The Tape Library - Archive of the Paranormal & the Unexplained - The Dark Stories Behind the Worlds Most Haunted Paintings

Episode Date: July 9, 2026

Can a painting really be haunted? Throughout history, certain works of art have attracted disturbing reputations. Some have been blamed for devastating house fires, others for terrifying paranormal encounters, and a handful have become the centre of legends so unsettling that people refuse to hang them on their walls. In this documentary, we investigate three of the world's most infamous haunted paintings: The Crying Boy, the mysterious print linked to a wave of house fires across Britain in the 1980s; The Hands Resist Him, the eerie artwork that became one of the internet's first viral paranormal mysteries; and The Anguished Man, a painting whose owner claims it brought years of terrifying supernatural activity into his home. Along the way, we'll separate documented history from urban legend, examining where these stories began, how they spread, and whether there could be any truth behind the claims. Are these paintings genuinely cursed... or are they simply some of the greatest paranormal legends ever told? If you enjoy in-depth documentaries exploring the strange, mysterious and unexplained, don't forget to subscribe to The Tape Library for new episodes every month. #paranormal #hauntedpaintings #horror #trueghoststories #urbanlegends #mystery --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Support the channel with Patreon - www.patreon.com/thetapelibrary Do you have a supernatural story to share? Drop me an email at [e-mail] You can check out The Tape Library in audio form on all of your favourite podcast providers. Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/thetapelibrary Tiktok - https://www.tiktok.com/@thetapelibrary Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/people/The-Tape-Library/100094332411836/ Archive of the Paranormal, the strange and the unexplained. Additional footage and audio from Evanto, Artgrid, Epidemic Sounds, Singularity and Pexels. Music includes Karl Casey @ White Bat Audio and the youtube audio library. Additional music by @repulsive1908 All other footage used under fair use. Chapters 00:00 The Man in the Painting 07:36 The Crying Boy 19:45 The Hands Resist Him 27:51 The Anguished Man 39:49 What Really Happened? 47:42 Wrapping Up SpectreVision Radio is a bespoke podcast network at the intersection between the arts and the uncanny, featuring a tapestry of shows exploring creativity, the esoteric, and the unknown. We’re a community for creators and fans vibrating around common curiosities, shared interests and persistent passions. spectrevisionradio.com linktr.ee/spectrevisionsocial Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Let's do it. Because we see these paintings as nobody saw them before. Welcome, heart lovers. Nice and Joe instantly thought it was perfect as they walked through the front door of the old Victorian house. They had been looking for a property in Liverpool for a while now, and this one had it all. It was spacious and offered amazing views of the river. use of the river. What's more, they could actually afford it. It wasn't long before they moved in and looked forward to starting this new chapter of their lives together. It was late in March of

1995, around two weeks after they moved in, however, that they began to notice that something was wrong. A gale had been blowing outside, so when Denise woke Joe up complaining about strange noises in the attic. He just dismissed it as that. But she insisted they go and take a look. They opened the door and the pair were hit by a strong musky smell as they stepped into the attic. Joe was right. The frame around the skylight was loose and rattling in the wind. This was the first time the pair had really been up in the attic beyond a cursory glance and Denise noticed something at the far end. She shone her talk about. She shone her talk about. She shone her talk on it. It was a large wooden chest. Inside was a bunch of dusty looking documents and two

paintings, one of a young woman with blonde hair, the other of a slim man in his 30s with a Van Dyck-style beard. As she looks at the face of the man, a sudden gust of wind seemed to shoot through the attic, slamming the door shut so hard that plaster felt from the ceiling. Joe just dismissed it again as the wind, but Denise felt unsettled. They left the attic immediately and went back to bed. Denise couldn't sleep. She was lying there in bed, still a little on edge, when she heard a creek. But this time it wasn't coming from the attic, it was coming from the hall outside their bedroom. She looked towards the bedroom door, just in time to see the handle, twist.

She screamed, waking Joe, telling him there was an intruder in the house. Joe opened the door and went to investigate, but there was no one there. He did note, though, that the smell from the attic, see him. to have come down into the hall. Right after this happened, Denise fell ill with the flu and was forced to spend a couple of days in bed. Joe had gone to work and she was lying in bed feeling sorry for herself on a sunny afternoon. That creepy night had fallen to the back of her memory.

