A Warning About Lee Brickley And His Enfield Book

I recently saw Nemo Mörck link a review by Melvyn Willin of a new book on the Enfield Poltergeist. I was surprised and interested, since there aren't many book-length treatments of the Enfield case. After reading Melvyn's review, I was less interested in the book, given what the review says about it. I decided to read it anyway, since it might have some valuable material in spite of its weaknesses. It was even worse than I expected, and it's bad enough, including unethical enough, that I think people should be warned about it.

Lee Brickley has a somewhat popular Facebook page. He's published dozens of books. Given how many he's put out in so short a period of time, covering such a variety of topics, there's reason to be suspicious about the quality of them. Yet, he tells us near the end of his Enfield book:

As the author of "Enfield Poltergeist Revisited: A Fresh Look at the UK's Most Infamous Haunting," I find myself in a reflective state, considering not just the depth of the investigation into the strange occurrences at the Hodgson home, but also the profound impact that these events have had on my own understanding of the paranormal. Having delved into the case from numerous angles—through interviews, firsthand accounts, and meticulous research—I am left with a richer, yet more complex view of what might have transpired in that seemingly ordinary house in Enfield.

The journey of writing this book was as much an exploration of a historical event as it was an inward journey into the nature of belief and scepticism. (approximate Kindle location 770)

It seems like it was a short journey, and his research wasn't meticulous. In a review of one of Brickley's earlier books, Tom Ruffles of the Society for Psychical Research (SPR) wrote:

So, the question remains: is any of this true? It may be, but doesn’t feel like it, for a number of reasons. The first is Brickley’s reputation. Having established Cannock Chase as a hotspot bursting with paranormal phenomena he had already chalked up the discovery of signs of Bigfoot, black-eyed children and Slenderman. Now he has recorded one of the most remarkable poltergeists on record. Other investigators will be wishing they had a tenth of his success, because that is about what they can expect, if they are lucky….

Then there is the lack of evidence. The presence of the type of data usually gathered during an investigation may not convince the sceptic there was a paranormal element, but at least it would have indicated there is a real case one can discuss. Brickley says he was plagued by equipment failures throughout the investigation, and at the end of it found that, bar a couple of samples uploaded to the cloud, he had no concrete evidence whatsoever, as every electrical device in the house was destroyed during the cleansing procedure, losing all his records. It feels convenient that the material has vanished so it cannot be assessed. He does not say why he had not backed up all his files, and the omission at best makes one wonder about his competence….

Perhaps the Birmingham poltergeist as described by Brickley is completely true, and he has witnessed one of the most remarkable exhibitions of paranormal phenomena ever recorded. But as it stands, without anything to back up his account we might as well be reading poorly-crafted fiction.

He's been making claims about more recent paranormal experiences on his Facebook page. See here and here for a couple of recent examples.

Brickley's Enfield book mentions alleged eyewitnesses I'd never heard of before. He mentions events I'd never heard of previously, including ones that seem highly likely to have been mentioned by the sources I'd consulted if the events actually happened. He cites scholars commenting on the case whose existence I've tried and failed to verify, scholars who supposedly made comments on the case that don't turn up in any internet search I've tried so far. When he quotes eyewitnesses whose existence has been verified, I often can't find any verification that they said what Brickley is attributing to them. And sometimes the comments seem unlikely upfront to have been made by the sources in question. But I shouldn't have to be trying to track all of these things down. The reason I have to is because of the conspicuous lack of documentation throughout Brickley's book.

He gets a lot of facts wrong. You should allow for some degree of error when somebody is addressing a topic as large and complicated as the Enfield case. But there are limits to how much a person can reasonably get wrong. Like many other people, he's wrong about the ages of one or more of the Hodgson children at the start of the case (43). He describes the involvement of the police officers who went to the house on what's usually considered the opening night of the case as something that "added a layer of seriousness and urgency to the case that had been previously dismissed by some sceptics as mere childish pranks or fabrications." (265) He goes on to refer to the "chilly evening in late 1977" when the officers arrived. They went to the house during the early hours of September 1. That's usually not considered "late" in the year. And there were no skeptical dismissals of the case previous to the officers' visit, because they visited on the opening night of the case. He doesn't just suggest that a later consideration of the officers' earlier testimony changed how people perceived the case. Rather, he addresses the subject as if the officers' visit occurred long after the case began. He's also wrong in claiming that Guy Playfair joined the investigation "several weeks" after it started (504). Wrong in referring to Johnny Hodgson as if he's still alive (577), even though he died more than forty years ago. I could provide other examples.

