From the menacing Chucky to the more recently popular Annabelle – the haunted dolls have made quite a creepy name for themselves. But sometimes we really don’t need any horror movies or stories to make dolls frightening.
Many people can simply walk into a room with a doll and suddenly feel uneasy. Just in case you didn’t already fear dolls enough, here are 10 of the most haunted dolls in the world.
10. Mercy
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To many, the 18” (45cm) dressed-up doll would make for a great addition to any doll collection. To Sherrie Khun and her current owner, Mercy the Doll was nothing but a collection of terrors in a pretty dress.
Her cherub-like face depicts an innocence lost within the claims that either the spirit of a seven-year-old or a more malicious force resides within the porcelain vessel.
Purchased from Khun off of eBay, the doll’s more recent antics include turning a radio on and being found standing perfectly on the floor despite being placed on a shelf prior.
9. Caroline
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What haunts the 16” (40 cm) dreary-eyed porcelain doll known as Caroline? It’s an ongoing debate among paranormal enthusiasts and investigators, though popular theory points to three different spirits battling for control.
Legend has it that a series of different owners ensured that their spirits would be transferred to the doll upon their deaths. However, Caroline plays harmless pranks like moving objects, misplacing things, and even talking.
Purchased from a Salem, Massachusetts antique shop, Caroline has been passed around from investigator to investigator, each one confirming the claims that something is living behind the figure’s blue eyes.
8. Peggy
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So Peggy is a haunted doll residing in the UK – in Shrewsbury, owned by paranormal investigator Jayne Harris. She was given Peggy by a terrified woman who couldn’t cope with the burden of the doll.
Peggy is thought to have the power to visit people in their dreams, warning them or haunting them. Evidently, mediums who have worked with Peggy believe she is linked to the Holocaust.
In 2015, Peggy caused a media stir when an article was published about her in the MailOnline, after which 80 readers reported having awful experiences after viewing her picture.
Most were waves of nausea, but some had panic attacks. This has led to Jayne suggesting Peggy is haunted by an evil spirit. Possibly, one of the most sinister haunted dolls.
The stuff of nightmares, right?
7. Mandy
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Do you hear that? Echoing down your otherwise empty hallways? You’re not going mad, it’s just Mandy, a doll plagued by mystery.
Before she donated her to the Quesnel Museum in British Columbia, Mandy’s previous owner claimed the doll would emit a baby’s cry in the middle of the night.
When she would check on the worn baby doll, the crying would stop but something in the room would be different, often an ajar window that was closed. After
donating Mandy to the museum, the woman has been free of the haunting wails in the night.
However, strange things started happening in the museum. Workers also heard crying and weirdly some staff members would find their lunch had disappeared.
6. Pupa
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Though the owner of this suit-cladded doll believed she was alive, one could blame it on an imagination run wild.
Where Pupa’s haunted story really begins after her owner’s death in 2005, when she was placed in a glass case by the surviving family members.
It’s said that whatever spirit lives within Pupa is very active – and dissatisfied with its place behind glass. The doll has been found to change positions and has even escaped her glass jail.
When the loneliness becomes unbearable, Pupa has been heard banging on the glass for attention and has been reported steaming the glass up to write the words “Pupa hate.”
Yep, Pupa hates you!
5. Pulau Ubin Barbie
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A sad story dating back to World War I, the Barbie doll on display and worshiped in Pulau Ubin, Singapore, was said to have been connected to a German girl who was forced to flee from her family’s plantation in England.
Escaping to nearby mountains, the girl fell from a cliff and died, leaving behind a lost soul bred from tragedy.
While locals worshiped a porcelain altar to keep her spirit at bay, an Australian immigrant was led to purchase a specific Barbie doll from a recurring dream.
Believing the girl’s soul transferred into the doll, the Barbie was placed in the shrine, where it receives offerings for health and fortune.
4. Robert
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It all started with a young Robert Eugene Otto, who received a plain-faced doll in 1906. Robert the Doll seemed normal until one night when Eugene’s parents heard their son talking to the doll and another voice responded.
Eugene eventually started blaming the doll for his misdeeds and neighbors noticed it moving from window to window, but he held onto it well into his adulthood.
When Eugene died in 1974, Robert was left in an attic and discovered by the next owners of the home, who had a 10-year-old daughter.
The small girl was terrified of Robert and claimed he wanted to kill her. A plumber who worked at the house found the doll to move across the room on his own.
A reporter from the area, Malcolm Ross visited the house to see Robert and was disturbed to sense that Robert was listening to his conversation and understanding him.
Legend has it that this doll has caused “car accidents, broken bones, job loss, divorce and more.” Robert is now in a museum in Florida’s Key West and visitors experience “post-visit misfortunes” for “failing to respect Robert”.
One of the most dangerously haunted dolls we have in this list.
3. The Scratcher Bride
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A porcelain doll dressed as a bride, this doll was brought in bounds to a family who bought it for 5 pounds in a charity shop in the UK.
50-year-old Debbie Merrick bought the china doll but got more than she bargained for when it started bringing chaos and misfortune into the house.
She placed the doll on display in the spare room, but since the doll moved in, her husband has been waking up with scratches all over his leg.
He has also been having nightmares that the doll dragged him across the floor. Debbie has also been having nightmares and says that since the doll came to be in their home, their smoke alarm has been frequent.
2. Letta the Gypsy Doll
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Is it a tale of obsession or the power of whatever residual spirit that haunts Letta the Gypsy Doll?
That’s the question we’re left with after looking at the case of Kerry Walton and the wooden marionette believed to be haunted by the spirit of a Romani child who drowned.
In 1972, Walton found the doll in an abandoned home and named it Letta for its Romani roots. Sporting real human hair, the doll is no visual prize, but Walton has repeatedly mentioned his inability to get rid of it due to an unexplainable force.
Letta is said to incite anger from animals, draw sadness from people, and move on its own.
1. Annabelle
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Regarded as one of the most haunted dolls in the world, famed demonologists Ed and Lorraine Warren believed Annabelle to be the physical embodiment of evil, so much, that they locked her up behind glass within their museum of paranormal oddities.
Legend has it that the Raggedy Ann Doll purchased from a hobby store in 1970 as a graduation gift was first believed by a medium to be haunted by a young, playful spirit named Annabelle Higgins.
The case of Annabelle grew more sinister when she was accused of physically harming a houseguest – twice. When the Warrens were called in, the spirit was deemed to be demonic, inhuman, manipulative, and incredibly dangerous.
These were some of the most haunted dolls in the world. So which doll would you love to take home with you?