She was sure she had just scared herself. We all have weird, paranoid thoughts on the odd occasion. at night, especially in a new environment. It was around 3pm when she heard faint music coming from somewhere, just this distant echo of a harpsichord. Then the sun seemed to fade. It was hard to explain, but it was as if the light coming through the window just went It was dark. Before she could really process what was happening, she heard it. That same creek outside her bedroom door. She froze in terror as the door slowly opened. And there stood a tall man, dressed in dark, old-fashioned clothing, with long black hair,

and a distinct Van Dyke beard. She recognized him instantly. It was the man from the painting. A chill shot down her spine as he opened his mouth and spoke. He simply said, Hello Miss, as he stepped into the room, his yellowed teeth showing beneath his curled grin. He quickly approached a bed and that now familiar musky smell entered Denise's nostrils. He leant over and kissed her face.

Denise was still frozen, she didn't know what to do. This was all impossible. And then he bit into her neck. Denise jumped up out of bed, grabbing the bedside lamp. She readied herself to strike the man, but at that exact moment, the doorbell sounded. The man just seemed to vanish, disappearing out of the room at an almost impossible speed. She rushed to the front door to find Jo standing there.

Denise burst into tears. Joe called the police as they searched the house. There was no one. No sign that anyone could have broken in. The only proof that this had even happened was the red ring on Denise's neck, where the man had bitten her. Later that evening, Denise had gone back to her parents' house while Joe and a couple of his friends searched the house.

They were in the attic when his friend Alex pulled out the paintings once again. There was the painting of the blonde woman. But it was strange, the second painting was... Blank. Just a green background with nothing else on it. On the back of the frame was an inscription that read, Richard Brownrigg, musician. Joe didn't explain it to his friend, he couldn't.

He would sound insane. Instead, they left a house that night and never returned. While nothing like this has happened again, later residents of the house have reported strange sounds, echoing through the halls of this old Victorian home. And there has been at least one claim that someone outside saw a bit of. bearded man and a blonde woman looking out of the upstairs window late at night.

A creepy story, a little bit of local folklore, perhaps. But the world of the strange is full of stories like this. And tonight we will be exploring three of the most famous examples. First we will look at the stories surrounding each painting and then we will examine possible explanations. Get yourself a warm drink, dim the lights and get comfortable, because it's time to explore the dark stories behind the world's most haunted paintings. Welcome to the tape library. It all began in the council house on Pagnell Drive in Swallow Nest, a village just to the east of Sheffield. It was late one evening when the call came. Fire. The fire

The men leapt into the engine and headed off in the direction of the home. One of the men on board was particularly concerned. His name was Peter Hall and the report of the fire was the address of his brother's home. He was worried but not surprised. When they arrived, the house was fully ablaze. Peter's nephew had been cooking chips in a pan when the oil had spat and started a fire. The 25-year-old man had attempted to put out the fire himself. but just burnt his hands in the process.

The fire was quickly put out, but the damage was already done. A good chunk of the home was a wreck. As the firemen walked through the smoky remains of the house, they saw it on the wall. Peter took a deep breath and sighed as he looked at it. The painted image of a young boy looking down at him, tears rolling down his cheeks. They had seen that painting a lot recently.

In fact, they estimated it had been present at the location of around 50 different house fires. So much so that when Peter saw it hanging in his brother's house weeks before, he had warned him to get rid of it. The joke going around the fire station was that this painting was cursed. He wasn't sure how seriously to take it. But when he saw it there, in the smouldering wreckage of his brother's home, he felt like this could be really happening because despite everything around it being a blackened shell. The crying boy on the wall seemed to be virtually unharmed.

It hadn't burnt. It hadn't at any of the other house fires either. No matter how much damage was done by the fires, that same crying boy was always there. perfectly unharmed. It was the local paper, the Sheffield Star, that first ran this story in September of 1985. It began as just a weird little story, this same painting popping up at multiple house fires in the local area. But soon it ballooned into a full-blown national panic. If they found the story after ringing around, looking for something to write about on what was a quiet, at Newsweek, or simply took the story from the Sheffield star, is something that appears to be up for debate.

But at some point, the infamous national tabloid the sun, came across the fire that had taken place in the Hall family home. They republished it on page 13 on the 4th of September, under the headline, blazing curse of the crime boy. It wasn't the fact that the painting had remained intact that really intrigued the reporter. It was the detail about the Roverham Fire Brigade, talking about how they kept seeing this painting at house fires. This information wasn't just coming from a random member of the public. The authority of the firefighters added weight to the story. The gist of the story suggested that this print of the crime boy was in some way cursed. The owning one would lead to a fire. Once this story got the ball rolling, it didn't stop.

