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And with that being said, we are going to jump into today's episode. Now, before we get into that, we are going to take a quick break and we'll be right back. All right. Welcome back. Now, if you have been a longtime listener, you will remember that back in March of 2021, we published a premium episode called Haunted and Cursed Items.

Long time ago. So since then, it has been around, well, a little over three years since we've published that episode. And we decided to not only publish an episode today called Haunted and Cursed Items, where we discuss various cursed things, but we will also be turning this episode into sort of like a mini series that we do every so often. Sort of like Strange News and Theories Thursday.

And during it, I figured we will each try to find something cursed. You know, we go to like vintage or resale shops or thrift stores and try to find a cursed item for each other and then gift it to that person. And then see if it's cursed.

Which we aren't going to do that today. But next, next time we do a haunted and cursed items, we'll do that. You know, when we went to San Antonio for the haunted places. Donkey Bridge. Donkey Bridge and Devil's. Devil's Bridge. There was a place I was trying to get us into because the lady, I guess, takes like appointments or something. She owns something.

a shit ton of supposedly cursed dolls and her whole house is filled with them. We're going to have to book that for next time. Yep. I figured that'd be a very interesting. Oh, it would be. Yeah. I'd be like, huh? Here catch. Are they behind glass? No, they're all just, they're all just sitting out. All right. Well, we're going to be doing that in future episodes. However, today is going to be a little different. Instead, we're going to start off today's episode by discussing what are cursed items and

how items become supposedly cursed. And then we will get into the juicy part of the episode where we discuss some cursed objects in history. So with that being said, Dan, would you like to start that off for us? Of course. So like Aaron said, today's episode is about cursed objects. So the question is, what are cursed objects?

Well, cursed objects are said to be items that bring bad luck, misfortune, or even harm those who are in possession or interact with the objects themselves. These objects can range from a wide variety of inanimate objects, normal household furniture, decorations, gemstones, dolls, chests, and even paintings. Yeah. And a lot of people wonder,

Well, how do these items become cursed in the first place? What happens? Does somebody do some sex magic and look at the item while they beat off? Sometimes. That's a real thing. Does that mean all porn is cursed? That's a discussion for a later date. But if you look at the Lama or writings of Aleister Crowley or Crowley. Actually, it's Crowley. It's Crowley. We confirmed that the other day through a poem that he wrote.

He did that with his sex magic, magic with a K. He would look at a, it wasn't an object, but it was like a sigil. Oh, that he drew on the floor and stuff? Yeah, and he'd beat off and look at it. And that would transfer his energy to that symbol or sigil. I guess those would be counted as sacrifices. So there are other ways that items can become cursed. People who practice magic with a K, including sex magic,

These individuals also have, you know, mystical knowledge and they use their skills of knowledge and magic and place a hex on a specific object, essentially cursing it. Now, that's just one way to curse an object. The second way is a little more common and it is when an object is at the scene of a tragedy.

So let's say there's a painting, right? And a painting's in the living room of a 35-year-old male's house who lives alone with his dog. Guy walks in with a girl and they murder the guy, 35-year-old, with their knife. And there's a painting that's up there of his dog. And the dog witnesses it.

that negative energy that's associated with that tragedy gets transferred to that painting and curses it. Well, that sucks. Yeah. So that's the second way an object can get cursed, which I hope that never happens to anybody. No, hope not. Someone's gonna get blasted. Now, third way, it could be an object that is just inherently evil from the very get go, like something created for an evil purpose.

And then fourth way, the object could be possessed by an evil spirit or demon that is stuck to it. Which I think that happens kind of like with the whole magic thing. Yeah. But. Or cursed dolls. Some of the cursed dolls supposedly have demons in them. Some demons, some evil spirits, good spirits. Demons to some, angels to others. I guess that would be kind of like the whole Ouija board. You don't know what you're summoning. Yeah. So I guess the doll is just catching whatever, except these hands.

Alright, now a lot of people state that, you know, sometimes the object itself is not cursed, but rather it's all in the individual's head who is pretty much in possession of that object. Pretty much meaning that the bearer of the object believes that the item is just cursed because bad things happen whenever they have it or are around it.

Yeah, so pretty much has to do with your psychology. So those are a way that an object can be cursed. Now that you are aware of that, let's hop into the juicy stuff and discuss our first cursed object. All right. Our first cursed object is actually a pretty famous one in the world of movies. It's considered to be the inspiration to the one ring to rule them all. The ring of Sylvanas. I like to pronounce it Silly Anus.

Now, however you want to pronounce it. I looked it up. There are multiple ways different people say it. There is like not 100% correct way unless you study Latin, which it's a Roman name, but it's considered Latin. It's a weird setup. Say it however you want. We're saying however we want it. I'm going to call it Sylvie Anis. Sylvie Anis it is. All right. So the story behind this ring, it goes way, way back in history.

So back in fourth century AD, in the area of what is now known as Britain, there was a Roman soldier named Silvianus. Now, one morning, his ass decided to get up and he's like, you know what? I haven't taken my monthly bath yet. Yeah. Back then, they only bathed once a month, maybe once every other month. It was really stanky. Really stanky. Yeah. Yeah.

