[Janet screams]
[screaming] You’re hurting me.
You’re hurting me. You’re hurting me. [crying]
[Janet grunting]
[Janet groaning]
[overlapping tape recorder chatter]
[Janet screams]
- [sobbing] I can’t tell you. - [Peggy] What’s the matter?
[Grosse] This time, Janet was thrown right out of the room,
onto the stairs.
I saw you banging on the floor, Janet.
[Janet] I didn’t bang.
[Grosse] I saw you bang.
Janet. Can you hear me, Janet?
- [Janet breathing heavily] - [Grosse] Janet, can you hear me?
[Nottingham] One time when we s--
[Grosse] Why didn’t you spit the water out until I told you?
No, I don’t want you to do anything until I tell you.
[Grosse] Janet. Janet. Janet.
Janet. Can you hear me? Janet? Can you hear me, Janet?
[Grosse] All right, Janet. Well done. All right, now, Janet.
There’s a good girl.
There’s a good girl. All right.
[Janet] I blamed myself a lot.
The fact that I went into care alone and Margaret and Bill were still there.
It was my fault because I was the epicenter.
Why me?
Why did it happen to me, our family? Why?
I’ve never actually done that many interviews or documentaries.
And I was always very dubious about doing any of them
’cause it does bring it all back again,
and there’s all the emotions that I’ve tried to escape all my life.
- [Margaret] Oh. - Yeah, I remember that one.
- The look of terror on Mum’s face. - Yeah, I remember.
- [Janet] That one. - [Margaret] Yeah.
[Janet] When I was pulled out of bed.
[Margaret] And that distressed me to see you like that.
That distressed me terrible.
Yeah, I remember being-- being turned off the settee.
Tipped upside down.
- It-It just turned over. And-- - [Margaret] Yeah.
And she’d run off it, and then it’d be over on the--
tip up on the floor.
Does feel strange though. Like going back in time.
Really does. All those years ago.
Looking back now,
something could come into our lives, into our house.
Could it have been something that drew energy from me?
[Grosse] June, 1978.
Janet has now spent six weeks
in a home run by nuns.
We are redoubling our efforts to help her,
but none of the doctors, psychiatrists,
or psychologists who have witnessed her altered states
can agree on their diagnosis.
The psychiatrist consulted by the local doctor
suggested we simply go away and leave the family alone.
[Carr] Maurice was a very compassionate man.
And there’s no doubt that he cared about the family.
That’s important because, as a psychical researcher,
you probably want the phenomena to go on as long as possible.
You know, this doesn’t often happen, so you’re quite keen to--
to sort of get evidence for this. On the other hand,
as a human being, you’re dealing-- you-you realize you’re dealing
with people who are going through a very traumatic state.
And-- And so, from that point of view, you want the phenomena to stop.
[Janet] I was having these bad nightmares.
Nights used to be so long.
When I look back now, I don’t know how I stayed sane.
I just wanted to run away.
[Paul] I do remember being concerned about Janet.
[stammers] Just mentally and physically, emotionally.
To be screaming, hysterical,
to have that amount of tension, she needed help.
[Grosse] July the 26th, 1978.
We have finally got Janet admitted to the Maudsley Hospital
under the care of Dr. Peter Fenwick,
head of the neurological department.
[Fenwick] Guy Playfair said to me,
"We’ve got this fascinating phenomena going on at Enfield.
A poltergeist.
The girl, Janet, goes into strange, contorted positions.
And do you think that she has epilepsy?"
And so, I originally thought,
"Well, poltergeists and epilepsy?
Doubt it.
But it’s certainly worth looking at Janet."
[Janet] I thought I was going home.
So, I was very surprised to be going to stay in a hospital.
[Fenwick] Remember, it’s 47 years ago,
but I do have Janet’s permission to talk about her,
uh, on-- on camera.
I’m a neuropsychiatrist, which means "neuro" understand the brain--
- "psychiatrist"-- understand behavior. - If you looking at this...
