Part of what makes these temperature changes significant is how difficult it would be to attribute them to fraud on the part of the Hodgson children. It would also be hard to maintain that all of the witnesses were lying or honestly mistaken, given the nature of some of the circumstances and the number and variety of witnesses involved.
Guy Playfair makes many references to temperature changes in his book on Enfield. He mentions surges of cold air and other experiences with the lowering of the temperature involving several witnesses (This House Is Haunted [United States: White Crow Books, 2011], 24, 44, 183-84, 239). But for the remainder of this post, I want to focus on examples found on Playfair and Maurice Grosse's tapes. "MG" will be used to refer to a tape from Grosse's collection (e.g., MG13B is his tape 13B), and "GP" will designate one from Playfair's (e.g., GP75A is his tape 75A).
Near the opening of the case, in the first half of September of 1977, before the end of the summer, Peggy and Janet Hodgson both felt cold breezes over their beds as Janet's bed was shaking (GP36B, 6:21). John Burcombe refers to his bedroom getting "very cold" while the windows were closed, something he said wasn't normal (MG2A, 9:51). And he was discussing events in September of 1977, not at a cold time of the year. He also referred to coldness in the Hodgsons' house around the same time (MG2B, 31:41).
In early November of 1977, Peggy Hodgson recounted some events that happened while she was home alone one day: footsteps were heard upstairs, followed by footsteps coming down the stairs, then an "ice cold" gust, as if somebody was walking by her, accompanied by something brushing against her arm (MG14A, 0:30). Notice how the events are mutually supportive in that they're connected to each other in multiple ways (close in time and conceptually related in a significantly ordered sequence).
November 10 of 1977 seems to have been one of the poltergeist's most active days. After a series of significant incidents (e.g., a levitation of a couch in front of several witnesses), Margaret Hodgson commented on how cold the house was: "It's absolutely freezing." (MG20Ai, 10:07)
Sylvie Burcombe refers to getting "freezing cold" while poltergeist activity is going on (MG21A, 18:30). Margaret referred to a cold breeze next to her in bed (GP65A, 31:33). On another occasion, Janet comments that "Oh, it's like an iceberg!" (MG25A, 14:14)
An insurance agent who visited the Hodgsons' house when they weren't home reported feeling a cold blast of air at their front door (MG30A, 1:24), which is reminiscent of what multiple other witnesses reported regarding cold blasts. She explained that she'd never had that sort of experience before, including when she'd visited the Hodgsons' house on previous occasions. Much has been made of Hazel Short's witnessing of a levitation of Janet on December 15, 1977, but Short also reported experiencing coldness at the Hodgsons' front door, similar to the experience of the insurance agent mentioned above (MG87B, 57:06). She later commented, "I was once invited into her house, it was a boiling hot summer’s day outside but inside it was like a freezer, ice-cold."
In another context, Grosse and others who were present commented on how cold it was upstairs (MG57A, 44:27). On another occasion, John Burcombe heard the sound of a young child laughing in the kitchen while nobody was there, then felt a cold draft so strong that it moved him forward, then had a sensation of being enveloped in a vacuum (MG91B, 17:05). Afterward, he felt exhausted, even though he hadn't felt that way earlier. Peggy also heard the laughter and felt the cold draft. In coordination with what Burcombe and Peggy experienced, Billy commented on having a sense of fear.
Janet and Margaret have often said that when they were thrown by the poltergeist, they felt cold (e.g., MG28A, 3:52). Go here to watch Ian Fletcher discussing what Janet said about the subject when he questioned her under hypnosis.
In addition to the large number and variety of witnesses and circumstances and the credibility of the witnesses, there's widespread precedent for the experience of apparently paranormal coldness in association with other paranormal events. As Playfair notes in his book on Enfield:
At the same time [Grosse] felt a sudden cold breeze around his legs, and then around his head. This, he knew, was one of the most frequently reported phenomena on poltergeist cases….
[Peggy Hodgson] was also still feeling frequent gusts of cold air blowing about. These are probably the most often reported features of all kinds of poltergeist and ordinary ghost cases, and the children had also mentioned them spontaneously. (24, 183)
Alan Gauld and A.D. Cornell report only a small percentage of cases involving such incidents in their book on poltergeists (Poltergeists [United States: White Crow Books, 2017], approximate Kindle location 4034). Whatever the percentage, though, there is a history of this sort of event in poltergeists and elsewhere. It should be remembered that the attestation to events like these is found in a broad range of witnesses and circumstances, including multiple types of paranormal cases.
This kind of tangible evidence is important, and it's interesting to wonder what kind of physical effect is taking place here that leads to temperature drops. I don't believe I've ever seen anyone proffer an explanation from a physics standpoint. I believe that you have also written about outbreaks of fire at Enfield, Jason, and I recall a potentially telling comment made by Grosse when examining the evidence. He remarked that the scorch marks looked like radiation burns - and again, it's fascinating to wonder as to the physics involved here. I'm surprised that Grosse didn't go on to speculate further.
ReplyDeleteI agree also about the overlap between poltergeist phenomena and and traditional haunting phenomena. A very interesting ghost story was told to me recently by a friend of my uncle, a man in his seventies. He was in the annexe of a church once as a teenager, when suddenly the temperature markedly dropped and he witnessed electrical sparks in the air appear out of nowhere. One of the clergymen told him not to worry, as it was only the spirit of a young boy known to haunt the building.
Given how often temperature changes accompany other phenomena, as in the experience related by your uncle's friend, I wonder if these temperature changes are at least sometimes ancillary to the process of producing the phenomena that accompany the temperature change. My recollection is that the temperature changes in the Enfield case usually closely accompanied the reporting of one or more other types of paranormal activity.
DeleteHere's my article on the fire incidents. Grosse and Playfair kept some of the items involved in the fire episodes, so there's potential for those to be examined if any relevant evidence could still be obtained from those items. There are photographs as well, like the photo of the aftermath of one of the fire incidents here. I don't know much about the science of fires. But it seems that this is one of the contexts in which there could be ongoing scientific work done on the Enfield case. I hope somebody eventually pursues that.