The Enfield Haunting & South Shields Poltergeist: What Was Really Happening?

Crabby and Rick are back in the studio to explore one of the most disturbing types of paranormal activity: poltergeists.

They take a closer look at the Enfield Haunting and the South Shields Poltergeist, two of Britain’s most compelling and controversial paranormal cases. They also run through seven other reported cases from around the world to see whether the same patterns appear again and again.

From unexplained voices and moving objects to violent disturbances inside family homes, these cases have produced extraordinary claims, alleged evidence and fierce debate.

What exactly is a poltergeist, and how does it differ from a traditional haunting? Could RSPK, or recurrent spontaneous psychokinesis, be behind the activity? This theory suggests that a living person may unconsciously produce physical phenomena during periods of intense emotional or psychological stress.

Were these families confronted by something genuinely paranormal, or could deception, psychology and misinterpretation explain what happened?

Crabby and Rick examine the reported events, put the RSPK theory to the test and consider what sceptics make of the cases before reaching their own conclusions.

ABOUT KASE PARANORMAL

KASE Paranormal is a private paranormal investigation team based in Kent, established in 2007. We support households and families experiencing unexplained activity with an evidence-led, grounded approach.

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ABOUT KASE PARANORMAL

KASE Paranormal is a private paranormal investigation team based in Kent, established in 2007. We support households and families experiencing unexplained activity with an evidence-led, grounded approach.


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https://www.kaseparanormal.co.uk

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DISCLAIMER

All investigations are conducted with full permission from the property owner or authorised representatives. We do not trespass or encourage trespassing.

Paranormal investigation equipment is used experimentally. Activations, recordings and personal experiences are not presented as definitive proof of spirits or an afterlife. We consider environmental factors, equipment limitations and natural explanations when reviewing reported activity.

Transcript

Coming Up

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Let me set the scene. Enfield, August 1977, North London. One night, Peggy hears shuffling from the kid's bedroom. She goes in, sees chest of jaws moving, not vibrating, moving, sliding across the floor towards the door slowly as if someone is on the other side, slowly pushing it. She goes and pushes back and then moves again. But Peggy does what most normal people would do. She gets the neighbours in. The couple called the Nottinghams. Vic comes in, Vic Nottingham comes in, hears knocking from the inside of the walls, they can't find a source. So they call the police. Yep. And the police actually showed up. Oh, they do. WPC Caroline Heaps attends. She's in the house for a period of time. She witnesses with her own eyes a chair moves across the floor. Unassisted, no one near it. And she subsequently signs a written witness statement confirming what she saw, a serving police officer on record.

Welcome to The KASE Files

SPEAKER_01 1:10

Picture a house. Ordinary street, ordinary family. Mum, kids, dog. Everyone's in bed. It's late. Or early. And then from somewhere in the house, a knock. Three slow, deliberate knocks. Coming from inside the walls. You want to listen to the case for us?

SPEAKER_00 1:42

I'm Rick. I'm Craig, and Rick has once again done the thing where he sends me the episode topic at eleven o'clock at night the night before, and I spend the rest of the night googling things I should never have Googled. You're welcome, man.

The Black Horse, Pluckley Investigation Recap

SPEAKER_01 2:20

Welcome back to the Case Files, everybody. I am your host Rick, and I am joined today by my man Crappy. Your man.

SPEAKER_00 2:30

Okay, I'll take it.

SPEAKER_01 2:31

Hello there. Um we are back, and today we are discussing a very interesting topic, a very um debatable topic, a very s uh what's the word I'm looking for? Contentious topic. And slightly controversial. Controversial, that's the word I'm looking for. Alright. Um that uh has people in open discussion, and it's been uh a very well documented thing for hundreds and hundreds of years, over hundreds and hundreds of cases. Um and people still can't put their finger on it. But before we get into it, we are going to just recap what we got up to on the weekend, aren't we?

SPEAKER_00 3:09

Yeah, so um we can talk about it a little bit better now because it's been put out there, documented, and uh yeah, so we investigated the Black Horse Pub this Saturday, just come. And um where's that? Oh, sorry, yeah, the Black Horse Pub in Pluckley, yeah. So Pluckley being obviously this historical almost it's a landmark, isn't it, in itself. That that it was the first time actually in an investigation where fleets of cars were turning up just to kind of look at the pub. They've even walked in through the grounds of the pub whilst we were investigating, and we had to go out and kind of clear them away, but there's also like pods of people outside just looking at the place, which I don't think has ever happened to me before. No, at a location, so that was quite strange. But its reputation almost precedes it, plucky, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_01 4:04

It's um it's one of those sort of um bucket list, god-tier paranormal places of the UK, anyways, it's supposedly the UK's most haunted village. It's got you know, I think it's 13, 14 supposedly haunted locations, one of them being um the Black Horse pub where we were on the weekend. And thank you to uh obviously Emma and Alice for getting us in there and for arranging everything for us for that night. It was a fantastic night, we had a great time. Yeah, which is fine.

SPEAKER_00 4:34

Yeah, I mean, um we obviously spoke about on the way here, but um it's been a long time since I've been to a venue where it's taken me the best part of three days to actually recover from it. And I'm saying recover in terms of being completely and utterly drained of energy from from the moment I I don't even remember the drive home, and when I got home uh I was asleep as soon as I got in.

SPEAKER_01 4:58

It was quite strange because uh obviously when we wrapped our investigation, um I sort of stuck around even though I was I was exhausted. So just to set the scene, um, before we started our investigation, uh me and Krabby did an interview with Alice, who is a long-term employee for the Black Horse, um and has had her fair share of paranormal experiences, and that will be coming out at a later date. Yeah. Um after that interview, there were comments by numerous members of our team that me and Kravi were they they were like, You are you guys alright? Like you are you're just drained, aren't you? You're exhausted. Yeah. And it took me a couple of days as well to really bounce back from that.

SPEAKER_00 5:36

It was as I said to you on the way here, it was interesting because there is a moment, and I think we will kind of see it a little bit on the interview itself when that comes out, is that there is a noticeable change between you and Alice. I'm absolutely fine, uh, apart from a fly zooming straight into my ear hole. That's funny. That's really funny. Uh hopefully that's not on we'll cut that, but knowing Danny won't cut it. But um I hope he doesn't.

SPEAKER_01 6:01

I really, really hope he doesn't cut it because it was one of my favourite things that have ever happened on yesterday.

SPEAKER_00 6:06

So the interview itself, I felt absolutely fine, but there is a change between you two in which there is something that's kind of affecting you both, and you seem to be in alignment with it, where it's like you are experiencing the same things, like there's a a pain behind your eye or something, or there's a pain inside of your head. Yeah, it's you're both having that issue, and it's like both of you are you know connected.

SPEAKER_01 6:30

Do you know how I can describe it? You know, when you get that sudden pressure change, like when you're in a you're when you're in a plane and you need to go, you to hold your nose and and and all of a sudden your ears pop and you go, oh you feel the relief, it was like that just built up in the back of my eyes. Um it was really it was really quite interesting, actually. I've not really experienced something like that.

SPEAKER_00 6:49

Um Yeah, and I and I didn't have that, but in terms of you know, the after effects of doing the interview and then kind of maintaining around in the bar area, I did kind of like start to feel a little bit like as if I was swaying and like I felt tired and you know I'd slept for quite a while before that investigation, so there was no way that I was normal tired.

SPEAKER_01 7:15

It was just literally I was being drained of because normally you would stick around as well after the after the investigation, you'll stick around. But you were like, right, I've got to go because you were you were so exhausted, I've never seen you that time.

SPEAKER_00 7:25

If I if I didn't leave, I would have had to fall asleep at the pub.

SPEAKER_01 7:28

Dan goes to me, Where's where's Krabby? And I'm like, he's gone, mate. He's gone, he's been gone for 20 minutes.

SPEAKER_00 7:33

He's he's gone. I was probably home and bed by then. Probably. Um but I don't even remember the drive home. I vaguely remember getting home and just literally falling straight to sleep, felt terrible the next day. Um tried to go to the gym, awful, just couldn't function. Um, Monday, still felt kind of still that niggling kind of you know, feel a little bit, but it's like a hangover, that's what they call it, a paranormal hangover, right? It's like you're drinking water, like you know, like no one's business, you're not feeling great, you're just tired, lethargic.

