TOP 15 SCARY CURSED OBJECTS THAT STILL EXIST
15. “Elmo Goes Insane”: “Kill James”
That’s what a talking Elmo doll began to say at random one day in Lithia, Florida. The mother was changing the batteries for her toddler’s toy when she noticed that it was saying her son’s name and instructing him to die. The “Elmo Knows Your Name” doll is supposed to plug into the computer, learn your child’s name and say “hi”.
It is definitely not supposed to learn the urge to kill. Fisher Price manufactures the dolls, and they can offer no explanation as to why this one Elmo doll is bent on wanting to kill James. They asked the family to return the doll so that it can be studied and better understood. By this point, young James had begun to repeat the phrase himself.
Number 14. “Apologizing to Australia”
Ayers Rock is a famous natural landmark in Australia that brings in 250 thousand visitors from around the world each year. It is also home to the native Aboriginal population, otherwise known as bushmen. Unfortunately, a lot of people want to disrespect the sacred site by taking a piece of rock back home with them. And when I say “unfortunately”, I mean for the tourists, and not for the local tribes. That’s because every year hundreds of apologetic tourists mail their stolen rock fragments back to Australia.
As their letters show, a large portion of them say they have been cursed with bad luck ever since they brought the souvenir back. Complaints of family deaths, divorces, and illnesses are the top three common side effects of removing the rocks from their natural habitat. By mailing the rocks back, cursed tourists hope they can reverse the damage that they have so foolishly brought upon themselves. Even though the natives tell them not to take the rocks in the first place, tourists have been ignoring them since the 1970s. Some people just have to learn the hard way.
13. “Curse of the Irish”
Australia is not the only place with cursed rocks. The Blarney Stone in Ireland is known to bring good luck to anyone who kisses it, but this logic does not apply to the rest of the castle. If you want to take a piece of the Blarney Castle home with you, you’ll get a curse instead. Much like Ayers Rock, regretful tourists often mail their stolen stone fragments back to Ireland with letters of apology explaining how they have been cursed.
One of these people is Linda Kelly from South Carolina. She explains that she bought a rock from Blarney Castle at a yard sale for $1. Its previous owner was a priest who had died alone and in misery. When she took the rock home, her life changed immediately, and not for the better. First, Kelly felt extremely depressed for no explainable reason at all. She also had employment problems right away even though she was usually excellent at her job.
Soon she started hanging around the house all the time and could not seem to even move. When she received a huge late notice in the mail for a bill she knew that she had already paid, she decided to mail the stolen piece of the Blarney Castle back to Ireland. She started to feel better right away and knew she made the right decision. Otherwise, Kelly was sure that she would have ended up like the unlucky priest before her.
12. “The Worst Phone Number in the World”
While this one is technically not a physical object, it is still cursed and brings bad luck to all who come across it. I’m talking about a mobile phone number that is so dangerous, nobody in the world will accept it. That’s because every single person who has been given this phone number (0888-888-888) has died. Vladimir Grashnov was the first to go in 2001.
This CEO of a Bulgarian company called Mobitel died of cancer when he was only 48. Next was a Bulgarian crime mafia boss named Konstantin Dimitrov . He was given the cursed number and killed by a hitman at a restaurant soon after. A cocaine drug lord named Konstantin Dishliev got the number next. He was shot outside of a restaurant immediately after. Police suspended the number for a bit to investigate, but the Bulgarian phone company decided to pull the number for good. It’s out of service for everyone’s safety.
11. “Cursed in China”
In 1974, a team of seven peasant farmers came across a priceless discovery in their small village of Yang. As they were working the earth, one of them spotted a tiny head sticking out of the ground. They could tell the object was extremely old and were afraid to touch it at first, but one of them wanted cigarette money so he broke a piece of it off to take back to town. That is where their troubles began.
The farmers told others about what they had found, and soon archaeologists came from all over to dig the relics out. In total, over 8 thousand miniature figures were recovered. These figures were made out of a clay-like substance called terracotta . This was a complete replica of the ancient Chinese army, and these figurines had been buried with the First Emperor of China to protect him in the afterlife.