People who had disorders of behavior used to be referred to me.
I was also interested in consciousness.
And so, my interests were wider
than just simple reductionist science.
What I was wanting to know is
whether you could separate poltergeist effects,
epilepsy, and behavioral changes in the person.
[Janet breathes deeply]
We ran a whole lot of tests on her to see, particularly,
if there was an organic basis for her behavior.
[Janet] They wanted to see what was going on in me brain.
When you’re that young, you know, you think,
"Psychiatry, what does that really mean?" You know?
People think, "Oh. It’s madness.
They’ve gone into there because they’re mad."
But there’s different reasons.
Is it something in the body? Or is it in the brain?
Or is it something that’s happened from the past?
[Fenwick] All of the physical tests we did were normal.
And so we then wondered about the behavioral component.
What I did know about poltergeists
at this time was that they tended to occur,
usually, where there was a very high tension in the family.
[Janet] I haven’t really listened to the tapes up until now.
But it’s like I’m meant to go back ’cause it’s gonna teach me something.
[interviewer] Why do you think it’s chosen you?
Why do you think it’s happening to you?
Uh, well, I can’t directly answer that,
[Janet] Looking back now,
there was a lot of stress and tension in the family.
The upset of Johnny going away to school.
Mum and Dad had divorced.
[Margaret] I remember before I was ten,
my parents would regularly have rows.
And one day, I don’t know what my mum done--
She went to open the front door, and he shut her arm in it.
I remember this very well.
And I remember things getting a bit overheated,
and they were arguing and shouting at each other.
And I remember, my father sat me down,
and he said to me, um, "I won’t be living here anymore, you know.
We’re getting divorced, Mum and I."
Our lives changed then.
And then I don’t remember much more childhood.
[Janet] It did really affect me.
I mean, my dad he-- he was hotheaded.
[stammers] He had no patience.
But then I cried when he left.
It was like there was an absence.
Something was missing.
Did hit me hard, actually. It did. Yeah.
[child Janet] That’s what I’m saying, right?
You go in the small bed, Margaret.
[child Margaret] Trust you to say that.
[Grosse] There is a great deal of emotional stress
- in the family. - ...come back from...
[Peggy] ...the shops this afternoon.
But how is stress capable
of physically affecting its surroundings?
How does all that fit into the picture?
[Roz] The chair, which was standing by Janet’s bed.
[Janet] Mum, he’s tricking me.
[Peggy screams] Christ! It’s the ghost!
And there was a chest of drawers moving towards the door.
[child Janet] Bash the window!
[Grosse] What’s happened?
[Peggy] Now the chair gone over.
[Grosse] It just tipped over the settee in front of us.
[Janet] I’ve never used to like going upstairs on me own.
It was like there was something there.
It was a feeling like it was behind me.
[Grosse, through recorder] Now, tell me, what are you doing here,
and why are you here?
[Bill, through recorder] Shall I tell you really who I am?
[Bill, through recorder] Really?
[Janet] Some people have to see it to believe it.
But once you’ve experienced it, you know that it’s real.
27th, 1978, in the Maudsley Hospital.
Well, Janet, um, come over here
and stick your mouth near the microphone
- so we can hear you. - Yeah.
That’s all right.
You’re saying when you’re on your own,
you’re not-- you’re not, um--
[Playfair] Really? Mmm.
Does it?
I mean-- [stammers]
- You’d like to sleep on your own from now on? - Yeah.
- What, on your own, without anybody? - Yeah.
[whooshes, chuckles]
I’ve got a radio.
- Mmm. What, on your own, without anybody? - Yeah.
[Janet] Strange, sort of, listening to me at that age.
I seem quite determined. I think, "Wow.
[stammers] Really? Was this me?"
Think you’ll forget all about your dad soon?
You know, when you grow up and--
You’ll have lots of boyfriends before long.
You won’t remember him. [chuckles]
But-- But we gotta stop this damn thing, you know, now.