SPEAKER_01 8:05

I think whenever I have that feeling the day after, it almost validates my night before. Um because I have it with my first investigation at Fort Burgoyne, had it with my second investigation at Slough after Slough, part two, and uh a couple of other investigations I've done. I'm like I'm fine. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:27

Well, I I haven't felt like that in a very, very long time. I'm talking like probably nearly 10 years, because last place that I had that was Rye Castle, and Dan would um validate that that I was just basically a human battery and actually had to leave early that night because I was just completely flawed to whatever it was.

SPEAKER_01 8:48

I fell asleep at the at the black horse. Oh, rip.

SPEAKER_00 8:50

Yeah, but you're saying because I I'm not surprised because I I would have been the same. I I I I would have probably would have just had to stay there and uh someone would have to kind of ship me home in the next day, but didn't want to see want it to be that way, so I'm only kind of luckily um 15 minutes away from from Bluckley anyway. So I I was home in good time. Um but yeah, great place. I think you would agree. I would agree. Um and the good thing is that now that we've kind of built in this relationship with the guys at uh in Pluckley at the at the pub, it's is now enable uh enabling us to go back.

SPEAKER_01 9:25

Yeah, so I I think the plan is is that we've left them with paranormal logs to fill out. We've got uh basically day-to-day contact with the with the staff there. Yeah, um we're we're going to hopefully be investigating the the place a lot more on a regular basis, and um excuse the pun, we can build a case file for um for the Black Horse Buckley, which is exactly what you need, by the way. You don't need it's it's really hard. You go into a place for one night and you spend six hours and you're like, right, was it haunted? Well, well, I don't really know because 99% of the time these hauntings that you hear about, these paranormal experiences that you hear about are stories that have been gathered over four, five, six, seven years, yeah, and they're ten minute, five minute, thirty seconds here and there every other month. Yep. And they've just been compiled into a nice little little envelope and go, Oh, look, there's a half an hour story about a haunting. Well, no, actually, this is a half an hour story of six years worth of 30-second intervals every two weeks.

SPEAKER_00 10:34

Yeah, exactly, yeah. So you've got to also kind of think about the term like the the issue with a pub as well, obviously, because like it's the same with every pub that I've been to, is that it it it it never really kind of goes to plan. You have to kind of you know wait for the pub to close, you've got to wait for punters to leave, you know, and you know, you're you're never really gonna be able to start early because there's too much noise, too much going on. So when we picked the England game as well. Well, yeah, we did, but we never realised that until and until the like a few days beforehand. But you you know what I mean, like you know, it it's uh excuse me, it's it's it's a good thing that we can kind of keep going back. Like there's this option for us to kind of you know return, pick up where we left off, very much like Kelvin, we'll we'll keep going back, and then you know, like we didn't really get to go upstairs, like because obviously we spent a lot of it downstairs.

SPEAKER_01 11:29

I felt that was the place to be. I felt the bar, I agree with you. I sat there during our interview, and obviously I felt what I felt when I looked around and I just thought this is this is the place to be, not upstairs.

SPEAKER_00 11:41

And there were moments, there were moments downstairs that we did hear and yeah, it was like intermittent, like there was little things which I won't obviously won't spoil it, but the that you know there were there were things that kind of kept us there. It was like that's strange, like the shadows, you know, were the shadows other people. There wasn't other people there at the time, it could have been, um, but noises, slight little knocks here and there, it's always the way. But hopefully, this is kind of like a a a building block for you know, the next time we go, we'll go up, we'll go upstairs and we'll investigate the the rooms properly like the other guys did, and it'll probably just be like a swap over, right? We'll do upstairs, those guys do downstairs, and and then the next time we go, we can split up the groups and mix it up with people upstairs, downstairs, and you know, stay tuned for that. Because it's gonna be a good episode.

SPEAKER_01 12:33

We're going to obviously we've got what six static cams worth of of six hours of recording video to watch, you know, going through evidence, going through logs, matching them up, all those bits and pieces that you don't see um on the TV programmes, you know, some poor geyser's got to sit there and trawl through all of that, and uh that's someone in our team is gonna sit there and troll through it. Well, it's all of us, really. Yeah, and then what they'll do is as well is they'll go, Oh, um look at this, and then and then somebody else will watch it and try and tear it apart, and then somebody else will watch it and try and tear it apart until we can actually sit there and go, actually, you know what, we can't explain what that is.

SPEAKER_00 13:14

Well, it's interesting because the the video that I'm going through when you guys went to Derby jail, um I've I'm only kind of like a couple of hours into that, but from the get-go, there is stuff on that video which I don't want to spoil, but there's there is interesting um voices and knocks and other little bits and pieces, and I'm excited. So yes. I'm excited. So we we we've got that to come out with as well, obviously.

SPEAKER_01 13:40

The Derby jail investigation, which we did a few weeks ago, what you guys did, I wasn't there, but um we're still thinking that's good though, because I think you watching it having not been there, you've not got you've not already got a tainted impression of what the place was like.

SPEAKER_00 13:52

That's it. So when I'm kind of hearing this stuff, going, what the hell was that? And like you know, that sounds out of place, like you know, what's that? And I mean I've been able to debunk it now, but there was uh there was an orb that was black and uh it was matrixing with a camera, but I've kind of worked that out that it is just the camera, it it's uh uh it's it's because it's a black and white camera basically, so it's kind of almost like matrixing and glitching, so kind of debunk that.

SPEAKER_01 14:22

Stick around for the Black Horse episode, it will be out once we've done the footage and we've got some evidence to present to you, hopefully. Um, and then of course you'll get to see that interview with Alice as well. That'll probably go somewhere in the middle of the episode. If not, it might go out separately, we don't know yet, but it will be coming.

SPEAKER_00 14:37

There's no actual kind of running plan at the moment, but you'll you'll see everything on us on our socials every um, you know, on Instagram and Facebook, and that includes Pluckley, yeah, you know, moving forward as well. That we'll we'll have some further investigations coming up, which will be great because it really is a very good venue. I I was really impressed with Pluckley and um kind of already been looking forward to kind of going back to it.

SPEAKER_01 15:00

Yeah. Right, with that, should we get into this week's episode of the case files? Let's do

Poltergeists: What We Are Covering

SPEAKER_01 15:06

it. Tonight we're deep diving into the phenomena known as poltergeists. Um, and I don't just mean the general concept, I mean specific, documented, heavily investigated cases, uh covering a couple of English cases, um, because obviously, you know, there's a million from all around the world. Uh, but we're gonna be looking at the Enfield poltergeist, which is obviously incredibly um, incredibly well documented and incredibly famous, and the South Shields poltergeist, um, which is actually really interesting because it was, I think it was 2006. Um, so that's like modern era poltergeist, that's really, really interesting. Um, and then we're doing something I wanted to do for a while, um, and that's we're gonna look at the pattern that runs through poltergeist cases uh across history, across the world, a pattern that points again and again and again to a very specific um conclusion at the centre of these events. Which is typically teenage girls. It is. Yeah. Um it it it just it is, it's teenage girls. Um and the reoccurrent spontaneous psychokinesis or RSPK theory um that tries to explain why that is. Um we've got multiple cases tonight uh that will connect to this, uh, and by the end of it, I think that hopefully the people that listen to this are gonna find this a difficult one to dismiss.

SPEAKER_00 16:29

I already find it difficult to dismiss, and we're 30 seconds into it, so let's go. Right.

SPEAKER_01 16:35

Um foundations. Uh so

What Is a Poltergeist?

SPEAKER_01 16:38

if you're listening to this, I'm assuming you've got a good grip on what a poltergeist is, but just for those who don't, um there's a lot of pop culture around it, obviously. I want to clear out that before we get into it. Um, of course, there's the film. Yeah. Uh 1982 film. Uh it's terrifying, brilliant, um, but it's also completely divorced from what an actual poltergeist phenomena looks like. Um the word poltergeist is German, from poltergeon to rumble or make noise, uh, and geist, which is spirit, so it's a noisy ghost, rumbling spirit. Um, it's been used for centuries to describe a very specific cluster of phenomena that keeps appearing across cultures, across time, across geography. So, what kind of phenomena are we talking? Uh so across documented cases you get recurring elements, loud and explained, knocking patterns. Sometimes they're apparently responsive to you know your prompt. Um, objects being thrown and moved, high velocity, uh furniture shifting, spontaneous fires, water, electrical disturbances, lights, appliances malfunctioning, everything, you know, items disappearing from one location, reappearing somewhere else, uh and some of the more physical and serious cases include physical contact and harm, scratches, biting, or people actually being moved and thrown by this force, which is terrifying.