They were more than 2 thousand years old and extremely valuable, but also quite cursed. The 7 peasants who found the terracotta army suffered horribly. Instead of making any money, their farmland was taken from them by the government and their homes were destroyed to make room for government gift shops and museum exhibits. Some of the peasants died at an early age, and the rest of them now sign books in the museum for next to no pay. Almost all of their village believes that this is payback for disturbing the great Emperor’s cursed army.
10. “Robert’s in the Attic”
If you have ever watched Chucky from the Child’s Play movies, then you should know about the actual doll that inspired him. This doll is named Robert, and instead of wearing overall suspenders and having long red hair, this doll sports a creepy sailor suit, black eyes and holes all over its face. The doll’s original owner was a young boy who was also named Robert, but went by the named of Gene instead because Eugene was his middle name.
Many people believe that the sailor suit Robert wears is a real one that Gene himself used to wear. Gene loved the doll so much that he absolutely refused to part with it even after becoming an adult. Instead, the doll went with him everywhere until he died in 1974. A woman named Myrtle Reuter soon bought the property and found Robert the doll still inside. Her 10-year-old daughter remembers that the doll was alive and she believes to this day that he constantly plotted to kill her.
She and other visitors recall hearing footsteps in the attic where Robert stayed along with giggling. He would also move to different areas of the house on his own. By 1994, Myrtle decided she had enough and donated Robert to a museum. You can view him in Key West, Florida for yourself if you ever feel like you need a new friend.
9. “King Tut Hates Your Pets”
King Tut was an Egyptian ruler who died at the age of 19. Although he did relatively little during his nine years as Pharaoh, his cursed tomb has made him immensely famous years after death. Here’s what happened. British explorers seem to love sticking their noses in the most haunted places in the world, and in 1891 Howard Carter figured he would continue the trend. He went to Egypt and poked around there for almost three decades until he finally came across Tut’s tomb in the early 1920s.
You would think that they opened the coffin and there Tut was, but that’s not exactly what happened. First, they opened the coffin and found a smaller coffin inside. Inside of that was an even smaller coffin, and inside of that was a third coffin that was made of gold. King Tut was inside. Lord Carnarvon accompanied Howard to the tomb and was responsible for funding the excavation.
All of his pets died and he himself died of a mosquito bite shortly thereafter. The technician who x-rayed King Tut died, a wealthy visitor who wanted to see the tomb died, and another member of Howard’s team is thought to have somehow died of arsenic poisoning. Howard himself did not die, but it is said that a cobra ate his pet canary on the same day that he found the tomb.
8.“Donna’s Doll”
Donna was turning 28 years old and going to school as a nursing student in the year 1970. Her mother got her a Raggedy Ann Doll to keep her company while she was away at college. It would soon prove to become the worst gift she had ever received. Donna and her roommate would come home to find the doll in different positions all around the house.
Sometimes its arms were folded and other times it was found learning against a chair. Sometimes the Raggedy Ann Doll would even be kneeling. If you’ve ever seen a Raggedy Ann Doll before, you’d know that it was impossible for Donna to put the doll in a kneeling position without it falling over, so they really had no idea what to make of this. Things only continued to get worse.
Somebody started leaving short messages around the house that said things like “Help us”. Her roommate’s fianc? claimed to have been attacked by the doll on two separate occasions. When Donna came home to find spots of blood on the doll’s hand and chest, she contacted a paranormal investigation team for answers. The two investigators, named Ed and Lorraine Warren, determined that the spirit of a young girl named Annabelle Higgins was to blame.
She had been killed and her body had been found in the exact same area where Donna now lived, except it was just a bare field back. Donna and her roommate gave Annabelle permission to live inside of the doll, and they gave it to the Warrens for safekeeping. The doll possessed by Annabelle is now in a paranormal museum owned by the Warrens, and she is still causing trouble.
According to them, one visitor in particular would not stop mocking Annabelle. He challenged her to bring him harm and she accepted. According to the Warrens, on his way home, the man hit a tree while riding his motorcycle and did not survive.
7. “The Salty Ghost”
There’s a haunted mansion in Newport, Rhode Island with two very haunted chairs. The Belcourt mansion was built in 1894 by Oliver Belcourt, who was just basically some rich guy who wanted a place to show off his huge collection of medieval stuff. Unfortunately, when you put a ton of old armor, books, and other antiques under the same roof, you sometimes wind up with a completely haunted estate.
