This Evil Spirit Was Such a Witch

Welcome to Scary Mystery Surprise, where we talk about creepy things that surprised us around the internet. That medwin. I'm Michelle back Surprise, Scary Mistery Surprise is back. Is that what it's called? Yes, that's what it's called. That's right. You shot down my first idea, Scary Mystery Box. Yeah, I shot. Don't tell people idea. Sorry, I guess that was private, private talk we have. This is a cool one. Actually, Michelle like this episode. Yeah, it's about witches, so actually want witches one witch? Okay, well, I guess I mean that's still cool. Well have you ever seen have you ever seen like the Blair Witch Project? No? Have you seen Poultergeist No? Okay, Paranormal Activity no, the Witch No? But I do want to see that one. Basically, all of these movies there inspired by this topic that we have today. Back in eighteen seventeen, a farmer named John Bell lived with his family in Tennessee along the Red River. But this is a long time ago, right, the eighteen hundreds. What we know today as towns, they're not. They weren't there, like you just know, oh yeah this is along the river or this is where the river splits at the base of the mountain. I'm assuming this is what how you would refer to little settlement. I mean, I think they had towns in the eighteen Okay, that's what I mean. I'm pretty sure they had chowns. I think I've had towns for a while. Oo. Okay, and today this is known as the town of Adams. Right. So this is on the northwest side of Robertson County in Tennessee. So John Bell was doing his thing, you know, like walking outside a straw in his mouth, just looking out into the sunset, spit in tobacci. You know, he's spinning it in a platoon and having a go I can add it and post. Everyone gets what I'm going for. Yeah, yeah, spitting things that you do they yeah, whatever you did best TV. When he was doing his thing, he spotted this strange creature off into the distance. So according to his story, it looked like about the size of a dog. So he was freaking out, so he fired at it. Got such a typical response, I wonder what that is. Boom could have been a person. My sound effects are good today. You're gonna have to really juice him up. I think you'll have to leave a man. Yeah, I'm gonna He ran up to the thing after he shot at it, but he didn't hit it because once he got there, it was gone. I imagine that he goes and complaints. He's just like I just saw this dog. He might start eating to his wife. I'm assuming. I don't know, because the story comes out somehow, right, Like, the story gets out and then he hears through one of his slaves that's hit. They had also seen a large black dog. When I heard this part of the story, I'm like, oh, dang, okay, so he had slaves. I'm like, okay, so this kind of changes the perspective already. I'm just like, okay, so this is like a huge operation then or something, right like, yeah, this goes from him spitting to Bacci and standing there with a straw in his mouth. So now he has a white suit on and he looks like yeah, and exactly he goes from one to like a completely other person. He goes from poor farmer to Colonel Sanders really really fast. Yeah. Yeah, So you might think that this is just like a regular haunting experience, right, like something, Oh I just saw this creature, but instead a lot of other accounts of the same thing started coming through, so this was like several accounts. So Betsy Bell, which is the daughter of John, was outside the house when she saw a little girl swinging from the limb of an oak tree. Betsy was confused about it. I mean, I'm confused about it too. She what would you do? I guess it depends on the context. But if I just walked out and I was like, what the fuck is that girl doing, and then I'd probably just go back inside, Like I probably wouldn't even like address it. It's like, well, if she breaks her arm, she'll come tell me she's hurt herself, and then I'd just go back inside. But if it's the middle of the night, that's a whole different. I mean, I'd probably still go inside, but I'd be more scared when I went inside. That's true. Okay, So that changed. Okay, So let's change the story here. We're gonna ReadWrite history. Let's say it's the middle of the night. Betsy Bell, the daughter of John, was outside the house doing what I don't know, milking cows. Milking cows, you know, the animals are being weird. And she's out there with a candle or an oil lamp and just walking out. And then she sees the girl on the tree and she's just swinging off the lamb, staring at her. Yeah, so that's how it's going, just like the weird Twins from the Shining just staring. Yeah, and she's just swinging and it's creaking, even though it's not metal chain, well, rope creaks, right, right, But I imagined her just her hanging from her arms. That's animal with her arms. Story changes again, all right, a little girl's hanging from her arms, hanging gripping onto a limb of an oak tree in the middle of the night, so much scarier and weirder. I thought it was a swing, but you're right, I didn't specify looking at Betsy. Okay, So this is why Betsy was confused, right, because Betsy was confused and she didn't know who she was. What she did was she walked over to the tree. And so she's walking to it, and as she gets close, the girl just disappears. Imagine she's swinging and looking at her, and then she just slowly vanished. Just it's like she's swinging, she falls, disappears, her arms got tired, and