Anyway, he woke up and he's like, fuck, man, I stink. I need to go wash my ding dong. That's right. So he, Silvianus, walks up the hill to a bathhouse that is dedicated to the Celtic god Nodens. Nodens, which I never heard of this Celtic god. I like, you know, Norse mythology, Greek mythology. I don't really know much about Celtic gods. So this one actually interested me.

But Nodens is a Celtic healing god worshipped in ancient Britain and currently all context to his physical depiction has been lost to time. So no one knows what this god looked like or anything. Now they did find plaques of his worship in Lydney Park in Gloucestershire showing his connection with dogs. So he was like the healing god and god of dogs. He had his dogs with him.

Alright, so there he was, the Roman soldier Silvianus. And he's standing there, he's getting ready to take his bath, and he takes off his shirt, he takes off his pants. Of course he doesn't have any undies, so he's just all bush. And back then, it wasn't considered a good thing to have a big wiener, believe it or not. If you look at all the statues, all of the men on the statues have little bitty wieners and some tiny nuts.

And that was considered like the thing to have was a little wiener. If you had a big one, they made fun of you. Anyway, so there he was, took all of his clothes off and took all of his jewelry and everything, set it all down, goes in, takes his monthly bath, gets squeaky clean, and then comes back to get his stuff to put back on. And that's when he notices that someone has stolen his gold ring.

And he got super, super pissed. He was like, I'm pissed. Now, this gold ring of his was a personal signet made completely out of gold with the band of the ring having 10 faucets and was set with a square bezel engraved with an image of the pagan god, goddess Venus, outlined on one side with the letters VE. Then on the other side was the letters SVN, which historians believe to be Silvianus' personal signature.

So like I said earlier, silly anus was standing there and he was like, damn, somebody fucking stole my ring. He was super pissed about it. And he was like, you know what? I think I know. I think I know who stole it. He had some, you know, suspicions.

So he ends up going to the temple of Nodens. And after he arrives at this temple, he places some money in an offering area and begins to craft a lead plate known as a defixio, a.k.a. pretty much a cursed tablet. He's over there crafting some curses, getting ready to serve him up a curse on a dinner plate. On the tablet, Silvianus inscribes,

Devo nodenti sylveonis anilium perdedit demidium partum donovit nodenti inter quibis nomen senescii nalis pedamitis senitatum donic perfera ascu templum nodentis. I feel like you just opened up a portal somewhere. I think I did. It's right there. That little hole over there.

A wiener's going to come through it. So we have a giant, what is that? Curtain. Curtain behind our cameras and everything. And we did have some of the recording equipment on the other side. And to see it, we cut out a little hole.

We moved all of the recording equipment on this side. So now we just have like a mini glory hole. That's pretty much what it is. It's honestly the perfect height. It is. Oh my God. Anyway. All right. So back to talking about silly anus. So that tablet that Dan just read out for us, let's translate it real quick. Now, before we get into that, we are going to take a quick break and we'll be right back.

Crime Door TV is now a podcast. I'm your host, Sydney Schofield. Join us as we dive deeper into the world of true crime and go one-on-one with legal analysts. There is a presumption of innocence. There really does have to be some factual evidence. Your exclusive interviews with families of victims. When my daughter was kidnapped and we found out the truth, I couldn't imagine that anybody could feel as awful as I felt.

and get an inside perspective from the experts closest to the cases. I really appreciate platforms like this that are there for the victims and to give them a voice. Listen now to the Crime Door TV podcast, your home for true crime analysis. All right, welcome back. It means to the god Nodens. Silianus has lost his ring and given half of its value to Nodens. Among those who are called Sinicianus,

Do not allow health until he brings it to the temple of Nodens. End quote. On the tablet. So I'm guessing he's blaming that, uh, Sinisionis. Sinisionis, dude. For stealing his ring. And then I guess do not allow him to have good health until he brings it back to the temple to where I can get it. Place the curse.

So we do have a scan of that tablet, and it's pretty much like a black and white scan. And they ended up finding this tablet back in the 19th century. And we'll post a picture up on our website, theoriesofthe3rdkind.com, for anyone that wants to take a look at it. But if you're watching us today on YouTube, you can just look right here. Ah, very boring. Yeah, looks like some, you know what it looks like? Devo, no it isn't. So it looks like the movie Predator.

Alright, so there you go. Interesting. Alright, so no one knew how Sileanus knew that Sienicianus took his ring, but he was the one that, you know, he decided to blame and then curse until he would bring back his ring. Well, he never did bring back the ring because the ring was found in 1785 by a farmer and the ring now had the name Sienicianus on it.

He done engraved his name on it. He's like, this is my ring. He supposedly engraved his own name on it. And on the band of the ring are the words, Siniciane vivis, I think it's vivas, N-D, which translated to Sinicianes live well in God. They do say that the square bezel, they're just like, they weren't sure if it was added before or after, because they think that it's supposed to say end devo, but the V-O is covered.

