One of the women involved in an incident that inspired The Conjuring 2, which is sometimes know as the ‘Enfield Haunting’ or the ‘Enfield Poltergeist’, spoke out about the incidents that she claimed happened to her in an interview around the time of that film’s release.
Janet Winter – Hodgson, as she was called at the time – became the subject of one of the UK’s most famous paranormal activity cases, alongside her siblings Margaret and Johnny.
The incidents started in 1977 and continued for a year-and-a-half, with various mysterious happenings taking place in their otherwise unremarkable home.
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Decades later, both still believed that what happened to them was real, even allowing paranormal investigators to run tests on them and their house, as well as talking to the people behind the film about their experiences.
In an interview back around 2016, Janet explained: “There was levitation, there was the voices, and then there were incidents that happened to me like the curtain that wrapped itself around my neck, which was quite life-threatening to me, and it brought it home to me that this could kill you.
“I feel that it came to use me, maybe because it was drawing off my energy.
“I often think, why me?
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“To sum it up all in one, I was used and abused.”
To those who didn’t believe, she said: “I know what people say, and I don’t care what they say – it wasn’t them, it was me.
“I know what happened and I know it was real.
“How would they like it if this had happened to them and they were being called a fake or whatever?”
After the strange goings on continued, a voice started coming from Janet, which she believed to be that of a man who had lived and died in the house before them.
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On that, Janet once explained: “It didn’t even feel like it was coming from me, even though it was; it just felt like it was behind me.
“One of the investigators decided to tape my mouth shut, but it would still speak.
“They’d pour water in my mouth and it would still speak.
“And the voice was so clear. I just thought, ‘Why is this happening to me? Why am I the chosen one? Am I possessed?’
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“There was a lot of scepticism over it because it wouldn’t always talk in front of people.”
Eventually, things did quieten down for the family, although Janet’s sister Margaret and her mother have claimed that some things continued to happen.
There are those who don’t believe in their story, claiming that the girls did it for attention, or they were distressed somehow.
Margaret later said that had she not seen it herself, she too would have been sceptical.
Janet herself once said that ‘about two percent’ of what happened was fake, because of how she’d feel if something didn’t happen when she was asked.
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“There was times when things would happen and times when they wouldn’t,” she said. “Sometimes, if things didn’t happen, you’d somehow feel you’d failed.”
After the family left that house behind, another family moved in but didn’t stay long.
The mother of that family said: “I didn’t see anything but I felt uncomfortable.
“There was definitely some kind of presence in the house.
“I always felt like somebody was looking at me.”
Now, someone else lives on 284 Green Street, Enfield, but they don’t wish to be named and haven’t said anything about it.
Topics: UK News, Weird, TV and Film
Tom Wood