Bell Witch Cave, located in Adams, Tennessee, is a shard of memories of a mysterious poltergeist that tormented the same family for decades, leaving a huge imprint on the urban legends of America.
The story begins in 1817, when the ghosts of dogs and birds began to fantasize about the prosperous farmer John Bell. When the farmer realized that his visions were quite real, he began to shoot at them with a gun, but the bullets only made the situation worse.
An unknown evil settled in the house and with enviable consistency began to harass its inhabitants: John, his wife Lucy and their eight children. In the middle of the night there were strange rustles, creaks and grinding. Sometimes in the darkness something flashed, resembling a huge rat, but disappeared into the darkness, one had only to reach for the candle.
With each new day, the poltergeist came up with more and more horrors: whistling in the middle of the night, throwing blankets off the sleeping people and dragging them by the hair.
Over time, evil, fueled by the energy of fear, even acquired a voice that whispered hoarsely from the void: “I am everywhere … in paradise … in hell … and on earth. I am in the air, in houses, everywhere and always … I was born millions of years ago … That's all I can tell you. The spirit later said that he was the old witch Keith Bate, determined to persecute and torture old John Bell until the end of his days for a very bad deal during his youth.
During her lifetime, Kate Bate had a reputation as a witch and a prophetess. They say she even predicted the American Civil War and both world wars. Rumors of her return quickly spread throughout the country. There was even an exorcist who tried to drive the vengeful ghost out of this world, but a few slaps from an invisible hand made the priest run away.
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Most of all, the wealthy farmer was furious at the witch for upsetting the engagement of Betsy, his daughter. The evil spirit at the guests let go of such dirty words about the girl and her fiancé that Betsy ran away in tears and locked herself in her room. Immediately after this incident, John saw a whitish transparent silhouette in the corner of the living room. Grabbing a saber and shouting "I will destroy you, fiend of hell!", He attacked the air, without causing any harm to the laughing witch. But the nightmare did not end there either.
One night, it was as if a stick had been stuck in John's mouth: his jaw and tongue were stiff to such an extent that he could neither eat nor speak. The planter's face twitched with convulsions causing terrible grimaces. In 1820, while walking with her son, the witch took off his shoes several times, the weakened John, who, in addition, received a strong slap from the spirit, sat down on a fallen tree and began to cry. So the witch still broke the will of this strong and self-confident person.
Shortly after this incident, John fell into a coma. It turned out that the poltergeist had changed his medicine bottle for a bottle of some suspicious liquid, which he apparently took. The commotion of the household was aggravated by the statement of the spirit that the elder Bell was no longer a tenant in this world. The arriving doctor decided to test the "medicine" of the witch from a bottle on a cat that turned up under his arm, which immediately died. It became clear that the farmer-planter had one foot in the grave. A few hours later, John Bell was gone.
But even after death, evil spirits mocked poor John to their hearts content. During the funeral, the heart-rending screams of the witch, then her bold songs were heard. It is not known whether the elder Bell stood up for his family in the next world or entered into an invisible battle with this evil spirits, but a few months later, when one day the whole family settled down at the dinner table, a terrible roar was heard, a cannonball fell into the fireplace and immediately exploded. After such a terrible introduction, the voice of the witch was heard: "I am leaving, wait for me in seven years." When the designated time passed, Lucy and her two sons, who from the whole family remained in the house, began to feel out of place. They already felt that evil was always lurking somewhere nearby.
The witch did not break her word and exactly 7 years later mystical phenomena began to occur again in the house. But either the witch lacked Betsy's presence, or was struck by the indifference of the household, who agreed among themselves not to pay any attention to the spirit, the poltergeist suddenly disappeared, not staying in the house for two weeks.
But in 1828 the spirit returned again and this time visited the house of John Bell Jr. Having greatly frightened him, the ghost threatened to return after 107 years … One got the impression that the witch simply reminded of her existence and her power over other people's lives, and did not come for revenge.
Since then, a lot of water has flown under the bridge, but experts in the field of anomalous phenomena are still discussing this mystical and tragic story. Everything that happened had too many witnesses to be a hoax or fiction. Richard, the son of John Bell, even wrote a book about the tyranny of the ghost called Our Family Troubles. Some consider this case a classic manifestation of a poltergeist, while others see it as a riot of devilish forces.
Bell Witch's Cave - a cave located 150 meters from the place where the farm was. It is believed that when the witch left home, it was here that she found refuge, invented new intrigues and restored her power. At the moment this place is located on a private territory, but is open to everyone in the summer.