SPEAKER_00 18:06

Well, I mean the the physical contact is one that gets me every time, but and a knock that can, you know, maybe be explained, but a bite mark from nothing. I think that's a different conversation entirely.

SPEAKER_01 18:17

Yeah, so we'll come back to the bites. Um it's it's more than once actually, but the thing that defines poltergeist activity, the thing that separates it from the standard haunted house, um, is it's not a haunted house. Uh it's a it's a person. Apparently, it's a person. Right. So move the person, the activity moves with them. Yeah. Um I've I've listened to tons of poltergeist cases, and it tends to be doesn't matter where you go, doesn't matter what you do, it goes with them. Um classic ghost law says that the spirits are tied to a place. You know, you die there, your spirits there, that's what happens. A murder scene, graveyard, old building. Um, but poltergeist activity is almost universally universally person-centric. Um, that's why the researchers call it a focus person. It's one individual around whom the phenomena clusters. Um, and when you start looking deeper as to who those focused people tend to be, case after case after case, after case after case, um, it's a pattern, unfortunately, for them. That is just it it's just hard to ignore.

SPEAKER_00 19:24

Yeah, and then the the people that are kind of targeted, it seems to be young people, specifically girls, like young girls of um certain age.

SPEAKER_01 19:34

It does. Um statistically, it's it's very often girls in their middle uh to early adolescence, um, which brings us to the theory, uh, and our first

The Enfield Haunting: Britain’s Most Famous Poltergeist Case

SPEAKER_01 19:46

case. Let me just set the scene. Enfield, August 1977, North London, a council house on Green Street, number 284. We've got Peggy Hodgson, single mother with four children, Margaret, Janet, Johnny, and Billy. Um, the father's out of the picture. Um, but Peggy is raising four kids alone in a house that she doesn't own in a neighbourhood. There's nothing special, um, it's just ordinary. There's nothing special about it whatsoever. And then it starts. And then it starts. Um, of course you were very familiar with this case. Um but this is what we're going through to try and develop the story of what Paul's guys tell. One night Peggy hears shuffling from the kid's bedroom. Just goes in, sees the chest of drawers moving, not vibrating, moving, sliding across the floor towards the door slowly, as if someone is on the other side, slowly pushing it. She goes and pushes back and then moves again. So, what would you do in that situation generally? Like, what's the human response to it? I'll freak out, to be honest with you. Um, but Peggy does what most normal people would do. She gets the neighbours in, the couple called the Nottinghams. Uh Vic comes in, Vic Nottingham comes in, hears knocking from the inside of the walls, they can't find a source. So they call the police. Yep. And the police actually showed up. Oh, they do. Uh WPC Caroline Heaps attends. Um, she's in the house for a period of time, and she witnesses with her own eyes a chair move across the floor, unassisted, no one near it. And she subsequently signs a written witness statement confirming what she saw, a serving police officer on record. And you can't dismiss that casually, really? No, you can't. You know, with the when the police say something, you you tend to believe it, right? These people are trained to train to to see these things and document them properly. This is the bedrock of how Enfield is is formed. It's it's about the amount of actual people that that are scientific and well trusted individuals of society that will go on record and say this happened. Um the dramatic stuff, the levitation, the photos, a police officer seeing a chair move by itself. Um this is the stuff that Enfield is built on. And over the following months the activity escalates significantly. Marbles, Lego bricks thrown at high velocity around the house, some leaving marks on the walls, pools of water appearing on the floor, a fire starts in the cardboard box and extinguishes itself. Um the family dog refusing to enter rooms, um, deep growling sounds whole held by multiple people without source um investigators included. Um and then the strangest part of this one is the voice.

The Enfield Voice: Who Was Really Speaking?

SPEAKER_00 22:44

Yeah. So tell us about the voice, because this is the part that you know it starts to take a significant hand. This is my favourite part. Yeah. Is it yours? Uh I wouldn't say favourite, but for me it's where it starts to become a little bit questionable. You know, is it? Yeah. I I don't dismiss it. I'm more interested in about the fact is what's happened to Janet since. I mean, obviously she's a lot older now. Um but also I'm interested in kind of knowing what's happening in that what's happened in that house since, you know, since they've moved out, other people have moved in. You know, things like the chair, like, you know, is the you where did the chair go? You know, is that in a storage unit somewhere? Pill's chair. Yeah. So it's things like that. But yes, the the voice is the the significant uh changing point in the whole thing.

SPEAKER_01 23:45

So it is yeah. So Janet Hodgson, eleven years old, that early to mid-adolescence age, she begins speaking in a deep, gravelly, adult male voice. Not during sleep, not during any kind of trance, but while apparently fully conscious and present. The voice also tells you who it is, Bill. Bill describes him, well, himself as having lived in the house. And he also describes dying there. And that is and that is actually verifiable. Yeah, it's sort of. Um it's partially verifiable. Research has traced a previous occupant of the house, a man who had indeed lived and died there. His son was tracked down and confirmed the details. The voice accurately described the manner of death, a brain hemorrhage, um, which the son corroborated. Um now, I don't know about you, but in uh 1960s England, I can't imagine that many eleven-year-old girls would be able to tell you that a man died in the chair in the corner of their living room of a brain hemorrhage. Well, and get it right.

SPEAKER_00 24:51

Yeah, and also an eleven-year-old girl reproducing a man's voice and actually describing a stranger's death is equally as interesting and out there as you know, as it can be.

SPEAKER_01 25:03

Yeah, I mean that's for me, that's interesting. Um, but this is the man this this is the man of the hour, isn't it? Maurice Gross from the Society of Uh Psychical Research arrives and spends months, months investigating the man is absorbed by it, as and he spent the whole thing takes over his life. And to be fair, if this happened to you, would it consume you? If if if you if tomorrow morning you got a phone call and said uh Graham, I've got a uh I've got a a situation over at my house, it's about ten minutes down the road. Would you come over and have a look? Oh, absolutely. Would it consume you if if if if you went there and you witnessed an enfield poltergeist level of activity that is claimed to obviously have happened?

SPEAKER_00 25:50

I think I think it would consume me in in many different ways. The most thing would be that I would be wanting to debunk this as much as I can or as I possibly could. And I think if you can't, then it's gonna take up you know, it's gonna take up like your whole thought processes. You're gonna go home and think, how is that possible? It's gonna keep you up at night, you know. You're probably uh wanting to do something for the girl as well, like she's obviously been like on like so much distress with it all. But yeah, I mean, unless you're in that situation, you couldn't really I think I'll be consumed. Yeah. Over time you probably would be uh I think he's dead now anyway, isn't he? Yeah, he is, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:34

But I don't know. I think if I ever got this close, I don't know. I don't know what I would do. I don't I don't know I would want to spend every waking second. Yeah I mean I would quit my job, I would I don't know what I'd do. I think it'd be crazy. Um Maurice Gross uh is then later joined by uh guy Playfair who eventually writes uh his his definitive account though that this house is haunted. Um these aren't enthusiastic amateurs, uh Gross is systematic, meticulous. He records hours and hours of the voice, um, photographs, objects in motion, um, and he watches events happening in front of him that he cannot explain. Um

Did Janet Fake the Enfield Haunting?

SPEAKER_01 27:20

now this this is important. Janet at one point was caught faking some of it. Um she and Margaret were caught bending spoons themselves. Janet admitted to researchers that some of the levitation photos were taken while she was jumping off the bed rather than them floating. So she's a liar? She's an 11-year-old who was being prodded, watched by adults every day for months in a situation that was deeply frightening and overwhelming. Um when she was caught, she said they were doing it to test the investigators to see if they'd notice. Um she also insisted consistently that the majority of what happened was real and was not her doing. The voice, the thrown objects, she couldn't have thrown the knockings when she was asleep or restrained. Um, and she has maintained that to this day.

SPEAKER_00 28:13

So we have some confirmed fraud, but some events that appear to be beyond any possible fraud and just happens to be a young girl at the absolute centre of it all.

