Allegedly Haunted Items
​Over the past decade as reports of haunted items have become more common, my interest in this area of the paranormal has grown. If a place can be said to have a spirit attachment, why can't smaller objects?
Although not all, many reports of hauntings are associated with either a sudden, often violent, death or a strong connection to a place which a spirit is said to return to in visitation. So if a spirit can return to a place which they had a strong connection to, why not an item?
I am often asked 'why is it always dolls?' and the first answer is it is not always dolls, I have items such as jewellery which are said to have spirit attachment, however, it is fair to say most of the stories we hear are related to dolls.
To answer this I would refer back to the theory that a spirit may return in visitation to a place, or object, to which they had a strong connection in life. With the throw away culture of today, it is difficult for some to imagine how much an item such as a doll used to mean to children. They were expensive, and so a child may only have one which they would take care of and continue to hold an affection for into adulthood. The same applied for soft toys, especially 'teddy' bears when they were introduced in 1902. Less well off families would have hand made toys, and so were very precious to the children they were gifted to. And so if we are to believe that spirit can choose to return to visit places which meant a lot to them, it is not without the realms of possibility that a few of these items continue to have an attraction to returning spirit.
In this section of the website I will give details of many of the allegedly haunted items in my possession. This will take time to do and so this page will be under development for some time. I will also add updates on any research carried out on the items, and the results we obtain.
Cyril
The group of mediums claim they made contact with a spirit named Cyril. He had worked as a Drayman, that being the driver of a horse drawn flat bed trailer used to transportation of goods. He said he had died in an accident at the mill, yet he felt aggrieved that his death should never have happened. It is not clear why he attached to this doll.
After working with the item for 6 months, they made the doll available for other researchers and he came to myself.
Cyril was the first allegedly haunted item that came into my possession.
He came from a small group of psychic mediums who had offered to carry out studies with the doll after learning about it from a local lady who had recently inherited an elderly relatives estate.
The lady had told them that she remembered the doll from her childhood when visiting the relative, who lived in a converted mill. The doll sat on a shelf on the staircase and she never liked it, often rushing past.
As she got older she became less scared of the doll, yet still felt uncomfortable on the staircase. Needless to say she did not want to keep the doll when she inherited the estate, yet something told her she should not simply throw it away.
Nana
Nana is one of our most popular allegedly Haunted Items when we take them out on the road.
​
She came to us from California, where it is said she had been given to a young girl who struggled to deal with the death of her beloved grandmother, or Nana as she called her.
​
The doll reminded her of her grandmother both in appearance and clothing and gave the girl comfort feeling that her Nana was still around.
When she was going to college, she decided to take the doll with her as a reminder of home and all went well until in her second year she and a group of friends decided to try to see if the girls grandmother did have a spirit connection with the doll using a ouija board.
​
The planchet on the board did move, but rather than provide any of the anticipated replies, it would only spell 'Mr Nobody'.
​
Upset, the girl grabbed the doll and left without the session being closed. She put the doll in a cupboard but heard movement all night.
​
The next day one of her friends suggested handing the doll to a local paranormal group, which was where they had got the ouija board. Reluctantly, the girl agreed. The doll had served its purpose in helping her through her childhood trauma but after what had happened she no longer felt the strong bond she once had.
​
The Paranormal group did 6 months worth of research with the doll, during which they too got the name 'Mr Nobody' and recorded both knocking and gurgling sounds coming from the case the doll was kept in.
​
Since coming to us I personally suffered terrible nightmares relating to the doll, resulting in me taking quite drastic steps for protection. The Knocks and gurgling have also been heard and our ITC work has indicated that not only is there an unknown quite aggressive spirit connection, but that the girls grandmother is indeed still connected.
​
Our work with Nana continues
'Murder' Victim Ring
This item came to me via the son of an American based paranormal researcher.
I am not sure exactly what it is made of, it appears designed to look like a big gold nugget! I was advised that it was previously bought at an estate sale possibly in the 1980's. The man that purchased this said he had it a few weeks before he began noticing activity. He started hearing faint yelling, he described it as like hearing neighbours next door fighting, but it was one man's voice. Sometimes he could hear English, sometimes it was Spanish.
As time passed he noticed more strange things occurring- lights being shut off, lightbulbs dying quickly or flickering, his boom box would tune on its own & he described an "electricity" feeling- like a tingling, buzzing feeling, which sounds very much like the spirit drawing energy from him, and from electronics. He said one time he was listening to his walkman, with his headphones, when he felt that tingling feeling allover, then he heard a man's voice say "Murder!" in both English and Spanish.
Another day he said he was getting ready to go out for dinner with friends. He was wearing the ring, when his face felt numb and his nose started bleeding, he then saw the figure of a man out of the corner of his eye, then it disappeared, like a mist suddenly dissipating.
He ring was given to the paranormal researcher, who was also a medium. He picked up on the feelings of a male spirit, betrayal, and a severe pain in the back of his head. He got cold spots and emf spikes when his head started hurting, and when the lights flickered. He asked him why he was there, he heard exactly what the client had heard- the word Murder in Spanish and English.
It is claimed, although we cannot verify this, that further research revealed that the estate sale was for a man who was believed to have been involved in criminal activity and had died in suspicious circumstances.
The Crying Boy
The Crying Boy paintings were a series depicting tearful boys, launched in the 1950s.
The prints sold in their thousands, with an estimated 250,000 sold in the UK by the 1980s, but their popularity was to take a sudden downturn in 1985, when a family blamed the picture for causing a house fire.
Their reason for this was that, although the house was gutted, the picture remained hanging, undamaged. After the story hit the press, numerous others came forward to report the same things having happened to them. The reports were seemingly backed up by fire fighters, with one claiming there had been more than 50 incidents of house fires associated with the Crying Boy print, dating back to the 1970s. Claims of the picture moving by itself were also made.
The Sun newspaper ran a campaign to rid the world of the Curse of the Crying Boy, and urged their readers to send in their prints, which were all burned in a massive bonfire.
​
Reasons were put forward for the picture surviving fires. It was found to be printed on high density cardboard, and treated with a fire resistant varnish. The suggestion was this allowed the painting to survive the fire long enough until the string burned through, at which point it would fall face down, protecting the picture.
This does not however explain why the prints were found hanging on the wall rather than on the floor, and themass bonfire organised by the Sun verified that although the pictures were difficult to ignite, they did burn.
Reports of similar incidents continue to this day, although not in the UK where the picture is now rare due to so many being destroyed in the 1980s. I have however managed to get my hands on an original from that era. I am not saying I believe in the Curse, but equally will not say I disbelieve in the curse.