Occupational Hazards Of A You Tube Narrator

My story actually begins a few months ago when I decided to make a You Tube channel where I narrate scary stories. I seemed to know so many people who had a story to tell so I went for it and ended up with the name Creepy Battenberg.

With the help of a good friend I soon had stories coming in from around the world. Particularly fascinating was the story of one lady who we will call Jane who lives in Australia. She has had so many strange experiences from recalling a past life as her grandfather's sister to fleeing an extremely haunted apartment she lived in as an 18 year old.

One of her most interesting stories was when she helped a man named Anthony Quinata. Anthony is the owner of a doll named Harold. Harold is an allegedly haunted doll so this really piqued my interest after hearing the stories of Robert and Annabelle two other famous haunted dolls.

She had taken an interest in Harold after watching the Island of the Dolls episode of Ghost Adventures. She joined the group on facebook where discussions take place about Harold. There is a lot of uncertainty involving the origins of the doll and Anthony is continually trying to piece together its history. He found that it's possible the doll may have originally came from Australia. This is where Jane came in as she volunteered to help as Anthony is based in The States.

As Anthony picked up leads he would ask her to go and investigate over in oz. It could be anything from someone coming forward saying that they had a doll that looked a lot like Harold when they were younger or they knew someone else who did.

To cut a long story short as Jane was helping Anthony she began having crippling stomachaches and blinding headaches as did her eldest son who would actually vomit because of it. Hospital tests were to follow and her and her son were both given a clean bill of health. At the same time her son was troubled by visions of a boy with no face that would prevent him sleeping at night. In the end she had to withdraw from helping Anthony and everything stopped.

I decided that her story was a fascinating one and did three episodes of scary true tales detailing her experiences, the third and final one telling of her experiences with Harold (if anyone is interested in hearing the episodes mention in the comments and I will provide the links).

When I told Jane I would include her experiences with Harold she said that she would be surprised if nothing strange or frightening happened whilst working on the Harold episode. There are numerous reports of people suffering headaches, stomachaches and having terrifying paranormal experiences whilst merely reading Anthony's book about Harold or even just visiting the website.

I suspected that many of the physical symptoms were psychosomatic in nature although I won't discount all cases outright. I was interested to see if anything did happen and was almost expectant over the first few days. I soon forgot though and went happily about my business until one Thursday night after returning from a relative's house.

It was bedtime for my two children, aged four and two, and I left them both playing with their toy trains in the dining room as I went upstairs to grab their PJ'S. On my way downstairs I stopped and talked to my wife who was doing some housework upstairs. I was looking down when I saw my daughter open the yard door and walk into the yard, my two year old son followed behind her. As I shouted down "hey what are you two doing" my son shut the door and waved saying bye. I quickly ran down to get my daughter back out of the yard as I didn't want her outside so late although I wasn't particularly worried as she would not have gotten far in that time.

As I reached the bottom of the stairs, out of the corner of my eye I saw my daughter sitting on the floor still playing. Thinking one of the neighbours' children had entered and then left I quickly looked into the yard but found no child present and our gate was still latched and too high for a child of my daughter's height to reach.

My wife, who came to the top of the stairs, was not in time to see what appeared to be my daughter walking out the door but did see my son shut the door and wave bye. I sat down and explained to her that I saw our daughter walk out the door so was puzzled to see her there. At this my daughter became upset thinking I was giving her wrong and started crying saying "daddy I did not go outside".

I won't lie. I immediately thought of The Doll especially after the warning from Jane and reading the testimonies of others. It was as if another entity had impersonated my daughter. After feeling initially reluctant I included this experience as a sort of footnote at the end of my video.

One more thing happened a few days later just after I had uploaded the Harold episode to you tube. My wife had been out with her friends and on coming in a draft blew open the bedroom door. She said "oh hello Harold". I chastened her for making a joke as I had previously warned that a lot of people who make jokes about him often find that something happens, ranging from having an accident to supernatural type experiences. She went downstairs and collected some supper from the kitchen and as I heard her come back up the stairs I heard a sort of noise like small metallic objects rattling. She asked me if I heard it as it had come from just behind her and seemed to follow her up the stairs.

I walked up and down the stairs before running up and down the stairs to see if I could recreate the noise but were unable to. Luckily nothing happened since and I have put it behind me.

If anyone is interested in hearing the testimonies of other people on their experiences with Harold there is a closed group on facebook which you can join by request. There is also a website haroldthehaunteddoll[dot]com.

I hope you have enjoyed reading my story!