Over the next six months, more than 30 different news stories were reported about the Crying Boy Curse. The Sun started to become inundated with people getting in touch, claiming to have been affected by the curse. Another family of four in nearby Roverem was left homeless, their Crying Boy painting being one of their few remaining belongings after a fire broke out in their council house. A woman named Sandra in North Yorkshire claimed that she, her sister-in-law and their friend had all bought copies of the now infamous painting, and that all three had suffered house fires.

Sandra had been a keen collector of paintings and said that she had lost all of them in that fire. All but one that was. The crying boy remained intact. On Surrey, the painting was purchased by the Mann family, who saw their entire house gutted by flames within six months of bringing the painting into their home. In Nottingham, the Parks family were hospitalised after a fire broke out in their house. When the father of the family Brian returned to his blackened home, he found the crying boy, perfectly in place on the ruined walls, not a scratch on it.

He pulled the painting off the wall and destroyed it, before the rest of his family returned from the hospital. Curious owners of prints of the painting, hearing the stories, even attempted to deliberately burn the paintings themselves, but apparently without success. The son, reporter who brought the story to public attention, interviewed a firefighter named Alan Wilkinson, who claimed he noticed this strange phenomena since 1973, 12 years before it gained wider attention. Although he was quick to state that he didn't believe this was supernatural, and there must be an

explanation, even if he couldn't say what that was. His wife had a slightly more chilling view of it all, though. She said she believed the reason the painting always remained intact, was because the boy's tears would put the fires out. Rumors began to spread about the origins of the painting, who even painted it to begin with, seemed to be a source of confusion, as the original name on the print appeared to be a pseudonym. Roy Vickery, president of the folklore society, apparently speculated that the original artist may have mistreated the child model, and that this curse was the child's method of revenge.

The son kept publishing articles about the crime boy throughout October. claiming that the situation was becoming worse and worse. Before, on October 24th, they published an article that said if people had a crime boy painting in their home to send it to them, and they would destroy it. Their offices just off of Fleet Street were soon overflowing with crime boy paintings. But seemingly it wasn't just a bit of fun from their perspective. When one of the staff members hung up one of the crime boy pictures on the wall, the editor demanded they remove it, claiming that he believed they were in fact bad luck.

They expected to get a few through that they could dispose of for publicity. But by the end they had 2,500 copies of this painting to deal with, so they came up with the obvious solution. They would attempt to burn them. And it worked. The paper made a large bonfire and seemingly set all the paintings alight at once, negating its power,

leaving behind a smouldering mess of ash by the end. The stories of the crying boy gradually began to fade away, and it seemed the curse was over. But years later, the story would resurface online as people began to tell and retell the story over and over. The urban legend aspect of it grew as people claimed that the painting was haunted by the ghost of a young boy, who had somehow become trapped in the painting. His only way out was to burn the painting, freeing his soul.

So all those house fires were his attempts to escape. This was backed up by sorceress claims that other paranormal activity. activity was reported in many of the homes where the paintings were owned. But someone did claim to have uncovered the true backstory of the painting. According to a story published by writer Tom Sleeman in 2000, The Curse of the Crime Boy began decades before the paintings ever appeared on people's walls. Sleeman claimed that the original portrait had been painted by an elderly Spanish artist, named Franchot Seville, who lived in Madrid.

In 1969, Seville supposedly came across a young boy wandering the city streets alone. The child never spoke, he simply stared back with an expression of overwhelming sadness. When Seville painted the boy, a local Catholic priest recognized him. The child's name he claimed was Don Bonilo. According to the priest, Bonilo had fled after watching his parents die in a house fire. He then issued a chilling warning. Wherever the boy went, unexplained fires were said to follow. Local villagers had even given him a sinister nickname.

Diablo. Despite the warning Seville took the boy into his home. For a time, life seemed to improve. His portraits became popular and sold well. But eventually disaster struck. Seville's studio was destroyed by fire, wiping out both his work and his livelihood. Convinced the boy was responsible, he accused Bonillo of setting the blaze. The child ran away in tears, and, according to the story, was never seen again.