That’s exactly what happened, and the place is now home to two old haunted salt chairs. If you are wondering what a salt chair is, it’s basically a chair that was made especially for the person who was sitting closest to the salt during meals. Salt used to be a precious resource a long time ago, and so sitting by the salt was a big enough deal that you got a special chair for it.
Apparently, whoever was in charge of the salt back then still lingers around the chairs to this day, and they don’t want to give up their position as head of the table. Visitors who sit in either the two salt chairs reportedly feel anxious, ill, or even like they are being electrocuted. One of the chairs even shot out a bolt of lightning in front of 70 witnesses, the mansion’s owner says.
Another time, a person was launched 6 feet across the room when they tried to sit down. Oftentimes, visitors who are brave enough to take a seat say that it feels like there is already somebody sitting there. There’s also a haunted helmet that screams on its own and a fixed mirror that casts a moving reflection, but we like the ghost who throws people on the floor most.
6. “The Iceman Cometh”
Otzi is the name of a prehistoric caveman who was preserved by the cold climate of the Italian Alps. Many scientists believe he was a shepherd who was murdered by other cavemen for his animal herd, which could be why his very body itself appears to be cursed and out for revenge. For whatever reason, he just can’t seem to stop killing almost everyone who disturbs him.
Otzi was discovered in 1991 by two German tourists. One of the tourists, a man named Helmut Simon, would later die in almost the exact same spot he made the discovery at years later in 2004. He fell to his death during a freak blizzard that no one had seen coming. He is far from alone.
The person in charge of the rescue team for Helmut seemed to be punished for interfering. He died of an unexpected heart attack by age 45 – just one hour after Helmut’s funeral. Otzi is believed to have claimed many other lives through accidents and mysterious illnesses. The first archaeologist who ever looked at Otzi died.
The head of the forensic team that examined Otzi died as well. The mountain climber who brought the forensic team to Otzi died. And as for the man who filmed Otzi while he was being removed from his grave . . . he lived. Just kidding. He died of brain cancer. Don’t mess with Otzi.
5. “The Hot Seat”
Daniel Awety was a 17th century English crook who liked to make counterfeit coins for a dishonest living. His illegal operation was going well until his partner in crime, a man named Thomas Busby, fell in love with his beautiful daughter, Elizabeth. This caused a riff to form between the two men, and in 1702, Thomas beat Daniel to death with the very same hammer that Daniel used to forge fake coins. Thomas was sentenced to death for his crime.
On his way to be hung, he asked to stop at the local pub for a drink. While sitting in his favorite chair, Thomas announces that this seat is officially cursed, and anyone who sits in it from this day forward will die most unpleasantly. People might have laughed it off at the time, but it seems that Thomas was not playing around. Local townsfolk say that Thomas’s curse has claimed the lives of 63 people since then, but only a small portion of them have been officially documented.
In 1967, two pilots from the Royal Air Force each sat in the chair, and they both died in a fatal car crash that same night. Years later, a brave mason decided to tempt fate and take a seat, and he, too, fell to his death that very afternoon. Other instances include a roofer who had a roof collapse from under him, a cleaning lady who soon died of a mysterious brain tumor, and a delivery man who died in a car crash just within one hour of sitting in the cursed chair. The chair is now suspended high up on a wall in a museum . . . just so nobody sits on Thomas’s favorite chair and activates Thomas’s favorite curse.
4. “The ‘Little Bastard’”
James Dean was a 1950s actor who was basically seen by many as the coolest person on earth at the time. His favorite car, however, is almost equally as famous as he was, but for completely different reasons. James Dean’s souped-up Porsche 550 Spyder was nicknamed “Little Bastard” because it looked like one mean car on the road. But even when it was off the road, it was still trouble.
When James Dean had the car in the shop to get it upgraded, for example, the car jumped off the trailer and broke the mechanic’s leg. One day Alec Guinness , who is the same guy that played Obi-Wan in the Star Wars movies, was hanging out with James Dean. He told Dean that he would be dead in that car within a week. Sure enough, Dean wrecked seven days later in a fatal accident.