SPEAKER_01 28:23

Yeah, um, but I think that this is so often the case with poltergeist cases, and it's all it's it's quite sad because nine times out of ten, these things, these things that we now know obviously as these very famous poltergeist cases are very famous for a reason because of the time they're well documented and they were the obsession of the country. Can you imagine as an 11-year-old being prodded and um and poked by newspapers and and and being and being scrutinised every second of the day, going, make that move, make that move, you know, or why is nothing happening today? You would feel incredible pressure as an adult, as a 30-year-old man, I'd feel incredible pressure to to perform, and I can't blame her for buckling under that.

SPEAKER_00 29:15

And I think that's the same when you allegedly go into a walk into a haunted location and nothing particularly happens because it doesn't it doesn't happen on command. No, it happens when it wants to happen, not when you want it to.

SPEAKER_01 29:29

That's why sometimes my favourite part of investigating is not investigating at all. Yeah, it's just sitting there and having a chat. You and Dan have both said that one of your best moments as a paranormal investigator was you two just saying I think having a chat.

SPEAKER_00 29:42

Yeah, I mean I kind of in hindsight wish the camera would had been kept on, but Dan makes a good point that if he kept the camera on, that might not have happened either. So yeah, uh it it is true. I mean, um a lot of stuff happens in locations where you kind of say, Right, okay, I'm going now, and you're just walking out, and then something will knock behind you or something or drop, and it's always the way.

SPEAKER_01 30:05

But you know, she was she was at the end of the day, she was a young girl going through a family that was breaking down, um, effectively living under siege from this this force that she didn't understand, um, and started speaking with a dead man's voice. When you put it like that, RS uh RSPK interpretation starts to make a lot more um emotional sense, um, even before you get into the science. Um but that's case one.

Ed and Lorraine Warren’s Involvement

SPEAKER_00 30:33

Just to end it on there, I think it's quite important to kind of talk about there's gonna be people that have seen the conjuring too, yeah. And people are gonna say, Well, what about Ed and Lorraine Warren? Love Ed and Lorraine Warren. Ed and Lorraine Warren didn't have anything to do with the Enfield um poor guy's case. I think they I think they may have um visited the house once and they didn't actually have enough to go on and so they didn't come back. And I think the the problem that I have with the conjuring film is that it makes it all about Ed and Lorraine Warren, which isn't the case at all.

SPEAKER_01 31:07

Uh but without getting too much into Ed and Lorraine Warren, would you like to do a whole episode on Ed and Lorraine Warren?

SPEAKER_00 31:14

I would actually say no. Is that because you don't want to validate them anymore? Well, I think there's enough information out there w with regards to Ed and Lorraine Warren, also with um Ed Um How can I define this without kind of legal Yeah, so he had a relationship with an un with a minor. And I think it was uh I think that like really you can't really talk about him now because of the you must not be named. Yeah, so I think because of the allegations that were made against him, and obviously it ends up being true, I think can't really talk about that. And to make it even worse was that Lorraine backed him, was like she knew what was going on, she knew what he was up to, and she stuck by him. So I think for that reason, I don't think we should talk about Ed and Lorraine Warren. Right, Dan, if you want to cut out that last little tooth. No, no, I think no no, I think it'd be quite good. I mean, like people need to know, right? That that this is the this has only literally come out perhaps in the last year or so that rumour mill about Ed, and then it ends up that it was true, and I think that we'll leave it there. But the depict the depiction of the Warrens in the poll guys case of uh Enfield is bullshit.

SPEAKER_01 32:31

Yeah, but the the the problem is is that they're so they're this sort of they're this they're this um Mount Rushmore, aren't they? They're the Mount Rushmore of uh of paranormal investigators.

SPEAKER_00 32:42

It just happens to be that they're involved in every single case, like Amateurville. They weren't involved in Amityville um the house. Again, they've probably visited, but they weren't they weren't the the saviours that they're making them as making themselves out to be. It's one thing that really annoys me about you know Hollywood and you know taking these paranormal stories and then you know, like even Annabelle. Annabelle doesn't look half as what of of what she actually looks like, she just looks like a normal doll.

SPEAKER_01 33:09

Annabelle, the real Annabelle? Yeah, freaks me out more. Oh really? Yep, I'm like it. The real Annabelle. But she doesn't look scary.

SPEAKER_00 33:17

She doesn't look scary.

SPEAKER_01 33:20

It's surface scary. Do you know what I mean? Like the Annabelle in the film is surface, is surface level. Oh, that doll's freaky.

SPEAKER_00 33:29

There's no way that the Hollywood Annabelle doll that any child would want that doll be anywhere near them. I wouldn't want that doll with living with me right now, and I'm just 40. Do you remember Rosie and Jim?

SPEAKER_01 33:41

Yes, it's exactly like that. Annabelle always reminds me of Rosie. Yeah. And she just yeah. And then there's Jim being locked into rooms going, and Annabelle, let me out, what are you doing?

The South Shields Poltergeist Case

SPEAKER_01 33:56

Hi guys, it's Rick from the Case Files. If you like what you're hearing today, please like, subscribe, follow us on all streaming platforms, and follow us on YouTube. Right, let's jump forward 30 years from Enfield. Uh, and I bring you to Tyneside, South Shields. Um 2006, do you?

SPEAKER_00 34:20

I do.

SPEAKER_01 34:20

I was up there last year. Oh nice. Um about this case though, so this is quite interesting. Did you not? No, I don't. It's really worth a listen. Really worth a listening. I'm here. Um obviously, just yeah, I I actually really like this one. Um a couple identified in a book by the pseudonyms Mark and Marianne and their young son Robert, who is three. Um, their house becomes the site of sustained poltergeist activity over several months. Um, and the lead investigators on this case are Mike Hallowell and Darren Ritson. So, what makes this one different from Enfield? Well, several things. Um, first of all, we're 30 years in the future, so that means we've got mobile phones, cameras, CCTV, and the context is modern. So it almost gives I mean I say it's modern as 20 years ago now, Christ. Um but uh we we have a context of the of the case and we know the environment and we know to that we know what 2006 was. Um secondly, it's the nature of the activity um that is it's quite cruel. Um there's an intelligence to it, it's really quite unpleasant. And third, uh the focus person isn't a teenage girl, it's an adult woman, um, which is worth noting when we come to our theory part. Yeah, so how does it start? So objects are moved, furniture is rearranged, mattresses upended, standard poltergeist. Um, if obviously if you can say standard cultureist behaviour is normal, um, but it escalates fast, very fast, and it gets nasty. Marianne, really weird, gets text messages on her mobile phone. Uh the sender ID shows um it's her own phone texting her. That's bizarre. It says deeply unpleasant things. Such as go to sleep or else. That kind of thing, taunting, threatening, targeted, uh specifics, it's coordinated. Sometimes the messages arrive simultaneously with activity in the house, as if whatever it is wants to know that it's responsible.

SPEAKER_00 36:46

So that's not a random object throwing, that's proper communication like something's trying to frighten her on purpose.

SPEAKER_01 36:54

Yeah, um, it gets more deliberate as well. This poor little lad, um, Roberts, his bedroom. Um, they come in, they find a chair balanced on top of his bed, uh, with legs pointing upwards, forming a kind of cage over their sleeping son. Um, not knocked over, but placed placed on him deliberately.

SPEAKER_00 37:18

That's sinister in a way that's different to everything else we're talking about tonight, and that that's kind of a message, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 37:25

Yeah, so investigators arrive and they witness things directly. Objects thrown in front of them, a toy dog repositioned between the moment they leave the room and the moment they return. A child's mattress is thrown from a room whilst they're present, and throughout all of this, no evidence of fraud. Uh Mark and Marianne are described as terrified and exhausted. There's no motive nor opportunity, and physical events occur. And physical events do occur with the investigators in the room. And the bite mark?

SPEAKER_00 37:57

Tell them about the bite mark.

SPEAKER_01 37:59

So Marianne develops physical marks during the activity, scratches appearing on her skin, and then a bite mark. A clear-defined human bite mark appears on her arm. Investigators photograph it. It's fresh, it's real, and no one near her when it appeared. So a human bite mark from absolutely nothing. Absolutely nothing. Um, the activity fades over time, as poltergeists normally do, normally last a few months in extreme cases that last years. Um, they've got a life cycle, a start, escalate, peat, decline, stop. Um, South Shields does follow that arc and burns out by 2007. But Marianne carries psychological effects uh for a very long time. Um, actually expanding on this more, the mobile phone um the mobile phone was the craziest thing. So she was receiving texts from herself and then from her husband.

