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ONSET The activity occurred at North London , in a council house rented by Margaret Hodgson, a divorcee with four children. Margaret was unemployed, and the family lived on a nominal state benefit. The alleged phenomena initially included furniture moving by itself, knockings on the walls, and lego bricks and marbles being thrown around, which were found to be hot to the touch when picked up. A Police Officer signed an affidavit to affirm that he saw a chair moving. The alleged events attracted various visitors including mediums and members of the Press. After visiting the house George Fallows, a senior reporter for the Daily Mail at the time, suggested that the Society For Psychical Research (SPR) be called in to investigate. The incidents were duly investigated by Maurice Grosse and Guy Lyon Playfair, both members of SPR, who were convinced by the evidence which they encountered during their five month investigation. They reported witnessing various phenomena, including moving furniture, flying marbles, cold breezes, shallow pools of water appearing on the floor, and fires which spontaneously ignited and extinguished themselves. Among other alleged phenomena they witnessed was one of the children speaking using her False Cords for hours on end (which is believed to be medically impossible), while she was apparently possessed by another entity. When speaking with the false cords she said she was "Bill" who had died in the house. Recordings were made of these occurances. After the BBC went to the house the recording crew found the metal inside recording machines bent, and recordings erased. However, further investigations by Anita Gregory and John Beloff, also from the SPR were not so positive. They spent a few days with the family and came to the conclusion that the children had faked the poltergeist activity after they found them bending spoons themselves. One of the children (Janet) admitted to Gregory that they had fabricated some of the occurrences. This admission was repeated on the ITV News (12 June 1980) when she stated: "Oh yeah, once or twice faked phenomena , just to see if Mr Grosse and Mr Playfair would catch us. And they always did." Guy Lyon Playfair wrote a book about his invesigation entitled ''This House is Haunted''. With the usual hyperbole one can expect of publishers of the supernatural it was billed as "even more terrifying than Borley Rectory !". CONCLUSION Margaret has publicly stated that although they did fake a few phenomena to catch the investigators out, they were not responsible for all the phenomena. She has stated that "It is ridiculous to suggest that either my sister or I could have been responsible for the strange activity that went on in our house." However, despite this there remain differences of interpretation regarding whether the girls faked all the phenomena or not. FURTHER READING Playfair, G.L. & Grosse, M. (1988). "Enfield revisited: The evaporation of positive evidence". Journal of the Society for Psychical Research 55: 208-219. Playfair, G.L. ''This House is Haunted: The True Story of a Poltergeist'', Stein & Day, 1980. 0812827325. EXTERNAL LINKS
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