So they're not sure now if Senecianus had it before or after. So I don't know. Mystery. It's a mystery. But we do have an image of the ring, which we'll post right here if you're watching on YouTube. If not, it's on our website that you can check out under today's episode. So like Dan said, some people believe that the individual who got it after Sileanus, the Senecius or however you pronounce his name,

that he engraved it, he engraved his name on it to protect himself from any bad curses or anything of the sort. This is how the connection between the tablet and the ring was made. Because previously, they didn't think the two were connected, the tablet and the ring, and then eventually the connection was made. Now, even though you saw the picture of the ring, this is the only view of it, this ring was actually really big. Like it... It had sausage fingers?

I guess you could say that. How big was it? Show me some girth. Well, it's not as big as this. This is small. I'm sorry. He's got tiny thumbs. I got tiny thumbs. I got small Asian hands, okay? But the dexterity is very good. But they said that this ring was bigger than most average rings, and it looked like it would either fit on someone's thumb or fit over... Their cock. Tiny winners. Oh, never mind. Okay. No, but it fit over someone's thumb or over gloves.

Oh, so it's pretty bigger. I was thinking it'd be like something like this, like this big of a ring. No, that, I mean, that's really big. Something like that. A big ring like that. Who the hell would fit that? Not me. Not with these fingers, I mean. But, uh, yeah. Now, the ring of Sylveonis is considered a cursed item because of this tablet. They said that since they're connected, that means whoever has the ring is cursed to not have good health.

But if you wanted to see this ring, it is located at the Vine Estate in the room that they call the Ring Room. Oh, it's got its own room. It has its own room and everything. I think it's like in a glass case and all that. So you can go in there and view it. Nice. Now, a fun fact about this ring is that in 1929, archaeologist Sir Mortimer Wheeler was researching the tablet and the ring.

Which, by the way, he's also the guy that made the connection between the two. So Mortimer wanted to learn more about the god Nodens. So he needed someone who was knowledgeable in Anglo-Saxon stuff. He was like, man, I don't know a damn thing about that. So he began looking for people in the area. And that's all. Well, what happens next? The individual who he gets involved with

ends up being inspired by the ring, which is how it ends up turning into the one ring to rule them all. Not specifically that ring, but a book wrote about it. Yeah, so Mortimer reached out to a professor at the University of Oxford, John Ronald Reel Tolkien, also known as J.R.R. Tolkien. Not long after this, Tolkien ended up writing the book The Hobbit, which tells the story of an engraved gold ring that was cursed, a.k.a. the one ring to rule them all,

And then the ring is lost and then found. And then it's finder is chased by the previous owner. That's pretty much Lord of the Rings. Yeah. And stole the story. Good job, J.R.R. Tolkien, which I never knew that it was actually based. If you put the connection together, that,

Lord of the Rings was inspired by an actual ring. Yeah. I didn't know that either. No. I saw this ring and I was just like, oh, that sounds pretty cool. It's cursed. And I started reading it and I was just like, oh shit. Just the one ring to rule them all. Damn. Which I wish I would have got the Magic the Gathering card. Yeah. Post Malone has the Magic the Gathering one ring to rule them all. $2.6 million Post Malone paid for one Magic the Gathering card. Yep. Crazy.

Anyway, so that right there is our first cursed object. It's nothing too crazy, but as we continue on, things become a little more crazier. So Dan, tell us about the second one we got. All right. So our next cursed object is actually multiple objects of the same kind. There is a painting by Giovanni Bragolin that was completed back in the 1950s.

The painting depicted young, teary-eyed children, and this painting was insanely popular in the UK, with Giovanni completing over 60 paintings and over 50,000 copies sold. Now, there was one particular painting in that series of children crying that caught nationwide attention. It was the painting of a young, teary-eyed boy sitting there crying like a little bitch. And we do have a...

We do have that photo. Here it is right there. Come on, suck it up. Be a man. Throw some dirt on it. You'll be all right. Now, this painting of the young boy was mentioned in the newspaper called The Sun in September of 1985. And British residents opened their newspapers up and in big, bold letters, a headliner caught their attention. Blazing Curse of the Crying Boy.

Now, the article talks about how Ron and Mary Hall lost their home to a fire when a frying pan burst into flames. Their whole house burned up in the fire, and it took everything with it except for one item. It was a print of the painting of that crying boy.

Which we do have cutouts of the newspaper article. Each one has a different painting of a boy on there now. Yeah. We'll put those up for you to see. And if you go to the website, you see them. But yeah, blazing curse of the crying boy. Picture is a fire jinx. Then there's another one. Crying boy curse strikes again. But Ron and Mary Hall's brother, well, Ron's brother, Peter, who was a fireman, said that this wasn't the first time that this had occurred.

Peter would go on to state that he had witnessed many fires in which everything was ruined except for the Crying Boy paintings. The response that this article had, though, received, you know, was overwhelming. People were just like, oh, shit, I got to get me one of those paintings. So in just one day, over a hundred readers had reached out to the newspaper claiming that they, too, were jinxed by the painting of the Crying Boy paintings.

People were now wondering, "Oi, how can we get a painting of that child that causes such tragedies?" Well, since the story came out in the 1950s, the Spanish artist Giovanni Bergelin, who made these paintings, Giovanni was painting and selling these paintings to tourists and whoever bought them back in 1950 to remind people of the orphans of World War II. It's like, "Hey, this is what the war is causing. Here's these crying children.