- It’s not doing you any good. - I know. That’s what Mum said.
[Playfair] You know, you’re gonna be quite famous one day.
[Fenwick] There’s no doubt about Janet’s relief
in getting away from the family.
She immediately relaxed and became really a quite different girl
after she’d been with us for a bit.
We had her in there for six weeks,
and we found... [chuckles] ...a not-unusual teenager.
[Grosse] Mrs. Hodgson is talking about, uh, her interview...
...with Dr. Fenwick.
- [Grosse] He asked you how Janet was. - Yeah.
Just tell me that again, will you?
And I turned round, and I said, uh,
Janet has been a lot better
since she’s been away from the house, which she has,
- and she looked a lot better. - Yeah. Mmm.
You know what she’s talking about.
She looked very cowed before she left.
Very cowed. She said it’s completely gone.
Yeah. Well, I also said to him-- I-I-I must bear in mind,
and I must admit that Janet is a moody child.
- And she’s a very restless child. - [John] Yeah.
[Peggy] But I’ll tell you what I think--
and I’m gonna be quite honest about it--
she’s my daughter, and I miss her very much,
but I don’t think she should come back here.
[Janet] With me, like, I was the black sheep, you know?
She didn’t really want me ’cause I was trouble.
[sniffles] I was part of the problem while it was happening.
When I came out the Maudsley, I was picked up by the social worker.
And he was taking me around children’s homes,
trying to find another children’s home for me.
He couldn’t find one. They were all full.
[Grosse] Okay...
[Janet] And in the end, he took me back to Mum.
And Mum’s face, ah,
I could tell she didn’t really want me home.
I think she was fearful that it would all really start up badly again
because I was back there.
[announcer on TV] This is the...
[TV show host] In this program, we’re going to explore an area
where our common sense notions aren’t going to be much help to us at all.
How does the uncertainty principle square up
with the everyday world? [continues indistinctly]
[Janet] When I got home, I just needed peace
and... [sighs] ...to-- just to be left alone, really.
[snoring]
- [thud] - [grunts, sighs]
[Janet breathing deeply]
[Grosse grunts]
Clear off. Get out. We’ve had enough.
We’ve had enough of you. Go back where you came from.
[Grosse] I would like, for one moment, to contemplate the word "truth."
Where does the truth lie?
Only in the everyday decipherings of our five senses?
Or might it rest in the depths of an unknown dimension...
- [beeping on TV] - ...beyond our understanding?
[Playfair] Hello, Mr. Grosse.
It’s Sunday, October the 8th, 1978.
And I’m just going to make a copy for you--
for your private collection--
of the tape I made with Peter Liefhebber and Dono Gmelig-Meyling.
I thought this most remarkable story needed to be got down on tape at once,
so I went round and I made the tape which follows.
I won’t comment on it yet until you’ve had time to think it over.
I think you’ll find these coincidences quite interesting.
You’ll notice that I didn’t offer any information concerning you personally.
[Grosse grunting]
[Richard] Before the investigation,
my father had suffered a huge emotional loss.
And Guy-- because he was a spiritualist,
because he believed in those things--
couldn’t get out of his mind a potential connection.
All right. I’ll start the copy now.
Friday, October the 6th, 1978.
Belgravia Hotel, to see Peter Liefhebber.
- Right. Here we are in the hotel, Peter. - Yes.
Um, well, I wonder,
could you tell me roughly what you told me on the phone?
Um, what exactly happened?
Yes.
And he didn’t say that about me, for instance?
No. No, no.
[Liefhebber]
[Playfair] Well, I didn’t--
[Liefhebber]
Mm-hmm. Yes.
Mmm.
[Playfair]
[Grant] My sister was a character.
My sister lived life to the full.
She was Janet Esther Grosse, and she was 22 years old.
She was 22 years old. N-- No age at all.
[Richard] My sister was killed in a motorcycle accident in Cardiff.
And it happened on my birthday.