SPEAKER_00 39:01

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_01 39:02

Right?

SPEAKER_00 39:03

So where was her husband and all of this?

SPEAKER_01 39:06

So her husband r says to her, No, I'm not texting you. They remove the SIM card, they remove the battery, they turn the phone off, and it still texts her from her husband's number.

SPEAKER_00 39:19

Wow, that was gonna be my next question. Is that what happens if you put the phone in flight mode or switch it off?

SPEAKER_01 39:24

She turns her phone off and she gets a phone call on the landline.

SPEAKER_00 39:31

The landline.

SPEAKER_01 39:33

And do you remember back in the day when you could text a landline and that automated voice would come through and it's all in the automated voice comes through threatening her. All from her husband's phone, which is no SIM card, no patriot, no life. Well, I can't explain that. That's I didn't again, I don't know anything about it. He's got scratched up as well. Right. He gets and it's all photographed appearing in real time. It's it's an incredible deep dive. I would highly recommend anybody out there that because normally you're reading about prototypes activity from you know 1890 or 1966, or you know, I read a got a really, really interesting one that Laura recommended me the other day, um, one in Poland, where the girl was the girl was taken from her house, put into a psychiatric ward, and then um observed in a clinically controlled environment manifesting poltergeist activity. And stuff was still happening now. Stuff was still happening, yeah. You know, it was the old bending sponsor, but it stuff was still happening, you know, to this this poor girl.

SPEAKER_00 40:44

Um I'm more interested in these stories of like what's happening now? What's happening with these people now? Yeah. You know, like that was 20 years ago. Yeah, 20 years ago. So what's happened in their life since then?

SPEAKER_01 40:58

So this is really interesting because the book, the book gives them pseudonyms. So that little kid now is 23, was 2006, so he's 20 years old. No, he's 23 years old. And obviously they're older. I don't know how old Mark and Mary are now, but that's not even their names. Okay. So specifically, everything was altered to keep the anime the anonymity of these people, which I actually think gives greater credence to the story. You're not benefiting from it, there's no money to be made, you know. Yeah, the guy can release a book, but uh he's making the money. You know, he's making the money on the book. These aren't these people that are actually experiencing these things aren't getting anything from it. There's no interviews, there's no fame, there's no nothing to be gained from this. Because tell me right now, the South Shields poltergeist, if I discovered this, I can go and make a documentary and pay them a few grand.

SPEAKER_00 41:54

Yeah, of course you could. Of course you could. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 41:56

Go, oh, would you come on a documentary and make a documentary for would you come back to the house? Would you would you uh go through all with me? Would you do a recreation with me?

SPEAKER_00 42:04

Well a prime example of that is um Zach Began's Demon House, isn't it? Where you know he was hearing the stories, went out and bought the house, did a documentary, you know, from the people that used to reside in it, from from from people that even just walked past it, you know. Seemed to be that there was always something happening with this house, so yeah.

SPEAKER_01 42:23

By the way, that's the dream. Yes, and then investigate, of course. Well, I think that's the dream. I don't know about how Dan and Laura feel, or the other members all the other members of the of the of the place feel.

SPEAKER_00 42:33

But what I don't get is is why is there is complete radio silence now? And I often think to myself, and I know it's probably gonna sound stupid, but is the Catholic Church blocking these people from talking anymore about it? Is there some sort of like the Vatican, the the Catholic Church, the the greater power if you want to believe in the short I dare say the Illuminati or groups that are very much like that? How is it that that these things do not get talked about anymore? Is it it seems to be that there seems to be a block Yeah, because even Janet Hodgson won't speak about it anymore, would it be? Exactly. And I think there's definitely something up there.

SPEAKER_01 43:17

Do you think there's a point where people go, right, there's this um we have this established hierarchy of of how the world works and you are disrupting that.

SPEAKER_00 43:27

Yes. Yeah. That's that's probably the best way you could put it, is that these people are being prevented from um speaking out about it, whether they've probably signed a waiver or they've signed something in which that says, you know, if you continue down this path of talking about it and talking about your experiences, bad things can happen to you. So they don't know. It's a very cynical theory. It's a very clear theory. I'll be putting the bins out and uh there'll be like a car down the road.

SPEAKER_01 43:55

A black car that drives past and they look out in the road and all of a speed off flash of light. Yeah. Next day you get an envelope through the window, there's you putting stuff in the bin. If I'm not on next week, then you know that something's happened.

Could RSPK Explain Poltergeist Activity?

SPEAKER_01 44:10

Right, theory time. So this is where we actually go into um the RSPK uh RSPK theory. Uh when the mind becomes the haunting. This is this is what I like about Polskin. Because I don't I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 44:27

We'll get into it. I mean it's almost like we were talking last week about Calvin. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 44:32

Oh are we creating well the pa they they do say the power of the human mind is un it's it's unprecedented, isn't it? Anyway, carry on. I want to spend some time on this uh because I think that it's the it's generally the most fascinating part of what we do. Um when the paranormal and the scientific overlap, um and that causes some discomfort in both the paranormal and the scientific field. I think that's when you know you're under something. Um reoccurrent spontaneous psychokinesis, RSPK. This theory was developed primarily by a parapsychologist named William Roll. He became investigating poltergeist cases in the 1950s and spent decades building a body of research. His foundational text, The Poltergeist, published in 1972, is still the essential reference point for anybody serious about this topic. And so what's the core claim? The core claim is this that poltergeist activity is real, meaning things genuinely move, sounds occur, things happen, but the source is not an external spirit or an entity. The source is a living person specifically. It's the unconscious mind of that person generating physical effects in the environment, psychokinesis, mind over matter, but not deliberate, not controlled, spontaneous and recurrent, uh happening repeatedly over a period of time. So the ghost inferior is the person. The ghost is the person, the uh their own psychological energy, psychology psychological, yeah, energy externalized, finding a physical outlet for something that has no other outlet. And the statistics? Yes, I did uh we had a look at this. Um role analysed 116 poltergeist cases. In 92 of the 116 cases, 79 well over 79%, the activity was unambiguously centered around a specific individual, a focused person. Of those individuals, the majority were overwhelmingly young people, and a significant, consistent portion were female, specifically in early to mid-adolescence. He wasn't the only one to notice this. Uh, Nandor Fodor, one of the early serious researchers in the field, observed this in the 1940s as well. Um, Alan Gold and Tony Cornell documented it in poltergeists, their 1979 survey of over 500 cases. This is a robust pattern with absolute physical statistics to back it up. This is not a theory. Okay. Um, the question um that I'm hoping that you're all shouting at your phones is why? Why adolescents and why women? Uh why is this happening? That a period of their life that could, um, if RSPK is real, generate this kind of energy.

SPEAKER_00 47:24

I want to say before you answer, and I think this is part of the episode that's going to sit with people because it stops being spooky and starts being kind of almost heartbreaking.

SPEAKER_01 47:35

Yeah, it does. Um, so there's a there's a few aspects we've got to look at. Um, psychological, physiological argument, um, adolescence is a period of profound biological upheaval. Um, brain is rewired, hormones surging, body is changing in ways that you know we've all been there, we've all done that, all got a t-shirt, we know what puberty is like, it's rough. Um, researchers in the RSPK field have theorized that biochemical turbulence is when psychokinetic potential, if things, if that exists, um, is at its most volatile and most accessible. Like a system under extreme pressure that is starting to leak out. And the energy obviously has to go somewhere. Yeah. Um psychological uh the fit uh the psychological argument is even more impelling. Uh it's more compelling. Adolescence, uh particularly for girls, can involve intense emotional repression, anger that can't be expressed because it's not safe to express it. Um grief, confusion of identity, uh, you know, a sexual awakening, frightening, shame, um, loss of control of your own body, of your own life. And in some cases, we see this in several cases. We're gonna talk about uh a specific trigger situation, a family breakdown, abuse, trauma, something that has created an enormous internal pressure with nowhere to go.

SPEAKER_00 48:57

And the poltergeist is the pressure valve.

SPEAKER_01 49:00

Yeah, um, it's the pressure valve. So essentially the theory is that you just sort of turn the tap and it all explodes. Uh Roel described it as kind of a psychic tantrum. Um, it's a bit it's it's it's the core idea, you know, it's a bit reductive, but that's essentially what it is. It's the unconscious mind uh under unbearable stress, begins to externalise the stress in ways the conscious mind uh isn't directing and often isn't aware of. Uh the teenager isn't trying to throw a chair, her mind is great, her mind is throwing a chair because it's the only way the energy inside her can get out.

SPEAKER_00 49:36

And she's probably terrified by it as well.

SPEAKER_01 49:38

Yeah, you know, often the focused person in Poltergeist cases is rarely just a calm observer. They're they're usually as fright as everybody else. They're quite often not only is the energy focused around them, the energy is focused on them. Yeah. Um, it's almost this kind of self-abuse, you know, if if if you will, that sort of that's self-loathing, that's self-hatred, and they're quite often the victims of their own mind, which is what's quite heartbreaking about this theory. Um because if you're consciously stay if you're if you're consciously staging this stuff, you're not you know you're not gonna be doing this while you're unconscious at 2 a.m. in the morning, you know, if you're actually sitting there and doing this. You know, your parents aren't gonna be woken up to bangs in the middle of the night while you're standing asleep in the room next door because you're consciously aware of doing it.

SPEAKER_00 50:33

It kind of makes me think about my own house in a way that you know, when we first moved in, activity would happen. I I think the the the grounds that the that that all of the housing estate is on, I think it's got a lot of j geophermic energy from it. Whether you want to believe in that, like you know, the it's the hospital grounds at the end of the day, it was like from the 1920s all the way up until modern day, you know, talking late 90s that that it then shut down from kind of not only a hospital but a mental asylum, and then it's kind of done tuberculosis, it's done all of that kind of stuff. So, you know, if you then kind of add three children into the mix, add like other bits of energy, your TV, for example, or multiple TVs in a home, this uh this energy, and also like with the children and everything, everything can be quite ramped up because at the end of the day we're all like batteries, right? Yeah, of course. And I think that with some of the paranormal activity that I had back in the day, I kind of like put it put it down to to those kind of like things that it's a magnitude of different things, like you've got all of this energy and it has to go somewhere. Of course, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 51:45

I believe you as well. I really do. I've I actually said to you, I said the times when you're getting the times when your life has been the most difficult is when you're hearing more stuff.

SPEAKER_00 51:53

But it's just a it's just weird that obviously since the last bit of the hospital has now become permanent resident flats, all the energy has changed. Uh uh you know, there might be bits and pieces, but it's not as um it's not as heavygoing as it first was when we when we first lived there. So it's there's it's quite interesting how that's um changed over the course of years.

Putting the RSPK Theory to the Test

SPEAKER_01 52:14

So I've established you the theory. Um now let's look at the evidence because there's gonna be a number of cases that I'm gonna present to you right now. I'm gonna go quite quick. Alright. I'm gonna take you through several of them because I think that this pattern is really is really gonna build the really build my case. Alright. Seven cases, three centuries, three continents. That's significant, right? I'm already feeling it. Let's go.

Case 1: The Columbus Poltergeist, Ohio, 1984

SPEAKER_01 52:40

Uh case one. Columbus, Ohio, 1984, 14-year-old Tina Resch. Uh this case made national headlines in America when a photograph uh photographer from the Columbus Dispatch captured what appears to be a telephone flying across the room whilst Tina sits on the sofa nearby, her hands visible, not touching it. The photograph ran on the front page. A photograph of it actually happening? Yeah, I've seen this photograph as well. All right. Um a photograph of what appears uh to be actually happening. Tina has been adopted as an infant under deeply traumatic circumstances. Her biological family had a history of abuse and neglect. She had a difficult childhood. At 14, she's volatile, emotionally raw, um, at a specific flash point in her adolescence. Objects begin flying around the RESH home, lights switch on and off, phones ring, no one's there. Investigators, including William Row, attend.

SPEAKER_00 53:31

So Rowe actually investigated this case.

SPEAKER_01 53:33

Yeah, he did. Uh he spent time with Tina, become convinced the core phenomena were general, uh, were genuine and consistent with RSPK. She noted that the activity was strongly correlated with Tina's emotional state, urging when she was dis uh surging when she was distressed, quietening when she was calm, uh, and when he worked with her on her relaxation and stress management techniques, the activity reduced.

SPEAKER_00 53:56

Interesting. So, which is either evidence for um RSPK or evidence that calming calming a stressed teenager stops them from doing clever tricks.

SPEAKER_01 54:07

Yeah, if you want to see it like that. Um both interpretations exist. The sceptical view, as it must be said, is supported by the fact that Tina was caught on video bending a lamp towards herself when she thought the cameras were off. She denied it, Roll argued this single court moment didn't invalidate the mass of witness exp uh witnessed events. Um it's the same complexity as Mfield's apparent fraud, much that appears genuine. Um Tina's life after the poltergeist activity was profoundly tragic. Um I'm pretty sure she is no longer with us.

SPEAKER_00 54:42

Right. What's interesting is that when they start faking, it's almost like that something is telling them that they have to keep up this facade of doing it, you know, some things like, you know, um, how can I how can I prove it during the quiet times? And they've it's almost like they feel like they have the time to kind of get that urge to do it.

SPEAKER_01 55:04

Can you imagine if you're uh a marginalized 11-year-old, 12-year-old girl, and you've got a daughter, right? Yeah, yeah. Can you imagine if all of a sudden the world's attention was on her?

SPEAKER_00 55:13

Oh. And then all of a sudden I wasn't happy with that at all, to be honest.

SPEAKER_01 55:17

You know, all of a sudden it wasn't. And then she's like, Well, why not?

SPEAKER_00 55:23

I'm uh like You're not relevant anymore. You're not relevant anymore. Yeah, you know, and I think that's why they do these fake rebits, is is to stay current, stay, you know, stay with it.

Case 2: Eleonore Zugun, Romania, 1925

SPEAKER_01 55:34

Yeah. Case two, Eleanor Zugun, Romania, 1925. Um, 12-year-old Eleanor. Uh, this case predates the term RSPK by decades, but fits the profile almost perfectly. Eleanor is from a rural village, objects are thrown around, things disappear and appear. She is subjected to physical marks, scratches, bites, everything on her skin with no visible cause, exactly like Marianne in the South Shields 80 years after.

SPEAKER_00 56:01

Yeah, so again, a 12-year-old girl with bite marks appearing on her from nowhere in 1925 Romania.

SPEAKER_01 56:07

She ends up being brought to Vienna, studied by a countess named Vas uh uh Vasilko Sarecki, who publishes detailed accounts of the phenomena. Eleanor is examined by the famous Harry Price, one of the most famous from Borley Rectory, uh, one of the most famous uh paranormal investigators of the 20th century who conducts tests under controlled conditions and witnesses objects being moved in a way he cannot explain, with Eleanor restrained and observed.

SPEAKER_00 56:35

And the key thing is that she's 12, she's at that age, she's from a chaotic, impoverished background. She's a textbook RSPK candidate, even if no one had coined the term.

SPEAKER_01 56:46

Yeah. So here's the detail that's that's interesting. The physical marks on Eleanor's skin, the scratches and bites apparently stopped when she reached puberty. When the hormonal transition completed, the phenomena ceased. Which is either a weird coincidence or evidence of what exactly the RSPK theory would predict.

SPEAKER_00 57:06

So the pressure valve closed because the pressure changed.

SPEAKER_01 57:09

Exactly. You know, there was no more bubbling under the surface, no more boiling pot. There was no no more lid to blow. Interesting.

Case 3: The Thornton Heath Poltergeist, London, 1938

SPEAKER_01 57:18

Case three. Yeah. And I'm really hammering it home now. Sorry. The Thornton Heath The Thornton Heath Poltergeist, South London in 1938, investigated by Nandor Fodor, a psychoanalyst and paranormal researcher, uh, who becomes one of the most important research uh figures in RSPK. Uh the focused person is a woman, referred to as Mrs. Forbes, who's experiencing what Fodor describes as extreme psychological distress, but not a teenager this time. So the theory doesn't apply. Uh Fodor uses this case to argue that theory extends beyond adolescence, that extreme trauma and repression in adults can produce the same effect. Uh, what the case shares is not age but psychological profile, intense emotional repression, and inability to consciously process or express distress, a specific vulnerability at a particular moment. In Mrs. Forbes' case, Fodor believes the activity is connected to deep trauma. Uh, he's one of the first investigators to propose the poltergeist phenomena might be psychological in origin, not supernatural. This is 1938, it's a remarkable intellectual leap.

SPEAKER_00 58:27

So for Fodor is essentially a precursor to Role.

SPEAKER_01 58:31

Yeah, so he plants the seed, role builds the framework, and decades uh decades later. And Thornton Heath is important because it is an early articulation of the idea that the haunting is person-centric, not location.

unknown 58:44

Nice.

SPEAKER_01 58:44

Um,

Case 4: The Calvados Castle Poltergeist, France, 1875

SPEAKER_01 58:45

France, 1875, Calbado's castle in Normandy.

SPEAKER_00 58:49

Nice place. You've been? No, I've always wanted to go though. Normandy is one of those places that um it's always been quite fascinating in terms of its history, and um again, uh northern France has quite um a spiritual connection, so it's got a lot of um cases like this one. So I don't know anything about this, but again, it's a place that I'd very much like to go to.

SPEAKER_01 59:14

Right. A documented diary written by the owner of the castle records months of pulse glass activity, heavy furniture moved, violent knocking objects thrown at the centre of it. Wait for it. Teenage girl. Of course. Uh a ward of the family, who is described as being in a deeply unhappy situation, effectively trapped in a household role she didn't choose, no power, and immensely repressed.

SPEAKER_00 59:36

So 19th century, a teenage girl with no autonomy, no voice, no way to express anything she's feeling. No.

SPEAKER_01 59:42

Um furniture starts flying. The diary is remarkably detailed, dates, times, specific events. It's analysed by researchers, including Alan Gold, and is considered one of the better documented historical cases. The girl's situation maps almost perfectly onto what RSPK theory would predict as a trigger profile, and when she eventually leaves the household and the pressure situation changes. So the haunting almost leaves with her emotions. Yeah, it does. Um,

Case 5: The Bell Witch, 1817

SPEAKER_01 1:00:11

and now one of the most famous ones, um The Bell Witch.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:17

Uh, are you familiar with this one? I'm not no, I'm so famous, I feel like I don't know anything right now.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:23

It's alright, I'm glad I'm this is this is what we're here. This is great. Yeah. Um the Bell family on their farm in Robertson County uh in Tennessee uh begin experiencing phenomena, sounds, moving objects, voices, uh eventually direct physical contacts against John Bell, the patriarch, who is reportedly slapped, choked, and tormented until his death in 1820, so three years, which is really interesting. When you look at the family, and when you look at who's the centre of the energy, you find Betsy Bell, twelve years old. John Bell's daughter, and historical analysis of the case, particularly worked by Nandor Fodor and others later, has raised serious questions about John Bell's relationship with Betsy. Um, you know, things that we don't like to be talked about, but unfortunately are out there. Um, and that this may have been another case of a girl without any voice, uh, and that needed an outlet. Oh dear. Yeah. Uh the entity, whatever it was, attacked John specifically, tormented him specifically, um, and left Betsy largely unharmed. What a shame. Uh, even expressed something like affection for Betsy's mother. Uh, it's uh an interesting pattern if you apply the RSPK lens. If you consider the phenomenon might be externalized psychological energy from a deeply distressed girl, um, and suddenly um it all starts to fit together. Why is this thing happening to uh to John?

SPEAKER_00 1:01:51

Yeah, that that's a lot, but it you know it reframes the whole story as well.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:55

Yeah, we can't be sure what was happening in 1817, um, but it appears in other cases that poltergeist violence is not always directed at the focused person, but at the source of their distress.

Case 6: The Julio Poltergeist, Miami, 1967

SPEAKER_01 1:02:11

Um in Miami, 1967, a warehouse belonging to a novelty and gift company called Tropication Arts. Objects begin falling from the shelves, bottles, glasses, novelty items. The activity is extensive enough that the owner calls the police and then investigators come in. William Row rolls back in.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:31

Of course he does.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:32

This one is slightly different because it's a workplace, not a home, but Roll immediately finds his focus person.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:40

Let me guess.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:41

Nineteen-year-old shipping clerk named Julio, a young man, not a girl.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:45

A young man, okay. Well, that's good. Um not good, but you know. Yeah, I mean gives the girls a break.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:50

It does, and it allows the consideration that we are capable of this type of energy as well. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So it's not always the girls, but Julio is in a particular situation, he's a Cuban immigrant, um and an unfamiliar country, in a job he hates, he describes himself as angry and trapped, and he's classically repressed. The activity follows him around the warehouse, objects fall near him, objects fall where he's in the room, and things are calm when he is not there.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:20

So the theory extends to young men in certain conditions by the sounds of it.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:24

Yeah, I mean I would I mean they always say, right, that that that puberty is worse for for girls, don't they? There's always worse, there's always more women suffer more, and I don't think we're debating that, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:03:37

No, we're not I'm not going I'm not going down that road. We're going down that road. No, I'll just I'll just say yes.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:43

Um in that in that in in in that case, in this instance, women are uh you know, adolescence is a lot harder for women than it is for boys. Yeah. Um and I I just I think that this this particular type of phenomenon needs a specific type of of Molotov cocktail concoction to really sort of come out. Um Roll's position is that the profile isn't specifically female, it's specifically a person with high levels of repressed psychological energy at a period of intense stress or transition. Adolescence is when that profile is most common, and girls in particular tend to be socialized towards greater emotional repression. Um they don't make a fuss, pressure, that pressure to be perfect, that pressure to present themselves as this you know immaculate being. Um but it can happen to anybody as long as the situation is correct. Um and Miami is this perfect counterexample that strengthens the broader theory of its emotional stress and this perfect uh cocktail. Um and

Case 7: The Sauchie Poltergeist, Scotland

SPEAKER_01 1:04:57

one of my favourites, the Sorchi poach poltergeist to cap us off. Um Sorchi, Clackmannonshire, Scotland, 1960. Um it's got something that most lack, which is medical and educational witnesses, professional observers with no stake in the paranormal. So who's at the centre of it? Way for it. Eleven-year-old Irish girl, Virginia Campbell. Okay. Her family have recently moved from Ireland to Scotland. So we go, yep, young girl.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:26

Unfamiliar circumstances. Uprooting Virginia from everything she knew, her friends, her dog, her home. She's placed in a new school, grieving, homesick, profoundly unsettled, and then it all kicks off. So what kind of things? In her bedroom at night, knocking sounds, pillow rotates under her head, blankets pulled. Um but remarkably it follows her to school. Um her teacher, Mrs. Margaret uh Miss Margaret Stewart, witnesses a desk lid rising and falling on its own whilst Virginia sits nearby. The headmaster investigates and witnesses a Similar event and the doctor, Dr. William Logan, attends the girls' home and witnesses phenomena directly and subs subsequently writes a medical report uh describing poltergeist activity in a medical report.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:13

So a doctor in a medical capacity writing about a haunting.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:17

Yeah, um, a doctor writing about what he observed, what he couldn't explain with any conventional framework. Other witnesses include the local minister. Um, Virginia has never been accused of fraud, she's not been caught faking. She is, by all accounts, a frightened, homesick child who desperately wants everything to stop and go back to normal. And eventually it does. She settles into a new life, um, everything becomes more manageable and it all fades away.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:43

Again, the emotional shift coincides with the end of the phenomena.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:47

Yeah, you know, in case after case after case, the phenomena track the emotional state of the focused person, which is even the most compelling evidence of RSPK, all the most remarkable series of coincidences in paranormal history.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:02

Okay. I mean, obviously, I need a minute right now because that's Virginia Campbell alone is enough for me. A doctor, a headmaster, a teacher, all independently witnessing the same thing around one homesick 11-year-old girl who just wants to go back to Ireland.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:18

Yeah, and she gets better. It stops.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:20

And that's the that's the part that gets me, you know?