Yeah, so I guess he was more on like the peace side of it. It's like war is bad, you know, this is what it's doing to the children. What's it good for? Yeah, what's it good for? Which that sucks. Absolutely nothing. Say it again. Absolutely nothing. So, like we said, these paintings were of the orphans of World War II. And it was one child specifically that Giovanni met that played a huge role with this tale of the cursed paintings, Don Benolio.

This child, Don, gained a nickname of the Devil Child. And it is said that wherever he went, fires would start. Sounds to me like he was just kind of like a pyromaniac. I mean, kids do like to light things on fire when they're young. Yeah. Now, Giovanni didn't really believe this, you know, that, oh, this Don kid has, you know, he's called the Devil Child.

So he was just like, you know what? I'm going to take in little Don here. You know, I'm going to bring him to my home. And you know what? I'm going to use him as my, you know, topic or subject to draw a painting of, of crying boy. It was sometime later though, that Giovanni's house burnt down. And now a believer of the nickname, the devil child, he ended up kicking little Don out of his home and back onto the streets. So little Don became an orphan again. Wow.

Now, after the story was published, people were overcome by hysteria and the legend of the paintings grew bigger and bigger and larger and thicker. And girthy.

It started with fires burning homes down to the paintings being the cause of death and the family of whoever had the paintings. So it ended up shifting from, hey, these paintings, they cause your house to burn down. But not only that, now they're out here fucking killing grandma and grandpas. Damn. As people tried to get rid of the paintings by burning them, the paintings or prints would actually not catch on fire.

And as time went on, more and more claims were reported to the Sun newspaper with some examples like... Such as a woman in Surrey lost her house to a fire six months after buying the painting. Two sisters in Kilburn had fires in their homes after buying a copy of the painting. One sister even claimed to have seen her painting sway backwards and forwards on the wall.

Then another, a concerned woman on the Isle of Wight, attempted to burn her painting without success and then went on to suffer a run of bad luck. Then a gentleman in Nottingham who possessed a print of the painting lost his home and his family was injured. And then a pizza parlor in Norfolk was destroyed, including every painting on its walls except for the crying boy painting. Damn.

So most people were still hesitant, though, to believe that the painting was, you know, pretty much cursed. But when people found out that firefighters refused to have a copy of the print anywhere near their homes, pretty much the reputation of the paintings plummeted. People have no idea what to do with their paintings and prints of this crying boy now. And if they tried to burn it, it wouldn't burn. And instead, they were thinking, you know, is our house going to catch on fire?

Is the painting the only thing that's going to survive? Is this thing going to follow us around? Is it going to kill grandma? Yeah, is it going to kill grandfather? We don't know. The Sun newspaper came up with a solution though. Oh. They told readers to send in their paintings and that they would destroy them once and for all. So the readers were more than happy to send them their paintings and prints, which in total, the Sun newspaper received over 2,500 copies.

I wonder if they have any extra copies. I want one for the studio. I don't. It's not going to burn down. We got too many lights and stuff in here. Yeah, we do. There's too many chances. We'll put it in the garage. So on Halloween of 1985, the Sun newspaper held a big bonfire and burned all the paintings under the supervision of the fire brigade.

And we do have the newspaper article of them doing the burning of the paintings with a younger looking woman who I would say is probably late 20s, early 30s, overseeing the fire and showing us where it's at, seeing that we cannot see it because it's directly in the middle. Right there. Oh, it looks like she threw one of the paintings.

Oh, that makes more sense rather than her being like, look, that's what I thought she was doing. But then I'm just like, I can see it. We don't need you to show us. Damn. So she's wearing a short sleeve shirt or tank top with very short shorts with a fire brigade helmet on. Obviously, she's well protected. Well, you see all the other fire brigade people with like their outfits and stuff on. Now, the frenzy about the curse painting started to simmer down. Most people and firefighters believe that the fires were just caused by human error or electrical faults.

Only problem with that is, is that even if the cause was human error or electrical problems, the paintings always survived the fires, except on Halloween, which was very weird. They were somehow able to burn these paintings, you know, in a pile like that. But even if like a frying pan, you know, caught fire or electrical outlet caught fire or something like that, everything would burn down except for the paintings, which the firefighters couldn't explain why.

Now, you have a video here of the BBC doing an experiment, right? Yes, they actually got a copy of this painting and they set a fire underneath of it to see if it'll catch fire. Did it work? It burned like the corner of it and then the fire went out. So the painting didn't really burn. Maybe it was painted on some type of anti-flammatory parchment. Do you think they had that back in the 1950s? I assume so. I don't know. It's very weird though. Like you watch it, like you see they set up like

They have it like on bricks and then they light a fire under it and they have the painting like hovering right over it. And you see that the picture starts to catch fire, starts to burn the corner of it, and then slowly the fire just dies out and the painting stops burning. Now, since we're on YouTube, we can't show this video. Otherwise, we'd get a copyright strike. And we don't want that. So instead, we will provide a link to this video on our website, theoriesofthe3rdkind.com. You can click on it and watch the video there.

Have you ever seen like one of these crying boy or kid paintings? I want to say I have, but I can't fully 100% say for a fact I have, but I, they, they look familiar. It looks very familiar. Like I swear I've seen these around, not never in my house, but, or my parents' house, but I know I seen them somewhere. I just can't think where. It's probably Podesta who has a few of them. Podesta and his brother. Maybe. Maybe.

