Bell Witch

Video: Bell Witch

Video: Bell Witch
Video: Bell Witch - Mirror Reaper 2024, March
Bell Witch
Bell Witch
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Although these terrible events happened a very long time ago, at the beginning of the 19th century, in America there has still not been a ghost who could do more harm than the evil witch Bellov, who gained fame as the most famous ghost in the United States

- Dad, someone is walking under the window again, - looking around in fright, little Richard said to his father. John Bell, a wealthy Tennessee planter, turned on the light, took a sturdy club, and went out into the yard. Once again, he tried to catch and teach a wretch who had frightened his family for several nights. However, the yard was empty, and the old watchman swore that no one approached the house.

Rustles and creaks outside the windows have long worried John Bell: dark stories circulated in neighbors about vengeful slaves who killed their masters and their loved ones. Bell also had slaves on the cotton plantations, it was 1817, and human trafficking in the southern states of the United States was still commonplace. Could any of his slaves have contrived evil? He had already asked himself this question more than once, but he could not even suspect anyone: many of the slaves even loved him, because John was a zealous Christian and treated his servants in a human way.

It soon became clear that the slaves had nothing to do with it: strange sounds began to be heard already inside the house, but none of the outsiders were present. If only scratching sounds were heard, everything could be attributed to rats, but the roar of an invisible chain indicated that a real ghost had started up in the house.

* * *

For almost a year, the invisible creature had fun, frightening the large Bell family with a variety of sounds, but then it decided to move on to more tangible actions. Children began to wake up at night because someone invisible tore off the blankets from them. Somehow, the ghost decided to play his nasty joke with one of the Bells' guests, who stayed overnight with them. The blanket torn from him hung in the air, clearly outlining an invisible human figure. The guest turned out to be an awkward ten - shouting: "I caught a ghost!" - he pounced on the invisible man, grabbed him in an armful and tied the ends of the blanket.

The brave man wanted to burn the blanket along with the terrible contents in the hearth, but before he could take a few steps towards the fire, the room was filled with a terrible stench. The stench literally paralyzed the respiratory system; abandoning the ghost, the guest ran out of the room. When John and his guest, who ran up to the noise, decided to enter the room, the disgusting smell had already disappeared, and an apparently empty blanket lay on the floor. Needless to say, after this incident, the guests at the Bells tried not to linger.

The ghost did not like such an unceremonious treatment of him: after trying to burn him, it went on the offensive.

The first victims of the ghost were children. Terrible screams came from one or the other of the children's room. Someone invisible with terrible force dragged Richard, then Betsy by the hair. It was necessary to do something, and John decided to consult with his friend James Johnson, who was distinguished not only by enviable courage, but also by certain knowledge in the occult sciences.

By his arrival, the ghost seemed to begin to acquire a voice.

Johnson listened with great curiosity to the smacking lips, the hysterical cough of the invisible man and decided to try to talk to him. His attempt momentarily puzzled the apparition, but soon there was a seemingly contemptuous whistle in response.

Bell's friend did not abandon his attempts to establish a dialogue with the invisible, and then one day in response he heard a vague whisper. With each passing hour, the voice of the invisible man grew louder, and the words clearer. The worst thing is that the ghost spoke only in the presence of Betsy, as if drawing strength from the girl's energy. For the poor child, such a role as a kind of ghost relay was not easy: Betsy was dizzy, and she often fainted. It even reached trance-like states, lasting up to 40 minutes. When Betsy was absent or unconscious, the ghost was silent. It was even suspected that the girl was engaged in ventriloquism, but it was not possible to prove this.

* * *

What did the Bell family ghost say? At first, of course, they tried to find out from him whose spirit it was, but it was not possible to get an unambiguous answer to this question. The ghost sometimes said that it was the spirit of an unburied Indian woman, sometimes it was called the Black Dog, or it introduced itself as Kate Butt, whom everyone in the area considered a local sorceress.

Ultimately, the ghost was named the Bell witch. The planter and his family were left alone with a raging spirit, which clearly suffered from a split personality. The fact is that the ghost behaved very ambiguously: for all its evil antics, it could sometimes do good deeds. Especially interesting are the cases when it saved the life of John's youngest son, who fell under a sand slide. The child was already losing consciousness when he heard an encouraging voice nearby, and invisible hands literally pulled him out of the sand.

