Robert the Doll

Eugene Otto. The doll is alleged to be possessed by evil spirits and has a terrifying reputation.
The doll, which is allegedly cursed, has become a fixture of ghost tours in the Key West area since it was inducted into the Fort East Martello Museum. Aesthetically, Robert resembles an early 20th century American Naval officer. Contrary to popular belief, however, the doll's hair is not made of human hair, but rather, it consists of a synthetic material resembling wool yarn.
Eugene was given the doll in 1906 by an African servant who, according to legend, was skilled in black magic and voodoo and was displeased with the family. Soon afterward, it became clear that there was something eerie about the doll. Eugene's parents said they often heard him talking to the doll and that the doll appeared to be talking back. Although at first they assumed that Eugene was simply answering himself in a changed voice, they later believed that the doll was actually speaking.
Neighbors claimed to see the doll moving from window to window when the family was out. The Otto family swore that sometimes the doll would emit a terrifying giggle and that they caught glimpses of it running from room to room. In the night Eugene would scream, and when his parents ran to the room, they would find furniture knocked over and Eugene in bed, looking incredibly scared, telling them that "Robert did it!". In addition, guests swore that they saw Robert's expression change before their eyes.
When Eugene died in 1974, the doll was left in the attic until the house was bought again. The new family included a ten-year old girl, who became Robert's new owner. It was not long before the girl began screaming out in the night, claiming that Robert moved about the room and even attempted to attack her on multiple occasions. More than thirty years later, she still tells interviewers that the doll was alive and wanted to kill her.


citation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_the_Doll

The Boyfriend's Death

A girl and her boyfriend are making out in his car. They had parked in the woods so no one would see them. When they were done, the boy got out to pee and the girl waited for him in the safety of the car. After waiting five minutes, the girl got out of the car to look for her boyfriend. Suddenly, she sees a man in the shadows. Scared, she gets back in the car to drive away, when she hears a very faint squeak... squeak... squeak...
This continued a few seconds until the girl decided she had no choice but to drive off. She hit the gas as hard as possible but couldn't go anywhere, because someone had tied a rope from the bumper of the car to a nearby tree.
Well, the girl slams on the gas again and then hears a loud scream. She gets out of the car and realizes that her boyfriend is hanging from the tree. The squeaky noises were his shoes slightly scraping across the top of the car!!!

citation: http://urbanlegends.about.com/od/horrors/a/boyfriend_death.htm

The Noppera-bō

The Noppera-bō (のっぺら坊, Noppera-bō^?), or faceless ghost, is a Japanese legendary creature. They are sometimes mistakenly referred to as a mujina, an old Japanese word for a badger or raccoon dog. Although the mujina can assume the form of the other, noppera-bō are usually humans. Such creatures were thought to sometimes transform themselves into noppera-bō in order to frighten humans. Lafcadio Hearn used the animals' name as the title of his story about faceless monsters, probably resulting in the misused terminology.
Noppera-bō are known primarily for frightening humans, but are usually otherwise harmless. They appear at first as ordinary human beings, sometimes impersonating someone familiar to the victim, before causing their features to disappear, leaving a blank, smooth sheet of skin where their face should be.
The Mujina of the Akasaka Road
The most famous story recollection of the Noppera-bō comes from Lafcadio Hearn's book Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things. The story of a man who travelled along the Akasaka road to Edo, he came across a young woman in a remote location near Kunizaka hill, crying and forlorn. After attempting to console the young woman and offer assistance, she turned to face him, startling him with the blank countenance of a faceless ghost. Frightened, the man proceeded down the road for some time, until he came across a soba vendor. Stopping to relax, the man told the vendor of his tale, only to recoil in horror as the soba vendor stroked his face, becoming a noppera-bō himself.
There are other tales about noppera-bō, from a young woman rescued from bandits by a samurai on horseback whose face disappears; to stories of nobles heading out for a tryst with another, only to discover the courtesan is being impersonated by a noppera-bō.

citation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noppera-b%C5%8D

Kasa-obake

Kasa Obake (傘お化け^?, "umbrella obake"), or Karakasa Obake (唐傘お化け^?) or Karakasa Kozo (唐傘小僧), are a type of Tsukumogami, a folk legend about a form of Japanese spirit that originate from objects reaching their 100th year of existence, thus becoming animate. Karakasa in particular are Spirits of Parasols (umbrellas) that reach the century milestone. They are typically portrayed with one eye, a long tongue protruding from an open mouth, and a single foot, generally wearing a geta

citation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kasa-obake

Moll Dyer

Moll Dyer was a legendary 17th Century resident of Leonardtown in St. Mary’s County, Maryland, who was accused of witchcraft and chased out of her home by the local townsfolk in the dead of a winter night. A road, a stream and a large rock all bear her name, and her story has inspired ghostly sightings and the plot of the 1999 film “The Blair Witch Project”.

