So the girls, now women, even walked the red carpet with Lorraine for the opening of the Conjuring 2 movie, all dolled up. It was actually kind of cute. This is just, however, another example of the movie showing real photos alongside staged photos. An example, I'm pretty sure, of ostension, which is effectively fiction reversing into reality. See, the reason scary movies and TV shows use occult consultants or religious advisors isn't because they feel passionate about getting it right. It's actually done to conflate fiction and reality, especially via authority bias. Sure, maybe a witch who's acting as an occult consultant for the craft doesn't sound like an authority figure. She's not a doctor or a cop or a politician or whatever, but she is an authority on witchcraft. So, yeah, authority bias. These movie makers really do know exactly what they're doing. So let's just be clear. The Warrens were not household names, especially not in the uk. No one invited them to investigate. The Society for Psychical Research had that covered. And they definitely wouldn't ask some American hucksters to muck about in their business. The movie the Conjuring 2 portrays Ed and Lorraine as heroically showing up and solving the case. Because obviously, uh, it was demons that was the problem the whole time. And then Ed and Lorraine, especially Ed, warmed the children's hearts with a stirring rendition of Elvis. No, really. They have a whole scene where Ed is playing an acoustic guitar in the Hodgson's living room while singing I can't help falling in love with you while Lorraine gazes lovingly at her husband with stars in her eyes and remind reminder, this is the husband who she definitely didn't need to put a clause in her life rights about to ensure that their relationship was portrayed solely as wholesome and saintly and that no movie could ever depict Ed having an affair or sex with minors. Oh, wait, no, Lorraine did have to do that. Yeah, she definitely did. Hmm. Interesting.Another detail that irritated me about the movie was the use of Ouija boardsAnother detail that irritated me about the movie was the ham fisted edition of a Ouija board as the cause for all the activity in the home. Like, yes, obviously it's a good plait device because we've seen it in the Exorcist and Paranormal Activity. But why did we need it here? There is no Ouija board in the real Enfield case, so why include it? I have a hunch it's because the activity starting out of the blue just doesn't make sense narratively speaking. There needed to be a catalyst for one, and they needed to make sure that the audience understood that the entity in this house was demonic. Hence readily defeated by Ed and Lorraine. Except, hold on a second. Wait a minute. I had a. I had a thought and I just checked my copy of the Demonologist, the Allegedly True Stories of the Warrens, and according to the demonologist, it was Ed. Yeah, Ed says in the Demonologist that it was all caused by Ouija boards. So that's where the Ouija board concept came from. That actually makes way more sense. He had way more motivation to convince people that the poltergeist is actually a demon than the filmmakers did. Although I'm sure it was convenient for the filmmakers too. Also, fun fact, in 1967, according to Parker Brothers, Ouija boards outsold Monopoly. And that was before the Exorcist movie even came out. Annoyingly, I can't find any data that shows whether sales dipped or climbed in 1971 or 1973 when the book and movie the Exorcist came out. But I bet they were flying off the shelves literally.There was no crooked man figure in the Conjuring 2All right, you know what else? You know what else grinds my gears is There was no crooked man figure in the real case. This was a character. If you haven't seen the Conjuring 2, clearly that's what I've been talking about. But in the Conjuring 2, there is this crooked man character in the movie who is very creepy and actually my favorite part of the movie. But it just seemed unnecessary or excessive, perhaps redundant. What was the point? We didn't need the crooked man. We had Bill Wilkins. I just didn't think we needed it. But he was very spooky and uh, it was done to good effect. It was just not accurate whatsoever. I don't know, maybe they were thinking that they could do a spin off movie about the crooked man. Maybe they still plan to because you know, they have like a 40 year plan, like with the Marvel movies. You know, they have like the next 500 films already planned in the Conjuring universe. Now Ed in the Demonologist claims that he traveled to Enfield on three separate occasions and during one of those trips spent an entire week there. Hmm. M. If he did spend a week there, he must have been sightseeing because he wasn't spending any of that time investigating the Hodgson home or Janet. Mhm. Ed claimed that during his investigation that a rock the size of a softball materialized out of thin air in front of him and dropped to the ground. And of course, wouldn't you know it when he took it to an unnamed geologist at the University of London, which he apparently has connections at, this mysterious geologist claimed that it was a type of rock that could only be found in one place in the entire, entire world. The Isle of Wight, an island off the south coast of England. I feel like he could have gone bigger with that fib. Um, I'm actually not even sure that Ed would even know what the Isle of Wight is or that it exists. So I kind of suspect that that was a detail that Brittle came up with when he was writing the book for them personally. That's just my take. Even in the short time that the Warrens spent investigating the case, Ed was so rude and so ungrateful that Peggy, Janet's mom, had a go at him. Which if you're British, you know, that's a big deal. Having a go, that's huge. Peggy was even quoted saying that she hadn't wanted the Warrens there in the first place. Playfair said of the Warrens that they just wanted to make some money out of it. In fact, he stated that Ed specifically said to him, in a way, I imagine, as Sato Vache, we could make A lot of money. And not only that, but Janet's aunt and uncle who lived down the street, Sylvia and John Bercomb, reported that Ed consistently and persistently wanted to talk money with them. With John specifically saying that Ed was trying to capitalize on the case. They described Ed's dishonesty and arrogance. What they definitely did not describe was Ed serenading them with Elvis.There's quite a lot of low hanging fruit when it comes to dodgy evidenceAnd now let's move on to evidence. There's quite a lot of low hanging fruit when it comes to dodgy evidence. The Enfield case, which I think is completely fair considering the sheer overwhelming amount of stuff that they recorded. Probably the lowest of said low hanging fruit would be the photographic evidence of Janet levitating, quote, unquote, or being thrown, quote, unquote from her bed. If you've only ever seen one or two shots of these photos, you might consider it to be legit. But if you look at it in the context of the other photos that were taken around it, because this was shot from a camera with a, uh, remote control, that would allow the photo to take like a burst of photos one after the other. If you actually look at all the photos taken in succession and actually, if you, if you want to just find, you just Google this. Because there's GIFs out there that people have made of putting all the photos together as like a stop motion. And it is just very clearly like unquestionably cut and dry. A little girl jumping out of bed, like literally, you know, like kids do how they jump from a bed because it's like a, um, trampoline. That's literally all that it is. There's no question. And the way that her hair falls, the way that