The ghost had a particular weakness for Lucy, Bell's wife. When she organized a Bible study and gathered with her friends in the house, the spirit treated them to fruit, which materialized right out of thin air and fell to the shocked women on their knees. During Lucy's illness, the invisible man brought her nuts and even cracked them at her request. A real surprise was the basket of exotic fruits for the birthday of one of the children, which, according to the spirit, he brought to the table directly from India.

However, such pleasant surprises from a ghost were extremely rare, much more often the spirit committed various mischief. Especially the Bell witch liked to give family members heavy slaps in the face. The effect of surprise, of course, was complete: it used to be John walking around the house, and suddenly his head twitched from a blow, and a red palm print appeared on his cheek … Even the guests got sick of the spirit, but poor Betsy got most of the beatings. They even tried to take her away from home for a while, but when visiting a friend, she continued to get slapped regularly. It is curious that at the same time, the invisible man continued to do his dirty tricks in the Bells' house.

Most of all, the wealthy planter was furious with the witch for upsetting Betsy's engagement. The ghost at the guests let go of such dirty words about the girl and her fiancé that Betsy ran away in tears and locked herself in her room. Immediately after this incident, John saw a whitish transparent silhouette in the corner of the living room, the planter grabbed a saber and shouted: "I will destroy you, devil of hell!" - rushed to hit the ghost. Of course, he did not do any harm to the spirit, but he made him very angry.

The witch began to take revenge on the owner of the house. At first, it was as if a stick was stuck in John's mouth: his jaw and tongue were stiff to such an extent that he could neither eat nor speak. The planter's face twitched with convulsions that caused terrible grimaces. In 1820, while walking with her son, the witch took off his shoes several times, the weakened John, who, in addition, received a strong slap from the spirit, sat down on a fallen tree and wept. The witch still broke the will of this strong and self-confident person.

Soon after this incident, John fell into a coma. It turned out that the witch had changed his medicine bottle for a bottle of some suspicious liquid, which he apparently took. The commotion of the household was aggravated by the statement of the spirit that the elder Bell was no longer a tenant in this world. The arriving doctor decided to test the "medicine" of the witch from a bottle on a cat that turned up under his arm, and she died immediately. It became clear that old Bell would not last long, a few hours later the planter died. The cursed witch took revenge on the owner of the house.

Even after death, the ghost mocked poor John to his heart's content. During the funeral, the heart-rending screams of the witch, then her bold songs were heard. It is not known whether the elder Bell stood up for his family in the next world or entered into an invisible battle with this evil spirits, but a few months later, when one day the whole family settled at the dinner table, a terrible roar was heard, a cannonball fell into the fireplace and immediately exploded. After such a "spectacular" introduction, the voice of a witch was heard: "I'm leaving, wait for me in seven years."

Of course, when this period passed, Lucy and her two sons, who from the whole family stayed in the house, did not feel at ease. The witch kept her word, seven years later suspicious sounds began to be heard in the house, and the invisible man pulled blankets from the sleeping people. But either the witch lacked Betsy's presence, or was struck by the indifference of the household, who agreed among themselves not to pay any attention to the spirit, this time the ghost disappeared, not staying in the house for two weeks. True, a couple of times in 1828 it visited the house of John Bell Jr., threatening him to return after 107 years … Such a promise from the witch, most likely, did not frighten the Bells, hardly any of them intended to live that long.

* * *

Although this mysterious and tragic story happened a long time ago, researchers of anomalous phenomena are still arguing about this mysterious case. The fact is that the Bell witch case had too many witnesses to be a hoax or fiction. Richard, the son of John Bell, even wrote a book about the tyranny of the ghost called Our Family Troubles. Some consider this case a classic manifestation of a poltergeist, others see it as a riot of devilish forces, others even insist on the hypothesis of a mass hallucination … Well, a hallucination lasting several years … There is something in this, isn't it? Some suspect that John Bell was poisoned not by an invisible witch, but by some insidious killer. Whether it is true or not, it is no longer possible for us to find out.

Vitaly GOLUBEV

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