Speaker 1: Welcome to Unexplained Extra with me Richard McClane Smith, where
Speaker 1: for the weeks in between episodes, we look at stories
Speaker 1: and ideas that, for one reason or other, didn't make
Speaker 1: it into the previous show. In last week's episode, Somewhere
Speaker 1: to See, one family in Savannah, Georgia got a little
Speaker 1: more than they bargained for after they bought an antique
Speaker 1: bed and, according to them, simultaneously acquired the ghost of
Speaker 1: a young boy who was attached to it. It certainly
Speaker 1: stands to reason that should you believe in such things,
Speaker 1: a bed would be such a fertile receptacle. After all,
Speaker 1: since we each spend on average roughly a third of
Speaker 1: our lifetimes asleep, if we were going to leave some
Speaker 1: ghostly residue of ourselves anywhere, it would most likely be
Speaker 1: our beds. In fact, I came across so many haunted
Speaker 1: bed stories when researching the episode, I was a little
Speaker 1: spoiled for choice in deciding exactly which one to cover.
Speaker 1: One story printed in the Charlotte Observer of North Carolina
Speaker 1: back in nineteen twenty seven, was especially chilling, as recounted
Speaker 1: to the writer Arthur Conan Doyle, who later recorded it
Speaker 1: for posterity. The story involved a woman named Anne Eden,
Speaker 1: a friend of Conan Doyle's, who'd been visiting her sister
Speaker 1: at her country estate in the north of England when
Speaker 1: it began. After a long night of partying, Anne was
Speaker 1: taking her breakfast in bed the following morning when she
Speaker 1: sensed someone else in the bed with her. Turning round,
Speaker 1: she was horrified to see the ghostly head of a large,
Speaker 1: burly man appear suddenly on the pillow next to her,
Speaker 1: only for it to vanish moments later. It was some
Speaker 1: years after that, when visiting her sister again, that she
Speaker 1: found herself back in the same bed for the night.
Speaker 1: Anne was just on the precipice of sleep when a
Speaker 1: terrible clattering drew her attention to a half opened window
Speaker 1: through which a huge, shapeless body appeared to be crawling.
Speaker 1: Paralyzed with fear, she could only watch as the thing
Speaker 1: slithered onto the floor and proceeded to drag itself painfully
Speaker 1: on all fours toward the bed, before flinging itself down
Speaker 1: next to her. It was only later that she found
Speaker 1: out the bed that had been bought at a fire
Speaker 1: sail had once belonged to a deeply troubled man, much
Speaker 1: loathed by local residents. The man was said to have
Speaker 1: kept a terrifying and drunken rain over his servants, and
Speaker 1: had eventually succumbed to a form of drunken delirium, dying
Speaker 1: alone in that same bed in a hallucinatory, tortured fit
Speaker 1: of specter. Haunted mania, The idea of an object harboring
Speaker 1: ghosts or some residue of those who have come into
Speaker 1: contact with it in the past is a common one
Speaker 1: found in most cultures throughout the world. Though objects of
Speaker 1: any age can be considered haunted, it certainly helps to
Speaker 1: spied the imagination if they are a little more on
Speaker 1: the ancient side, as a number of staff working at
Speaker 1: the British Museum in London have testified footsteps echoed down
Speaker 1: the cavernous corridor. As the security guard continued on his rounds.
Speaker 1: Stepping down into the basement, he eventually found himself staring
Speaker 1: at a peculiar and terrifying looking ornament made of a
Speaker 1: dark stained wood. It comprised two dogs, as if standing
Speaker 1: back to back from the waist, with four legs and
Speaker 1: two heads, each bearing an impressive array of sharp teeth
Speaker 1: all over its body. Was covered in nails and sharp
Speaker 1: iron blades that had long ago been hammered into its skin.
Speaker 1: The piece, made at some point in the nineteenth century.
Speaker 1: In the Congo region of Africa, is what's known as
Speaker 1: a fetish, a protect dive magical figure often used to
Speaker 1: cure illness or ward off an evil spirit or in
Speaker 1: the case of this type of fetish known as an enchisi,
Speaker 1: it was also used to hunt down and punish adversaries.
Speaker 1: In some Congo cultures, an encisi was one of the
Speaker 1: many tools of the nganga, ritual specialists who would be
Speaker 1: called on by individuals and communities to assist in dealing
Speaker 1: with the many elements of life that were otherwise beyond
Speaker 1: their control. Encissi were often given the form of dogs
Speaker 1: due to their association with death. Since the community's dogs
Speaker 1: were often buried away from the village, they gained the
Speaker 1: status of a creature that could mediate between the living
Speaker 1: and the dead. When the nganga was called on to
Speaker 1: cast a spell, they would concoct the requisite medicine, binding
Speaker 1: it in resin before rubbing it into the back of
Speaker 1: the encisi. Each invocation would then be sealed with the
Speaker 1: hammering of a nail or blade into the totem's body.
Speaker 1: That they were close to a hundred or so blades
Speaker 1: and nails in the piece the security guard was now
Speaker 1: staring at would suggest to some at least that this
Speaker 1: was a piece imbued with no small amount of dark
Speaker 1: retributive magic. All of that was unknown to the guard, however,
Speaker 1: as he stood before it alone at night in the
Speaker 1: bows of the British Museum, feeling suddenly overwhelmed with the
Speaker 1: unmistakable sense that this peculiar, nail riddled sculpture was possessed
Speaker 1: by a deep mystical power. Just then he was gripped
Speaker 1: by the strange, irresistible urge to raise up his hand
Speaker 1: and point directly at it. But as he did at
Speaker 1: that precise moment, the frantic blare of the museum's fire
Speaker 1: alarm burst inexplicably into life, startling the guard and releasing
Speaker 1: him suddenly from his peculiar reverie. Over the next few days,
Speaker 1: clearly some thing of the ornament had got under the
Speaker 1: guard's skin. Unable to shape the feeling that he'd somehow
Speaker 1: connected with something in the object, the guard invited his
Speaker 1: brother to see it a few nights later. Sure enough,
Speaker 1: he too found himself gripped by the sudden urge to
Speaker 1: raise his arm and point toward it, And in that moment,
Speaker 1: once again, the museum fire alarms burst inexplicably into life.