her hair moves, like, and with gravity, like her, her hair on the clothes, her, the way her knees are bent up, there's just, it's unquestionably not paranormal. This is the most mundane thing that happened. Just kids jumping on beds and claiming that they weren't. I mean, come on, what is, what's more classic of a childhood experience than jumping on the bed and claiming that. No, I wasn't, I wasn't jumping on the bed. Uh, she was, she was just jumping on the bed. So you know what? Google it. I guarantee you you're going to be like, ah, never mind. Those pictures aren't scary anymore. So the famous photos that people associate with the case are really just Janet being a kid and having a laugh. But as we see time and time again, in this case, the people who wanted to believe did. Oh boy, did they. And they do not that there's anything wrong with them. Much is made about the police's statement about the activity that was witnessed in the house. WPC Carolyn Heaps did go on record and camera asserting that she really had seen a chair move and had heard mysterious knocking on Green Street. But I've seen so many people say that, like, oh, it was just so suspicious about the case. I wasn't really sure about it. You know, I don't know, I wasn't sure. But then WPC Heaps, her testimony convinced me, okay. I mean, I kind of get that, right, because like, cops have seen some shit and they're trained to see things that are out of the ordinary. But are they trained to see the supernatural? Are they trained to figure out if something paranormal is happening? You know, uh, I don't know about that. I know they see stuff, but, you know, I don't know. And also this has always

And also this has always bothered me personally, like I understand where this is coming from, but I do find it strange that we can consider authority figures to be more trustworthy sources when it comes to the paranormal. As if doctors and cops can't be superstitious or religious. I mean, even scientists can be super religious. And I think that that has something to do with it. Um, it's actually called something, a little something you might have heard, a little ditty you might have heard called authority bias, which I didn't mention earlier. So authority bias is human tendency to be more influenced by the opinions and judgments of, of authority figures. And part of authority bias includes uniforms, meaning an authority figure in a uniform has even more weight than everyone else. So for this case to start out right out the gate with a police officer in uniform speaking on camera to the news, making a statement that something unexplained happened in that house, might really have just doused loads of petrol on the fire. Also, I think it's worth noting, uh, that the police visited the house around 1am, which is a spooky time of day. And you know, on top of that they were told that in order for the knocking sounds to happen, the lights needed to be turned off. Hmm Hm, hmm. Um, why, why do you think that would be? Were we trying to hide something? Is it because maybe the people that are doing the knocking are not yet good enough at it and they need the lights to be off otherwise someone will catch them knocking? I don't know. Just a thought. I'm just spitballing. I don't know. What do I know? So I think, understandably, WPC Heaps was spooked and as I always try to remind everybody, you can feel afraid and not be in danger. So her belief that what she saw was unexplainable doesn't make it actually unexplainable. It just means that she didn't have an explanation for it at the moment. And I would just behoove anyone that's listening to this that might find themselves afraid of anything, honestly. But especially around 3am, if you're afraid of something and you're in the dark and you're alone in your house and you're scared, honestly, just remind yourself that just because something is unexplainable doesn't mean it's unexplained. It just means you don't have an explanation for it in that moment. I find that reassuring. Hopefully some of you do as well.Until 1999, women in the UK police had rank titles prefixed with WAnd actually, though, before we move on from this, uh, I do want to pause because Americans, you know, we don't use the same weird police acronyms that they do in the uk, so, you know, I kind of figured out PC Police something. What is it? Police Constable. Okay, but what's the W for? I asked myself. Um, Woman. It's for woman. Because until 1999. Cute prince. Until 1999, women in the UK police had their rank title prefixed with the word woman or the little letter W. Wow. Wow, wow, wow. The W does not stand for wow. Again, the W does stand for woman. I don't know, that's just shocking. Like, that's. Why was it. Why did that. Why. Why were we doing that until 1999? That feels late. I, uh, don't even like it, really. And I don't really like it in 1977, honestly. Anyway, that's what the W in WPC heap stands for.The Daily Mirror broke story about Hodgson's poltergeist in 1979All right, so yet another thing that seems to bring some credibility to the story is that the Hodgson's original poltergeist situation broke, quote, unquote, in the paper. Quote unquote. But which paper exactly? Um. Oh, oh, here it is. The Daily Mirror. Oh, so is that like a totally normal newspaper with loads of journalistic integrity, perhaps? Uh, because one of the documentaries that I watched claimed that the Daily Mirror took itself very seriously and, like, didn't do fluff pieces or, you know, whatever. No, they were a very serious paper. So, okay, let's see. Um, let's look up, let's look up. Ah, let's. Let's just look one up. 1979. Here's a cover from 1979 of the Daily Mirror. And here we go. The headline above a photo of the apparent Princess of Monaco, who is wearing a low cut, revealing neckline. The headline on the front page reads, princess Peekaboo. Do you get it? It's like a play on peekaboo. But boob. Because she's wearing a revealing. There's a little bit of side boob in the photo. That's the headline on the Daily Mirror. Princess Peekaboob. And then the article goes on to make a lot of breast puns. You know, it's. It's okay. It's kind of funny. But also, this is not a serious paper. This is. This is a tabloid. Okay, so a tabloid broke the story. And listen, I love tabloids. I don't know, maybe some of our younger listeners aren't even aware of what a tabloid is, because the way that news is these days, it's completely indistinguishable from tabloid news. But back in the day, uh, while you were, like, at the supermarket checkout, you would see a tabloid paper which had, of course, you know, gossip stuff, but it would also have creepy, weird, strange, paranormal happenings. So that's why I liked tabloids as a kid, because, uh, there would be, like, aliens and Bigfoot, UFO sightings. And I don't know why I said Bigfoot, ufo. I guess I was, like, putting it. This isn't written. I'm just unable to speak properly today. Anyway, weird stories. Or you would hear about Elvis sightings. And again, for our younger listeners, some people say that there's a conspiracy that Elvis actually faked his death. And so when you would pick up these tabloids, sometimes they would be, like, Elvis cited after faking his death. Anyway, that's the. That's the Daily Mirror.That's what broke the.That's what broke the story. Now, did the BBC also come and interview them? Yes, of course. Of course they did. But you know what? What are you gonna do? You can't let the Daily Mirror scoop you. Come on.David Gross says the poltergeist started talking in 1977All right, so now we've talked about all that, let's talk about Bill. Bill Wilkins in 18. Nope. In 19. Yep. In December 1977, Gross had been telling his adult son all about the Enfield case, coaxing him to come visit the house with