But yeah, I know I've seen them before, though. I just didn't know there was a story behind it. All right. So let's get on to our next cursed object, which is about another ring. Now, before we get into that, we are going to take a quick break. This is our last one. So don't go nowhere. All right. Welcome back. This ring is Rudolph Valentino's. So Rudolph was a famous silent film star like Charlie Chaplin.

And a lot of things happened to Rudolph in his life. He wasn't on a Santa sleigh, though. And we aren't going to really go through his whole life. We're just going to talk about the part about the ring. Yeah, because Rudolph wasn't getting many roles in films, so he ended up getting a job as a spokesperson for the mineral Ava Beauty Clay Company.

And they sell complexion products and was actually one of the first companies in history to do so. So I guess it's like one of the history's first beauty. Put mud on your face. Yeah, put mud on your face. Make you beautiful. Valentino was like, you know what? I'll become the face of that mud. I'll become the face of your products. You know, that was created by the beauty company. And he also became a judge at beauty contests that were sponsored by the company.

And everything was now going great for Valentino. And he even got an offer to come back and make movies again with a pay raise, creative control, and he could relocate to New York. So he was like,

Life's good. So Valentino definitely accepted this offer because that means he could actually move back to New York, his home, and he started making movies again. And then he gets another offer from the United Artists in 1924, which Charlie Chaplin was a part of. They're just like, hey, screw that company. Come work for us. We'll give you a bigger raise. But it excludes your wife, Natasha Rabova. Well, Valentino's like, well, I get a bigger raise.

Screw it. Yeah, I'll take it. Then in 1925, Valentino decided to take off a couple days for vacation and go to San Francisco. And while he was walking down the street, he passed a shop and something caught his eyes. Like, whoa, who was that? He backed up and he looked through the shop window and there it was, a ring. Now, it was a ring that had a single tiger's eye gemstone in it. And it was nothing too fancy.

But Valentino fell in love with it. He was like, I gots to get that. Now seeing this ring, Valentino was just like, I gotta have it. So we walked inside the shop and was just like, hey,

I'm buying this ring here, bitch. That's what he told him. Shopkeeper was like, no, you're not. No, this is just for show. The ring is cursed. It's called the ring of destiny, not the pick of destiny, the ring of destiny. And it's brought misfortune to all its previous owners. You can't buy it. I'm sorry. You can't have it. It's not for sale. And Valentino was just like, bitch, please. That sounds amazing. Famous ring for famous man. I got to have it.

The shopkeeper was like, you know what? Okay, I'll sell it to you, I guess. So then Valentino bought it and then ended up returning back to New York. And this is when things started going downhill for him. His marriage started falling apart. And by the following year, divorce proceedings had begun, which I could have seen that before he bought the ring. I mean, that deal that he took with United Artists.

Then, on August 15th, 1926, Valentino had collapsed while staying at the Hotel Ambassador in Manhattan while wearing his tiger's eye ring. He was rushed to the New York hospital and was diagnosed with appendicitis and gastric ulcers and needed immediate surgery. Damn. I had appendicitis, but I didn't have gastric ulcers. Were you wearing a tiger's eye ring? Uh-uh. So, Valentino refused to take his ring off the whole time, so the doctor said, F it, you can wear it while you have surgery.

And then complications happened again. And by August 18th, the doctors trying to be optimistic about Valentino's condition, they were like, everything, it might turn out okay. However, by the 21st of August, which was a few days later, his condition started to go downhill rapidly. Yep. And Valentino ended up developing pleurisy and his left lung stopped working. This made doctors realized, oh shit, this man is dying.

But we can't tell them or anyone because for some reason back then it was customary to not inform anyone that they are dying or inform anyone else that, hey, this person's dying. If you don't think about it or believe it, it's not going to happen. That's right. So they just decided, you know what? We're not going to tell them.

We could probably fix them, but probably not. So two days later, on the morning of August 23rd, Valentino ends up becoming conscious and he begins to start talking to the doctors about his plans for the future.

Shortly after that conversation, Valentino ends up falling into another coma and dies a few hours later at the age of 31 while still wearing his tiger's eye ring. The Ring of Destiny. I feel like it needs a different name than the Ring of Destiny. Yeah, I always want to say the Pick of Destiny. Now, of course, after Valentino died, a funeral happened, which thousands of people...

Actually, they were like over 100,000 people showed up for his funeral. Jesus. I mean, he was a famous actor. People wanted to show support, I guess. So they all showed up at Manhattan, flooding the area. And at the funeral itself, shocking news arose with the dramatic event of Pola Negri, a Polish actress who had sent 1,000 red and white roses to the funeral that spelled out her name and not the two of the names, just hers.

Just out of the blue, sent a thousand white and red roses spelling her name to his funeral. Self-absorbed, huh? A little bit. Yeah. So, Pola, we're just going to call her that, she ends up walking up to the casket and nearly faints multiple times. And then ends up collapsing in front of Valentino's coffin. And everybody's like, look at this bitch. She's being all dramatic and shit.

Pola would then claim that Valentino and I, we were engaged. So that's why she was acting all crazy like that. Which not a single soul had ever heard of this news. Valentino probably didn't know it itself, but not like he could really disagree at the time. Pops up out of that. What are you talking about? Bitch, I don't know you. So Pola, after saying like, oh, we were engaged, she was actually allowed to choose a memento belonging to Valentino. So guess what she picked?

Yeah, the ring of destiny. The ring of destiny, along with the pick of destiny. Now, the so-called ring of destiny would be passed on to her because the only thing instructed in Valentino's will was to leave his ex-wife...

Natasha, $1. God damn, what a savage. Petty. Funny. After that, Valentino was buried in a crypt owned by June Mathis, a friend of his, who is now divorced. And because Valentino didn't make burial arrangements at the age of 31, you don't really expect him to. So now the ring is in the possession of Paula. And guess what? She becomes ill.

Luckily, though, her health does improve and she ends up recovering. But what doesn't recover is her career and pretty much her personal life. Everything just starts going downhill. So she ends up in a stump, not getting any roles. Her personal life started to decline more. And she's just like, damn it. It has to be Valentino's ring. So Pola ends up gifting the ring to an individual named Russ Colombo, who was a singer.

And she had worked with him before who this guy, oddly enough, resembled Valentino. She's like, well, he looks like Valentino. So I'm just going to give him the ring. She probably had something with Columbo. Like, oh, you looked like my fiance. Yeah. So Russ was nicknamed the Rudolph of the radio because his songs were intense and romantic. He was such a good singer like Valentino, but just on the radio. So he was like,

Valentino was very good at acting, intense and romantic. And Russ was good on the radio with his voice, intense and romantic. Now, the love songs that Russ sang, you know, they were only for one woman that he loved, Carol Lombard. And things were going good for the two lovebirds. And Russ one night decided to make dinner reservations for the two of them at a very nice restaurant. Hmm.

So they both got dressed up, looking all fancy and shit. And Russ decides to wear, you know what? I'm going to wear this badass ring, this Valentino's ring. I'm going to wear it to dinner. Because I like looking at a tiger's eye ring. Plus I got this fancy-ass suit on, bitch. Acknowledge me. And she did. She came out and she did this. What's up, brother? So the dinner ended up going smoothly. And Carol retired for the night. And Russ, you know, was like, I ain't tired. So I'm going to go visit a good friend of mine who was a photographer, Lansing Brown.

Now, while at Lansing Brown's house, they were all just sitting in the library shooting the shit over, you know, drinks, probably some whiskey on the rocks or something like that. Yeah. Give me a bourbon. And then, of course, Brown, who was a collector of antique firearms, decided to, you know what? We're drinking. We're having a good time. Let me show off these old guns I got. And in the library, Brown grabs an antique dueling pistol and was showing it off to Russ.

Then, all of a sudden, the dueling pistol goes off. The bullet hits a nearby table, ricocheting off the table and hitting Russ right about his left eye. Russ was rushed to the hospital where he died at the age of 26. Jeez. That's upsetting. Yeah, almost as bad as an arrow to the knee. That's right. You know what the meaning of that is? The arrow to the knee? Yeah, it's the game or whatever.

But there's a meaning for it. It's not that he actually took an arrow to the knee. When you take an arrow to the knee, you drop down to one knee. Pretty much proposing. I used to be an adventurer like you, then I took an arrow to the knee. Pretty much he got married and he couldn't venture no more. That makes sense now. It does. The little knowledge nuggies there. I always wondered, how could you get an arrow to the knee, of all things? Then find out that it's because he got married, he decided to stop adventuring.

Since Russ died, the ring of destiny, Valentino's ring, ended up in the hands of Joe Cassino, Russ's best friend, who was also in showbiz. He heard about the rumors of the ring and, you know, he's like, you know what? I'm going to be safe. I'm going to put it in the displaced case. You know, this was Valentino's ring. Then it was Russ's ring. You know, I'm just going to put it up. It's not going to cause any harm because no one's going to touch it. The glass is going to protect me from it. I figured that'd work as well.

well guess what he was right because it did work nothing happened to him so he's like you know what maybe it's just you know superstition maybe this everything i'm hearing about this ring is just rumors so you know what i'm gonna wear it so he ended up opening up the glass case and disregarded the bad luck that happened to everyone else and he put the ring on

and wore it. The following week, while Joe was out and about, he was struck by a truck and killed while wearing the ring. The ring now gained an even more notorious reputation and no one wanted to see it or even own it except for Joe's brother, Del. His brother's like, oh shit, I want the ring. I'll take it and you know what? I'm gonna wear it and prove that there's no bad luck.

So Dell only wore it on one occasion. Other than that, it was kept in his safe pretty much at his home. And the rumors of the ring, though, made a certain individual very interested in getting his hands on it. There was a guy named James Willis. He was like, you know what? I would like to have that ring for myself. So he decides to break into Dell's place, break into the safe and steal the ring.

As the alarms were going off and the police show up, James tries to flee with the ring. The officers end up shooting and killing him. And then they find the ring in his jacket pocket and it's returned back to Dell's safe. Then later on, a director, Edward Small, who learned about the cursed ring, wanted to make a film about Valentino's life. So Edward hires Jack Dunn, a professional skater who wanted to try his hand at acting.

