So, I skipped last week's blog homework because I actually don't have evidence of having ever participated in Halloween. To make up for that I'm putting a little extra effort into this one. I particularly like this week's topic, as per @charmaine @rambo @lyxzen and @missy which is:
10/24: Tell us your best ghost/spooky story! Can be a real paranormal experience you had, a story you heard, an urban legend, or a fictional tale that you make up!
My story is about a doll only an hour's drive from where I live, named Mandy, pictured here:
Creepy, isn't she? Here is an editorial, with most names removed, from a book relaying a few experiences people have had with Mandy.
"Steve Wallace, the mayor of Quesnel, British Columbia in the late 1990s, has not said whether he's a believer or a sceptic, but he has called a certain artifact at a local museum "a great draw for the community." Other people in the community have committed themselves more fully by asserting that the artifact is "possessed."
The controversial piece is a doll, named Mandy. She is roughly 2 feet tall, and estimated to be about 80 years old. She began her residency at the town's museum in 1991. Earlier that year, Lisa Sorensen of Quesnel found the toy in her grandmother's trunk. She initially intended to keep the doll for herself, but a number of unexplainable and disturbing events changed her mind. She began to hear a baby crying at night, although no baby was anywhere near. Those phantom cries were accompanied by strange and unexplainable breezes blowing inside the house. When Lisa heard a window slam closed and found the spike that was supposed to hold it open lying on the floor, she decided that she's been associated with the doll for longer than was comfortable
Since Mandy has been in the museum, the numbers of bizarre occurrences thought to be connected with the decidedly unattractive-looking toy have increased. No one has any idea who or what possess the doll, but she has been held responsible for many eerie encounters. Some of them indicate that Mandy does not like having her picture taken. Artifacts acquired by the Quesnel and District Museum must be catalogued and photographed. While an experienced museum photographer was taking shots of the newly acquired doll, she and the friend who was with her during shoot both felt extremely uncomfortable.
In order to get the job done - at least to the point where the film had been developed to produce negatives - the pair tried to ignore their feelings of discomfort. However, as soon as the negatives were hung to dry, they immediately tidied up, locked up and left the building. The next day the museum's curator described the mess in the developing room as looking like "a small child had had a temper tantrum."
A local photographer for the Cariboo Observer newspaper also had an interesting experience with the photos that he took at the museum. Although he photographed a number of exhibits, many of the pictures that he took were of Mandy. When he returned to his office and tried to print off contact sheets of his photographs, the paper never emerged from the developer. The potential pictures simply vanished somewhere inside the machine. While he was attempting to solve this problem, he heard footsteps in the office area above the developing room. Thinking that since he was supposedly alone in the building there must be intruders, he went up to check, but could find no source of the sounds.
A photographer for another local newspaper also had a bizarre experience trying to take Mandy's picture. He reported that the doll, although is is otherwise apparently an inanimate object, seemed to "turn her head away from the lens so that I might not get her on film." Determined, nevertheless, to complete the shoot, he took the doll out of its glass case, "and sat her on the bed. She seemed to be grinning at me as the flash hit her face."
A woman visiting from Calgary tried to videotape Mandy. As she was filming, the woman remembered thinking that the doll did not like having her picture taken. She did not have time to dwell on this rather odd thought, however, because an indicator light on the video camera began to flash intermittently. When she moved along to the next exhibit, the camera worked properly again. Mandy apparently wasn't content with disrupting the woman's filming, though. When she got home and tried to play the videotape, it became wedged in her VCR and could only be removed forcibly. She never did get to view the tape that she had tried to make at the Quesnel Museum."
I have personally seen Mandy with my own two eyes. Even though I haven't yet tried to photograph her, and she is indeed creepy, she is no more "paranormal" than any other creepy doll. And there is one other creepy doll at the Quesnel Museum, which is kept a ways a way from Mandy. If you are in the area, I would recommend seeing Mandy for yourself. Maybe you'll have an experience of your own?
