Latest / Be Amazed / Cursed Objects That Scientists Fear – Part 2

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Cursed Objects That Scientists Fear – Part 2 · Be Amazed

• 0:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: Scientists are constantly searching for answers, but not all things in this world can be explained.
• 0:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now, even if you are a big believer in science, I have to warn you.
• 0:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: Before listening to this episode, it'd be best to sprinkle a ring of salt around you.
• 0:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: Maybe burn some sage.
• 0:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: because we're about to investigate phenomena that defy all logic.
• 0:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: From dolls that grow human haired as shapeshifting masks that steal souls, all those words of protection close as we explore yet more of the world's most cursed objects that scientists can explain.
• 0:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: Many people find those cute, but I would argue there's literally nothing creepier.
• 1:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: Case in point, let me introduce you to Little Jimmy.
• 1:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: one by 12-year-old Blyroy bland at a Kentucky carnival in 1910.
• 1:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: The doll is creepy enough with its cracked porcelain face and unsettling blood-red smile, but its story only got darker when in 1914 the first World War broke out.
• 1:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: Blyroy's mother knitted Jimmy its own soldier uniformed honor all that brave young men serving in the war.
• 1:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: Little that she know that World War I would become one of the deadliest conflicts in all of history, with a casualty to a estimated between 15 to 22 million.
• 1:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, little Jimmy here became a pretty direct talisman.
• 1:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: But as of yet, there are no rumors that it might be haunted by the souls of the soldiers, whereas I've got two real-life stories of truly cursed dolls, and it'll be up to you to decide which of these disturbing dolls deserves the title of most cursed toy.
• 2:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: Are you ready?
• 2:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: First up, let's talk about a three-foot-toe dog dressed in a sailor suit.
• 2:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's more than a hundred and seventeen years old and is presently on display at the Fort East Martello Museum in Key West Florida.
• 2:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: But before he came to the museum in 1994, he was the property of Jean Otto, who was gifted the handmade doll as a child.
• 2:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: Jean named the doll Robert and quickly became attached to his new toy.
• 2:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: until one night, Gene woke up to find Robert sitting at the end of his bed.
• 2:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: Mom, it's later, his mother was awakened by the sound of Gene's screams and furniture being thrown around the room.
• 2:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: When she finally opened the door, the bedroom was a mess and Gene was crying.
• 2:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: When she has Gene what happened, he pointed at the door still at the foot of his bed and said Robert did it.
• 2:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: This would become Gene's catchphrase when never something was broken or went missing in their home.
• 3:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: Sounds like a typical child's excused a lie their way out of trouble.
• 3:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: or so Jean's parents thought.
• 3:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: They soon began witnessing other supernatural phenomena, claiming they often heard their son upstairs talking to the doll, before hearing a different voice respond.
• 3:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: There are also reports of the sound of a demented giggling and visitor-smotted Robert running up the stairs.
• 3:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: Despite these spooky accounts, Robert continued to live with Jane and eventually as Jane grew out of his dough phase, Robert was stored away in a trunk in the attic.
• 3:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: But children in the street claimed they sell Robert steering out of them from the attic window.
• 3:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: It felt like he was
• 3:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: They swore he would appear and reappear without any explanation, and so kids began avoiding the house altogether.
• 3:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: Gene Sandley passed away in 1974, and when new owners moved into the house, their young daughter was delighted to find Robert in the attic.
• 4:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: But this soon took a bad turn as their daughter began to claim that the doll was trying to hurt her.
• 4:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: They dismissed the kid's claims as an overactive imagination, but soon, they began to notice Robert moved around the house even when no one was home.
• 4:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: And even visitors noticed his blank expression seemed to change when anyone badmouthed his previous owner, Jean.
• 4:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: Eventually, after one too many inexplicable occurrences Robert was donated to the museum where he resides to this day.
• 4:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now Locke was believed that it was actually the maid of the out-of-family who gifted Jean the Dalin, having been treated badly by the family cursed at what dark magic is revenge.
• 4:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: However, no records have been found to prove this, and scientists can accurately test or prove the claims of this mischievous doll as they are all from eyewitness statements.
• 5:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: Though many people swear their photos are ruined if they ever try to take selfies with Robert without his permission.
• 5:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: This find his supposedly wicked nature revered his become something of a celebrity.
• 5:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: He receives fan letters from across the globe and has more than a thousand Facebook friends.
• 5:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: Whoop.
• 5:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: Kind embarrassing to know I have less friends than a haunted doll.
• 5:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: While Robert's curse story might leave you feeling uneasy, there are dolls out there with an even more hairlasing past.
