Sarah Winchester consulted a medium in order to seek solace after her husband’s death. This medium, known as the “Boston Medium” told her that thousands of spirits were angry with her and her husband because of the rifles they built to kill them. The medium then instructed her to move west to build a house for these spirits to live in.

“You can never stop building the house. If you continue building, you will live. Stop and you will die.”

Sarah moved to San Jose, California in 1884 and bought a six-bedroom house. She kept a crew of construction workers busy twenty-four hours a day, every day for the next thirty-eight years. By the time she died in 1922, the Winchester Mystery House had grown to approximately 160 rooms. She had succeeded in building a colossal maze in which to confuse the angry spirits that she believed were hunting her. Rumor had it that she slept in a different room every night to avoid capture.

Today, The Winchester Mystery House is one San Jose’s most popular tourist attractions. Most of the people come to take a tour of the old house and listen to the tour guide tell stories about Sarah Winchester and her strange house. Both employees and tourists have experienced strange things while walking through the rooms and corridors, such as the sounds of footsteps and cold spots. Dozens of psychics have claimed that they have seen sightings of Sarah’s ghost, among others, over the years.

Whether the house is haunted or not, it is definitely a sight worth seeing.

Photo Courtesy of Winchester Mystery House
The Winchester House

In Austrian folklore, Krampus was a devil-like figure who appeared alongside Santa during the feast of St. Nicholas, to drive away evil spirits. The duo is still part of the festivities in many parts of central Europe.

Boisterous young men wearing deer horns, masks with battery-powered red eyes, huge fangs, bushy coats of sheep’s fur, and brandishing birchwood rods storm down the streets, confronting spectators gathered to watch the medieval spectacle, which is also staged in parts of nearby Hungary, Croatia and Germany’s Bavaria state.

Anyone who doesn’t dodge or run away fast enough might get swatted — although not hard — with the rod.

Last week, Santa and Krampus received some negative publicity when they were banned from visiting kindergartens in Vienna for scaring some children. Because of this, a prominent Austrian child psychiatrist, Max Friedrich, is aiming to ban Krampus on the basis that the world is filled with enough aggression and violence.

While I agree with him on that issue, I feel that he is promoting hysteria over the few who have suffered “Krampus Trauma.” The answer to this problem is to teach these people how to confront and deal with this fear.

Of course there are those who have taken the Krampus tradition a bit too far, especially after they’ve downed a few beers. In Tyrol, the Krampus actors are required to wear a number to enable law enforcement to weed out and punish the troublemakers.

Source: Reuters

Looking at this photo you would never know that this place is filled with tragedy and mystery. The Menengai Crater is one of the largest calderas of the world and the largest of Kenya. There are many versions about the origin and the meaning of the name, “Menengai.” One of the more popular definitions is “the place of the dead corpses,” as many people have died there.

During the 19th century, war broke out between the Maasai unity and various rival clans over cattle and grazing grounds. In one battle, the Ilaikipiak warriors were thrown into the calderas. Recently, a woman fell to her death while trying to rescue her 12 year-old son, who was trapped inside a ravine.

The locals claim that the crater is under the control of evil spirits and have since named it “kirima kia ngoma” (where the devils live). Strange things happen to people who visit the crater and its cave. Many were reported to have disappeared, only to turn up hours later, not knowing how they got lost. One of them was a man who had known the area for a long time. Some people go in there and are never seen again.

Pilgrims flock to the site to pray, despite the crater’s reputation. Mr. Paul Walingo from Kakamega spent two weeks in the cave, fasting and praying, without incident. He does not believe the tales of the locals about ghosts and demons.

Simon Kamenju, on the other hand, believes that they are real. According to him, the ghosts capture people who attempt to destroy the crater’s fauna and hide them in the underworld. “Some of those who wander, do so after harvesting firewood inside the cave. But as soon as they drop the firewood, they find their way back.”

The latest mystery involves a “flying umbrella” that appears to shield the crater whenever it rains, only to disappear after the storm subsides. No one knows where this alleged umbrella goes, although I think it would be hard to miss since the crater measures 8-10 kilometers.

Source: allAfrica.com

For reasons unknown, dolls seem to attract spirits. More troubling, dolls seem to become easily imbued with the spirit of the child to whom it most closely connected. And there is ample evidence to at least provoke suspicion that some dolls stay connected via this childhood link for years, even generations after their childhood playmate has grown to adulthood or succumbed to early death.

Other dolls are created for the enjoyment of the collector, and although they are never “played with” in the traditional sense they still can become objects of devotion and even obsession. Any avid doll collector will tell you that it can be hard to pass up the opportunity to purchase or obtain a beautiful, desirable doll. These dolls are no less loved and the emotional connection is no less intense; often these collectible dolls are the objects of the most terrifying haunted events.

Author Anne Rice is one collector of such magnificent dolls and they can be seen on display at her Doll Museum in New Orleans. Once the site of the St. Elizabeth’s Orphanage, the building now houses Rice’s vast collection and other artistic works. It is interesting to note, however, that Rice once stated that she moved her doll collection to the centralized museum location because it basically bothered her to have them around her house. Prior to the opening of the museum, when she and husband Stan Rice were making one last walk-through, Rice is quoted as having said she “wouldn’t like to be locked in here all night with all of them [the dolls].” Not only are most of the dolls allegedly haunted, they are now housed in a verifiably haunted location.

One of my aunts has always had a strong aversion to dolls, stating that they “creeped her out.” Out of all the dolls on the market, the ones she liked the least were the ones whose eyelids would open and close. I thought this was a simple phobia, much like the phobias of heights or spiders.

Over the course of my life, I’ve watched several horror movies where a child’s dolls or toys would spring to life after their owners met a violent death. These playthings would exact their revenge against the killer in a gruesome and/or creepy way. Possessed dolls were a product of fiction, I’d always thought until I started reading true stories about such things.

One such story is called Robert the Haunted Doll, which is about the doll of a wealthy and eccentric painter named Robert Eugene (called Gene) Otto. Apparently, this doll, named Robert, could move around on its own, glare at passing children from the turret window, and spark dark and violent mood swings in its owner.

You’ll find this story in the above link, along with other creepy tales of haunted dolls.