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Part 2

The Enfield Poltergeist

Jane told of how 27 years ago this was front page news - a story of recently divorced Peggy Harper and her 4 children and the poltergeist activity that they encountered of a period of time, a case where journalists and scientists alike claimed to have seen the activity with their own eyes. Jane first spoke to a man called Maurice Grosse who is a researcher from the Society of Paranormal Research.  He told how it all began on August 30th 1977.  Peggy had just put the children to bed and come back downstairs - it wasnt long before she had lots of noise and activity going on upstairs so she went back up, opened the bedroom door and told the kids to go back to sleep, one of sons told her they couldn't and when she asked why he said that the furniture kept moving around. Peggy was just about to close the door after telling her kids not be so silly when she saw a chest of draws move across the floor.  Thats was the start of it and from then on things became worse.

Jane next talked to a Graham Maurice who was a photographer with the Daily Mirror. He told how the papers became involved after the stories circulated that even policemen has been witness to the phenomena. He was sent along with his camera.  So at midnight, he was ready with his camera and the kids were brought into the room. He then told how as soon as one of the daughters, Janet, came in, things started to happen straight away with objects flying around. He himself was hit on the head by a small lego brick.  He told how he didnt want it to seem like it had happened in a Hollywood film type of way - he told Jane that objects simply started flying around and how the neighbours began rushing around putting away knives and forks for fear of them flying around too! He had kept his eyes on the children and none of the object came from them throwing them, it was impossible.  He said he would have just ran from the house had he not had a job to do.  As it turned out, after the assignment ended, he more or less stayed at the house in Enfield waiting to capture more activity for next 6 months and this is when he was joined by Maurice Gross the researcher. By this time everyone was terrified. Maurice told of an incident whereby he was in the kitchen next to the table and there had been a t-shirt on the table. He then watched as it lept off the table onto the floor on its own. He said after seeing that he didnt need any proof and he then made a promise to stick with the case. Over the coming months the family were visited by persons from all sorts of  paranormal and scientific fields such as Lorraine, the Demonologist (mentioned in Part 1 of this investigation). Mrs Harpers eldest daughter Janet always seemed to be at the centre  of the activity and Maurice told Jane of one particular incident. 

The bread man was doing his rounds round the street one morning and he heard alot of noise coming from the house, so much so that he looked up to a window and there he saw Janet - apparently levitating/floating around the room and there were toys and books following behind her. The man said he could see in the window clearly as the curtains were open and he could see Janet floating horizontally around the ceiling and at one point he thought she was going to come right out of the window as she was going so fast, but she didnt, she carried on floatingin circles. There was a lollipop lady across the other side of the street who also reported seeing the same thing at the same time. They calculated and measured she was floating at least 18 inches above the window sill.

Jane then spoke to Parapsychologist, Ciaran O'Keefe from Liverpool Hope University (also of Most Haunted) who talked about things from his own point of view. He explained how most of the evidence was photographic and how in the actual photos you never saw the object or person as it was rising or moving because this is hard to capture in photographs, that first snap when something moves etc etc. Jane spoke to the photographer again and he explained how the camera used were shutter cameras. He told how they would sit around for long hours sometimes waiting for activity to occur and as soon as they heard a scream and realise something was happening they would rush to the scene and most time would catch Janet as she in the air and take a snap as fast as they could, but you could never quite catch a shot of her beforehand. Janr asked him could he be sure that she wasnt jus jumping in the air and he replied no. He said he used a shutter camera which shot automaatically. Four months after everything happened was when they caught Janet speaking in the voice of an old man. Jane listented to the tape. It was quite disturbing as to me, it sounded like an old man not the voice of a 13 year old girl. The voice said words to the effect that he came from a nearby cemetary  and met up with his other spirit friends and they chose the house because he used to live there.

Jane told how Janet, now a 40 year old woman with her own family, has never ever given any interviews - so when Jane left messages on her answerphone she was surprised to hear that Janet had agreed to meet her. But she requested they blanked out her face during the interview as she didnt want to be recognised. Jane met her in a cafe.  Janet spoke in a hushed, quiet, shy voice. You could tell it was difficult for her to speak about. She said how it was hard for people to understand but that it was real. She said she didnt care about all the stories of whether it was true or  not, because it was her story to tell. School life wasnt easy for her and she got bullied because of the stories about what was happening to her at her home. It got so that she didnt want to go to school but she dreaded coming home because of the media circus. She said she found it scary and became very confused about who she was and where she wanted to be? She if she had attracted it and why her? She didnt know how she got through it. Jane asked her about how it felt when she had been seen levitating. She said it felt strange almost like she was in a trance like there was an unseen force there. Jane asked her about when she reportedly walked through a wall - again she said it was hard to explain, but that it felt real. She asked the question how can someone go through a solid wall? She said she had felt possessed and she felt very used which really upset her. She said she felt out of control. When Jane asked about the tapes with Janet speaking in a different voice, she said as she was speaking it didnt feel like it was her speaking, she said she had felt embarassed because of the foul language that the voice was using.Janet said it had taken her over and all she had wanted to know was why me? why was I the centre of it? After the interview, Jane said it was the most incredible personal experience she had ever hward and not a single moment did she ever doubt anything that Janet had told her  - she said she had beleived every word of it.