• 5:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: And for this next one, we need to have a cross-the-globe to Japan and rewind on the way back to 1918.
• 5:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: It was here that a young man named Ikechi Suzuki was traveling through Northern Japan when he saw a small 16 inch tall doll dressed in a kimono for sale.
• 5:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: Without a second thought, he bought the doll, and when he got home, gifted it to his two-year-old sister, KKKOW.
• 5:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: The little girl loved the dough so much she decided to name it after herself, calling it okiku.
• 6:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: However, a year later Japan was overrun with Spanish flu, an infectious and deadly disease that resulted in many fatalities, including poor kiku ko.
• 6:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: The family buried her and put the dough in their family shrine, a common practice in many Japanese households to commemorate the dead.
• 6:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: The family would regularly pay their respects to the doll in honor of their daughter, but one day when he opened the shrine, I keyed she noticed something unbelievably strange.
• 6:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: When he bought the doll, it had a neat little shoulder-length bob haircut, but now the doll's hair was much longer.
• 6:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: It had grown into a shaggy mess that reached down to its knees.
• 6:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: Unable to explain what was happening, the family cut the dolls hair and placed it back in the shrine, but when they opened the shrine again, it's hair had grown back.
• 7:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: No matter how much they cut okku's hair, it wouldn't be long before required another terrifying trim.
• 7:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: unable to explain what was happening, the family soon began to believe that the spirit of their daughter was living inside the jaw.
• 7:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: In 1938 they made the difficult decision to move to another district, but they decided against taking a chaotic doll with them, as they feared that whatever fuel this hair growing magic relied on a close proximity to their daughter's grave.
• 7:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so, the family requested their local temple take care of the dog.
• 7:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: Okku is now housed in a private shrine and the meningi temple in Hokkaido, Japan.
• 7:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: Then Locke was claimed that Okku's hair continues to grow with the monks of the temple apparently still having to trim the dogs hair to this day.
• 7:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now I think it's important to note that during the first half of the 20th century many parts of Japan were pre-industrial and rural where folklore was rife.
• 8:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: Local legends were told of evil spirits and creatures harassing normal folk.
• 8:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: Endos in particular were regarded as powerful instruments of magic.
• 8:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: So, okay, who's growing hair may just be a local legend, but what's really freaky is that the hair has been tested and it was found to be real human hair.
• 8:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like this story wasn't freaky enough already.
• 8:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: was someone perhaps changing okku's hair out somehow?
• 8:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: And if so, why?
• 8:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now under the protection of the monks that serve the shrine with all photography of the doll presently prohibited, scientists may never be able to determine exactly where this hair is coming from, or if this tale is even real.
• 8:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: One thing's for sure though, don't mess with dolls.
• 8:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: Which of these dolls creeped you out the most?
• 8:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: If the platform allows, let me know in the comments and while you're at it when I'd follow my podcast and leave a five-star rating.
• 9:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'll done.
• 9:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: Great.
• 9:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now, let me introduce you to some other cursed objects that defy explanation.
• 9:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: Let's talk about the Busby Stop Chair, which looks like a pretty ordinary chair.
• 9:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, it's been permanently nailed to a wall purposefully out of reach of any butts that may accidentally sit on it.
• 9:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: But why?
• 9:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, Thomas Busby, after whom the chair was named, was actually a criminal who operated in North Yorkshire, England, back in 1702.
• 9:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: He ran a coin counterfitting business with his father-in-law flooding the market with
• 9:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: After an argument between the two got violent, Thomas ended up slaying his father-in-law.
• 9:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: There are several variations on what happens next, but one claims Thomas was drunk in his favorite end, setting his favorite old oak chair when officers came into arrest him.
• 9:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: The void they took him away, he blackly uttered, may sudden death come to anyone who dares sit in my chair.
• 10:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: Some very impactful last words indeed, as a lifeless body was exhibited on the Ghibit or Stoop that stood at the crossroads where the end was, which would later inspire its name change.
• 10:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: The villagers didn't think much of it at first, but then slowly they realized that those who chose to sit in the chair didn't live for much longer.
• 10:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: One of the most dramatic stories from 1894 concerned a chimney sweep, drinking at the end he decided to sit in Busby's chair and was found dead the following morning.
• 10:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: Soon after an apprentice challenged his coworker to tempt the chair's curse, a bet he
• 10:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: What's more, many of the young soldiers who sat in the chair before going off to a fight in World War II never returned from the battlefield.
• 10:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: It was only in the 1970s after a delivery driver sat in the chair and perished in a crash a few hours later that the landlord decided to be rid of the 300-year-old girls and donated the chair to the Thursk Museum.