him to see for himself. So David Gross's son, David Gross, told his father that he'd only visit the Hodgson home with him if the poltergeist started to talk. What seems to have been the very next day, Gross said in Janet's earshot, if not directly to her, now all I need is the voices to talk. Well, one night, uh, Mr. Grove was talking about, about all we need now.Is the voices to talk.And so, wouldn't you know it, later that same night, the same night that he said, I need this stuff to start talking, Janet conveniently begins speaking in the voice for the first time. The deep, gruff voice with a thick Cockney accent that was very clearly mimicking Morris Gross, even though the kids themselves all sort of had a little bit of a Cockney accent. And though Gross says multiple times that she uses the voice without so much of a tremble of her lips, there is at least one video recording of Janet speaking in the voice wherein her mouth is very clearly moving. So, okay, anyway, Margaret also began using a version of the Bill voice, but she just wasn't as good at it. And after a few months, even Billy starts imitating the voice. Shocker. Like, of course he does. He wants in on the fun. He was probably terrified of it in the beginning, but then, you know, probably turned into a fun game anyway. But the voice isn't Bill at first. No, no, no, no, no. They run through a gamut of names. Note I didn't say slew, that they run through a gamut of names, all using practically the same voice, occasionally barking like a dog throughout or meowing like a cat. Before there was Bill, there was, and this is a non exhaustive list. Joe Watson, Fred, Tom, Dirty Dick. Mm mhm, Dirty Dick. Andrew Gardner, Stuart Certaint, or Stuart Certain. Uh, Mrs. Haylock. Bill Haylock. Not Bill Wilkins. Bill Haylock, Mrs. Oakland, Charlie Brown, Charlie Zebedee, Ralph, Claude and Barney. And also more that I couldn't quite make out in some of the recordings. And finally, the voice lands on Bill Wilkins and largely stays there. The family's pet goldfish died. And when Gross asks the spirit through Janet, who killed the goldfish? Janet, I mean, Geoffrey Precial. Another new name that I forgot to mention earlier, claims that he electrocuted the fish using spirit energy. And then when the budgie, AKA parakeet, dies, it's assumed to have also been due to the poltergeist. Also, by the way, a note on the parakeet, AKA the budgie. Um, they brought the bird into the house shortly before all of the activity started. And apparently the parakeet belonged to a woman who died. And so at first, Gross kind of suspected that the parakeet might have been behind all the paranormal activity. Hmm.Janet Wilkins claimed Bill Wilkins died of a brain hemorrhageOkay, back to Bill. Something Bill once said is also the nail in the proverbial coffin for people on the fence about the case. So if it's not wpc, Carolyn Heaps. It's Bill saying something in particular that has made people true believers. And what he said is definitely very scary at first blush. But just wait. So Janet, in Bill's voice, claimed he died of a hemorrhage sitting in his chair, and he was 72 years old, and he died, and then he went blind. Everybody makes a really big deal about the fact that as it turned out, there actually had been a Bill Wilkins who lived and died in the house. And that, uh, later, Bill Wilkins's son confirmed that his dad did die sitting in a chair in that very house of a brain hemorrhage. Except that actually Bill Wilkins was only 61 when he died, not 72. And according to his death certificate, which you can find on like, findagrave.com, i think it was, he died of a heart attack, not a hemorrhage. And it's hardly supernatural for neighbors to discuss morbid stuff like the death of a neighbor. And it's also even less weird for that sort of gossip to make it to the ears of the Hodgson kids who lived there for 13 years. People are morbid. Kids are super morbid. I've seen a lot of people argue that there's just no way for Janet to have ever possibly known that information about Bill. But, like, really, it's impossible. I. I don't know that. I don't know. That's the word I would use in this instance. There's a lot of really creepy stuff that happens in the infill poltergeist. I just don't feel like this is one of them. And, uh, it's just not. It's not. It's not doing it for me. So Terry Wilkins, the real Bill's son, who verified that actually, yes, that is how he died. Terry told Gross that it didn't sound like his father, actually, who had been a very quiet man. But then when he hears the recording of Janet saying in her Bill voice that he went blind and died of a hemorrhage, and da, da, da, da da. Terry Wilkins then says verbatim, that's exactly how he died. Multiple times. He says it over and over on camera. But that's not how he died, is it? He didn't have a hemorrhage. He had a heart attack. So I don't know. I feel like obviously Terry Wilkins just didn't. Maybe he just never even knew exactly what killed his father. I mean, in the 70s, I feel like it's fair that maybe you didn't actually know. I. They probably barely spoke about it. You know, things were just different back then. So I think that he's not lying. I think this is probably a case that's more like when a psychic is doing a cold reading and you conveniently forget all of the misses and you only remember the hits. That's kind of what it feels like with Terry Wilkins saying that. And also I, uh, should be noted that an acquaintance of the real Bill Wilkins described him as generous and respectable and said specifically that Bill did not use foul language. And as a reminder, the bill that Janet claimed to be speaking through her was almost entirely made up of foul language. Like super inappropriate language. Very rude. Seems uncharacteristic of the real Bill Wilkins. I should probably specify here that all of the people involved in the investigation that fully believed that everything was true, they all were so convinced by Janet's voice, they were saying, there's no way that this little girl can make this scary voice. There's no way. It's impossible. No way this 11 year old girl could do this. And they brought in a voice coach who said, oh, there's no way that she could ever possibly use that voice for that long without getting a sore throat and all these other things that were. It's just, uh, it's crazy to me. And so I want you to hear a clip of the voice. If you haven't heard it, this is just. If you have heard it, I'm going to remind you. I want to play a clip so that you can hear what it is that all of these adults and experts claim to be so convinced by.No. No.Who's there?Doctor.Dr.Goose Chase is here. I'm invisible.You're invisible?Why are you invisible, Gemma?G H O S T like okay, okay. Very convincing. So Ray Allen, a, uh, famous ventriloquist, visited the house and concluded that Janet's Bill voice was just a vocal trick. While they also had some scientists visit to prove something about electromagnetic, I think, and the use of Tibetan. Tibetan. Wow. Tibetan throat singing techniques. Sometimes the simplest answer is the right answer. And listen, I never thought that I would ever say this, but I trust the ventriloquist. I trust the ventriloquist. Not only that, but the skeptical magician Milborn Christopher wrote in his book Evidence of Ventriloquial Vakery. I feel like I nailed that.Ventriloquial.Come on. Evidence of ventriloquial fakery was even taken as proof of. And then I mess up. Proof. Come on. Was taken even as proof of authenticity. According to Playfair, the connection between Janet. And the voice is obviously very close. There have been several occasions when she says something it obviously meant to say and vice versa. Would she slip up like that if she was faking the whole thing? I love it.