I received a visit from the police, I think, 2:30 in the morning,
telling me that I should go to Cardiff Royal Infirmary
because that’s where she was.
Janet was lying on the hospital bed
with her head wrapped in bandages, and two black eyes.
She’d suffered, um, a major trauma to her head.
And we all sat there. And it was a tragic day.
And we eventually switched the machine off,
and my sister passed away.
And around that awful event
were some extraordinary things that happened.
Call them coincidence, call them f-- fate, call them whatever you like.
The afternoon before, when my sister had her accident,
my mother was on the beach.
And at that time, 4:20 in the afternoon, she felt seriously ill,
so ill that my father wanted to call a-- an ambulance to the beach.
A clock that had always worked stopped at the precise time, 4:20.
[Grant] It was the summer of 1976 when it didn’t rain for months,
and there was a huge water shortage.
And underneath my sister’s bedroom window is the roof
of the extension to the kitchen.
That roof was soaking wet.
No other roofs anywhere around were wet. Just that roof.
[Richard] But I think the most extraordinary event
happened to me.
After my sister died, on the way back, on the train,
I realized that my sister would’ve sent me a birthday card.
And that birthday card would almost certainly
be on the mat at home when I got in.
[Grant] Janet’s birthday card to Richard, August the 5th, 1976.
I was absolutely amazed by what I saw.
On the front was a person with a head wrapped in bandages,
two black eyes, in a hospital gown.
"I was going to buy you a bottle of toilet water for your birthday...
but the lid fell on my head. Happy birthday."
A strange, strange wording for a card.
But what was even stranger was that my sister had written
in her own hand an arrow pointing to the word "head."
And it went down, and it said,
"And there won’t be much left of that soon anyway. Love, Jan."
How could she have... [stammers] ...known, but without knowing?
H-- How could-- How could something like this happen?
It’s...
It’s too unreal.
[Grant] All these phenomena,
and the fact that they all happened at the same time,
made us feel that there was something going on.
[Grosse] Janet. Janet.
[Margaret] Poltergeist.
[Grant] Something that we couldn’t explain.
[Playfair] Are you listening, Janet?
[Grosse] P-O-L-T-E-R-G-E-I-S-T.
Poltergeist.
[Grant] It changed him completely.
[Grosse] Lo-Losing a child...
Time helps, but, uh, you never get over it.
Happens.
I often wonder what would have happened had she lived,
- how different our lives... - Mmm.
...would have been. Your life would have been quite different.
You realize that, don’t you?
My life would have been quite different
because it was the extraordinary things
that happened when she-- [stammers]
Around about the time she died. Extraordinary psychic thing--
what I consider to be psychic, and so did you--
that happened, that, uh, sort of
launched me onto this determination to try and find out more
about what happens when you-- you die,
and what psychic research is all about.
[Richard] If you think of coincidence,
then how extraordinary not only is that set of circumstances--
But my father goes to the Society and says, "I’d like a case,"
and the very first case that comes along turns out to be arguably
the most important case in the history of paranormal activity.
[Grosse] Did you-- Did you die in this house?
Did you pass on? You did pass on in this house?
Now why are you here? Are you unhappy?
[Janet] Now, I often wonder, you know, strange it may seem,
it could be coincidence.
It may not have been that his daughter’s name was Janet.
But I think he felt that, at the time--
like he was put in touch with us for a reason.
[Grosse, through recorder] You did pass on in this house?
Now why are you here? Are you unhappy?
[child Janet grunting]
[Peggy] Christ! It’s the ghost! It’s the ghost!
[Grosse] Janet. Can you hear me, Janet?
- [indistinct recorder chatter] - [screaming]
[sighs]
Because he’d lost his daughter, you could argue that, you know,
he had a-- a motive... [chuckles]
...a-an incentive to try and find evidence.
But the question of coincidences or synchronicity,
this domain of experience is fundamental.
If you yourself have had an experience,
that is what’s going to make you take this phenomena seriously.