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Speaker 1: Survive the Curse of the Blair Witch. The story of
Speaker 1: the Inkys was detailed in an Apri twenty article in
Speaker 1: The Economist titled Our Ghosts Haunting the British Museum. The article,
Speaker 1: written by Killian Fox, recounted a series of stories as
Speaker 1: told to artist and storyteller Noah Angel, who'd collected over
Speaker 1: fifty different accounts of strange goings on at the museum
Speaker 1: since twenty sixteen. Perhaps one of the more compelling was
Speaker 1: that told by another security guard who'd been locking down
Speaker 1: the Sutton Who Gallery at the time. The gallery contains
Speaker 1: articles found buried in the ground at Sutton Who in
Speaker 1: Suffolk in the southeast of England, the site of a
Speaker 1: series of Anglo Saxon burial mounds, including one thought to
Speaker 1: be that of King Radwald of East Anglia, buried within
Speaker 1: a ship surrounded by treasure to take to the next world.
Speaker 1: The centerpiece of the exhibition is the Sutton who Helmet,
Speaker 1: dated to round six hundred CE. It sits prominently perched
Speaker 1: on a small pole in the middle of the gallery,
Speaker 1: staring back at visitors through a pair of black, hollowed
Speaker 1: eyes where once other eyes had been. After inspecting the area,
Speaker 1: the guard pulled shut the room's large wooden doors and
Speaker 1: bolted them securely to the floor before continuing on his rounds.
Speaker 1: So it was with some surprise when the voice of
Speaker 1: the museum's Cecy TV operator burst out of his walkie
Speaker 1: talkie moments later. The doors, it appeared, were now open again.
Speaker 1: When footage of the gallery was reviewed afterwards, it showed
Speaker 1: the doors appearing to open of their own volition, shortly
Speaker 1: after the guard had locked them down. Another story involved
Speaker 1: orbs of white light seen moving about on Cecy TV
Speaker 1: in the early hours of the morning at the top
Speaker 1: of a staircase in the museum's main hall. Staff on
Speaker 1: duty at the time speculated that perhaps they had something
Speaker 1: to do with a newly installed exhibition that included a
Speaker 1: wrought iron gate that had once stood at the front
Speaker 1: of the infamous Boukenvald concentration camp. The orbs were said
Speaker 1: to have appeared in the same place every night until
Speaker 1: the exhibition and the gates departed. Regardless of what you believe,
Speaker 1: it isn't hard to sympathize with the notion that ancient
Speaker 1: historical objects might retain some kind of residual power or
Speaker 1: presence of the past. That so many stories would spring
Speaker 1: up from within the vast halls and corridors of the
Speaker 1: British Museum is perhaps even less surprising, given not only
Speaker 1: the array of items kept inside around eight million in total,
Speaker 1: but also the dubious manner in which many of them
Speaker 1: were procured. Located on Great Russell Street in London and
Speaker 1: first opened in seventeen fifty nine, the museum as widely
Speaker 1: regarded to be among the finest collections of historical relics
Speaker 1: and antiquities in the world. In recent years, however, the
Speaker 1: museum's function has come under increasing scrutiny. From the vast
Speaker 1: and ancient stone headed sculptures of the Assyrian Galleries to
Speaker 1: the Elizabethans scrying mirror that once belonged to John Dee
Speaker 1: to the more than six thousand human remains that are
Speaker 1: kept there, Each and every piece could be considered to
Speaker 1: carry something of the peoples and cultures from which they originated,
Speaker 1: and though not every piece was acquired under questionable circumstances,
Speaker 1: certainly for many of them, often plundered and stolen during
Speaker 1: colonial times or in the aftermath of war, or traded
Speaker 1: unilaterally by people who never quite owned them in the
Speaker 1: first place. Most famously in the case of the Elgin Marbles,
Speaker 1: there are compelling arguments to suggest they are not where
Speaker 1: they belong, As no Angle suggested, perhaps what the museum's
Speaker 1: staff have been experiencing is not just a result of
Speaker 1: spirits trapped within these objects, but that the objects themselves
Speaker 1: are restless to return to their rightful place. If you
Speaker 1: enjoy Unexplained and would like to help supporters, you can
Speaker 1: now do so via Patreon. To receive access to add
Speaker 1: three episodes, just go to patron dot com, forward Slash
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Speaker 1: how large or small, are greatly appreciated. Unexplained, the book
Speaker 1: and audiobook, featuring ten stories that have never before been
Speaker 1: covered on the show, is now available to buy worldwide.
Speaker 1: You can purchase through Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Waterstones,
Speaker 1: among other bookstores. All elements of Unexplained, including the show's music,
Speaker 1: are produced by me Richard McClain smith. Please subscribe and
Speaker 1: rate the show wherever you listen to podcasts, and feel
Speaker 1: free to get in touch with any thoughts or ideas
Speaker 1: regarding the stories you've heard on the show. Perhaps you
Speaker 1: have an explanation of your own you'd like to share.
Speaker 1: You can reach us online at Unexplained podcast dot com
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