No historical record has ever been found of Moll Dyer's existence, and not all stories agree on her origins. One popular story says she was an Irish noblewoman who came to the province of Maryland alone to escape a mysterious past, and settled in a cottage outside of what was then Seymortown (later called Leonardtown). Her isolated way of living and shadowed past, along with her reputation as a herbal healer, drew suspicion among the locals, who labelled her as a witch, and began blaming all the misfortunes and hardships in the town on her, despite her habit of giving cures to the townsfolk.

The winter of 1697 was particularly harsh, food was scarce and many people died. The townspeople suspected Dyer of cursing the town, and after an epidemic (possibly influenza) swept through the area, killing many locals, a vigilante group of townsfolk decided to get rid of her. They set fire her cottage in the middle of the coldest night of the winter and Dyer fled into the nearby woods. Exhausted and freezing, the story tells that she knelt down near a large rock, placed one hand on it and raised her other hand to call down a curse upon the land and her persecutors. She was found, frozen to death, some days later and, when her body was removed, her frozen hand and knee left permanent impressions in the rock as an everlasting reminder of her fate and her curse.

The supposed boulder was moved to the front of the Leonardtown courthouse and, although the handprint is no longer clearly visible, people have reported feeling profoundly uncomfortable or beset by terrible aches and pains around it, and cameras have reportedly malfunctioned. On the coldest nights of the year, people have reported seeing a woman with long white hair and a white dress walking through the fields and woods near the town, accompanied by a white dog.

citation: http://www.witchcraftandwitches.com/witches_dyer.html

Vanishing hitchhiker

Highway 365 in Arkansas is an ordinary stretch of American highway that runs near the central part of the state. However, like many other roadways in the country, it boasts its share of strangeness - or perhaps some would say more than it's share!

Highway 365 is home to a number of "Vanishing Hitchhiker" stories. Many witnesses claim over the years to have picked up a young woman, usually wearing a white dress. She mysteriously vanishes from their cars while they are taking her home.

One story that took place near Woodson, Arkansas had a driver giving a lift to a young woman one rainy night and driving her to a house in Redfield. He got out of the car and walked around to her side of the vehicle to open the door...only to find the girl had disappeared. Bewildered, he went up to the house and was told by the man who answered the door that his daughter had been killed on that night four years ago. On each anniversary of her death, she found an unwitting driver to bring her home.Another similar story involved a man who gave a lift to a young girl that he picked up on a bridge one night. She asked to be taken to a house, again in Woodson, and when they arrived, she asked the driver to go knock on the door because the house looked dark. A woman answered the door and he told her that he had brought her daughter home. The horrified woman stated that her daughter had died one year before on that very night. The driver went back to the car and found it empty....except for a coat. The woman from the house stated that the coat had belonged to the dead girl.

Another tale involves a bridge near Batesville and a driver who picked up a girl there on a night in 1973. The girl was bruised and battered, with a cut above her eye, and she told the driver she had been in an accident. He gave her a ride home and when he turned to speak to her, she had vanished from his car. He went to the door of the house and the man who answered claimed to be the girl's father. He said that his daughter had died one month before in an accident at the bridge near Batesville. He said that other people had also brought her home before. The story goes that drivers are still bringing the girl home today

Skeptical? Intrigued? Or simply curious? Want to put your curiosity to rest? Try driving along Highway 365 some dark and stormy night and keep your eyes open for a girl in a white dress who might be looking for a ride...

Just don't be surprised if she doesn't make it all of the way to your destination!

The haunted area of Highway 365 is said to run just south of Little Rock and past the towns of Woodson, Redfield and as far as Pine Bluff.

(C) Copyright 2002 by Troy Taylor. All Rights Reserved.

The Mudhouse Mansion

Mudhouse Mansion is an abandoned house located in Fairfield, just east of

Lancaster, at 4730 Mudhouse Road. It's a very imposing, impressive place built into a hill,

with a number of outbuildings surrounding it. With its empty windows and isolated location, Mudhouse Mansion practically screams haunted house. And, appropriately

enough, it is one.

So why is Mudhouse haunted? If you believe the local tales, you can take your pick. One

legend tells of a government official who lived there after the Civil War and still kept slaves

(in the North, even), locking them in one of

the outbuildings at night. One night the slave

dug his way out, entered the house, and

slaughtered the entire family. Some say a more

modern family was massacred there; their ghosts haunt say it's home to the original

"Bloody Mary," the ghost lady the house. Others who's supposed to appear in your mirror if you say her name three or five or ten or a hundred times. Some kids in Lancaster grew up calling it the House of Mary. According to traditional American folklore, Bloody Mary's childred were killed, either by her husband or by her, and she's pissed about it. This one is tough to

believe, since Bloody Mary is known all over the world, and it's pretty much a given that she never existed in the first place, much less in Fairfield County, Ohio. Then again, it's all just folklore, so you can believe just about anything you want to about Mudhouse.

citation: http://www.forgottenoh.com/mudhouse.html