The story of Mr. Ted, the haunted teddy bear that once sent a TV producer to the hospital, recently went viral thanks to a popular TikTok video.
Canadian YouTuber Jessii Vee shared a snippet of the strange tale on TikTok last week, and since then the haunted bear has wound up pulling in 3.3 million likes and at least 58,000 comments.
The good news is, unlike certain other haunted dolls, Mr. Ted doesn’t come with any long-range strings attached. At least, not any we know about. No need to say “Sorry,” here.
What’s a bit curious, however, is Vii’s claim that Mr. Ted lives at a place called Bolsover Castle. That’s not entirely accurate, as the Derby Telegraph points out. That said, the bear did once stay the night at the haunted locale about four years ago, as part of a strange experiment on ITV’s This Morning.
In early October 2017, the show called for volunteers on Facebook, looking for anyone willing to spend the night with the haunted bear:
“If you and a group of friends would be willing to be filmed overnight in a London hotel, sleeping in the same room as reportedly haunted teddy bear Mr Ted, then get in touch…”
They didn’t end up staying at a London hotel, though. Instead, they ventured into Bolsover Castle, a place known to be haunted by ankle-grabbing ghosts and a spirit called “The Grey Lady,” among many other things.
There, they set up a bed for the volunteers, and a chair for Mr. Ted. Up until that point, Mr. Ted had acquired quite the history — he was known to make people feel nauseous and give them headaches, and even sometimes growl. According to a report at the time, one of This Morning’s features producers actually fell ill during the segment’s filming.
A paranormal expert, Jo Lockwood, was also on the scene, and stayed awake to monitor the bear via CCTV camera and EMF detectors. At around 3:00 a.m., the Witching Hour, one of the cameras mysteriously disconnected. A cable appeared to have been pulled by an unseen force. Lockwood also claimed to witness an orb or “light anomaly” on camera.
Strangest of all, they attempted to use a spirit box to speak with whatever ghost might have been present. “Show yourself!” they called out. “Leave,” was the unexpected response.
The original This Morning footage is actually pretty hard to track down, but The Sun has a short video featuring a part of the segment. I recommend checking it out if only to witness the absurdity of it all.