Certainly, for me, I’ve had experiences which--
which have, you know, made me feel... [stammers]
...these phenomena are g--
some of these phenomena are genuine.
The whole point about psychical research is it does suggest
that consciousness can actually directly interact
with the physical world.
[Fenwick] Because I had this interest in consciousness,
obviously things like telepathy, psychokinesis and so on
were phenomena which I was also interested in.
I began to see consciousness as a much wider phenomenon,
not just generated in the brain.
I think the brain is in a field,
and I think brain fields interact with each other.
The way that I might look at the Enfield poltergeist would be
that you have a highly disturbed adolescent.
They’ve got this wonderful machine which is called their brain,
and it can interact with the field of consciousness.
And if it does that, then these things can arise.
You can, by an intention, change things.
[Carr] The physical world is just a sort of, you know--
it’s like a four-dimensional slice,
in my perspective, of this-- of this higher-dimensional reality.
And this higher-dimensional reality is, if you like--
that’s the world of-- of mind.
The-- The truth is, if psychic phenomena were real,
it would be so important that we need to be sure.
I got into psychic research through an experience of my own,
a dramatic out-of-the-body- turned-mystical experience
that I couldn’t understand at all.
This was when I was a first-year student at Oxford in 1970.
I became so committed to the idea that my spirit
or astral body had left that I thought,
"Well, I don’t want to carry on with what would’ve been a sensible career
in psychology and physiology," which is what I was doing,
"I want to prove to the world that there are psychic phenomena."
I started doing a lot of experiments on telepathy,
clairvoyance, precognition and so on.
[announcer] According to one theory,
PK powers fade with age and should therefore
be strongest in babies.
The computer will play a nice tune and show a smiling face,
which Emily enjoys looking at, um,
according to the output of the random number generator.
[tune playing]
And what happens is, if she’s using her PK successfully,
it will play more often.
[Blackmore] To begin with, I got some significant results
- that you wouldn’t expect by chance. - Bye.
[tune playing]
[Blackmore] But then, over four to five years,
the experimental work that I did
led me to be... [stammers] ...ever and ever more doubtful.
And I became more and more worried.
"Well, how am I ever going to find these things?"
"Well, if that doesn’t work, there’s always this.
And if this doesn’t work, then there’s this.
There’s always another door to open.
There’s always another corner to turn."
That was the feeling.
Until one day,
this thought came over me: What if none of it is true?
[Carr] The whole point about psychical research
is that you should be skeptical.
I mean, not disbelieving,
but you should start off always trying
to find a natural explanation.
That’s true of science in general.
You should be skeptical in the sense that you’re always open.
The Enfield case is without doubt one of the most evidential cases
in the sense that we’ve got all these recordings.
[Gregory] Inevitably, any so-called "spontaneous" case is chaotic,
and it is hard to come by any definite conclusion.
There is, as regards Enfield, a considerable amount of testimony.
You see things that you can’t explain,
you’ve got a tendency not to believe them.
You’ve got a tendency to say, "I didn’t really see ’em."
- [Grosse] Ah. - But you know you did.
And there was a chest of drawers moving towards the door.
[Nottingham] And there was banging.
Banging on the side of the walls, and on the ceiling.
On the floor.
[Gregory] Some of this testimony is quite impressive and reassuring,
but there is no real evidence.
My view is that, unfortunately,
much of the case withers away on closer inspection.
There was a-- an ordinary kitchen chair moved across the room.
Small armchair, and it jumped, was it, about four or five inches from the settee?
and the policewoman saw it.
It, um, came off the floor, oh, nearly a half inch, I should say.
[Grosse] It moved approximately three to four feet
and then came to rest.
Moved about, well, I expect 18 inches,
something like that. Just a short way.
[Blackmore] Our brain’s main thing they’re doing all the time
is recognizing patterns.
The more we understand about the brain,
the less room there is for belief in paranormal phenomena.
Human bodies are machines, but somehow we want to be more than that.