Sleeman claimed that this was only the beginning. From that point on, reports allegedly began to emerge from across Europe, linking mysterious house fires to copies of the Crying Boy painting. Seville himself also became tainted by the curse. No one would commission his work, and people supposedly refused even to look at his paintings. The story reaches its final twist in 1976, after a car crashed into a wall outside Barcelona and burst into flames. The driver was burned beyond recognition. Only part of a driving license survived inside the glove compartment. The name printed on it was Don Bonillo, now age 19. It's certainly an eerie tale. The problem is that nobody knows where Sleeman got it from.

No earlier version has ever been identified, and the only detail that can be independently verified is the name Franchotzeville, along with Giovanni Braga Lin. It has been identified as a pseudonym used by the Italian artist Bruno Amadeo, who painted many of the Crying Boy portraits from his studio in Venice. So the Crying Boy remains a mystery to this day. Could this just be an example of a mass panic spurred on by a tabloid newspaper? Perhaps. But it is a story that people still share.

people still share, still add to. Every year claims appear online from people who remember seeing it in family members' homes, or spotting it in various places during their childhood. So often, those stories are singed with the memories of a blaze. And if you feel good about yourself and the world, it'll show in your painting and all these little things will happen. Our next painting, we do have a clear idea of where it came from, but that doesn't make its story any less chilling. In 1972, Bill Stonan painted the hands resist him. He had based it on an old photograph of himself from when he was about five years old, standing next to a young girl in front

of a door. But Stonham's recreation is far stranger. The boy in the painting, Stonan himself, stares out of a blank expression. The girl next to him has a distorted, rigid face. She looks more like a doll than a person. Nothing about her seems natural. Stonham has said repeatedly that the boy represents him on the cusp of childhood and adulthood. The girl is a guide of sorts. But the door behind them is a boundary between the waking world and the world of dreams.

pressed against that glass door of multiple small hands, trapped behind the glass, unable to get out. It was first displayed at the Feingarten Gallery in Beverly Hills, and that was when the strangeness surrounding this painting really began. The art dealer Charles Fingarten, who displayed the painting, died within a year of the show. Nothing strange about that, you might feel.

He was an older man, people die. But the critic who reviewed the painting at the show, Henry Seldis, also died shortly after. Only one painting from the show was sold. The hands resist him. It was purchased by actor John Marley, best known for his role in Godfather. He too passed away after coming into ownership of the painting. It's worth pointing out that the connections between those deaths and coming into contact to the painting were not established at the time.

This detail was only speculated up much later. But after Marley's death, who ended up with the painting turned into something of a mystery, Stoneham had moved on, continuing this career, with no idea who now had his prior work. For well over a decade the owner of the painting had been unknown. But it was apparently found towards the end of the 90s, out back of a brewery by an elderly couple. They didn't know the relevant of this painting. It was just an interesting image that had been thrown out with a bunch of junk, for they took it home.

It was February of 2000 when a strange listing appeared on eBay. It was simply named Haunted Painting. It quickly drew attention. I will read you the original description that accompanied the posting. When we received this painting, we thought it was really good art. A picker had found it abandoned behind an old brewery. Now at the time we wondered why a seemingly perfectly fine painting would be discarded like that. Today we don't.

One morning our four and a half year old daughter claimed that the children in the picture were fighting. fighting and coming into the room during the night. Now I don't believe in UFOs or Elvis being alive but my husband was alarmed. To my amusement he set up a motion-triggered camera for the nights. After three nights there were pictures. The last two pictures shown from that stakeout. After seeing the boy, seemingly exiting the picture under threat. We decided the painting has to go. Please judge for yourself.

The listing then included the disclaimer, telling anyone that by bidding on the painting, the prior owners could not be held responsible for anything that might happen to them once in possession of the painting. The bid opened at $199.9. The listing went viral and many people visited the page to view the images. People who did made strange claims about viewing the images on their computer. People would feel sick, some fainted. They felt compelled to burst into tears experiencing extreme emotions from nowhere.

Others claim to have chest pains. It quickly became this kind of online of a legend. you be brave enough to look at this painting? And if you did, how did you feel? People daring one another to do it. The actual final purchase price of $1,025 was paid by an art gallery in Michigan, who quickly got in touch with Stoneham, which is when its backstory was discovered. And they displayed it. But the stories didn't end. People who have viewed it in the gallery, have reported reactions similar to those who viewed the listing online. But some have gone further, claiming to see the figures moving, just slightly.

