Howard Hughes of The Unexplained podcast recently did an interview with a significant witness in the Enfield case, Paul Burcombe. Paul is the son of John Burcombe, and he was often at the Hodgsons' house with his father and in other contexts. I wrote a tribute to his father a couple of years ago, which you can read here. Paul hasn't spoken publicly about the case much, and his comments during the interview suggest that there hasn't been a lot of effort made to talk to him about the case since it was at its height in the late 1970s. He says near the end of the interview that he'd be willing to discuss the case more. I hope that will happen.
I don't know what steps Hughes' podcast took to verify that the person they spoke with is who he claims to be. I accept those kinds of identity claims unless I have evidence that overrides their general trustworthiness. The individual's voice does sound vaguely like Paul's, though it's hard to judge what his voice ought to sound like when you're going from his middle teenage years to his late 50s. Near the end of the interview, he refers to when he was born (the year and a particular portion of the year), and that lines up with what's reported about Paul's birthday on Maurice Grosse and Guy Playfair's tapes. If the person interviewed isn't Paul, he probably wouldn't have made so many claims about information that few people have access to that's so falsifiable about his family's history, the history of the Hodgson family, etc. So, it seems likely that the individual really is Paul.
Like other Enfield witnesses, he hasn't made much of an effort to follow developments with the case since the original events. And he doesn't seem to remember a lot of the details. He refers to seeing a couch levitate and turn upside down. I suspect he's remembering the November 10, 1977 incident, which I've written about elsewhere (including in the tribute to John Burcombe linked above). Though Paul doesn't get into many details during the interview about paranormal events he witnessed, and he doesn't seem to have been keeping up with the case much over the decades since the original events, you can find many examples of events he witnessed that I've discussed in previous Enfield posts.
There's a point in the interview when Paul says he didn't see the girls levitate. He may be making a distinction people often make between levitation and throwing. He did witness at least a portion of some of the throwing incidents involving the girls. That's on multiple tapes. At 19:28 on tape 34A in Grosse's collection, for example, you hear one of the girls scream, then you hear Paul saying "Yes! I saw that! I saw her in the bloody air!", followed by Janet commenting on how Paul saw her "fly". You hear the flash of a camera, and John Burcombe (Paul's father) comments on how Janet came out of the bed "feet first". Paul goes on to corroborate what his father said, comparing Janet's posture to somebody pole vaulting, with feet above the head, trying to go over a bar (20:58). It's hard to see how Janet would have faked that. It would be highly risky to fake any sort of throwing or levitating incident with at least one person with a camera and multiple other witnesses nearby, especially a throwing or levitation that involved being "feet first". So, I suspect Paul was distinguishing levitation from throwing, said that he didn't witness such an event because he only saw part of it (maybe he only saw Janet going through the air), or wasn't remembering what he'd experienced. I've had discussions with some of the Enfield witnesses and have heard many of them interviewed, and it's common for some details to not be remembered, sometimes even ones that are significant in some way, especially if the person hasn't been making much of an effort to keep up with the case or discuss it with other people.
At 39:40, Paul says that he agrees with Rosalind Morris that the poltergeist's voice was difficult to locate. It seemed to be "everywhere". At least a few witnesses I've come across who heard the voice have said the same thing.
At 17:58 in the interview, Paul refers to how his house had "exactly the same layout" as the Hodgsons', which will be useful for future research on the case. The Hodgsons were at the Burcombes' house a lot, and many paranormal events happened there. Some of the tapes in Grosse and Playfair's collections were recorded there, such as some highly significant tapes from November of 1977 that I've discussed elsewhere. I don't recall having come across any detailed description of the Burcombes' house previously, so it's good to know that the layout was the same as that of the Hodgsons' house. That helps with reconstructing events, judging how probable or improbable various explanatory options are, etc.
Paul said that his father died in 2000. Apparently, both of his parents had some kind of breakdown in their relationship with the Hodgsons when he was still a child, and he doesn't know much about the situation. He hadn't kept in contact with the Hodgsons, though he's recently been texting them.
He speaks highly of Maurice Grosse and Guy Playfair. He occasionally refers to Playfair's book positively, so he seems to consider it an accurate record of what happened. He's especially positive about Grosse. Near the end of the interview, he's emotional when he talks about how helpful Grosse was. Other people involved in the Enfield case have made similar comments. A tribute I wrote to Grosse a couple of years ago addresses some of the themes Paul brought up.
If you haven't heard it yet, I also recommend listening to Howard Hughes' interview with Playfair around the time when the final edition of his book on Enfield came out in 2011.
No comments:
Post a Comment