Because the next line that Mill born Christopher writes is, is he kidding? Uh, because. No, seriously, is he kidding? No, he's not kidding. This is what I'm saying about the adults or the problem in this story. Uh, okay, so Bill the poltergeist, which, remember, poltergeists aren't dead people, but that's fine. So Bill the poltergeist claimed a lot of nonsense. Bill the poltergeist claimed a lot of nonsensical things that Gross and Playfair seemed completely unconcerned about. Like how Bill had 68 dogs, which were 6 foot tall Chihuahuas, but then actually, no, they were Labradors, which Janet found hilarious, which I get because I laugh at my own jokes all the time too. Literally all day, every day, cracking myself up. So, Janet, I feel you, girl. And so recall that Morris Gross's son, David Grose, said he'd only visit the Hodgson home if the spirit started talking. And recall also that Gross had then immediately said as much of Janet. And then Janet immediately conjured up a scary voice that exact same day. So David Gross, Morris's son, visits the house just as he promised his father that he would do now that the poltergeist was talking. Janet, upon meeting him with just the two of them in her bedroom, makes this man, this grown man, turn around and face the wall in order to speak to the spirit. Only then does she speak in the deep voice of a supposed dead man. And what does this entity ask poor David? Why do big girls get periods? And also, let's not forget, why do men wear that plastic thing when in bed with a woman? Yes, those are the questions that bill, the 72 year old man, is asking. Hmm. So poor David calls for backup. He immediately is so flustered and immediately opens the door like, help, help, help. Um, so someone else comes in, another grown man, I think. Um, I'm getting. There's so many characters in this story, so please forgive me. Anyway, he brings in another grown man as backup and makes her ask this other guy the same questions, also having to face the wall. I think that maybe David Gross learned how periods work along with Janet, honestly, because he was so flustered. Oh, uh, poor guy. Right. So none of the video that they recorded captured any paranormal activity beyond Janet's evil little voice. Um, but it did capture a few gems, like my Favorite one, Janet says there is no ghost with a shit eating little smile. And Margaret, barely able to contain her glee, is giggling and tells her to shut up.How does it feel to be haunted by a poltergeist?It's not haunted.Shut up. Why isn't it haunted?I want to know. I mean, they were just having a blast sometimes. I mean, sometimes they definitely weren't, but I think sometimes they were. And I also see comments on some of these videos saying, do you guys not understand that laughing, that laughter is like a, um, nervous response? And, and it's a stress response and, you know. Yeah, no, for sure, because I do too. I also laugh inappropriately. Like it's really embarrassing actually. Like, it's just my immediate response to something stressful is to laugh. Like, what? That's not what this is. They're having a good time, okay? They're messing around.The experiment to tape Janet's mouth shut apparently wasn't very successfulAll right, so if you're close to this case, I am sure that you are probably thinking, if not screaming. But what about the tape over her mouth experiment? Okay, geez, fine. Okay, let's talk about it. So according to Gross and Playfair's own records, the first time Gross tried the experiment to tape Janet's mouth shut to see if she could still use the bill voice with her mouth shut, the results were subdued, quote unquote, which seems to mean that she was able to make some sort of sound, though the details really aren't there. But I think the lack of detail, I feel like it's telling and, um, that it wasn't very successful, but it apparently wasn't a complete failure. Trying again, Gross shifted gears and instead had Janet hold water or cold tea. I've seen both referenced in the notes in her mouth to see if she could speak. Unfortunately, she only made a few grunts after spitting the water or tea out or swallowing some of it, and she nearly choked trying. It's also worth noting that the American magician Melbourne Christopher successfully replicated Janet's success with a tape of over her mouth, um, by using a ventriloquist's technique. But weirdly, if you read some of the accounts of the other witnesses that were there, even associated with the spr, they do claim that Janet's Bill voice was heard with total and complete clarity, even with her mouth taped shut, as if she were just speaking normally, it actually reminds me of something that I read in the Exorcist Effect. So apparently when they were making, apparently, apparently when they were making the movie Rosemary's Baby, they couldn't quite figure out how to Manage making a baby look like it had evil demon eyes to the point where they were even considering somehow figuring out how to use an actual cat to get the effect dressed. Dressing a cat up like a baby, perhaps. But the director, Roman Polanski, said, no way. We're not going to show the baby at all. If I do my job right, the audience will think they saw the baby. And that's exactly what happened, y' all. Literally, that's what happened before anyone had even turned the coin. Hmm. Hm. Before anyone had coined the term the Mandela effect, people were convinced that the movie Rosemary's Baby had been edited to remove the shot of the baby that they so clearly remembered having seen. But it was never there in the first place. But they're convinced that they saw it to the point where there was even, um, an article published about it saying, I can't believe that they edited this scene. Like, why would they have edited this scene out? Like, that's a travesty. You need to have that. The scene wasn't there. The scene wasn't there. This many people just remembered that it was there, but it was never there to begin with. So you see what I'm saying about how maybe they're misremembering the success of the tape over the mouth or the cold tea in the mouth experiment. Because, look, our minds are just so much more powerful than we give them credit for.Men kept insisting that Janet and Margaret couldn't do weird thingsWhat really stood out to me with this story was how adults, mostly men, kept insisting over and over again that all the weird stuff happening couldn't possibly be done by little girls. Like, oh, Janet couldn't pause. Possibly have made that gruff voice for so long. Or, oh, Janet couldn't possibly have moved that thing. It was too heavy for her. Or Janet couldn't have fooled so many adults. What, like it's hard? What? Like it's hard? Why are we so easily dismissing Janet and Margaret just because they're little girls? I was a little girl once. I know how evil they can be. Devious, cunning, and entirely dedicated to