Is Annabelle doll really haunted? Yes, say the superstitious, No, say rationalists

New Delhi: In Connecticut, 1970, a mother purchased an antique raggedy doll named Annabelle from a hobby store. Little did she know that the doll would be a curse for their family.Donna was a nursing student at that time living with her room mate Angie.She left the doll on a table, after few days they noticed something creepy with her. The doll had changed her position unnoticed. They would find the doll in a different room when they came home every time. Sometimes, the doll was sitting cross legged or in an upright manner. Also, they began to see messages written saying ‘Help us' in the handwriting of a child. Once, Donna placed the doll on bed, the doll moved again.When she noticed it, a sense of fear came over and she inspected the doll. She saw bloods drops on the back of its hands and its chest.Both the girls were shocked and scared and wanted to seek expert advice. One of their friends, Lou had come over for a night stay. That night became his worst nightmare.Lou awoke one night from a deep sleep and in panic. Once again he had a reoccurring bad dream. Only this time somehow, something seemed different. It was as though he was awake but couldn't move. He looked around the room but couldn't discern anything out of the ordinary and then it happened. Looking down toward his feet he saw the doll, Annabelle. It began to slowly glide up his leg, moved over his chest and then stopped. Within seconds the doll was strangling him. Paralyzed and gasping for breath Lou, at the point of asphyxiation, blacked out. Lou awoke the next morning, certain it wasn't a dream, and he was determined to rid himself of that doll and the spirit that possessed it.Donna and Angie finally started believing that spirit in the house was not that of a young girl but inhuman and demonic in nature.And then they contracted Lorraine Warren, the famous paranormal investigator. The Warrens, after speaking with Donna, Angie, and Lou came to the immediate conclusion that the doll itself was not in fact possessed but manipulated by an inhuman presence. Spirits do not possess inanimate objects like houses or toys, they posses people. An inhuman spirit can attach itself to a place or object and this is what occurred in Annabelle's case. This spirit manipulated the doll and created the illusion of it being alive in order to get recognition. Truly, the spirit was not looking to stay attached to the doll, it was looking to posses a human host.The Warrens then decided to take the doll away from home.It was then preserved in the Warrens Occult Museum, which is the safest place to keep the possessed object. Housed in a glass case at the museum, Annabelle still moves about occasionally and is still known to make growling noises at unsuspecting visitors, says Mrs Warren. But rational thinkers say, all such so-called paranomal claims were never crosschecked by scientists to verify facts in controlled conditions.