0:10

Welcome to Unexplained Extra with me

0:12

Richard McClane Smith, where for the weeks

0:14

in between episodes, we look at stories and ideas

0:17

that, for one reason or other, didn't make it into

0:19

the previous show. In last week's

0:21

episode, Somewhere to See,

0:23

one family in Savannah, Georgia got

0:26

a little more than they bargained for after

0:28

they bought an antique bed and,

0:30

according to them, simultaneously

0:32

acquired the ghost of a young boy who

0:34

was attached to it.

0:36

It certainly stands to reason that should

0:39

you believe in such things, a bed would

0:41

be such a fertile receptacle. After

0:44

all, since we each spend on average

0:46

roughly a third of our lifetimes asleep,

0:49

if we were going to leave some ghostly residue

0:51

of ourselves anywhere, it would most

0:53

likely be our beds. In

0:56

fact, I came across so many haunted

0:58

bed stories when researching the episode,

1:00

I was a little spoiled for choice in deciding

1:03

exactly which one to cover. One

1:05

story printed in the Charlotte Observer

1:08

of North Carolina back in nineteen

1:10

twenty seven, was especially chilling,

1:13

as recounted to the writer Arthur Conan

1:15

Doyle, who later recorded it for posterity.

1:18

The story involved a woman named Anne

1:21

Eden, a friend of Conan Doyle's,

1:23

who'd been visiting her sister at her country

1:25

estate in the north of England when it began.

1:28

After a long night of partying, Anne

1:30

was taking her breakfast in bed the following morning

1:33

when she sensed someone else in the bed

1:35

with her. Turning round,

1:38

she was horrified to see the ghostly head

1:40

of a large, burly man appear suddenly

1:42

on the pillow next to her, only for

1:44

it to vanish moments later. It

1:48

was some years after that, when visiting her

1:50

sister again, that she found herself

1:52

back in the same bed for the night. Anne

1:55

was just on the precipice of sleep when

1:57

a terrible clattering drew her attention

2:00

to a half opened window through which

2:02

a huge, shapeless body appeared

2:05

to be crawling. Paralyzed

2:07

with fear, she could only watch as

2:09

the thing slithered onto the floor and

2:12

proceeded to drag itself painfully

2:14

on all fours toward the bed, before

2:16

flinging itself down next to her. It

2:19

was only later that she found out the bed

2:22

that had been bought at a fire sail had

2:24

once belonged to a deeply troubled man,

2:27

much loathed by local residents. The

2:29

man was said to have kept a terrifying and

2:31

drunken rain over his servants, and

2:34

had eventually succumbed to a form of drunken

2:36

delirium, dying alone in that

2:38

same bed in a hallucinatory,

2:41

tortured fit of specter. Haunted

2:43

mania, The

2:45

idea of an object harboring ghosts

2:48

or some residue of those who have come into

2:50

contact with it in the past is

2:52

a common one found in most cultures

2:54

throughout the world. Though

2:56

objects of any age can be considered haunted,

2:58

it certainly helps to spied the imagination

3:01

if they are a little more on the ancient side,

3:04

as a number of staff working at the

3:06

British Museum in London have testified

3:15

footsteps echoed down the cavernous

3:18

corridor. As the security guard continued

3:20

on his rounds. Stepping

3:23

down into the basement, he eventually

3:25

found himself staring at a peculiar

3:27

and terrifying looking ornament made

3:30

of a dark stained wood. It

3:33

comprised two dogs, as if standing

3:35

back to back from the waist, with four

3:37

legs and two heads, each bearing

3:39

an impressive array of sharp teeth

3:43

all over its body. Was covered

3:45

in nails and sharp iron blades

3:47

that had long ago been hammered into its

3:49

skin. The

3:52

piece, made at some point in the

3:54

nineteenth century. In the Congo region

3:56

of Africa, is what's known as a fetish,

3:59

a protect dive magical figure often

4:02

used to cure illness or ward off an evil

4:04

spirit or in the case

4:06

of this type of fetish known as an

4:08

enchisi, it was also used to

4:11

hunt down and punish adversaries.

4:14

In some Congo cultures, an encisi

4:17

was one of the many tools of the nganga, ritual

4:20

specialists who would be called on by

4:22

individuals and communities to assist

4:25

in dealing with the many elements of life that

4:27

were otherwise beyond their control. Encissi

4:30

were often given the form of dogs due

4:33

to their association with death. Since

4:35

the community's dogs were often buried away

4:37

from the village, they gained the status

4:39

of a creature that could mediate between

4:42

the living and the dead. When

4:44

the nganga was called on to cast a

4:46

spell, they would concoct the requisite

4:48

medicine, binding it in resin before

4:51

rubbing it into the back of the encisi. Each

4:54

invocation would then be sealed

4:56

with the hammering of a nail or blade

4:58

into the totem's body. That

5:01

they were close to a hundred or so blades

5:03

and nails in the piece the security

5:05

guard was now staring at would suggest

5:07

to some at least that this was a piece

5:10

imbued with no small amount of dark

5:12

retributive magic. All

5:16

of that was unknown to the guard, however, as

5:18

he stood before it alone at night

5:21

in the bows of the British Museum, feeling

5:23

suddenly overwhelmed with the unmistakable

5:26

sense that this peculiar, nail

5:28

riddled sculpture was possessed

5:30

by a deep mystical power.

5:34

Just then he was gripped by

5:36

the strange, irresistible urge to

5:38

raise up his hand and point directly

5:41

at it. But as he did

5:43

at that precise moment, the

5:45

frantic blare of the museum's fire alarm

5:48

burst inexplicably into life, startling

5:51

the guard and releasing him suddenly

5:53

from his peculiar reverie.

