Is this doll haunted? Old dolls and toys can be creepy – there’s no argument there. But Michael Diamomd still didn’t expect this haunted doll. The 48-year-old had been given a ventriloquist doll, named Mr Fritz, earlier in the year – it had originally been made in a World War II camp in Germany by a prisoner from the US.
Diamond kept the doll in a glass display cabinet for protection, but realised that the door kept opening overnight, seemingly by itself. To find out what was going on, he set up a camera so that he could see what happened when nobody was in the room. What he found shocked him.
In the footage, the doll’s eyes are only half-open – until they then apparently open wide. Then, Mr Fritz’s jaw starts to open and close, before the cabinet door swings open. However, the 48-year-old father of two says that he’s “not intimidated by it”, although “my wife and daughter both hate it”.
Where did it come from?
Mr Fritz has had quite a varied history. Reportedly made by an American prisoner at a German-controlled prison camp in World War II, the haunted doll spent a lot of time in the US, being owned by an antique shop in South Carolina, before arriving in the UK and Diamond’s house.
It fits right in at the house – and with Diamond’s job. He has a variety of weird and unusual trinkets, and often travels around, showing off his museum. He keeps Mr Fritz in the family home, in a room with the rest of his weird collections. But after what he captured on camera, he’s chained the box and draped it in a blanket.”I want to give it a permanent home.” he says, although presumably his wife and daughter aren’t best pleased.
Diamond might be keeping the haunted doll for the time being, but not everybody would do the same. Haunted dolls have a long history, being reported as far back as Ancient Egypt, and they’ve formed key parts of movies and TV shows for the last few decades.
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