then she just fell into the earth. The family they try to keep this to themselves or like, within their little circle. But then things started getting worse. They would hear things moving, sheets were being pulled away from the beds. They're knocking on the doors, on the walls. There were sounds of dog fights. And then here's the coolest one, rats chewing away at the furniture. That's the worst one. Yeah, that's not a ghost though, that's just I'm having vermin problems. When the fire was low and the family was drifting off to sleep, they started to hear the sounds of chains being dragged, so they were creeped out right. Things were getting worse. So the children were being punched and hurt with pins and sometimes being left finish finish your water, bishell, because I don't want you to do anything here, but here it go that we love this being pinched and hurt with pins and sometimes being left with imprints of hands on Betsy's face from being slapped. Why I love it? Why did the ghost so slap? Why? Oh it's just the best, It's the best. Oh my goodness that ever. I was cracking up when I read this part. Oh my god, I love this I love people getting slapped by ghost. I don't know why it's such a common it's amazing, it's amazing. Based on that and the slap, they concluded that there was a spirit in their home. Right, so they were convinced. So people started talking about their home, and the news basically spread like wildfire. And this is when I think it starts getting from really creepy to weird and like just odd. So they said that they could hear voices, one voice actually, and they were having full conversations with the spirit, and visitors to the house could actually talk to the spirit. That's a good spot for a break. Maybe there'll be a break. So back to the story, there's chains people who were getting slapped. This was like a thing like a tourist attraction type of thing. You would go and like you would basically ask a question and the bell which would answer. Do they have any examples of what they would say to the voice? Yeah, So the end itself would repeat Bible versus how boring? Why can't he just be more? Or why can't it I don't want to gender a ghost. Yeah we don't know. We don't know it's pronounce yet. Yeah, we don't know. It's pronouns. But why couldn't it be better read? That's all I'm asking, you know what I mean, Like, it's the eighteen hundreds, it's not Stone Age time. It could have read better literature, that's all I'm saying. You know, Shakespeare, Let's just go back to Shakespeare. That's so much better. I mean, maybe this is on them for not having anything good to read in their house. This voice that sounded like a female voice started speaking about her existence as a disturbed spirit and also giving explanations as to why she was there. Now they're saying she and this time, so I'm assuming that is when they say, oh, this is a witch. So then you know, obviously you have people that believe in their skeptics, right, So skeptics started popping up, and they even had some strange stories. Right, So these skeptics have the stories, right. So they turned to a man named James Johnston who was a friend of the family. So he asked some questions that only he would know, and the witch started to mimic their families, British or English accent and phrases good day, govnor which I get like that. You know I would do that too, like I get it, just like doing a Bible verse and and being like, hello, might they said that the skeptics eventually wrote to the family like there was it was him and there was some other skeptics. They wrote to the family for not believing. So I guess everybody was so proper Please forgive us for not believing. Is that it? Yeah? I was just like, I'm sorry for I don't know. I don't know. You can google how to say you're sorry now, So I wish more people did. I wish more people did real apologies. It makes sense. Yeah, back then, I think people were just so proper polite. These people did go into their house expecting it to be a lie. That's true. So who knows the attitude they had when they walked in there, if they were like, this is a oh God it went friends. My accent went French as I just like, I'm like, good it is because it was going because I was going to be rude, so naturally I went French with it. God, sorry to alienate all your French listeners. Sorry, guys, that was good. Good day. I I do believe y'all. Ghost story there, that's good. That's that's my most British. There it is. That's it, that's my accent. So this is where the story gets even weirder. The spirit wasn't good or bad to everybody, right. The spirit used to treat Lucy Bell, which is the wife of John Bell, the best. She would sing hymns and make fresh fruit appear for her, so you know, she gets fresh fruits. It became obvious that she did not like John Bell, which she referred to as Old Jack, and she used to make threats and curses. Wait then, and that's not like another term for the devil Jack. I didn't know that really, Yeah, okay, I learned something. Now. Eventually old Jack John started getting sick and he got worse up until he couldn't get off his bed. So yeah, one day he just didn't wake up. Oh he died. I was thinking he did the grandparents in Willie Wonka where he just stopped getting out of bed, you know where the grandpa Joe just stays in bed for some reason and then it's fine to go to the candy factory. No, so he physically like couldn't just get off his beds. And next to him