MrBallen Podcast: Strange, Dark & Mysterious Stories - The Bell Witch Haunting

Episode Date: October 26, 2023

One night, four young brothers were sleeping in their bedroom in their little house in Tennessee, when they started to hear what sounded like a rat gnawing on one of their bedposts. So, the two oldest brothers climbed out of their bed to go find this rat, but the second their feet touched the wooden floor, the gnawing sound stopped. The boys checked the room, they checked the bedposts, there was no sign of any rat. And so eventually, the two oldest brothers just kind of shrugged it off and got back in bed. But when they closed their eyes again, the gnawing sound filled the room again. Except this time, it was louder and more frantic. Little did they know, these sounds were just the beginning of a multi-yearlong nightmare that they and the rest of their family would have to endure. Their terrifying story is known as “The Bell Witch Haunting,” and it is considered to be one of the most frightening documented hauntings of all time. And today, I’m going to share their story with you. Story name, preview & link to original YouTube video:#1 -- "Bell Witch" -- One of the most terrifying documented hauntings of all time (Original YouTube link -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OdHe0m4OtKw)For 100s more stories like these, check out our main YouTube channel just called "MrBallen" -- https://www.youtube.com/c/MrBallenIf you want to reach out to me, contact me on Instagram, Twitter or any other major social media platform, my username on all of them is @mrballenSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey Prime members, you can binge eight new episodes of the Mr. Ballin podcast one month early and all episodes ad-free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today. One night, four young brothers were sleeping in their bedroom in their little house in Tennessee when they started to hear what sounded like a rat gnawing on one of their bedposts. So, the two oldest brothers climbed out of their bed to go find this rat, but the second their feet touched the wooden floor, the gnawing sound stopped. The boys checked the room, they checked the bedpost, there was no sign of any rat, and so eventually, the two oldest brothers just kind of shrugged it off and got back in bed.

But when they closed their eyes again, the gnawing sound filled the room again. Except this time, it was louder and more frantic. Little did they know, these sounds were just the beginning of a multi-year-long nightmare that they and the rest of their family would have to endure. Their terrifying story is known as the Bell Witch Haunting, and it's considered to be one of the most frightening documented hauntings of all time. And today, I'm going to share their story with you. But before we get into today's story, if you're a fan of the strange, dark, and mysterious delivered in story format,

then you've come to the right podcast because that's all we do and we upload twice a week, once on Monday and once on Thursday. So if that's of interest to you, please ungold the Amazon Music Follow Button's Goldfish Crackers. Okay, let's get into today's story. I'm Peter Frankopan. And I'm Afua Hirsch. And we're here to tell you about our new season of Legacy, covering the iconic, troubled musical genius that was Nina Simone. Full disclosure, this is a big one for me.

Nina Simone, one of my favourite artists of all time, somebody who's had a huge impact on me, who I think objectively stands apart for the level of her talent, the audacity of her message, it totally floored me. And the truth and pain and messiness of her struggle, that's all captured in unforgettable music that has stood the test of time. Think that's fair, Peter? I mean, the way in which her music comes across is so powerful, no matter what song it is. So join us on Legacy for Nina Simone. on Legacy for Nina Simone. Hello, I'm Emily, and I'm one of the hosts of Terribly Famous,

the show that takes you inside the lives of our biggest celebrities. And they don't get much bigger than the man who made badminton sexy. OK, maybe that's a stretch, but if I say pop star and shuttlecocks, you know who I'm talking about. No? Short shorts? Free cocktails? Careless whispers?

Okay, last one. It's not Andrew Ridgely. Yep, that's right. It's stone-cold icon George Michael. From teen pop sensation to one of the biggest solo artists on the planet, join us for our new series, George Michael's Fight for Freedom. From the outside, it looks like he has it all. But behind the trademark dark sunglasses is a man in turmoil.

