by Chelsey Dagner
Since 6000 BC, mirrors have been a common object found in most households. Apart from photographs, mirrors enable us to truly see what we look like from an outsider’s perspective. But what happens when a mirror shows you more than just your reflection?
What happens if a mirror shows you something frightening? Something you were never meant to see?
Over the last few centuries, people have started collecting mirrors not just for the sake of practicality, but for décor around their houses. And every once in a while a person may stumble upon a mirror that could be considered haunted.
Often times someone will claim a mirror is haunted as a means of making profit off of sites such as eBay. But every once in a while a person may come across a piece of glass that is really and truly haunted.
These are five of those cases.
Top 5 Most Haunted Mirrors
Source: HalloweenForum
1. Twisting Inversions
Years ago, while at a cookout with his family, a gentleman named Juan heard a chilling tale of a haunted mirror from his cousin in Vercruz, Mexico.
One day, Juan’s cousin and a friend of his were shopping in an antiques store when he came across a large Victorian style mirror. The mirror was incredibly ornate, with a brushed silver frame. Juan’s cousin was drawn to it immediately and asked the shop owner how much it cost.
The shop owner told him the price, but seemed a little edgy afterward. He told Juan’s cousin that if he wished to purchase the mirror that he must make sure that it is always covered by some kind of heavy cloth after the sun goes down.
Juan’s cousin found the man to be a bit quirky, but nevertheless promised that he would do as the owner bid. He purchased the mirror and drove it home in the back of his truck.
He arrived home in the early evening. After he found a space on the wall of his bedroom to hang it, he admired his reflection for a few minutes, then promptly covered it with a bedsheet. He felt a little silly doing so, but the shop owner had been so adamant…
Dusk approached. Juan’s cousin was relaxing on the couch when he began to hear a steady knocking sound as though someone was at the door. But nobody was.
Puzzled, he wandered through the house, tracking the noise until he got to his bedroom. Chills ran down his spine as he realized that the knocking sound was coming from within the mirror. Slowly, he grabbed the bedsheet by the corners and pulled it off the mirror.
Inside the mirror was his reflection, but a reflection that moved entirely on its own. Juan’s cousin watched in horror as his mirror self slowly knocked on the glass surface, an eerie, leering smile on its face.
He moved to cover the mirror back up, but his reflection somehow managed to grab him, and attempted to pull him into the mirror itself. This surreal violence had Juan’s cousin paralyzed with fear. He fought to free himself, but his reflection was too strong. He was partially pulled into the mirror.
His fear escalated ten times over when he peered around. Within the mirror he saw his bedroom, but everything was inverted backwards. Juan’s cousin began to pray, and only then did he find the strength to free himself from the mirror.
He fell to the floor and immediately ran out of the house. He ran down the street to his friend’s house and stayed there until morning, too terrified to return to his home. When the sun rose, he and his friend grabbed the mirror and burned it in a fire.
Since destroying the evil mirror, everything has, thankfully, returned to normal.
2. Scratches in Oil
A young man who goes by the name of Nooko once discovered a mirror in an abandoned building not far from his house. The building was strewn with various trash and broken furniture, and it seemed that the only thing that was in perfect condition was a small, square mirror he had found up against the wall.
Nooko was studying art at the time, and had been interested in painting on a glass surface for some time. He brought the mirror home with him, thinking it would be his next canvas.
He laid out a brand new tarp, and arranged his oil paints on the floor of his bedroom. For hours he worked on the mirror, adding stroke after stroke until, at last, he was finished. On the mirror’s surface was a portrait of himself.
Happy with this work, Nooko carefully closed up his paints and crawled into bed shortly after midnight. The following morning he opened his eyes, and recalled what he had done before. But he was shocked to see that the mirror had been altered over the course of the night. His portrait was still drying on the surface, but through his face was a series of long, deep scratch marks.
Had he somehow missed these marks when he first picked up the mirror? No, he had cleaned the surface before he had started painting. Puzzled, Nooko looked around his room, trying to discern what could have made the scratches. All of his supplies were in the exact place they had been when he had fallen asleep. He didn’t have any pets or siblings, and his parents would have never destroyed one of his pieces.
In addition to the scratch marks, Nooko also noticed substantial tears in his brand new tarp. He searched his entire room, but he could not come up with any possible theories as to what had caused such destruction.
He became scared. After the portrait finished drying Nooko took the mirror and placed it in the shed in his backyard. It remains there to this day. Whenever Nooko needs supplies out of the shed, he always feels extremely uncomfortable, as though something foreign and malicious is present.
He hasn’t look at mirrors quite the same way since.
3. