The Enfield Poltergeist

This month one of the world's most famous real-life ghost stories turns 40 and to celebrate I've been digging through the Enfield poltergeist case files and re-examining the best documented poltergeist haunting of all time.

Whether you believe the Enfield Poltergeist was evidence of a real haunting or not, there's no doubt that the story had an enormous impact at the time. After all, the media relies on public interest to sustain a story. The Enfield Poltergeist was widely covered in newspapers, books, radio and TV at the time and continues to fascinate. So how could this seemingly simple haunting have had such a large impact over such a timespan?

The Enfield Poltergeist case is one of the best documented case of a haunting ever, but while researching the topic ahead of the 40th anniversary of the event I uncovered six interesting facts that aren't widely know about the events that took place in Enfield, North London in 1977.

40 years ago this month, the Hodgson family of Enfield in north London reported strange goings on in their house at 284 Green Street, it became one of the most famous poltergeist cases ever, but 40 years on, how much do you remember about this iconic case?

The classic paranormal comedy movie 'Ghostbuster' introduced us to an array of spirits and demons including Gozer the Gozerian but it turns out that the demon deity first made its presence known at a haunted house in Enfield in the 1970s.

This month marks the 40th anniversary of the Enfield Poltergeist case, which centred on the Hodgson family of Enfield. To celebrate, here's a list of every milestone, major event and significant visit to the house. The timeline covers the house's most active period from August 1977 to October 1978.