George is trapped in a lie of his own making, with a secret he feels would ruin him if the truth ever came out. Follow Terribly Famous wherever you listen to your podcasts, or listen early and ad-free on Wondery Plus on Apple Podcasts or the Wondery app. In 1804, a man named John Bell decided his farm in North Carolina was just too small for his growing family. So he, along with his wife Lucy and their six kids, packed all their belongings onto wagons and then traveled more than 600 miles west to this thousand-acre patch along the Red River in northern Tennessee. The area they settled was known as Robertson County, and at the time it was very rural and basically nobody lived there. And so the Bell family, when they

arrived in Robertson County, fully expected to have to work with the few families that were there to build up the settlement. Basically, they wanted to build a town from scratch. But this was the kind of work that John Bell was born for. He was raised on a farm where he had a reputation for working extremely hard and never giving up. John was very on a farm where he had a reputation for working extremely hard and never giving up. John was very generous and excellent at working with other people. In fact, when his family was still in North Carolina, John and his very gentle and sweet wife Lucy would open their door to anybody who needed a place to stay or a hot meal, and sometimes John would just give money to his neighbors when he felt like they were down on hard times.

So after arriving in Robertson County and after the Bell family had met their few neighbors, John Bell got right to work. First, he began clearing trees off of his land. And then with that lumber, he built a one and a half story log house up on this hill, not far from the Red River. And in fact, the Red River was a very popular picnic spot and fishing spot for the few people that lived in Robertson County. And so in virtue of the Bell's house being so near the river, the Bell family was always running into their neighbors and saying hi and making friends. their neighbors and saying hi and making friends. And so it wasn't long after John and his family had arrived and built this house that the Bell family became one of the most popular families in the area. And for many years, the Bell family lived a very happy and prosperous life in Robertson County. Most mornings, John would wake up first and then he would rouse the children, who would

then leave the house and walk through the nearby woods to go to their school, and then they'd come back before sunset. And then while the kids were at school during the day, John and his older sons would go out and work the land or help build structures around town to build the settlement up, or they would build the boats that they would use to transport the tobacco and meats they produced on their farm down south for trade. John and Lucy would have three more kids while in Robertson County, and before long their oldest children began getting married and starting families of their own and building their own houses nearby. But one summer day in 1817, so 13 years after the Bell family first arrived in Robertson County,

John would have a very strange experience that at the time he would completely write off. But years later, they would look back and say, that's when it started. On that summer day in 1817, John was by himself. He was out walking through his cornfield near his house when he looked out and he saw this big dog just sitting in the middle of the cornfield. Now, there were lots of dogs around Robertson County, so it wasn't unusual to run into a dog while you were out and about. But there was something off about this dog. It almost looked misshapen, like its bones had broken many times over and reset at awkward angles. And this dog just looked way too big to be a dog. It almost looked more like a big wolf.

And this dog was staring at John in a very human way, not breaking eye contact, staring right at John. Now, John was not someone who easily spooked, but standing in this cornfield, staring at this dog who was staring right back at him, John couldn't help but feel totally unsettled and a little bit panicked. And so John, who had his rifle with him, raised it and fired in the direction of this dog. And when he did, the dog took off running. And so John, he watched as this dog galloped away from him and disappeared into the tree line of the forest far away. And once the dog was totally out of view, John marched forward to the spot in the cornfield where this dog had been sitting. And when he got there, he was expecting to see the

corn kind of pressed down from where this big animal had been sitting, but when he got there, he was expecting to see the corn kind of pressed down from where this big animal had been sitting, but it wasn't. There was no sign that any big creature had been sitting right there. And as he looked around him, he saw there were no paw prints, no tracks on the ground either coming to the spot or going in the direction that he watched this big dog run off. John was totally confused by this, but after sitting there kind of wondering how this could be, he just told himself, you know what, I'm overthinking this. It was just some big ugly dog and a missed shot.

This is no big deal. And so John promptly turned around and walked back to his house, forgetting all about the dog. But not long after John saw this dog in the cornfield, his family began experiencing other strange things back at their house. At night, after the Bell family had climbed into bed, they would start hearing a knocking sound on the side of their house. And as soon as they got up to go inspect it, the knocking would stop.

