The Enfield Haunting: The True Story Behind The Conjuring 2 Movie
Graham MorrisJanet Hodgson, the main focus of the Enfield haunting.
Between 1977 and 1979, a family in North London said their home was tormented by what became known as the Enfield poltergeist. Peggy Hodgson, a single mom, and her four children — Margaret (12), Janet (11), Johnny (10), and Billy (7) — lived at 284 Green Street, Enfield, where a series of small oddities purportedly escalated into a full-blown haunting.
The story of the Enfield haunting began in August 1977. Peggy said she heard a crash upstairs, and when she went to investigate, she found Margaret and Janet, visibly frightened in their bedroom. The two girls claimed that a chest of drawers had slid across the floor on its own. Peggy initially dismissed this, but when she tried pushing the dresser back into place, she found herself unable to move it, even though she could do so easily before.
Furniture moving on its own was not all the family said they experienced, however. They soon began to hear unexplained noises, prompting Peggy to reach out to neighbors and eventually the police.
A police constable, Carolyn Heeps, visited the home to investigate, and she later claimed that she saw a chair sliding across the floor on its own. Heeps also said she saw the chair lift slightly off the floor by itself. Shortly afterward, many other witness reports came in, and with each new report, the incidents seemed to become more extreme.
The family and their visitors eventually reported seeing objects flying through rooms and matches spontaneously igniting. Meanwhile, 11-year-old Janet Hodgson seemed to be suffering greatly from the incidents at the home.
Warner Bros. PicturesA scene from The Conjuring 2 movie, inspired by the true story of the Hodgson family.
Her behavior changed drastically. People claimed to see her levitating and being physically moved by unseen forces, and she began speaking in a voice not her own — described by many as an old man’s voice. On recordings, she purportedly channeled the voice of one of the home’s previous occupants, Bill Wilkins, who died in a manner Janet was somehow able to describe.
The case drew in outside interest, including from reporters, neighbors, police officers, and paranormal investigators. Photographers attempted to capture some of what they saw, and one reporter said that he was hit in the face by a flying LEGO piece in the home. In total, over 30 people claimed to have experienced some form of paranormal phenomena in the house.
By 1978, the Warrens had caught wind and decided to visit the Hodgsons, but their visit was brief. Unlike in The Conjuring 2, Ed and Lorraine did not stay with the family for an extended period of time, and their involvement in the case wasn’t expansive. They did, however, declare it to be a real haunting.
There were, of course, rumors that the family had hoaxed the whole thing. Janet even admitted to faking events “two percent” of the time, to see if investigators could “tell the difference” between the real paranormal events and the fake ones. The haunting itself, though, she stood by.
“I don’t care what they think,” Janet said in the aftermath of the haunting. “I know what happened and I know it was real.”