• 11:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: Today it can be seen pinned to the wall eternally reserved for Thomas Busby and Will out of reach of anyone who might try to perch on it.
• 11:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now it's important to note that there have never been any official records linking the timeline of the victim sitting in the chair and their demise, it's practically all hearsay.
• 11:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: Moreover, a furniture expert believes on the basis of the design and would use that the chair in the museum was actually made in 1840, a hundred and thirty-eight years after Thomas Busby was executed.
• 11:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: So, the only definitive way to prove whether or not the Busby Stoop chair is cursed is to take a seat.
• 11:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: Unsurprisingly, no scientist has been bold enough to try.
• 11:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: Ever heard the phrase turned that frown upside down, while Japanese no-mas do that literally.
• 11:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: A no-mask is a traditional wooden mask used in Japanese theater, specially carved to represent either a smiling face or a frowning face, depending on the angle that the mask is viewed.
• 12:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: If you tilt your head upwards while wearing the mask, it appears more joyful or relieved.
• 12:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: But if the mask is tilted downwards, it will seem depressed or sad.
• 12:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: However, only train actors are allowed to wear these masks because a cursed legend haunts their very existence.
• 12:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: According to folklore dating back to the 14th century, no mask have the ability to absorb negative emotions such as anger, hostility, or jealousy.
• 12:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: The mask then creates its own evil identity, draining away the life force of the one wearing it.
• 12:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: The legend even states that the mask will remain on the person even after their body begins to rot.
• 12:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: It is to say the mask will possess the dead body to search for its next victim.
• 12:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: Though this is all just Japanese folklore, it's a legend scientist have never been able to riddle the truth out of.
• 13:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: So where did such a sinister curse even come from?
• 13:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: It might be linked down wearing a mask effects are behavior as being anonymous psychologically empowers people to do things they might not ordinarily do.
• 13:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: Just look at the internet for crying out loud.
• 13:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: But being anonymous and being a possessed husk of a human are two very different things.
• 13:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: Even so, one thing's for sure, these masks are 10 times scarier than the ones we're all used to wearing.
• 13:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: Next up, they say that diamonds are a girl's best friend, but it turns out black diamonds are a girl's waking nightmare.
• 13:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: Unlike colorless diamonds, natural black diamonds contain trace amounts of graphite within them, which give the stones a solid black coloring.
• 13:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: And there's perhaps no more stunning as specimen than the huge 67.5-carot black or lava diamond, although it was once even more stunning at a colossal 195-carot.
• 14:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: It was discovered in 19th century India, where it was stolen by a greedy Jesuit cleric
• 14:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: the Hindu god of creation.
• 14:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: The jewel is officially known as the Eye of Brahma, who apparently did not take Gali to his eye being stolen.
• 14:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: That can't a traffic curse followed in the wake of all those who came into contact with the Black Diamond.
• 14:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I for an eye, as they say.
• 14:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: First, the Black Diamond was smuggled into Russia and acquired by Princess Nadia Orlov,
• 14:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: However, it's said that after wearing the jewel prince is not yet suffered a broken heart and in her grief through herself out of a window.
• 14:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: The diamond linked to similar deaths of another Russian princess end of the diamond dealer J.W.
• 14:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: Paris who brought the black jewel to the U.S. in 1932.
• 15:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: It may not sound all that unusual but get this, all three deaths were caused by self-inflicted
• 15:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: Following the Diamond's western world tour, it left that trail of destruction akin to an assassin-skilled at making members of the upper class meet highly mysterious endings.
• 15:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: Its new owner then supposedly tried to break the curse by splitting the Diamond into three, before having one of the gems, what we now know as the Black Orlov, recut and set into a necklace, which sold for $352,000 back in 2006.
• 15:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: However, skepticism has been cast on this so-called curse.
• 15:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: In the case of Princess Nadia Orlov, she supposedly threw herself from the building in 1947, but record-state she actually passed in 1988 at the age of 90 from all age.
• 15:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: As for the records about the supposed second princess, none exist, at least none that researchers have found yet.
• 16:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, whether this is a case of incredible coincidence or a complete fabrication, then I don't think anyone's keen to wear that big black diamond anytime soon.
• 16:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: However, the Black Orlando isn't the only gem stolen from India with a curse set up on it.
• 16:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: This jewel is tellingly named the curse to Amethyst.
• 16:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: Sounds pretty apt until you learn it's actually a purple sapphire.
• 16:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: The legend of this stone begins back in 1857 when Calvaryman Colonel W. Ferris has said to have brought the Amethyst to England after it was stolen out of a sacred temple of Indra.
• 16:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: And just like the other stone stolen from an Indian temple, it soon took its revenge.