And then they'd lay back down again, and they would hear it again, except it was coming from another side of the house. It was like there was someone or something outside of their house, just kind of circling around them, periodically knocking on their walls. Now, John was convinced this was not the work of some animal. This was a person, a prankster, and they were hiding out in the woods somewhere. And so he instructed his family not to mention the tapping sounds to anybody in town because he thought somebody in town was doing this to them, and he didn't want them to know that they were on to them. He wanted these pranksters to come back and do it again so he could catch them in the act.

But over the course of several weeks, the tapping continued and every time John would lay in wait and try to run out and see who was there, there'd be no one. And there'd be no tracks anywhere around the house indicating that anyone had ever been there. And as unsettling as these knocking sounds were for the family, they were nothing compared to the things that happened next. Hello, I am Alice Levine and I am one of the hosts of Wondery's podcast British Scandal. On our latest series, The Race to Ruin, we tell the story of a British man who took part in the first ever round the world sailing race. Good on him, I hear you say. But there is a problem, as there always is in this show.

The man in question hadn't actually sailed before. Oh, and his boat wasn't seaworthy. Oh, and also tiny little detail, almost didn't mention it. He bet his family home on making it to the finish line. What ensued was one of the most complex cheating plots in British sporting history. To find out the full story, follow British Scandal wherever you listen to podcasts, or listen early and ad-free on Wondery Plus on Apple Podcasts or the Wondery app. In May of 1980, near Anaheim, California, Dorothy Jane Scott noticed her friend had an inflamed red wound on his arm and he seemed really unwell. So she wound up taking him to the hospital right away so he could get treatment. While Dorothy's friend waited for his prescription, Dorothy went to grab her car to pick him up at the exit. But she would never be seen alive again,

leaving us to wonder, decades later, what really happened to Dorothy Jane Scott? From Wondery, Generation Y is a podcast that covers notable true crime cases like this one and so many more. Every week, hosts Aaron and Justin sit down to discuss a new case covering Thank you. the Generation Y podcast on Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts. One Sunday night in May of 1818, so roughly one year after John had seen that big dog in the cornfield and a couple of months after the knocking on the walls had begun in the Bells' household, four of John's sons were asleep in their bedroom inside of their home when they woke up to the sound of what sounded like a rat gnawing on one of their bedposts. Now, these boys were sleeping in two bunk beds, and the two oldest brothers were sleeping on the lower bunk, and so they instinctively got up, stepped onto the floor to go find this rat, but the second they stepped onto the floor, the gnawing sound completely disappeared.

The two boys searched the room for this rat, they couldn't find it, and when they checked all of the bedposts, there was no sign that any of them had been gnawed on. So the two older brothers finally just kind of shrugged it off and climbed back in bed. The moment they closed their eyes, the gnawing sound began again. Except now it was louder and more frantic, like whatever was under there was desperately trying to chew through the wood of their beds. But again, when the two older brothers leapt out of their bed to go find whatever animal was doing this, the sound would completely stop and the room would go still.

The boys searched the room again, there was no sign of any rat or any animal, there were no marks on the underside of their beds, and so they had no idea what to make of this. The gnawing sounds would continue all that night, making it nearly impossible for these boys to sleep, and it would happen again the next night the same way. But on the night after that, so the third night, the boys heard a new sound in their room. As they're laying in their beds, exhausted from barely sleeping the last two nights, they began hearing what sounded like someone gasping for air underneath their beds, like they were being choked, they were gulping and smacking their lips and clawing at the underside of the beds.

The two oldest boys were terrified, but eventually worked up the courage and leapt from their bed to confront whatever was underneath them. But again, as soon as their feet hit the floor, the sounds completely stopped and the room went still. But this time, the boys were so frightened, they decided not to try to just go back to sleep. This time, the boys were so frightened, they decided not to try to just go back to sleep. Instead, they woke up the rest of their family, and the Bell family searched the entire house, top to bottom, looking for any indication of what could have been making those sounds. But there was nothing in their house.

There was no marks from some animal or rat. I mean, there was no indication that anything was other than normal. no indication that anything was other than normal. Now, to this point, the Bell family had not told anybody in town about either the knocking sounds on the walls, or the rat gnawing sounds, or now the gulping for air sounds. And a part of that was because John had told the family, don't tell anyone because we're going to catch whoever's doing this. But another part of it was the family knew as soon as they brought this stuff up, they could be the target of ridicule because people wouldn't believe them. But after this night with the gulping and gasping sounds, the Bell kids really could not sleep anymore.