But his car wasn’t through with humanity yet. The same mechanic who had his leg crushed later sold some of the parts from James Dean’s car. He sold the engine and drivetrain to two racecar drivers, and they each had two separate accidents in the same race. One overturned their vehicle and seriously injured themselves. The other hit a tree and died.
Both of “Little Bastard’s” tires were sold too, and they both blew out at the exact same time, nearly costing the driver their life. Then thieves broke into the mechanic’s garage one day to try and steal car parts. When they came across Dean’s car, they both seriously injured themselves. One managed to rip their arm wide open.
3. “No Hope for You”
The Hope Diamond is a huge 44-carat gemstone that was found in a seventeenth century mineshaft in India. According to legend, it was stolen from a group of priests who went on to put a curse on it to get their revenge. Ever since then, anyone who possesses the diamond, from historic figures of royalty to simple mailmen, has experienced great misfortune.
King Louis the 14th bought the gemstone and soon died of gangrene. All of his biological children also died except for one. One of his assistants wore the Hope Diamond for a special event. A little while later this assistant was exiled from the country. Louie the 16th was given the Hope Diamond and he supposedly let his wife wear it. She was the Queen of France, Marie Antoinette, who would later have her head chopped off during the French Revolution.
The list of people who died or were injured while owning the Hope Diamond goes on and on. A Dutch jeweler was killed by his son, a Greek dealer drove off a cliff and killed himself and his entire family, a rich woman had her entire family die off one by one, and even the poor deliveryman wasn’t spared. In 1958, James Todd dropped the Hope Diamond off at the Smithsonian Museum. By 1959, he had gotten into two different car accidents. One crushed his leg, and the other gave him a head injury. His wife died, his dog died, and half his house burned down.
2. “India’s Dark Secret”
The Hope Diamond is not the only cursed gem from India. The Delhi Purple Sapphire was first recovered from the Temple of Indra by British explorers in 1857. In the Hindu religion, Indra is the most powerful god of them all, and as everyone was to soon find out, also probably the last god you’d ever want to anger.
An Englishman named Colonel W. Ferris brought the gem back with him. Soon afterwards, everyone in his family had health issues and lost their money. When a family friend held onto the Delhi Purple Sapphire for a bit, they committed suicide. Over 30 years after its discovery, a writer named Edward Heron-Allen eventually acquired the gem.
He was not a superstitious man in the slightest, but after experiencing a rash of bad luck, he passed it onto his friends to see if the alleged curse would continue. One friend became extremely ill from a number of different health complications, and another friend who was a singer lost her voice forever. The gem seemed to go after a person’s very livelihood, taking away whatever they enjoyed in life the most.
By this point, Edward had seen enough of the gem’s destructiveness and threw it into a canal to rid himself of it once and for all. Imagine his surprise when a gemstone dealer showed him the same Delhi Purple Sapphire that he had thrown in the canal shortly thereafter. It had found its way back to him. Edward bought the gem on the spot, though exactly why is unclear. Maybe he wanted to keep other people safe from its curse.
Maybe he was accepting his fate. Either way, he eventually donated it to a museum because he was going to have a daughter and he wanted her nowhere near the thing. By the way, museum workers have suffered horrible health problems both times that the Sapphire has been transported.
1. “The Passion of the Curse”
In 2004, Mel Gibson directed The Passion of the Christ, a movie which reenacts the biblical events leading up to the crucifixion of Christ and his resurrection. The movie received a lot of criticism for its touchy subject matter, and some people believe that God Himself gave it two thumbs-down by cursing the entire set.
Mel Gibson chose Jim Caviezel to play Jesus Christ. During his role, all kinds of accidents happened to him. Jim got pneumonia, dislocated his shoulder, and even had a huge chunk of flesh taken out of him during the whipping scene. But then there’s the lightning, too.
While filming one scene, lightning struck Jim straight in the head. When an assistant named Jon Mikalini ran out to check on Jim, lightning struck him, too. Unbelievably, this was the third time that lightning had hit the set – Jon the assistant had been struck once before. During an interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network, Jim says that he knew lightning was going to hit him a full four seconds before he was struck. Something inside of him felt that it was coming.