People want to believe there’s more than this world.
[Morris] But as I entered the front room,
something-- I think it was a LEGO brick--
came from behind me very low down
and very fast and hit the wall in front of me.
- I went straight toward... - [Carr] Looking back on it now...
- [Morris] ...and stood with my back to it... - [Carr] ...my own impression
is that, you know, there’s so many accounts,
so many witnesses.
One can’t just dismiss all those and say it was all fraud or imagination.
What’s so f-frustrating is we still don’t know.
Not just in the Enfield case,
it applies to almost everything in psychical research.
But that’s precisely what makes psych--
[stammers] ...the subject so tantalizing.
How would you distinguish between what is nonsense and what is--
what is true? [breathes deeply]
[Grosse] It has been said many times
by skeptics and critics of psychic research
that my interest in the subject was motivated by grief.
And that this grief distorted my sense of reality.
Their conclusions are entirely mistaken.
The Enfield case proved to my satisfaction and beyond a shadow of doubt,
that the realities of life and death are not what they appear to be.
[Richard, through recorder] Bill, I want you to tell me
whether you remember what happened to you when you died.
Just before you died and just after you died.
[Richard] Bill, who was the voice-- this is the ghost--
he described how he died.
[Bill] Days before I died...
I went blind.
I had an hemorrhage, and I fell asleep...
and I died in a chair.
In a corner downstairs.
[Richard] Some years later, my father received a telephone call.
And it was from a man who said he knew the voice.
- [Grosse] Ah, hello. - Hello, Maurice. Nice to meet you again.
- [Grosse] Nice seeing you again. - Come in.
[Richard] This chap identified himself
as the son of William Wilkins-- Bill.
[Richard, through recorder] Bill, I want you to tell me
whether you remember what happened to you when you died.
Just before you died and just after you died.
[Bill] Days before I died, I went blind.
Then I had an hemorrhage, and I fell asleep,
and I died in a chair in a corner downstairs.
- Is-- That’s-- That’s right? - That’s exactly true.
- That is exactly true, yes. - Mmm. [stammers] Exactly as he did.
And we’re-- Of course, at that time,
we certainly didn’t know how he died.
- The only thing we knew at that time... - Mm-hmm.
- ...was that your father had gone blind. - Yeah.
- We didn’t know anything else. - [stammers] No, no.
- Bu-But it describes exactly how he died. - That’s exactly what happened.
He died in the chair, down in the living room.
Uh, my mum popped out to the shop for ten minutes.
Mmm. When she came back, he was dead.
[Grosse] Incredible.
- [Bill’s son] That’s exact-- - [Grosse] And here we are...
- ...another confirmation. - Mm-hmm.
Mmm. Very interesting.
Se-See, the sort of things like knocking on the wall.
The three knocks, always three knocks on the wall.
It was just a strange knock on the wall.
[air-raid siren wailing]
[Bill’s son] During the war they-they were air raid wardens together.
And, uh, if ever the sirens went off,
one would knock to the other one.
And then they’d meet out the back,
"Are you ready, Fred?" "Yeah."
"Okay, see you outside in a moment."
And then they’d go off. That’s how they used to communicate.
Rather than go knocking on the door,
there’d be three taps on the wall every time. [chuckles]
Amazing. Hmm.
[Richard] "Spoon bent at breakfast by Janet."
These are things. These are just objects.
And without context, they don’t mean anything.
Except it represents, you know, this--
such an important part of my father’s life,
and the time and effort that went into it.
For me, the whole experience tells me
that there are things above and beyond our senses.
When someone tells me their story--
and so many people have stories
of things that have happened to them-- I don’t dismiss them anymore. I listen.
- [Grosse] Rolling? - [passenger] Yeah. Do I need a seat belt?
- [Grosse] It doesn’t need a seat belt. - [passenger] No? Oh.
[Richard] The last 29 years of his life,
he was a paranormal investigator,
which I know he enjoyed probably more than any other time in his life.