They were just up all night, terrified. And so finally, John went to one of his neighbors who he was very close with and confided in him that something weird was happening inside of his house. Now, John was not the kind of person who made things up. He was very straightforward, very honest. He didn't even tell jokes. And so this neighbor, as he's listening to this unbelievable story, just takes John at face value and says, you know what, I'll stay the night in your house and I'll see if I can hear all these strange sounds. That night, the neighbor would stay with John Bell and his family in the Bell household.

And sure enough, the neighbor would hear the tapping on the walls. He would hear the rat gnawing on the wood post in the boys' room, as well as that gasping and gulping sound coming from the boys' room. And this neighbor was so terrified that he did not last the night in John's house.

He left in the middle of the night to go back to his house. After this, word spread quickly around Robertson County about what was happening at the Bell household. And the way the townspeople reacted was very supportive. I mean, the Bell family had been instrumental in building up the settlement. And John and his wife, Lucy, were so kind and generous. And so the townspeople decided that

they were going to find a way to rally around the Bell family and try to help them. So other people in town began volunteering to spend the night inside of the Bell household with the Bell family, one, because they wanted the Bell family to feel some security having some more people around them, and two, these people were thinking that maybe just their presence inside of the Bell household would scare off whoever or whatever was tormenting the Bells. But no matter who stayed inside of the Bell household, the noises persisted every single night. the noises persisted every single night. Townspeople came up with all sorts of explanations for what was happening to the Bell family, ranging from, you know, John's youngest daughter must be behind this because she wants attention, or other people said maybe there's a family or an individual

that hates the Bell family and they're targeting them and they're behind this. There was even a theory that someone in town had learned ventriloquism, which is a kind of performance where the ventriloquist throws their voice so it sounds like it's coming from somewhere else, not from their body. And so the idea was this ventriloquist was just a prankster and they were screwing with the Bell family. But the townspeople searched the Bell's house with the Bell family over and over again, and they never found any sign of what could be making these noises. The people in town even went so far as to have people watch each member of the Bell family as they slept at night to make sure none of them were responsible for these sounds.

And sure enough, as the Bell family was being closely monitored, the noises would start, and it was very clearly not coming from anyone in the Bell family. As the months went on, and the Bell family was forced to endure whatever was going on inside of their home, the people in town started to notice something odd about John Bell. Normally, John was a very engaged person that when he spoke to you, he was locked onto you and really paying attention.

But at some point, after these mysterious things began happening at his house, John would be talking to someone and then suddenly his eyes would kind of gloss over and his jaw would go slack and it would look like he was staring off into the distance. And then his face would start to twitch. And at first, these twitches were fairly minor and were centered just around his eyes. But over time, these twitches became much more dramatic, to the point where his jaw would start to kind of quiver

up and down, and his eyes would begin blinking out of sync. And then when the twitching finally stopped, John, without saying a word to the person he had just been talking to, would just wander back to his house, he'd go up to his bedroom, and he would sit on his bed for hours and hours and hours just staring at the wall, not eating, not drinking, not saying anything. The Bell family felt like they were hostages in their own home. They had no idea what was causing these things to happen or why they were happening, and they were all filled with this constant sense of dread. As for the townspeople, most of them had come to believe that whatever was happening to the Bell family was likely caused by their neighbor, Kate Batts. Kate was known to be very eccentric and kind of unpleasant, and she was known to be

fairly unlucky, because her husband had become disabled and her three kids had all died young. Kate also had this strange habit of using really big, complex words in her conversations, but she misused the words, and so everything she said kind of sounded off. Townspeople would talk about Kate Batts-Witch, and they started referring to whatever was causing the strange phenomenon at the Bell household as just Kate. However, when Kate found out about this,

she was totally offended and said she had nothing to do with whatever was happening to the Bells. By September of 1820, the terrifying happenings at the Bell household had been going on for three years, and somehow the Bell family had just learned to live with it. However, John Bell was not doing good. It was like the longer these strange things were happening, the more and more John seemed to become a shell of his former self. His sudden dazes and twitching fits began to happen more and more frequently,