the bit. You will not find someone more dedicated to a bit than a little girl. Little girls also lie like their lives depend on it. I lied my strange little ass off. Lying is actually, by the way, a healthy part of development for kids. Maybe not to this extent. Uh, but still, it's a healthy part of development. And as for the voice of Bill, what do you mean she couldn't do it? What do you mean? Based on what? You know, Gross insisted that that vocal coach had said that Janet couldn't possibly sustain that voice for so long without damaging the vocal cords. Okay, yeah, well, whatever. He said that if he had done the voice for just five minutes that his throat would be hoarse. And huh, that was his reason for saying that she couldn't possibly be doing that, be doing the voice that long because Morris couldn't do that voice for five minutes. Skill issue, Morris, skill issue. Also remember, y' all, they didn't have iPads back then, okay? So the only video game even inside of any home at that point was Atari's home, Pong. Literally just Pong. And it would have cost nearly $600 in today's money, which a single parent family living in a council house certainly wouldn't have access to. The family had only one shared tv. That would have been the best form of escape for all of the Hodgson kids. So actually, isn't it interesting that despite all of the furniture getting tossed around, knocked over and generally assaulted, that the TV was the only thing that went unharmed the entire time? Hmm. Hm. Interesting. I just think we need to give weird little girls some more credit here. That's all. That's all I'm asking. When Milborn Christopher, the American magician and ardent skeptic, um, and by the way, pause, pause, pause, pause, pause. I am so here. For all of these ardent skeptics slash magicians, you've got Harry Houdini, you've got James Rand, the amazing James Randi. Uh, those are the two that are at the top of my head. If you want to hear more about magicians slash skeptics like Houdini and Randy, let me know madamstrangewizmail.com so when Milbourne Christopher visited Green street to see the case for himself, he was unimpressed. He even caught Janet trying to sneak down the stairs after she pretended to go to bed, presumably to cause mischief. He stated that, quote, unquote, the poltergeist was nothing more than the antics of a little girl who wanted to cause trouble and who was very, very clever. There's even historical precedents for weird little girls outsmarting a bunch of incredibly smart adults. Stay with me here because we're going to briefly discuss a few other cases. If it pleases the court.Two cousins in 1917 posed with what appeared to be miniature fairiesThere's the Cottingly fairies hoax for starters. So in 1917, two cousins, Elsie, 16, and Francis, 9, captured photographs of what appeared to be miniature fairies dancing and posing with them. Them. The girls insisted that they were real. And for some reason, many people, some very smart people, fell for it. Edward Gardner, an occultist, took an extreme interest in the photos. As undeniable evidence of fairies and wanted badly to have the girls capture even more photos. He brought them cameras and plates, because this was before film, mind you. And he asked them to go back out into the glen where they'd spotted the fairies before and capture even more fairies. So they did. They did just that. Uh, they took two more photos with fairies in the photos, but they told their mother the fairies wouldn't show up unless the girls were left fully alone. So off their mother went, leaving them to their tricksy devices unsupervised. Gardner even had three photographic companies examine the photos of the fairies to test for tampering, including Kodak. Kodak came back saying that while the photos didn't appear to have been altered, they couldn't really comment on whether that means they're actual true fairies in said photos. Gardner believed that the Kodak technicians might not have examined the photographs entirely objectively, observing that one had commented, after all, as fairies couldn't be true, the photographs must have been faked somehow. I don't know how. Was this right? Is that the right accent for this time period in 1917? Yeah, I'm gonna. Okay, we're gonna move on. I think that was right. Gardner tried to get the girls to even take more photographs, but the girls took no further pictures. Having long tired of the fairy schtick, they told him that they hadn't seen any more fairies. But Gardner claimed to have actually seen a lot of fairies himself and then even went on to write at, uh, length about his observations of the fairies that he was seeing, even when the girls had grown bored with the ruse, which is weird. Both Elsie and Frances later admitted that they had only played along with him out of mischief and that they considered him a fake. The pictures even came to the attention of author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who fully believed in the legitimacy of the photos, considering them clear and visible evidence of supernatural phenomena. Phenomena if you can't place where you've heard Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's name before, he literally created Sherlock Holmes. That's what he wrote. Sherlock Holmes, like super Genius, Mind palace, etc. Sherlock Holmes, which in the books, he actually called a brain attic. Uh, that's not quite as cool as a palace. Anyway, Sherlock Holmes would never fall for such trickery. Uh, but Doyle sure did. It is worth noting that just like with Morris Gross and his obsession with Janet and proving poltergeists were real, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle also lost one of his children, his son, in World War I, which was actively happening and wouldn't end for another Year after the fairy debacle. Grief really does do a number on us, y' all. So those two little girls stuck to their story until Holmes passed away, only then revealing the hoax, saying that they didn't want to embarrass poor Doyle, who had been such a staunch support supporter of their fairy photography. The trick they used, they traced illustrations of fairies from a children's book and stuck them onto hat pins. So what? Like it's hard? In 1983, Elsie was quoted as saying, two village kids and a brilliant man like Conan Doyle. Well, we could only keep quiet. And in that same interview, Frances said, I never even thought of it as being a fraud. It was just Elsie and I having a bit of fun. And I can't understand to this day why they were taken in. They wanted to be taken in. Yes, you're right, they did want to be taken in. Are you seeing how this is related to the current story? They wanted to be taken in. This quote struck me by Fred Grettings in the unexplained the story of the Cottingley fairies was only partly created by Elsie and Frances. It was much more the creation of the media.