RSPK Explained in Simple Terms

SPEAKER_00 1:07:24

So, what is the RSPK theory actually saying, obviously, like in plain English for someone who's not a parapsychologist, for example? Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:32

It's saying that the human mind might be capable of affecting physical matter, not through any mechanism which we currently understand, but the capacity has the potential to be there in everyone, perhaps, but strongest and most accessible in certain states, high stress, emotional oppression, adolescent upheaval, trauma. And when a person is in that state, the you know the cracks, the cracks show. Um, something unknown leaks out, something that can move objects, generate sounds, manifest physically, and that person doesn't know it's them, most importantly. Um, they experience it as external, as a presence as something that is happening to them, not because it is happening because of them. They just don't understand where it is coming from as well, which is just as scary as anything else.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:20

And do you know what's interesting? They say it sounds very stranger things. Yeah, yeah. And what's the name of the girl that can die to do all of these things? Eleven. There's eleven. And uh, yeah. Again, like it's uh it's a bit like saying, imagine if anxiety could actually throw things at you, and if we what like we currently feel only internally could occasionally give out.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:46

Can you imagine if what me and you feel could manifest it physically? Yeah, especially in investigations. It's a beautiful way to put it though. It is worth saying for anybody who has witnessed or experienced something they can't explain. This theory doesn't diminish what you went through at all. It doesn't say it was just in your head, it says what was in your head was real enough to affect the world around you, and that's incredible. Can you imagine saying that you're a power, powerful enough being to have physically infected your environment with your mind? That's incredible. Yeah, terrifying at the same time as well, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:09:19

Nah, yeah, I'm not disputed. That's terrifying. Yeah,

What Do Sceptics Say About These Cases?

SPEAKER_00 1:09:22

so what did the sceptics say? Because we should give them the room.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:24

I don't like to give them the room, though. Well they they're gonna have to. The sceptical position is that every case involves some combination of fraud and misperception. Um, that investigators are credulous, that children are clever, that adults under stress misinterpret normal events. Uh they the confirmed fraud at Enfield gives them ammunition. The court footage of Tina Range gives them ammunition. The sceptic says find one convincing case of fraud and it taints everything else.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:55

I think the problem being uh the police officer in in the police officer in Enfield, Eleanor Zugan's marks stopping at puberty, the headmaster and the doctor at Sorchi, the Miami warehouse, these aren't easily explained away, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:10:13

Yeah, and the scap the sceptic has to argue uh which is either a mass coordinated fraud on extraordinary scale, mass misperception by multiple individual observers, including law enforcement medical professionals. Um neither of those is a satisfying explanation. Um we're in the ter we're in the territory where every explanation has a problem, which is honestly where the most interesting questions live.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:39

And the case files where certainty goes to get very uncomfortable.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:44

That's what we're like to be, right? That's what we want to discuss. Yeah.

Our Verdict on the RSPK Theory

SPEAKER_00 1:10:47

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:47

So before we wrap Cards on the table. Yeah, cards on the table, you go first. For me, I think I I like RSPK. I do. I love the phenomena, I love the idea of it. I can't sit here looking at the numbers of cases, the consistency of the profile, the correlation between emotional states and activities and say it's a fraud or coincidence. I think something is happening, uh, whether the mechanism is psychokinesis or something we don't have a name for yet, something real is happening around certain individuals, and it appears to be connected to what they're feeling.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:25

Yeah, the cases that got me were Sorchi and Eleanor Zugan Sorchi because of the professional witnesses, a doctor writing a medical report about haunting is not um something that you dismiss lightly, and Eleanor because the phenomenon of stopping her puberty is just well it's just a coincidence, if not a remarkable one, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:11:47

Yeah, you know, pattern across seven cases, three centuries, multiple continents, and you know, that's uh that is a collection that I have that I have put together for this podcast. That is not an extensive collection of every single poltergeist activity ever. Um and you just can't write that off.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:10

No, and like what I keep coming back to as well is the sadness of it all. If the theory is right, if these girls are generating this energy from a place of grief or repression or fear or trauma, then that's not really a ghost story, that's a story about what happens to people when they have no other way to be heard.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:28

Yeah, you know, and that's that's the most human version of the polargeist. It's not a monster, it's unfortunately a scream for help. A scream from someone who learned they had to be quiet. Yeah, and you know what, it's it's sad because I like to be um I I like to be optimistic on this show, but it's I didn't didn't really want to end up at the the sad conclusion here tonight, but I think the sad conclusion is is that I think RSPK is real, I think the poltergeist are real, they're just not spirits. It's a it has to be called a paranormal phenomenon because we don't understand it yet. Um and is just unfortunately one of the most saddest things if it is real.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:09

Yeah. The case files come for the flying furniture and stay for the existential crisis, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:13:17

That's sad.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:18

That is sad.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:20

Um are we gonna wrap there? I think that's about right.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:23

Yeah, I just think it's interesting. Um I must admit I don't know a lot about poltergeist activities, and and I think Have I given you food for thought? Yeah, definitely. And I think that it would be nice to hear whether there are more paranormal cases in terms of poltergeist activity. I mean, I know there's a lot now with you know the videos that you see on TikTok and YouTube and you know, like people like Casper Site that kind of like, you know, break them all down and see, like, you know, put their own interpretation into it. We know full well that the large majority of those videos are staged, right? Of course. But I think what's interesting is that in terms of poltergeist cases, like the Enfield haunting, like I don't know. I know there's cases out in South America, for example, like you know, there was one where a woman had been possessed and the fire brigade got involved or something like that, and they were actually out of the window calling for someone to get a priest, you know. And then this woman was wheeled into a into a an ambulance and then she was off to to the I presume the psychiatric uh unit for care. But there doesn't seem to be a case anymore where this stuff is still happening, and I don't know whether that's just because it's not been brought to our attention. Again, is there now a media blackout since this since the in-field haunting happened? So that that we just don't hear it anymore because it's probably maybe too out there, too scary for people to understand, or again, like I said earlier, is there some form of higher being that kind of gets involved and blocks everything out?

SPEAKER_01 1:15:04

I think people are people are they're skeptical now, people are sceptical now, but I think people are mistrusting. I think people are a lot more mistrusting than they were before. And if I think if anybody if anybody's experiencing stuff like this and they just you know, you don't want to sound like a mental case, do you? And if you do say something to someone, people are oh yes, you're a fraud. Because you know, oh it's AI.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:27

Oh it's yeah, I forgot about AI, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:29

You know, all it's all BS. And you just don't I don't want to be called in that case. You know what I mean? I don't I don't want that. And if it's I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:39

Yeah, it's a difficult one because you get you get lamb blasted by the media and the public at the same time.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:46

But if anybody out there is experiencing a current poltergeist case or paranormal situation, we are here for you.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:52

Yeah, and even if you have a story yourselves that that that you would like perhaps to I would love. I would love that.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:59

If people were to write in with their own paranormal stories and me and you and I was to say, right, this is a story I got, let me pitch it to you. And then you give me your genuine feedback on what you believe and what you think about that.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:11

Yeah, I mean, it would be nice to hear more from people outside of you know, not only kind of like Kent and the South East that we cover, it would be nice to hear from people that that you know that have their own stories to tell. Because it's not going to be documented necessarily, it's not gonna be out there. It would just be nice perhaps if people integrated with us, because we'll do more of these things, right? We'll do as time goes on, we'll do more about this. You know, it's uh it you'd be surprised how quickly time goes when you're even talking about this, right? We're now an hour and a half deep. There you go.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:48

So uh it's terrible, isn't it? Um good luck editing this one, Dan. Yeah, unlucky, my friend. Um wrapping it up? Yep.

Outro

SPEAKER_01 1:16:57

Lovely, right? Thank you very much, everybody. We really do appreciate you coming back to the case files with Rick and Krabby. Um remember, like, subscribe, uh, hit that bell for notifications, and when we uh when we post, uh follow us next, follow us on Facebook, uh, Instagram, TikTok, because Laura does loads of lives over there as well. Uh and we do do we do go live for our investigations uh as well. Um but other than that, that has been the case files, and we would love for you to return to the next one? To the next one.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:30

Yeah, I mean I'm I'm going home now and I'm kind of leaving every single light on in the house, every light ones in the cupboard, the extractor fan and the cooker, all of them. EBO house actually is haunted, so it doesn't matter.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:42

I know that's just won't go home then. Just won't go home, you're gonna spend the night in your car. Right, thank you very much everybody. We have been Riggin Krabby and we will see you next time. Good night. Good night.