and the time he would spend afterwards sitting in his bedroom staring at the wall in silence would go on longer and longer and longer. In private, John would tell his wife, Lucy, that he believed someone or something was torturing him to death. And then one day, as John was getting sicker and sicker, one of his daughters, Esther, left the house to go gather up some eggs in the hen house, which was across the lane from where the bell house was. And so she left the house, she crossed over the road, she began walking up towards this hen house, and as she was walking, she heard what sounded like someone moving behind her. And so she turned

around, and she saw there was this woman dressed all in black with her head down, walking slowly down the road she had just walked on towards her house. So she's basically walking exactly where Esther had just come from, but Esther had not seen her until just now. So she wasn't really sure how this woman had arrived on the road, but Esther wasn't worried. She looked at this woman, she didn't recognize her, but just assumed she was somebody from town and that was it. And so Esther turned away from this woman and walked the rest of the way up to the hen house. She went inside, she got the eggs in her basket. And then when she came back outside again and she was back on that road, now facing in the direction of her house, she saw this woman in black with her head down was still trudging along slowly,

now much closer to the Bell household. And so Esther, she began walking down the road, looking at this woman, trying to figure out who she was. And as she got closer and closer, she realized she recognized her as somebody from the village. This was a neighbor of hers. And so Esther yelled out a friendly hello. But this woman in black with her head down didn't turn around. She didn't react. She just kept on slowly walking down the lane towards the bell house. And so Esther began walking a little bit faster, getting closer and closer to this woman. And she yelled out a few more times, hey, hello, how are you? But each time this woman in black just appeared not to hear Esther. And Esther, she's looking around, and there's nobody else out.

It's just her and this woman, who's now about 15 feet away from her. And so Esther starts to feel really uncomfortable about this woman. And so Esther just stops on the road and stares at the back of this woman. And the second Esther stopped, this woman, who was trudging along, also suddenly stopped. And then she reached up with her hands, her back is still to Esther, and she took her trudging along also suddenly stopped. And then she reached up with her hands, her back is still to Esther, and she took her bonnet off of her head. A bonnet is a type of hat. And then she dropped the bonnet on the ground, and right away this woman's black matted hair kind of tumbled down over her back. And then this woman, without moving, began reaching

up and stroking her hair, running her fingers through her hair as if she was trying to comb it out. And so Esther is watching this, kind of wondering what's going on here. And so Esther began walking slowly, closer and closer to this woman to make sure she was okay. But with each step that Esther took towards this woman, this woman began running her hands faster and faster through her hair until it almost looked impossible she was moving so fast. And then Esther realized with horror that she wasn't just combing her hair. This woman was grabbing clumps of her hair and pulling them out of her head. In fact, Esther could literally hear the hair being ripped from this woman's scalp. And so before long, there was hair all

over the ground around this woman. And so Esther at this point is terrified. She thinks there's something wrong with this woman. And so she runs around this woman without looking at her, charges into her house, which is right in front of this lady. She goes inside, she locks the door behind her. And then Esther calls out for one of her sisters who was home and said, come here, come here. And the two of them went to the front window and they look out onto the road and they see the woman. She's still there in the same spot, ripping her hair out. But Esther makes eye contact with this woman. And the second that happens, the woman freezes. Her hands are still in her hair and she's looking directly up at Esther. And Esther and her sister, they're kind of taken aback by the way this woman is looking at them. And then this woman slowly brings her

hands down and she's staring up at Esther the whole time. And then she turns suddenly and walks around the side of the property out of view of Esther and her sister. And so Esther and her sister, they shriek, they leave the front window and they run over to the side window where this woman was heading. And they saw this woman climbing up and over their fence, getting into their side property and behind her were now three children who they had not seen before, just marching right behind this woman in black.