We went to "intraview" Britain’s leading expert on ghosts. Check it.
I is here with Britain’s number one parapsychologist, Maurice Grosse.
And we is here, actually in a haunted house, and I is well scared.
- I’s bricking it. - [audience laughing]
How long has this house been haunted?
This house? Aye.
This-- Uh, no. You--
We got it all wrong. This is not a haunted house.
- This-- - This is my house... [chuckles]
You investigate things.
Now, one of the-- the most difficult things
that you ever did was the Enfield poltergeist.
What things did you see?
- Well, things flying about. We had-- - What things?
Uh, big furniture, small furniture.
In fact, the settee turned upside down
and flew across the room right in front of me as I walked into the room.
- Had you been drinking? - No.
- [audience laughs] - [audience member] Too funny.
- [Grosse] Ah, hello, Uri. - Oh, hello, Maurice.
- How are you? Nice to see you. - Hi, how are you?
- Lovely to see you. - You’re filming, huh?
- [Grosse] Yes. - Come on in.
- [Uri] Ready? - [Grosse] Yes.
- [Uri] Ta-da-da-da. - Oh, my God. [chuckles]
[Grosse] Oh, goodness me.
[Uri] 5,000 bent spoons and forks on it.
Many of them were bent with my abilities, my powers.
[Grosse] Oh, heavens.
[Uri] See, it brought a smile on your face.
[Grosse chuckles] I’ll say. I’ll say.
Whatever we know about life, about the world,
um, we still haven’t cracked it.
[Grosse] Here we go.
[Grant] There’s still things that we-- we probably won’t ever find out.
Dad tried to find out.
He was a lovely-- He was a lovely dad. He was a lovely dad.
[Janet] And though the case was over, he used to come once a month.
This evening should be very interesting indeed.
I’m going to see Margaret and her mother,
of the Enfield poltergeist case, now nearly 18 years ago.
He’d have, um, boxes of Maltesers for us each.
Well, here I am at this, uh, famous house, uh, in Enfield.
And, uh, here you see
Margaret and her mother.
[Janet] He’d talk to my mum. She would make him a cup of tea,
and he would ask how she’s been and how we all are.
[Grosse] You remember the day I first came?
- Yes, I remember, Mr. Grosse. - Yeah, we do remember that, Mr. Grosse.
- And you was on the case ever since then. - Yeah.
[Janet] You know, it wasn’t like,
"Now the poltergeist is finished,
I’m just not gonna come."
He made the effort,
and he continued to be like a family friend as well.
[Margaret] I used to go back regularly just to look at that house.
About two years ago, we went in the car, and my husband drove us.
We got the feeling no one was really in there.
We just had a look, and then all this flashing started in the living room.
All the lights started going on and off, flashing on and off.
I felt like maybe something had recognized me.
I don’t wanna go back there now.
I don’t wanna go back there.
[Janet] I was glad to get out of there. I left home as soon as I could.
[Peggy] Where is she?
- [overlapping tape recorder chatter] - [Peggy speaks indistinctly]
[Janet] It’s something that n-not many people experience.
- [Grosse speaks indistinctly] - [Janet] And I’ve had to get strong
from a pretty early age and build on that.
[Grosse] Try-Try and explain to me...
[child Janet, distorted] I was in bed, right...
[Janet] It used to upset me when they used to say, "Oh, she’s faking it."
[child Janet] Like this. Like this.
[Janet] I know what I experienced, and I know that it was real.
- [Grosse speaks indistinctly] - [child Janet] Yeah.
[Janet] It had such a devastating effect on me.
I’ve never really said this to anyone,
but you never really feel completely yourself.
What is "myself," you know?
It’s something you never forget.
Something that you’ll just think of,
and it’ll just come flowing back, you know?
You never feel like you’re free of it.
I don’t like to say this, you know, but I feel it even now.
It’s never left me.
["I Love the Sound of Breaking Glass" playing]