Moving on to a couple more hoaxters, there's also the fox sisters, Kate, 16, and Maggie, 11, and their older sister Leah. Around 1848 in Rochester, New York, the two younger girls decided to scare their mother into thinking the ghost of a dead man was haunting their house and accidentally became responsible for the birth of spiritualism as we know it. Their ruse snowballed and escalated, and by 1849, they performed their alleged mediumship to a paid audience, wherein they claimed the spirits of the dead would communicate with them, um, via taps and knocks. William Crookes, the prominent physicist and chemist who also attended the Royal College of Chemistry, concluded the raps were genuine. He sounds like a smart guy. So. Hmm. Hm. Strange. In reality, the two youngest sisters had learned to take advantage of their particular bone structure in their toes and had taught themselves how to crack their toe joints to make a loud rapping on the floor. Just like with the cottingly fairy hoax, the girls tired of the game and eventually came clean. But that ship had sailed. It did nothing to slow down the spiritualist movement and the newfound obsession with seances and contacting the dead. A, uh, poltergeist was allegedly responsible, as poltergeists are wont to do for starting fires at a farm. In 1948, Illinois, a 13 year old girl named Wanet. I'm not making this up. I did not just change the first letter Of Janet name Wannet, also from a single parent family, though in her case this little girl, her mother had left as opposed to her father. So her father was her caretaker. So this little girl was made to move in with her aunt and uncle. Everyone was baffled about the source of these mysterious fires that kept appearing and hadn't started occurring until after she moved in and Hm. So strange. We don't know where these fires are coming from or when they started, or why, but the fires eventually burned down multiple buildings on the family's property, forcing them to move. The fires started seemingly at random and seemed to only be explained by pinning it on a poltergeist, which. Okay, sure, this is what I'm saying about the harm in immediately jumping to paranormal conclusions instead of trying to figure out what is a naturalistic explanation here Anyway, the local newspaper even reported on the strange phenomena of fires appearing somehow magical. But when the family moved to the new house, the deputy fire marshal had the sneaky idea to set a box of matches in plain view as a trap, an experiment if you will. Predictably, he later found that the matches had been moved and wouldn't you know it when it coincidentally m When it was coincidentally nearby, she confessed to the fires and shocker. The poltergeist stopped lighting fires immediately after a psychiatrist who had met with Janet. Nope, a psychiatrist who met with Wanit said she's a nice little kid caught in the middle of a broken home. Mm mhm.Matthew Manning mysteriously manifested psychical phenomena in his Cambridge home in 1967And then there's Matthew Manning. I'm about to tie this up in a neat little bow for you. Just wait. The poltergeist case surrounding Matthew Manning, a then 11 year old boy in 1967 Cambridge, England is called one of the most extraordinary outbreaks of poltergeist phenomena of the 20th century. Much like Enfield and many other poltergeist cases, the activity with Matthew Manning started with things like items being moved, knocking sounds, things flying across the room, heavy furniture moving on its own, etc. The activity, as usual, centered around one child of a particular Matthew Manning. His father, Derek, was the first to notice the unexplained activity. And it is, I think, also worth noting that Derek was already interested in psychical research prior to his son suddenly manifesting psychical phenomena in his own home. Hm. Things escalated to a weird degree. Spirits were allegedly using Matthew Manning's hand to write messages, aka automatic writing. Then, one particular week in 1971, 600 some odd signatures appeared on the walls of Matthew's bedroom, all in different handwriting, as if 600 different spirits had left their autographs on the walls. In 1974, just three years prior to the Enfield poltergeist case, when Matthew Manning saw Uri Geller bending spoons on tv, he was inspired to try it himself. Scientists and researchers even studied Matthew's skill at metalbending. And here's the bit with the bow that I'm tying for you. In the Hodgson's house in Enfield, investigators with the SPR found a torn out page of a magazine article all about Matthew Manning's poltergeist activity and special powers. In case I forgot to mention it earlier, Janet would bend spoons. That was like a whole thing is that she was able to bend spoons. Although actually if you look at Gross and Playfair's notes, um, I think specifically she was unable to do it unless she was left alone in a room and she was unable to do it when supervised. But, um, that was one of the things that she was able to do was bend spoons. Interesting. Hm. Hmm. Hm. It's almost as if Janet tore that page out of the magazine and was like, yes, good. This will keep me busy this summer, since the iPad hasn't yet been. And to be clear, Janet and Margaret were both caught on multiple instances playing tricks. Playfair and Gross both reported this, but were largely unbothered, um, by it, dismissing those occasions as the girls just seeing what they could get away with. In fact, the men seemed to be of the mind that having caught the girls trying to trick them actually made all the times that they hadn't caught the girls tricking them even more likely to have been actual spirit spiritual phenomena. Um, rather than having a good long think and saying to themselves, I'm just now internally asking myself in quite a worried way whether I might have made an error. Instead, said Playfair in this house is haunted. Janet's expression gave the game away at once. Though I said nothing about the incident. Later that day, Gross gave her a very good talking to, after which she spent a good hour in the bathroom having a sulk. We never mentioned it again and I do not think she played any more such tricks. The fact that I had spotted the trick at once encouraged me to think that I would have spotted earlier tricks had there been any. And the fact that Janet confessed without much prompting suggested that she was not a natural liar. M. So I've heard people. This is. Listen. I've heard people, including Gross's own son, say that Gross had kids of his own. So he was very familiar with what kids were like and he could always tell when they were lying. But could he. I think maybe this is okay. I know it wasn't gross. That was saying that. But just look, bear with me. Especially in the 70s, fathers were more likely to be the parent working outside of the home. Home, leaving their wives as primary caretakers of the children, even when the fathers were home. I mean, even today, though, if a father says that his kids are so well behaved with him while they're feral with mom, it's not because that he's just that good at parenting. It's not because he's just that good with his kids. It's not because his wife is being dramatic and that his kids are always good. No, it's because his kids don't feel as psychologically