Others have even said that they went to look at it and found the children in the painting, missing. Before suddenly reappearing a moment later, the new owner doesn't believe these stories. They don't think there is anything supernatural about it. But still, paranormal investigators keep approaching the gallery, asking to study the painting, to conduct experiments with it. And it appears the gallery is quite happy to accommodate them. Since 2004, Stoneham has painted several sequels to the original, one of which is displayed in the Haunted Museum in Las Vegas.

We'll end this section with Bill Stoneham's initial response to the hysteria, surrounding his painting. Where to begin? Well, I've always had a connection to what Carl Jung calls to collective unconscious. I think we all do. Artists, especially visual artists, are barometers for the currents that run through this collective. Dreams are a common experience people may have with this. Anyway, my own experience is a sensitivity to place, physical, geographical place.

There are memories, echoes of all the life within a place. Maybe it's what's called channeling. When I painted the hands resist him in 1972, I used an old photo of myself at age five in a Chicago apartment. The hands are the other lives. The glass door, that thin veil between waking and dreaming. The girl slash doll is the imagined companion, or guide through this realm. With the owner of the gallery where Hans was displayed and the Los Angeles Times art critic

who reviewed my show were dead within the year of the show. I'm sure it was a coincidence, but some of what I paint resonates in other people, opening the inner door, or basement. By the way, I still have no idea what happened to the character actor who bought the painting at the show, or how it ended up abandoned in the building. though I could speculate. Our last painting that I want to focus on tonight is, I think, the most frightening of all. This one has a weird, dark little tale associated with it,

so it's time to talk about the anguished man. Visually the painting is extremely unusual. It depicts a man's face distorted in obvious psychological pain. His features appear partially dissolved. into thick brushstrokes. The eyes seem hollow. The mouth hangs open, somewhere between a scream, and silent despair. Unlike the hands resisted, whose symbolism was explained by its artist, nobody knows what the anguishman was actually intended to represent, but as the stories passed down by one family are true. It may literally depict the artist's final.

emotional state. Again, we don't know who originally painted this one, or how it came into possession of an elderly woman in Cumbria. But the man who would later inherit it, Sean Robinson, does give some details. It appears Sean's grandmother became the custodian of the anguished man, about 25 years before the events really began. She was a deeply religious woman and heavily involved in the church, which is where Sean speculated it may have come from, possibly that the church had been charged with finding a safe place to keep this image, away from people, and she had volunteered. Sean's grandmother lived alone, but after taking possession of the painting, it didn't

always feel that way. She began to see a shadowy figure walking around her home. If she made the connection to the painting or not appears to be unclear, but soon she moved it to the loft space. Once it was stored away the shadowy figure seemed to stop making his nightly visits. She kept the painting in her home, but it remained in the loft, covered by a sheet. When Sean had found it upstairs one day in his younger years, he pulled off the sheet and look at it.

and she immediately covered it over again, but Sean was fascinated. His grandmother never spoke much about the painting or who had given it to her, but she did give Sean one disturbing detail about it. She said that the artist had apparently mixed some of his own blood into the oils as he painted it. Shortly after the painting was completed, he took his own life. In 1999, at the age of 96, Sean's grandmother passed away. He became the one to take the anguish man in.

He covered it up, placed it in the cellar of his home. And there it remained, for a decade. In 2010, the area was hit by some bad flooding. The water got into Sean's cellar, damaging many of the belongings down there. In fact, there was only one thing in the cellar. that appeared to not be water damaged. The painting. Sean moved it up into the house

so he could get the cellar straightened out. Initially, Sean kept it covered and in one of the rooms upstairs. But as an avid horror fan, Sean loved the painting. It was terrifying to look at, but he never really believed his grandmother's stories about it. He thought she was just trying to scare him.

His wife on the other hand was less keen on this image being out in their home. After some badgering, she finally agreed to let him hang it, but only in spare room. This would be a mistake. It started with strange sounds late at night, just the creaking of floorboards, the sounds as someone walking around upstairs. But whenever Sean went to investigate, there was no one there. The banging sounds followed shortly after, often being heard late at night. Then came the screams.