• 16:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: The Colonel's health rapidly deteriorated and he went bankrupt.
• 16:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: After his son inherited the stone, the exact same fate befell him.
• 16:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: Then in 1890, Edward Heron Allen received the stone and almost immediately he too was plagued by disasters.
• 17:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: He quickly re-gifted the stone to a friend who was a singer, but she suddenly lost her voice after
• 17:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: finally desperate to be rid of it Edward threw it into Regents Canal.
• 17:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yet three months later, this stone was rescued from the canal by a dredger who sold it to a dealer who recognized the gem and returned it to Edward.
• 17:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: He became so paranoid about the stone that he backed it away in seven boxes before locking it inside a bank safe.
• 17:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: Edward eventually declared the safe could only be opened three years after his death which happened in 1943.
• 17:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: The stone was then donated to the British Museum with a warning note for Madward listing its history of evil.
• 17:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: Today the stone remains locked up in the vault of the natural history museum in London, where it's forbidden to touch.
• 17:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now the rational part of me wants to believe this is nothing more than a string of incredible coincidence, but even the museum experts aren't taking their chances.
• 17:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: Maybe this curse is legit.
• 18:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: Either way, I don't think I'll be purchasing any giant super expensive gemstones from here on out.
• 18:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: Ah, yeah, like that was ever a risk.
• 18:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: We all want that one perfect Instagram selfie and it's super annoying when people photo bomb your perfect pose, but have you ever been photobound by a ghost before?
• 18:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: It may sound ridiculous, but ghosts have been appearing in photographs long before the first selfie was ever even taken.
• 18:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: In fact, the art of capturing ghosts on film called Spirit Photography can be traced all the way back to the 19th century.
• 18:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: In the 1860s American photographer William Mumbler appeared to capture an image of a very famous ghost, the deceased President Abraham Lincoln, who was stood behind his wife, Mary.
• 18:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: Following this, William's business boomed as he received a whole list of clients keen to make a paranormal connection with their loved ones.
• 18:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: But with huge popularity came the equally huge skeptics.
• 18:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: Most prominent among them was PT Barnum, the businessman who popularized the three-ranked circus who took William to court.
• 19:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: He judged William with exploiting grieving families by deliberately faking these ghost photos.
• 19:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: The crux moment of the trial came when a photograph was presented at PT Barnum with none other than the ghost of Abraham Lincoln.
• 19:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: Is the only Ghost Photograms I actually rely on one clever trick?
• 19:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: William would insert a previously prepared glass plate featuring an image of the deceased into the camera, and front of an unused glass plate that was used to capture an image of the client.
• 19:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: This double exposure technique then superimposed a ghostly image of the deceased onto the main photo, creating the spectral site.
• 19:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: This followed even creepier allegations that William had actually broken into his clients' houses to steal photos of their deceased relatives, while in other cases the supposed spirits featured in his photos were actually previously taken portraits of people still alive.
• 19:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: Despite the evidence mounted against him, William was acquitted a fraud, however he didn't escape the court of public opinion, and with his reputation ruined his business never recovered.
• 20:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: But even though Ghost appearing in old photographs has been thoroughly debunked, Ghostly Figures still keep appearing in iPhone photos today.
• 20:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: Does Apple have a secret streaming contract with the dead?
• 20:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, actually, it's due to the way smartphones take photos.
• 20:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: Unlike analog film, which capture an image in one flash, smartphones take photos and stages.
• 20:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: Just like a scanner moves over a piece of paper, the smartphones camera sensors need time to record all of the pictures information.
• 20:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: This is called image aliasing, and as a result, anything moving through the shot could appear distorted in the photo.
• 20:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: So this is a spooky mystery that scientists can solve.
• 20:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: What they can't figure out, though, is people's continuing belief in ghosts, despite all the evidence disproving their existence.
• 20:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: What about you?
• 20:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: Do you believe in ghosts?
• 21:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now, professional rivalries can lead to some damned dirty business no matter what industry they're in.
• 21:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: However, back in the 1890s, one professional rivalry within the Welsh architect community took a demonic turn.
• 21:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: It was at this time that St. Mary's Church in the City Center of Swansea decided to undertake some major renovations.
• 21:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: One local architect offered to take on the project, but he was turned down in favor of, ah, an outside car tractor.
• 21:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: Enraged by this snub, he began to plant a most devilish revenge.
• 21:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: He bought a row of kind of just next to the church, demolished them and built red brick oveses in their place before planting a three-foot tall carved sculpture of a devil-atoppet.
• 21:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: The vengeful architect reportedly cursed the church by saying, when your church is destroyed and burnt to the ground, my devil grew a main laughing.