Edward was able to obtain various items that belonged to Valentino, including the Ring of Destiny. Jack would wear the ring for two weeks while filming, and everything went perfect. He's like, man, fuck these rumors. They're all fake. So to celebrate, Jack decided to head to Texas with his friends, and not even a week later, Jack dies of a rare blood disease called tularemia. He was only 21 years old.

And then after that, the ring ended up back in Dell safe. And that's pretty much where I believe it's stayed at since. I wouldn't have touched it. I wouldn't. I wouldn't even own it. No. Like what's the purpose of owning it? And then he came in less with it. Speaking of not owning it in no way, I'd be owning the next thing.

The next thing. All right. So this next cursed object that we're going to talk about is a doll called Letta or Letta me out, which is a well-known doll in the paranormal community as being one of the most haunted dolls in the world, which I personally have never heard of this. I've never heard of this one. Now, this doll resides in Australia and has a very interesting mystery to it.

And we do have a photograph of it. That smile. It looks like, uh, you ever see the movie Leprechaun? That's what it looks like, doesn't it? If you had red hair, yeah. And a top hat. Now, the origins of this doll can be traced back to the 1970s in a small town in rural South Wales, Australia. During the 1970s, two brothers, one known as Kerry Walton and the other, they didn't give his name, decided to explore an abandoned house that they had heard stories about being haunted way back when they were kids.

So as the brothers were rummaging through the old abandoned house, Carrie made a shocking discovery. Underneath the old floorboards, he spotted something weird. He's like, what is that? What is it? Carrie at first thought it was the body of a child that somebody had stashed there, but it wasn't. Oh, what's that? Oh, brother.

Upon further inspection, they both realized that it was a strange doll that had a weird ass grin on it, which it does have a very weird ass grin. Mm hmm. Kerry felt that he needed to rescue the doll from beneath the floorboards. And that's what he did. He put the doll into a sack that they brought with him and put it in the backseat of their car. On the way back home, they kept making jokes that, hey, this doll looked like it was moving in the sack in the backseat, like it was trying to escape.

And that is when they decided to call the doll Letta Meow. I mean, that's one way to name a doll. Now, once the doll was at their house, that is when the strange activity started to happen. During the night, when everyone was sleeping, they believed that Letta would roam around the house and in the morning, they would see scuff marks from Letta's shoes all over the floor. Then, some people had a reaction to Letta being in the house. They would feel sick, faint, or just be overcome with random emotions.

Even animals, mostly dogs, would start acting weird when the doll was around. They would try to bite it and attack it. Koda would absolutely destroy that doll. He has a special skill. I say kill it, he kills it. Yeah, he's very good at chewing up balls that are indestructible, like those Kona? The Kongs? Kong balls. They don't last very long. No. Even the very, very...

Tough ones. I went and got him a giant bone on those giant bones like that. It took him less than six months to. Ate the whole thing. Chewed it up. So yeah, Koda would destroy that thing. Yeah.

But with that doll, you know, scaring dogs, wanting to attack it, causing different emotions, making people sick and all that, that led Carey and his family to look more into the lead of the doll. And experts were able to date the doll at around 200 years old by analyzing some nails held under the doll's feet. They even narrowed down where the doll was crafted, saying that it was somewhere in Eastern Europe, possibly Romania, because of the doll's gypsy-like appearance.

To make it weirder, the doll had a full head of human hair, real human hair. And that is when Carrie ended up contacting a psychic to analyze the doll. And the information that the psychic gave them made Carrie get more opinions from other psychics, which they all said the same thing. They said that the letter of the doll belonged to a young boy who died from drowning and that the spirit of the young boy now inhabits the doll.

The psychics also told Carrie that no matter what he tried to do, he would not be able to part with the doll now that since he had it. Yeah, right. Just throw it in the... Throw it back in the water. Throw it back in the water. Yeah. Like his owner. Oof. So Carrie was like, you know what? Yeah, right. Watch this. So Carrie had a chance to sell Letta, the doll, and he was going to go through with it. But then he just couldn't bring himself to part with it. Kind of like it had a grasp on him.

So, Letter the Doll is now part of Carrie's family, and it hasn't seemed to do anything, you know, bad to them, other than making some people feel sickly and dogs wanting to attack it. But besides that, just kind of chilling. I wouldn't keep it in the house. Hell no, not after it tap-danced all over my floors. Yeah, it like scuffed up their floors and stuff. I'd spank its ass. You know how much I replaced that floorboards now? Yeah. Damn, you get some ass spankings for that. That's right. If I couldn't sell the doll or get rid of it myself...

I would just have someone like, hey, come in there, take the doll and just leave. Like, get rid of it for me. Rob me. Rob me. Then get shot by the police. So yeah, that was Letta Meowt, the doll in Australia that's supposedly cursed. Now, for our last cursed object, it is the Maori Tonga, or treasured items of the Maori people. My glory. My glory. They call me Bunny Love.

Now, we have talked about the Maori tribe before, but if you don't remember, they are an indigenous tribe in New Zealand. Now, these Maori, they have these treasured items and they have a specific word for them. What's it called? Tonga. Tonga. These tongas, aka treasured items, are usually like their heirloom artifacts, like weapons, masks, and even burial grounds are considered a part of this, along with the natural resources.

