Talking Ernie
“My mom used to make a collection of Elmo dolls from Sesame Street and once she was given an Ernie doll from the same show. Mom didn't collect Ernie, but she accepted the gift out of courtesy.
I was a teenager then and my mom was in drug rehabilitation. Because of this, my brother and I were taken away from her home and she was deprived of parental rights, but then she was given custody of us.
Then she had a relapse and many bad people came to her house and sold her drugs. But even these people were terrified by the abnormal things that were happening in the house.
The collection of toys was kept in my mother's bedroom and it was the epicenter of anomalous phenomena, although they happened in other rooms. Including there was a phenomenon that I myself was an eyewitness to. Ernie's doll spoke on its own even though it had no batteries!
I was then in the living room, and the doll was locked in the closet and I heard her talking. In addition, we saw figures of ghosts or demons, especially they liked to appear around the bathroom.
Mom was eventually imprisoned, and other residents moved into this house. I was afraid to go directly to them and ask if they saw something anomalous, but it seems they also encountered these phenomena, as they soon hung a figurine of Jesus Christ on the cross on the front door."
Promotional video:
Dancing toys
“From 1961 to 1966, when I was a little girl, my brother and I grew up in my grandmother's house in Wichita, Kansas.
My younger brother was born albino and he was also mentally handicapped. We lived in the same room and, being an albino, he saw practically nothing in the daytime, so he mostly slept during the day and was awake at night.
Our room had a closet with various toys: a soldier with a drum, a Rag Annie doll, and a teddy bear. They were large toys, about the size of a child, and at night these toys would come out of the closet and dance around my brother's bed.
I remember this moment very well and it went on for at least two years. I remember how I turned away at night to the wall and looked at the flowers painted on the wallpaper to distract myself from the dancing toys and fall asleep.
They didn’t make any annoying sounds, but their movement worried me. Now I am 57 years old and I think these toys felt sorry for my brother and tried to keep him company."
Grinch doll
“In 2000, we bought a green Grinch toy for our little daughter. It was just in time for the release of the movie about the Grinch with Jim Carrey, and this toy spoke in his voice and gave out different phrases from the movie.
But from the very beginning my daughter began to be terribly afraid of this doll and screamed so terribly as if she was being killed only when we got it. We decided that it was just an inappropriate toy for a 3 year old child.
But one day he began to say different phrases on his own when no one pressed the audio device button on his stomach. I decided that the batteries were malfunctioning and took out the batteries to change them. But to my great amazement, the doll continued to speak in Kerry's voice even without batteries! I was still thinking. that there was some kind of failure and maybe there is still a battery somewhere, so I completely pulled the audio device out of his stomach.
It was an ordinary piece of plastic with a couple of wires, and of course there weren't any extra batteries.
And this doll continued to talk on its own without batteries for several more days! Maybe she would have talked longer, but I decided that I had enough of this devilry and threw the doll in the trash."
The man in the hat played with my toys
By Timothy Smitts from the Netherlands.
“Now I am over thirty, and it happened when I was ten years old, that is, somewhere in the 90s. The bed in my room was opposite the door, and between it and the bed was a rug on which I laid out a railway with a steam locomotive and cars, I really loved to play with them.
And then one night I woke up from something incomprehensible, but with a feeling of fear. Then I realized what scared me: I heard the noise of cars running and the even rustle of a train traveling on the rails.
I stared at the carpet and was amazed that the toys were rolling on their own! They moved back and forth on rails and paths, and I sat on the bed and did not understand what was the matter.
And then I slowly raised my head and looked at the front door, which for some reason was open. I never slept with the door open, because it opened onto the stairs, and that scared me.
But now there was no staircase behind the half-open door; there was something black and tall. Looking closely, I finally realized that this was a silhouette of a man and on his head was a hat with large brims, and he himself was wearing a very long coat or cloak.
By that moment, fear finally completely filled me and I shouted out loud "Mom, Dad!". When they woke up a few seconds later and turned on the light in the hallway, the black silhouette in front of the door immediately vanished, and cars and trains stopped.
When my mother came into my room and asked what had happened, I told her about the toys moving by themselves and the man in the hat, but she apparently decided. that I saw a nightmare. She began to calm me down and say that there was no one.
Then she returned to her father and I heard them talking about the door. They were sure that the door to my room was closed in the evening.
I have never seen anything like it, but I have remembered this phenomenon for my whole life. When, already in adulthood, I came across horror stories about the Man in the Hat, I realized that I had seen him."