Sean thought he was just dreaming them at first. He would jolt up in bed at night, convinced he had heard someone screaming. But everyone would be asleep. But then his wife started to report. the same thing too. And then they started to hear them when they were awake. The screams at times would warp into the sound of crying, a deep sobbing coming from somewhere deep in their home that they were never able to find the source of, or at least not at first, because it was after this that they began to see the figure. The same shadowy presence

that stalled Sean's grandmother now seemed to be in their home. Often they would just spot it in the corner of their eyes, but on some occasions, Sean claimed they would see it, as clear as they, standing in front of them, but only for a brief moment. Sometimes it seemed to be whispering to itself. Other times, it appeared to be crying. He knew that when his grandmother had covered the painting. It had appeared to bring an end to the events in her home. But he wasn't scared. He was mostly fascinated.

So he left the painting hanging. Could this really be happening? He thought to himself. Was their house actually haunted? It didn't seem to be doing any harm. He just wanted to see what else would happen. He was awoke late one night. He wasn't sure what it was that had jolted him awake. It must have been another sound, he thought to himself. He was getting used to that at this point.

But as he glanced around the room, he noticed something at the foot of his bed. The shadowy figure was there, watching him and his wife as they slept. But as his eyes adjusted he realised there was something different about it. It wasn't just this featureless form anymore. Its face was a different colour. It was red. Its eyes hollow and sunken. Its mouth twisted into a frozen scream.

It looked exactly like the painting. It was there just for a brief moment. moment, before it just seemed to vanish back into the darkness. Sean kept this event to himself, not wanting to scare his wife any further, but still he couldn't seem to bring himself to put the painting away. But one morning, Sean rushed back into their bedroom to the sound of his wife screaming and crying. He had been downstairs in the kitchen, but he ran back into the still dark bedroom.

to find her in a terrible state. As she tried to catch her breath, she said she had been asleep when she felt someone, playing with her hair. When she opened her eyes, she saw it. The same red-faced figure, Sean had seen, looking down at her. The final straw came when Sean's son was found laying at the bottom of the stairs.

The boy was luckily not to see. seriously hurt but he was crying, claiming that someone had pushed him. Sean looked up the stairs to see the hall at the top, standing empty. But some part of him knew it wasn't. This physical interaction spurred him to head upstairs and take the painting down. He, much like his grandmother, covered the painting and put it back into the cellar. And then, it remained for years. But Sean would eventually find himself living alone and every once in a while he would bring his out just to look at it or show it to a curious visitor. The few people who have looked at it in person have claimed to feel ill or have experienced

sudden nosebleeds. Sean began documenting the events by filming the painting to demonstrate what he believed were apparitions. or visual artefacts emanating from it. Doors would open and close on their own, and on some occasions it appeared the painting even moved. He uploaded a few of these to YouTube over the course of several years, and numerous paranormal groups became very interested in these experiments and conducted their own investigations.

While the evidence that has been gathered isn't particularly overwhelming, the painting seems to have a very real. unsettling effect on anyone who interacts with it. Sean admits that this could all just be in his head, the power of suggestion influencing him and others around him. But another part of him feels that there might genuinely be something wrong with this painting. For whatever reason it seems that Sean, much like his grandmother before him, felt a responsibility to keep the painting. Sean has not uploaded to his Anguished Man YouTube channel for nearly four years now,

and it seemed the story of the Anguish Man had come to a quiet end. But while researching this, I came across the YouTube channel, Evils. The content is all presented by a man and mostly seems to be about tattoos and gaming. But there are two videos on his channel that drew my attention. One was from December of 2004, in which he claimed that he had been to visit his dad for Christmas. A man named Sean Robinson. Seemingly this channel is presented by Sean's adult son. Sean apparently told him that he no longer wanted the anguish man,

and his son offered to take it away. Why Sean finally gave up his stewardship of the painting is unclear, but his son clearly shows the painting, covered up and in the back seat of his car. It doesn't seem to be mentioned again until July of 2025 when he once again shows the painting in a short video in his home this time. He says that the painting hasn't caused any notable issues

since they moved this into their house. In the video it is covered up but he pulls away the covering to reveal the painting. The channel has not uploaded. since. Something tells me that the story of the Anguished Man painting isn't finished being told just yet. So what really happened? The corner says Von Amenter died sometime Tuesday night. Did you murder Vonimintra? No!

From the director of the last exorcism. Winthrop is not a murderer. And from the moment I met one, you could tell something was very awful. We are surrounded by evil incarnate. What do you mean to stop? How are you? A lockbox. Lockbox, now playing only in theaters. This spring, denim gets a softer, lighter update.