But you're probably wondering what makes them cursed, though. I mean, they just belong to this tribe. Doesn't mean they're cursed, right? Well, according to the Museum of New Zealand, Te Papa Tangwerwewa, which is the country's national museum, says that the Tonga are cursed in an article back in October of 2010. There was a catch to this curse that they said. And the catch is that they are only cursed towards women that are either menstruating

Or pregnant. Sexism. That's what it sounded like at first. Yeah. So those women should not join in on any tours that go through the museum into the Maori Tonga exhibit. And they actually added this as a rule, as a real rule that the museum put into effect other than, you know, pretty much like no flash photography, no touching the artifacts and wearing comfortable shoes.

That was a rule. You gotta wear comfy shoes. You gotta wear comfortable shoes. I'm guessing you can't wear like boots and stuff, I guess, to scuff up their floor. That's the only thing I can really think of. And don't you be men straight neither. Yeah. Or bring in a little baby. Yeah. But yeah, those rules against women caused issues and upset a ton of people, which I mean, when you first hear it, yeah. The museum decided to push back against these people and give their explanation on why that rule was put into effect.

The reasoning for it was that many of the Maori treasured items were borrowed from the indigenous people and that the museum needed to abide by the rules of those cultures. And this explanation really didn't help their cause much. So they continued on saying that some of the items were actually weapons that they were used to kill men on the battlefield. And with that being the case, if menstruating or pregnant women came into contact with these items, a curse would be unleashed.

which the museum's insurance policy did not cover that type of accident or incident. So they're just like, we can't be liable for anything to happen to you if you're cursed.

That's just not our insurance policy. So we can't have that. So in Maori tradition, it dictates that a pregnant or menstruating woman is taboo or taboo. And so are these artifacts, meaning that if the two would come together, a curse would be invoked. And as stated by the museum, pregnant women are sacred and the policy is in the place to protect them from these objects. End quote.

And we do have a photograph of them. Yeah, these are some of the Maori weapons that they have in the museum. I like that. What is that? Like a jawbone or like a fish bone? It looks like one of those sawfish, those things. Mm-hmm. Imagine getting smacked with the one in the middle. That would hurt. It looks like one of those things that the doctors go up and they look in your ear. It does look like that. Let me smack you in the fucking ear with that. That's how they put it in place and it keeps there, those little spiky things. Oof.

Yeah, but if it's Maori culture to protect menstruating or pregnant women against any curses, I mean, I can see where they're saying that they can't. But then again, I don't know. I guess that's up to the woman to decide. I would agree. But then again, if the Maori people come in there and take these items back saying you didn't follow at least the one rule that we had for it is not allow women there because now you're pretty much letting these women get cursed. I don't know. So it's like a...

50-50 thing right there. Yeah. Because, I mean, pregnant women are sacred and the policy is the place to protect them. So, I don't know, it's a 50-50, but I don't know if anybody's actually been cursed yet because from what I hear, this rule is in place, but do many people really follow it? I mean, are you going to be asking every woman if she's menstruating or pregnant? I bet you they do. Are you bleeding? Hold on, let's get our professional sniffer.

Oh yeah. I smell iron. Iron is in the air. I thought that one was very interesting. Yeah, it was. And that right there is our last cursed item that we have today. And like we previously stated, we will be continuing this as like a mini series going forward. So probably like a month or two from now, we will cover it again. And before we cover it, we will go to...

the antique shop or thrift store dan and i will and we'll each select an item that we believe is cursed we'll give it to the other one and uh see if anything happens to us and document it to add it as bonus footage and it'll be here in the studio yeah when researching these cursed objects i had a very difficult time finding information on just like cursed objects themselves you know why

Because every time I searched up cursed objects, D&D stuff would come up. Oh, nice. Dungeon and Dragons. They would tell you, oh, here's a rule book. This is how you create cursed objects in it. This is how you use it. And I'm thinking, okay, this is some, you know, I want to know how, like, they curse items. And then I'm, like, reading, like, D&D map. I'm like, what? Every single thing was about D&D on cursed objects. There's very few actual sites that talk about cursed objects. It's very weird. Well, it's fun. Yeah, it's fun. Look up and...

I want to play some D&D. I'm talking about D&D. I want to play some D&D. Yeah. Well, if you or a loved one have a cursed object in your possession, or you have been cursed by an object, or you know someone who has passed away from a cursed object, send us an email to Aaron, A-A-R-O-N, at theoriesofthethirdkind.com, or Dan, D-A-N, at theoriesofthethirdkind.com. We would love to hear from you. Yeah, and if you know of any...

other accursed objects that you want to know more about, let us know. But with that being said, that is the end of our episode today. I hope you all enjoyed it. I hope you have a great weekend. I hope your 4th of July was excellent and that you didn't blow your frigging fingers off with any firecrackers.

I didn't. No. I would like to thank you all for joining us today. And again, thank you for all your support and all of your love. We love you and we are proud of you. That's right. So with that being said, Dan, you want to roll us out? Sure will. It's okay to be out of this world with your thoughts. Because you are not alone. Not alone.

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