was a substance which the witch claimed to be a fixed version of his medicine. When John was being buried, the Witch's voice kept interrupting, singing, singing, drinking songs, disrespecting the events completely. Right, Oh, finally, finally she got interesting geez drinking songs, though, like, do you know any of those? Like, are there any drinking songs that? Now? Like one hundred bottles of beer on the wall? One hundred bottles of beer? Take what Dawn pass it around? Ninety nine bottles of beer on the wall? I mean, I would love it if she's sang that during the funeral. She was just straight up this is their version of like funeral bombing. Look, she is transcending that point of just kind of like being annoying, you know what I mean, which I like that she's part of the family and is just like crazy at Bell Witch. So people say that the Bell Witch is a spirit of this woman named Kate Bots or Bats, who was an old neighbor of John Bell who believed Actually yeah, because back then when they were selling land, like you need to be super specific, John supposedly like kind of ripped her off. John never seemed like a good guy. I mean, he was dressed like Colonel Sanders, I mean shoots at random things. Yeah, he's a jerk. Okay, moving on, right, So he's dead now. In eighteen twenty one, eighteen twenty one, what do you think Lucy did here at that time? I'm assuming she got remarried well clothes. Yeah, she got engaged to a man named His name was Joshua Gardner and Kate didn't like that guy all right, So yeah, the bell Witch demanded that they call off their engagement, and Lucy did. The Witch then said that she would be leaving and that she would be back in seven years, in eighteen twenty eight. So specific, I hope she read some Shakespeare while she was gone. I wanted to travel the world and really like better herself while she's gone in those seven years, and have something else to sing instead of like, you know, one hundred bottles of beer on the wall. Again, we get it, we get it. Oh, so today there's actually a cave that is named after her, like after the bell Witch, in that same land that was owned by John Hill and you can still visit it. So it's there. And actually here's a twist, Michelle, this was actually on Ghost Adventures? Oh was it? Did they get any good evidence? I don't know. I never I'm pretty sure I actually I saw it. I'm pretty sure at one point I saw it, because this is a it rang a bell. When I first heard about the bell Witch, they might have called it the bell Witch Caves or something or they I'm sure they ran around and just yelled, dude, dude, come over here, come feel this, Come feel this. It's so cold. Dude, dude, doo, dude. I always remember the stop stop running. Wait did we finish the story? Yea? So oh so the ghost left for seven years, right, yeah, then came back, then came back. I want Kate the bell Witch to have like really gone out there and really enriched her life and had like an ead prey love exploration of the world, and like she's gone on some adventures and like fallen in love and like just had the time of her life before she came back to her home roots, back with new music, new hobbies music, Yeah, like just new experiences. She's just so enriched. Yeah, new sea shanties to sing. She always needs to be present at all of her enemies funerals. Yeah, because I mean that part did make her seem a little like, Okay, you're gonna laugh at someone's funeral. Okay, I mean that was like hilarious that she was that spiteful over that guy. But I mean he was a dick. So yeah, what I think is that somebody was obviously making up the voice, right, like right, somebody was really good at being a ventriloquist and just really able to hone down that skill and just yeah, you know, but to mock and like to make fun of. I mean, I feel I don't know, And plus, like it's not like people are deaf, you know, like you can kind of tell where a voice is coming from. I mean, who's to say they might have actually been slapped and like seen a weird little girl hanging from a tree, and then they were like, let's let's add this voice that says really boring things. Yeah, all the time. Honestly, That's maybe what makes it a hoax, is because because it's like that would have just been what they were reading at the house, maybe they were getting in trouble for it, like oh, you're haunted, you need to do this, you need to do that, and they're like, no, this is actually really happening, and I'm going to prove it, you know, And then you know, something like that, Come talk to our ghosts, Come talk to our ghosts. Yeah, but now the caves, actually the caves in this area, people do go exploring, and they do hear voices, and they do feel strange stuff. So this might be like a real thing, something real story, something happened. Yeah, so we never know. I'm pro k. What can I say? I'm pro k. I hope she's having a good time in that cave. I hope, you know. I only wish the best for truly, truly, and then I, you know, wish a lot of sea shanties and beer drinking songs on all of her enemies. That's what I wish. There, you go, Kate to you, We drink to you. K Yeah, we drink to you, Kate. If you have an idea something you want us to talk about, send us an email hello at Scary Mystery Surprise dot com or find us on social media. I'll leave the links in the description of these episodes. That's all Surprise Surprise. Be sure to rate and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. See you next time.