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Old Navy's drapey denim wide leg. They're not going to super in depth with these cases because really there's very little to sink our teeth into. As is the case with many haunted object stories, there is very little in the way of evidence, and the stories really have taken on a life of their own across the internet, making it hard to decipher at times what details were present in the original accounts and what elements have been added over time as the stories are told again and again. Let's begin with our first story tonight, the couple who found the painting of a bearded man in

their new home. This story comes from a series of books called Haunted Liverpool by author Tom Sleeman. These books are presented as retellings of real-life accounts, but in most cases, very few corroborating details are included that allow you to invent. investigate further. In this case, this story feels very much just that. A story. I couldn't find any information about the supposed musician in the painting, and there doesn't seem to be any images of the actual painting.

Although based on the story, maybe that is understandable. If the name Tom Sleeman seems familiar, that's because, by a strange coincidence, he actually pops up again in our second case of the evening. the Crying Boy. He is the man who revealed the interesting backstory for the painting. But again, there seems to be little to prove that it is anything more than a urban legend. The most commonly cited explanation for the Crying Boy phenomenon is that it was simply a very popular painting at the time.

It was in countless houses all across the UK. In fact, there were also several imitations of the original painting, meaning that many of crime boy paintings covered in the media and sent to the paper were actually not the same painting. If a huge number of homes in the UK had this painting, or a similar one, it is not that crazy that many homes that experienced fires had it in them. Almost all of the fires had explainable sources too. In recent years, a BBC show was actually able to get a copy of the original painting and did attempt to burn it on video. Sure enough, it didn't burn. The speculation at the time was that the painting was covered in some sort of flame retardant material, although the sun was able to

burn them on that bonfire in the 80s. It's also worth pointing out for my listeners from outside the UK that the newspaper at the centre of this story, the Sun, has a less than stellar reputation. It was quite clear they were keen to egg on the hysteria about the painting, as it gave them an entertaining story to cover, especially in the lead up to Halloween, which was becoming increasingly popular to celebrate in the UK in the 1980s. But the hysteria itself seemed to be very real. Sure, some people were leaning into it a bit, having some fun. But there were many examples of people being genuinely scared of this painting, and the reputation appears to have quickly killed off the popularity of the print. So could this one just be a coincidence?

Perhaps. But I know I wouldn't want to hang this painting in my home, and I'm sure a number of you would be apprehensive to do so too. Now onto the hands resist him. This one is interesting because there are multiple parts to this story. You have the supposed cursed element that numerous people who are connected to the initial showing of the painting died soon after coming into contact with it. Then you have the undocumented period of time, between it being in the actor's possession and being found out back of a brewery in California. This, I think, is the most intriguing part, because we have no idea whose hands it passed through and why it ended up just being dumped.

It feels like there is a whole hidden part of the story that has just never been uncovered. For me, the eBay listing just brings me back to the Dybbock Box hoax. Although the painting's listing predates the dibuc box by a few years, was the listing just a way to drum up a bit of interest in a painting that the owner didn't know anything about, a creative way to tell a story, or as the artist himself proposed, just the power of suggestion. It is a creepy painting. Maybe a lot of the claims were simply the owner's minds playing. tricks on them. Stoneham actually points out that one of the stranger elements of the eBay claims, centered around the doll girl, pointing a gun at the boy and forcing him out of the picture,

although what they interpreted as a gun was actually apparently intended to be a battery, with wires sticking out of it. I was able to find the original motion-detected photos that the owners took, but while it looks a bit weird, it doesn't seem to be that compelling, and could have been faked. While Stoneham seems to enjoy the speculation about his painting and hasn't shied away from talking about it, his studio quotes on its website that when it comes to internet posts about the haunted painting,

people should doubt more than they believe. Then that brings us to the anguish man, which is the story that I think creeps me out the most. As far as I can tell, no one has been able to trace this painting back to a specific, civic artist. While the origin of the crime boy is a bit of a mystery, that is a mass-produced print. Something about the anguished man being an apparent genuine one-off, with no known source. It's quite unsettling. Of course, all our information about this painting comes

from one man, so we have to take his accounts with a pinch assault. The videos on his YouTube page that I will link to in the description are interesting. But for me personally, nothing that can be seen as serious proof, and could have been faked. I think the one thing that drags me more into this one is that Sean doesn't seem to be trying to gain anything from this. Sure he is a YouTube channel, but as far as I can tell, it's unmonetised and has rarely been updated. It feels like he is just genuinely trying to share his experiences, rather than trying to turn the anguish man into something for personal gain. Although it's impossible to know that for certain. That said, there was a film seemingly announced based on the events some years back, but

I couldn't find anything concrete about it. It feels unusual for what is effectively a niche little internet ghost story. Although the Wikipedia page does state that there was even a director attached, it doesn't appear anything came of it. If this was the goal, then it seems it failed. Still, the painting is creepy and the fact that the updates on it just seemed to suddenly stop last year, just adds to the unnervingness of it all. Is the anguishman simply a modern-day urban legend?