5:57

Over the next few days, clearly

5:59

some thing of the ornament had got under the

6:01

guard's skin. Unable

6:03

to shape the feeling that he'd somehow connected

6:06

with something in the object, the guard

6:08

invited his brother to see it a few nights

6:10

later. Sure enough,

6:13

he too found himself gripped by

6:15

the sudden urge to raise his arm

6:17

and point toward it, And

6:20

in that moment, once again, the

6:22

museum fire alarms burst inexplicably

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Will you Survive the Curse of the

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Blair Witch. The

7:57

story of the Inkys was detailed

7:59

in an Apri twenty article in

8:01

The Economist titled Our Ghosts

8:04

Haunting the British Museum.

8:06

The article, written by Killian Fox,

8:09

recounted a series of stories as

8:11

told to artist and storyteller Noah

8:14

Angel, who'd collected over fifty

8:16

different accounts of strange goings on

8:18

at the museum since twenty sixteen.

8:22

Perhaps one of the more compelling was that

8:24

told by another security guard who'd

8:26

been locking down the Sutton Who Gallery at the

8:28

time. The gallery

8:30

contains articles found buried in the ground

8:33

at Sutton Who in Suffolk in

8:35

the southeast of England, the site

8:37

of a series of Anglo Saxon burial

8:39

mounds, including one thought to be

8:42

that of King Radwald of East Anglia,

8:44

buried within a ship surrounded by

8:46

treasure to take to the next world. The

8:50

centerpiece of the exhibition is the Sutton

8:52

who Helmet, dated to round

8:54

six hundred CE. It sits prominently

8:57

perched on a small pole in the middle of

8:59

the gallery, staring back at visitors

9:01

through a pair of black, hollowed eyes

9:04

where once other eyes had been.

9:07

After inspecting the area, the guard

9:10

pulled shut the room's large wooden doors

9:12

and bolted them securely to the floor before

9:15

continuing on his rounds. So

9:18

it was with some surprise when the voice

9:20

of the museum's Cecy TV operator

9:23

burst out of his walkie talkie moments

9:25

later. The doors,

9:27

it appeared, were now open again.

9:30

When footage of the gallery was reviewed afterwards,

9:33

it showed the doors appearing to open of

9:35

their own volition, shortly after the

9:37

guard had locked them down. Another

9:41

story involved orbs of white light seen

9:43

moving about on Cecy TV in

9:45

the early hours of the morning at the top

9:48

of a staircase in the museum's main

9:50

hall. Staff on duty

9:52

at the time speculated that perhaps

9:54

they had something to do with a newly installed

9:57

exhibition that included a wrought

9:59

iron gate that had once stood

10:01

at the front of the infamous Boukenvald

10:03

concentration camp. The

10:05

orbs were said to have appeared in the same place

10:07

every night until the exhibition

10:10

and the gates departed. Regardless

10:20

of what you believe, it isn't hard

10:22

to sympathize with the notion that ancient

10:24

historical objects might retain some

10:26

kind of residual power or presence

10:28

of the past. That so

10:30

many stories would spring up from within the

10:33

vast halls and corridors of the British Museum

10:35

is perhaps even less surprising, given

10:37

not only the array of items kept inside

10:40

around eight million in total, but

10:43

also the dubious manner in which many

10:45

of them were procured. Located

10:48

on Great Russell Street in London and

10:50

first opened in seventeen fifty nine,

10:53

the museum as widely regarded to be among

10:55

the finest collections of historical

10:57

relics and antiquities in the world. In

11:00

recent years, however, the museum's

11:02

function has come under increasing scrutiny.

11:05

From the vast and ancient stone headed

11:08

sculptures of the Assyrian Galleries to

11:10

the Elizabethans scrying mirror that once

11:12

belonged to John Dee to the more

11:15

than six thousand human remains

11:17

that are kept there, Each and every

11:19

piece could be considered to carry something

11:21

of the peoples and cultures from which they

11:23

originated, and though

11:25

not every piece was acquired under questionable

11:27

circumstances, certainly for many

11:30

of them, often plundered and stolen

11:32

during colonial times or in the aftermath

11:35

of war, or traded unilaterally

11:37

by people who never quite owned them in the first

11:39

place. Most famously in the case

11:41

of the Elgin Marbles, there are

11:43

compelling arguments to suggest they are

11:46

not where they belong, As

11:48

no Angle suggested, perhaps

11:50

what the museum's staff have been experiencing

11:53

is not just a result of spirits trapped

11:55

within these objects, but that the

11:57

objects themselves are restless

11:59

to return to their rightful

12:01

place. If

12:05

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you can now do so via Patreon. To

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receive access to add three episodes, just

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go to patron dot com, forward Slash

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if you'd like to make a one time donation, you

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can go to Unexplained podcast dot com.

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Forward Slash Support. All donations,

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no matter how large or small, are greatly

12:27

appreciated. Unexplained,

12:29

the book and audiobook, featuring

12:31

ten stories that have never before been covered

12:33

on the show, is now available to buy

12:35

worldwide. You can purchase through Amazon,

12:38

Barnes and Noble, and Waterstones, among

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other bookstores. All

12:42

elements of Unexplained, including the show's

12:45

music, are produced by me Richard McClain

12:47

smith. Please subscribe and rate the show

12:49

wherever you listen to podcasts, and feel

12:52

free to get in touch with any thoughts or ideas

12:54

regarding the stories you've heard on the show. Perhaps

12:57

you have an explanation of your own you'd like to share.

13:00

You can reach us online at Unexplained podcast

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dot com or Twitter at

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