safe with him as they do with mom in the instances where the mom is the main caretaker. So obviously I'm not making a blanket statement. If the father is the caretaker and the kids feel more psychologically safe with the father, that is who they're going to be less behaved with. But because this is the 70s and that is not how it was, the mother was the main caretaker, and so the father would be far less psychologically safe for these kids. So if a kid doesn't feel psychologically safe with a caretaker, then they're not going to be as bad. Quote, unquote. They're not going to act up as much. Safer. Uh, it's. It's much safer for kids to explore limits and boundaries with the parent that they do have a closer bond with and feel safe enough to do so with. So, no, I highly doubt that any of the many men involved in this case had any idea about what kids are actually truly capable of when it comes to mischief and bad behavior. As for how Janet and Margaret might have pulled off such a convincing hoax, skeptical magician Milborn Christopher wrote about how such tricks can be done in other poltergeist cases by other children. For instance, regarding the Seaford P. M. Yeah. Hmm. Sea furred word. Regarding the Seaford poltergeist case, wherein the caps from bottles would purportedly pop open in rooms no one was in. This is a quote directly from his book Sears and HM Sear. Hold on, I'll tell you in a second. Here it is. I mentioned earlier that no one saw a cap pop from a bottle. Noises were heard, then bottles were found open on their sides. People assumed the noises were made by the bottles. Could the bottles have been opened and overturned before the noise was made? Can this simple strategy fool anyone? Yes, it can. This is exactly the system I used to baffle the writers and investigators who came to my apartment. How were the seiford noises made? As Mr. Herman did not invite me to his home to witness the phenomena, I cannot say precisely. I do know know that hearing is the easiest of the five senses to deceive. If a sound is heard in a house and someone says that came from the bedroom and starts in that direction, others will follow and accept the location. If a disturbance is expected in a specific room, when a noise is heard, attention focuses on that room. On one occasion, I leaned against the door frame of my living room with my hands behind my back. When someone else was speaking, I made a quick, quick rap with the knuckles of my right hand against the frame and immediately turned my head toward the hall. This is what magicians call misdirection, diverting attention from the place where the secret action takes place. Quoting a different poltergeist case that he wrote about, this is the last thing that I will say on what like it's hard. However, as another 11 year old girl insisted after confessing to playing poltergeist to attract attention in an earlier case. I didn't throw all those things. People just imagined some of them. Yep.

Before we wrap up, um, I wonder if, if you're anything like me, which, God, for your sake, I really hope that you're not. But if you are, you may have noticed that everyone glosses over Johnny Hodgson. He was a year younger than Janet. So you know there's, there's four kids, right? But where's Johnny? Johnny's not mentioned anywhere. Like, yeah, uh, you'll hear at most people talk about how he was away at boarding school and then you'll barely hear another word about him. The majority of the focus, of course, is on Janet. It's the Janet show. And then a little bit on Margaret and then even less, a little light smattering of focus on Billy. But I don't know, I don't know. Something about Johnny stood out to me right away with this case. I was like, there's a story here, I can smell it. But there's just so little information about him. Like I wanted to know what boarding school and why. And at first I thought maybe Johnny had actually started all of this. Like he was home when the activity first began. He was there when WPC Heaps arrived on the scene. And Playfair's book says that it was Johnny and Janet who first witnessed the strange sounds that got their mother's attention, not Janet and Margaret. So that had me thinking that maybe Johnny had been behind the initial prank, you know, maybe he was discovered. Maybe he was sent away to boarding school as punishment. And then Janet picked up the torch, so to speak, in which torch is not a British flashlight. It's like the mantle. Janet picked up. She took the baton, right? She took something in her hand. She continued the poltergeist prank. That's how I kind of felt about it. I thought it was a pretty good theory. But actually, as it turns out, Johnny had been sent away to the Wavenden House School, a residential school for maladjusted boys, A, uh, boarding facility for up to 50 boys aged seven to 16. He had been sent away to that when he was about seven. So that was like three or four years prior to the beginning of the activity. So that theory was out. And then Janet as an adult said that Johnny was, quote, unquote, just a handful, so they sent him away. Oh, okay. Was it really that simple, though? So also, maladjusted in the 70s could mean anything. It could mean anything abnormal. So one book that I, that I referenced, uh, that was published in 1965, literally called Maladjusted Boys. That's the name of the book, Maladjusted Boys. I felt like it was definitely the right thing to be reading to figure out. What does Maladjusted Boys mean? Um, it mentions various phobic and anxiety states. Bedwetting, dishonesty, nervous eczema, asthma and sexual difficulties. Hmm. M. Um, so I'd also wager that kids with untreated and unrecognized ADHD would have ended up there too. But also, a good chunk of boys at these schools may have also been on probation from juvenile court court. So it still doesn't explain why he was sent away. But get this. In the early days of the Enfield case, the Daily Mirror suggested to Peggy that they contact the Society for Psychical Research for help, to which Peggy had apparently fainted. In response, Playfair wrote she had misunderstood what he had just said. She thought he was going to call in a psychiatrist when he said psychiatrist. Medical research. She had some reason to be wary of members of this profession, for the local child welfare psychiatrist had apparently been responsible for having Johnny Hodgson sent to what his mother always referred to as residential school, which was in fact a school for problem children. Yet neither the psychiatrist nor anybody else had ever explained to Mrs. Hodgson what Johnny's problem was. Was all she knew about the psychiatrists was that one of them had taken her eldest boy from home and that was all she wanted to know. So that's kind of Fucked up. But Johnny did go back home to Greene street during holidays and on some weekends, though, so he wasn't completely absent from the Enfield case. In fact, the activity would sometimes get much more chaotic and dramatic when he was home, to the point where Mrs. Hodgson would admit to being angry anxious about him coming home from school because of how much more stressful things would be when he was there. So my personal headcanon for Johnny is that he and Janet got along the best of the siblings, and that Johnny just cracked