Perhaps all these stories are. But if the story is true, then somewhere, behind a face twisted in agony, the last thing the unknown artist ever left behind may still be waiting for someone new to hang it on the wall again. That's all for this entry into the tape library. This was a really fun one to put together. I wanted to do an episode on The Crying Boy for quite a while, but I just didn't feel there was enough of a story to dedicate a whole episode to it. So when someone else requested the Anguish Man on the community tab on YouTube, I thought in General, painting episode could be a good idea. Are there any other paintings you think I should have

included here? If so, let me know in the comments below. And maybe we can do a part two of this later in the year. Until next time, my friends. Pleasant dreams. As always, this episode was made possible by my supporters on Patreon, so it's time to read out their credits. First up, our tape library archivist Thomas Brown, Michelle Nexor-EH, Gillotine, Alex Wiles, Michelle Dessnautia. Olsen-Wells, Paranormal Phoenix, Tony 10, M. M., the Laughantham, Tabe, Sarisa Wells, Alice, Julian M, Lampfer's Blood,

Jennifer, Shan Harding, Melissa Waldroat, Adam M, Krypton, Adam Grantham, the Magic Pumpkin, Lucas Wiles, Yenock, Aurora, Lee Borax Johnson, Nouns M, Pat McShea, Pampthorpor, the Elusive M, the Bisexual Moon Cult, Emulated, Emuilated, Jamie Long, Dammit David and Marcus, G, Martinez, Lisa Mary Sheridan, Gofy of a G, Plum Blossom, Gina Britton, Emily Carlin, Sarah Boyd, Thomas Boatwright, Stephen Lutman, Crystal E, West Virginia Vegetable Man, Dawn Swan, Tina S,

Sean Miller, Juno, Joseph Condola, Jolly Jedi, Pixalina, Joe, the Crimson DM, Detective, Gene Janine, Dala, Alfredo Sandoval, Milla Zabine, Dominic Diagon O'Dorleg, Judith Hacker, Eric Salaz, Mirashard, Adeline, Ashlas, Books, Gabrielle, and Sandy Lusk. Then we have our amazing lead archivists, some are chambers, Bunny Gas Mask, Sage, Dr. Thunderus Phantom PhD, Sandy W., Yvonne Rivers, Jennifer, Amy Stubblefield, the original dear, Emmy Bartley, Lady Bet Noir, Rick Dichthylus, London Grace, Melissa Harrinson, Emperor Franz, Plague Doctor As Innes, Xavier Angle, Saigelle, Alex O'Neill, Alex Goldberg, Van Yale, Brian Baker, and 1000th Ghost. And our insanely generous grand overseers,

Lauren Murray, Zarastic, Wyn Lewis, the God Emperor of Mankind, Old Soul Like Mine, Harrison, Harrison the Ogre Lord, Shannon in Seattle, Leah Carmela, Badiddle, Katie, Morning Rain 2619, Agent 355 and Queen of Flatlands. Thank you so much to all of them. All my junior archivists and my members on YouTube. Each and every one of you plays a huge part in keeping the show going. I really couldn't do this without you. If you want to join the archivists, links can be found in the description. It's a really nice community over on Patreon, and you can even join for free. So come and say hi over there. See you all soon. Now receiving frequency transmission.

How do we know what's real? There's so many things that are unknown in this universe that I'm thankful I don't know the answers to. In many ways I feel like the unknown is a gift. It allows us to us to imagine what could be. And sometimes imagining what could be is actually greater than staring right at what is. Our brains try so hard to manufacture certainty. And in our attempts to manufacture certainty, I think we get stuck. And that causes us often to ignore what is real for one person which may be completely unreal for someone else. So how do we know what's real? We don't. Not knowing what is real allows us to peer more deeply into what could be. And that is a gift

in and of itself. Radio.