To give you more of an idea of just how suspicious so many of Brickley's claims are, consider this passage about a levitation allegedly witnessed by Peggy Hodgson in September of 1977:

The first reported incident of levitation occurred on a quiet September evening. The family had been relatively calm that day, with no major disturbances reported since morning. As night fell, Janet and her brother were in their shared bedroom, getting ready for bed under the watchful eye of their mother, Peggy, who was anxious about the strange occurrences that had increasingly disrupted their lives. What happened next would forever change their perception of their home and what it meant to feel safe within its walls.

Peggy heard the screams first—sharp, panicked, and utterly petrifying. Rushing to the children's room, she flung the door open to find a sight that would haunt her for the rest of her life: Janet, suspended in mid-air, about four feet above her bed, her limbs flailing as if she were underwater. The sight was so shocking, so antithetical to everything Peggy understood about the world, that she momentarily froze, unable to process what she was witnessing. It was only when Janet fell, abruptly and without warning, back onto the bed that Peggy was able to move, rushing to her daughter's side to comfort her. (168)

Brickley suggests that he has so much information about this event that he even knows a lot about what was going through Peggy's mind, how she "comforted" Janet, and so on. The event isn't mentioned anywhere in Guy Playfair's book on Enfield, Melvyn Willin's book, the SPR's committee report on the case, or any other book or other written source I know of, the Enfield tapes produced by Maurice Grosse and Guy Playfair, any documentary or television or radio program on Enfield I've ever seen, my lengthy discussions with David Robertson and other eyewitnesses, etc. If that levitation occurred in September of 1977, it probably would have been mentioned on Grosse and Playfair's tapes, not only on the tapes from September of that year, but also on later tapes. They frequently discussed much lesser events. It's highly unlikely that something happened like what Brickley narrates above, but it went unmentioned across so many sources.

Then there's this:

A notable example occurred in November 1977, when a major television special attempted to conduct a live séance in the Hodgson home. The event was highly publicised and drew massive viewership, but ended with inconclusive results, leading to mixed reactions from the public and critics alike. (386)

I'd never heard of that supposed event before. But it was on television, we're told. With "massive viewership".

Tom Ruffles' review of Brickley's earlier book, linked above, mentions Brickley's discussion of an alleged event involving a knife flying through the air. Two of his undocumented and suspicious claims about Enfield events also involve the paranormal movement of knives (322, 354). There were such events in the Enfield case (outside the contexts mentioned by Brickley), but it's noteworthy that he has a pattern of reporting that kind of event without documentation.

His comments on the photographic evidence are problematic as well. He refers to a couple of alleged levitation photos, one "grainy" one supposedly showing Janet levitating in a horizontal position (183) and one involving objects flying around her while she's in the air (534). He doesn't include either photograph in his book, of course. Probably because they don't exist. He claims, though, that the first one mentioned above is "particularly famous" (183). I've never seen it. He refers to the second photo as "famous" (534). I've never seen it.

It's easy to imagine scenarios in which some small amount of what Brickley reports in these contexts is accurate (e.g., a witness he mentions whose name doesn't appear anywhere else may have had a name change due to marriage, divorce, or some other factor). But it's too implausible to suggest that all of the problems with his book can be explained that way or in some other way that allows him to retain a large degree of credibility. There are too many unverified witnesses, unverified quotes, unverified events, and unverified scholars who allegedly commented on the case, accompanied by getting so many well-established facts wrong, failing to document so many things he should have documented, etc.

In the closing pages of the book, he tells us:

As an investigator, I have grappled with my role in retelling this story. There is a responsibility that comes with writing about real people and their experiences—especially when those experiences are as controversial and sensitive as those reported in Enfield. My goal has always been to present the facts as clearly and fairly as possible, offering insights without definitive judgments. This approach is not born out of indecision, but out of respect for the complexity of the human experience and the mysteries that we have yet to understand. (787)

It's obvious how seriously Brickley took his responsibility and how fair and respectful he was.

I sent him an email asking for documentation of a few of his claims, as representative examples. It's been more than a week. He hasn't responded yet.

Here's my review of the book on Amazon. I'd never given a book a one-star rating before.