Janet up and that they sort of fed off of each other's mischief making. That's genuinely just my read. Maybe I'm projecting, but that's how I'm picturing it. Um, you know, my original theory involved Janet hoping to be sent away to go to school with Johnny, even though the school was just for boys and there was no way that that was going to happen. That was my original read, was that, like, she did not want to be there without Johnny, she wanted to go be with Johnny, so she was going to also be bad. And then maybe she would also be sent off to go to school with Johnny. I don't know. I'm not a professional. But if you noticed earlier that Johnny wasn't listed in the credits for any of the documentaries or the Conjuring 2. Yeah, it's not for a good reason. Johnny died at only 14 of an unspecified type of cancer, so we'll never know his story. But I wanted to at least shed a little bit of very weak light on him since he's so often glossed over. But he was still experiencing everything that his family did, just to a slightly lesser extent. So this is where I was going to originally wrap up the podcast. And no, that doesn't mean that I'm not wrapping it up. What it means is that I have come across some new information after I was almost finished with this episode.Warren: Something about Janet sparks a suspicion about childhood sexual abuseSo here it is. It seems that the same year that Mr. Hodgson left his family, Johnny was sent away to Waventon House. For the life of me, I cannot find which one happened first, but I've got a sinking suspicion about those things being connected. A suspicion that started when I was watching the Apple plus documentary. Something about Janet. Something in the back of my mind was telling me that there was something much darker and much more harmful and much more sinister than poltergeists happening when it came to Janet. But I wasn't sure I'd include it in the episode as, uh. I mean, it was just a hunch, I was just guessing. It was just a feeling that I had. But after I discovered what I discovered, which was me actually realizing that I had somehow never read the book the Poltergeist Tapes by Melvin Willen, the honorary archive officer for the Society for Sex Psychical Research, well, I realized I had to tell y' all. It was my duty to tell you guys. So rather than rewrite the episode, I'm tacking it on here at the end. And by the way, here's a trigger warning for csa, otherwise known as childhood sexual abuse. According to GROSS and Playfair, Mr. Hodgson, Janet's father, was mentally disturbed and had needed medical treatment for an unspecified mental condition. When Mr. Hodgson was 15, he was convicted of child molestation, which he apparently told Janet and Margaret about for reasons that I just can't understand. But I guess I can't understand the entire situation. So there's that. Playfair stated in his own records that he thought that Janet may have suffered a sexual attack in Durance park graveyard last June when she was beaten up quite badly. Reason being that in the millions of things that Bill said, he kept talking about Durrance park, and he claimed to have been buried in Durance park, which is actually incorrect. He was buried in a farther away grave graveyard, but Durance park is the closest graveyard to Green Street. Anyway, with all of that information that I just shared, combined with how obsessed the Bill voice was with sex, uh, because it genuinely seemed difficult, if not impossible, to keep Janet focused on anything not sexual. Something you really don't see captured in the mainstream coverage of this case, along with the extreme amount of. Of poop and pee in the story, for that matter. But specifically, Janet would not stop talking about sex. It made me sick to my stomach, honestly, knowing that a child being a little too preoccupied with sex is a sign of sexual abuse. Now, she was 11, okay? Puberty, okay, sure. But I don't know, you guys here. She talked about it a lot. It was a lot. It was too much. What really got me, though, was the context surrounding the classic sound bite. You hear of Janet in her Bill voice, where he says, I'm invisible because I'm a G H O, Uh, S t that one. The full context for that clip is actually that Janet, as Bill says, that he was on top of Janet and naked. She said, as Bill, I'm on top of Janet and I'm nude. Okay? Gross. Then asks, why can't Janet feel you? And then that is why Janet says, I'm invisible. And then he goes on to say, well, why are you invisible? And then she goes on to say because I'm a G H O S T. Right? So the context for her even saying that was Bill was naked and on top of her uh oh boy. At a later date, Janet, again in her Bill voice, told a woman to kiss me and take your clothes off. And that's just one example of many that I could share with you. There are studies that show that sexual trauma may be an important contributing factor in the development of psychosis. So what Janet needed was help, not for her home and her life to be turned into a circus. As I'm all about the reduction of harm when it comes to the supernatural. Whether that harm is strangers on Reddit replying to to people's paranormal stories, confidently claiming that the OP has demons, or whether it's paranormal investigators who should have realized that they were just making things worse. I really wish things had gone differently for the Hodgson like G I wish they had gone so much differently and so much better. Honestly. Sometimes the scariest part of a story isn't the unexplained or the supernatural part. Sometimes the scariest part is just humans. Just humans. Belief in the paranormal can get dangerous when we dismiss any naturalistic or mundane explanations, such as in the case of Janet focusing on alleged poltergeist activity instead of acknowledging the abuse that she very well may have suffered through. And just to bring this back to the focus of the series, right at the end though the Warrens were barely involved. You just know they can't resist a paranormal circus. Which was exactly what was happening in the Hodgsons home. Even though they were only there for a couple of days, they still took credit for the investigation. Not just in their book the Demonologist, but in the conjuring too. Ed Warren did what he promised Playfair and the Hodgson family. They made a lot of money on this story. Unfortunately for Ed, he couldn't spend any of it. He died ten years before the movie came out. Hmm.Hm.Interesting.Mhm. Thank you for joining me. For more true strange stories of the unexplained, remember that you can feel afraid and not be in danger.You're safe here with me. Probably. Please follow the podcast, leave a rating on Spotify or Apple or tell your.Friends and foes about the show.It would mean the world to m me.The underworld, obviously.I mean come on. Was that not.Was that not clear?Madame Strangeways is produced and narrated by me, Madame Strangeways.You always have to use energy from people, right? Yes. Can't you take anything elseTheme music Music is by Marina Ryan at Ah marinamakes.Co cover art is by Andrea Giselle Roldan at cultoftetti on Instagram.Um, you can submit your own true strange [email protected] or email it to madamstrangewaysmail.com.See you soon, she said ominously.

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