And so this woman and these three children in plain sight of Esther and her sister, they walk into this grove of trees on the Bell property. And so Esther and her sister, they're just staring. They have no idea what's happening. And then one by one, the woman first, then each of the children climbed their own trees. And then once all four of them were up in these trees,

they turned around so they were all looking directly at Esther and her sister. And then they all began swaying with their bodies in the trees, getting these trees to bend and wave hard left and right. And so Esther and her sister are horrified, and as they're staring, Esther's husband just happens to come through the front door. And so Esther yells for him to come over here and look out the window, look what they're doing out there.

And so Esther's husband, he runs over to the window and he looks out, but he can't see the woman or the three kids. He can only see trees swaying unnaturally left and right. And so Esther and her sister, they realize he's not seeing what we're seeing, what's happening. And before long, they're screaming, the husband's trying to figure out what's going on. And finally, the trio just ran from the window, went out the back door, and ran around to the side yard to go confront this woman and these children. But when they got out to the grove of trees, the woman, the kids, they were gone, and there was no tracks anywhere on the ground to indicate that anybody had been there recently. Not long after this incident, sometime in October of 1820, John Bell and one of the sons were out for a walk on their farm. And as they walked, suddenly John stopped and threw

his hands up to his face as if he was protecting himself from someone trying to hit him. And then all of a sudden John's face just went totally slack, and his body began to contort into these horrible, grotesque angles, and his back began to arch so far it looked like his back would break. And so John's son, he's watching this happen. He has no idea what to do, and so he just runs over and grabs his dad and tries to pull him upright. And as he does this, this horrifying shriek fills the air. John's son has no idea where it's coming from, but it's so loud it stops him in his tracks. And then as fast as all of this had happened, it all stopped.

John was back to normal, laying on the ground, coming to, and the shrieking was gone. It was silent on their farm. And so John's son turns to his dad, and he sees John is crying on on the ground and he says to his son, I don't have much time left. John's son would help him up and then the two of them silently just walked back to the house and John went straight to bed. A few weeks later, on the morning of December 19th, 1820, John didn't come down for breakfast. And so his family went up to his bedroom to make sure he was okay. But when they found him, he was still laying in bed.

He was breathing. But no matter what they did, they couldn't wake him up. And so one of John's sons ran to the medicine cabinet inside of their house, but when he opened it up, all the medicine was gone, and in their place was this strange glass vial that contained a smoky, dark liquid that the son had never seen before and no one in the family had seen before. And so the family immediately called for a doctor to come to their house, both for John and also to see what this liquid was. And so the doctor showed up. He didn't really know what to do for John. It didn't make sense that he just was not

waking up. And then the doctor checked on this liquid and he said, you need to test this on some farm animals to make sure we know what it does. And so the family went out and found a stray cat and they force fed it some of this liquid, and within minutes, the cat had died. The Bell family swore they had not put that vial in the medicine cabinet, they had no idea what it was or how it got there. As for John, he would not wake up that day, and in fact, the following morning when he was still in bed, he died. After John's death, the strange occurrences at the Bell household

basically all came to a stop, for the most part. Some people in town reported, after John's death, seeing strange lights floating around the Bell property, and also sometimes they reported hearing a strange sing-song voice kind of coming from somewhere out around their property. John's wife, Lucy, would remain inside of that house until 1838 when she passed away. Today, there's nothing left of the Bell household. However, there is a cave on their property, an underground cave, and people swear that's where whatever tormented the bells came from. where we have hundreds more stories just like this one, but many of them are not available on this podcast.

They're only on YouTube. Again, the YouTube channel is just called Mr. Ballin. So that's going to do it. I really appreciate your support. Until next time, see ya. I'm going to go. on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today. And before you go, please tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at wondery.com slash survey. If you're listening to this podcast, then chances are good you are a fan of The Strange, Dark, and Mysterious. And if that's the case, then I've got some good news. We just launched a brand new Strange, Dark, and Mysterious podcast

called Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries. And as the name suggests, it's a show about medical mysteries, a genre that many fans have been asking us to dive into for years, and we finally decided to take the plunge, and the show is awesome. In this free weekly show, we explore bizarre, unheard of diseases, strange medical mishaps, unexplainable deaths, and everything in between. Each story is totally true and totally terrifying. Go follow Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries wherever you get your podcasts. And if you're a Prime member, you can listen early and ad-free on Amazon Music.