• 21:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: Wow, who knew Edge Lord existed before Reddit?
• 21:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: The devil's statue became known as Old Nick, and he unblinkingly watched over the holy house day after day from his spot on the roof.
• 22:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then, a little over 50 years later during World War II, the Germans bombed Swansea.
• 22:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: The 72-hour bombardment damaged 11,000 buildings enraged 872 to the ground.
• 22:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: including St. Mary's Church, almost every structure in the city center was flattened, but the building with old Nick on top shockingly remained standing.
• 22:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: The architects' curse had come to pass in one of the most statistically unlikely ways possible, though eventually old Nick's building was decommissioned in 1962 in the statue mysteriously disappeared.
• 22:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: But with the devil's luck, Old Nick was later recovered in an English garage.
• 22:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: After a quick makeover, the sinister stone statue was put on watch in the Swancy Quadrant Shapping Center.
• 22:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: But giving his history, the locals felt uneasy with him unblinkingly watching them, and so he was relocated to the Swancy Museum in 2019.
• 23:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: Today, he can be found safely sat behind glass and out of the outline of any nearby churches.
• 23:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: Next up, Sesame Street is one of the most beloved children's programs in the world, with a little Muppet Elmo being an iconic main part of the show.
• 23:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: He quickly became a popular children's toy, but, back in 2008, one-two-year-old in Florida had an encounter with his Elmo doll that chilled his mother to the bone.
• 23:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: That day, Melissa Bowman was watching her son James Play with his Elmo news your name doll, a personalized plush talking electronic toy.
• 23:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: When suddenly the fuzzy doll blurted out, Kail James.
• 23:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: What's worse, the toddler then started parody the phrase.
• 23:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: doll and the toddler began repeating Kill James, Kill James, and a menacingly cultish chant.
• 23:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: Eventually, the doll's batteries ran out, but even when they were replaced Elmo continued to repeat in a sing-song voice, Kill James.
• 24:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: Had some kind of demon possessed Elmo, turning the toy into a bloodthirsty machine?
• 24:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: It turns out it might be even more sinister than that, as this particular Elmo doll can be programmed to repeat phrases and remember your child's name.
• 24:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: It seems impossible, but unless Elmo really was possessed, someone must have uttered the evil phrase to the doll for it to learn it in the first place.
• 24:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: Never thought I'd be rooting for the demonic possession explanation, but here we are!
• 24:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: Okay, just so you know, I'm putting myself on the line just by telling you guys about this next item.
• 24:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: This is what's known as the unlucky mummy, though technically it's not actually a mumaphide corpse, rather it's just a sarcophagus lid of an unknown high status Egyptian woman from around 900 BCE.
• 24:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: The artifact was found at the Eves in the late 1800s where it was donated to the British Museum.
• 24:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: But why the name?
• 25:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, record state that of the four Englishmen who initially bought it, two perished and suspicious accidents and two lost their fortune and perished in poverty.
• 25:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: It said this ancient artifact brought death illness and bankruptcy to any you came into contact with it, hence it's now very apt nickname.
• 25:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: But why?
• 25:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's plausibly because the unknown woman carved into the lid was actually a priestess of the powerful sun god, um, and raw.
• 25:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: She may have used powerful ceremonial magic to curse anyone who would dare to disturb her final resting place.
• 25:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: To be fair, I'd be pretty angry too if someone stole my coffin lid.
• 25:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: However, the most unbelievable part of this artifact story links it to one of the worst disasters in modern history, the sinking of the Titanic in 1912.
• 25:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: While it was an on-the-doomed cruise ship, one of the 1500 victims lost to the Titanic was journalist William Stead.
• 26:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: He was the very first to pin articles about the mommy's curse.
• 26:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: Survivors from the disaster recall why I'm telling stories of the unemis artifact over dinner, perhaps that alone was enough to tempt the faint of the mummy's misfortune.
• 26:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: It could just be any requisite answer more likely at total fallacy, because aside from the sunken journalist, there are no factual records like anyone's untimely demise to the coffin lid.
• 26:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: So it was more than likely just a ghost or it made up
• 26:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: like there's no curse after all.
• 26:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: Phew.
• 26:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: Which of these items creeped you out the most?
• 26:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: Thanks for... wait.
• 26:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: Who are you?
• 26:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: What are you doing in my- Oh, oh my god, it's here.
• 26:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's got for me.
• 26:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: Wait, no.
• 26:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm sorry.
• 26:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: I didn't think it was real.
• 26:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm so sorry.
• 26:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm so sorry.
• 26:56
  [UNKNOWN]: I'm so sorry.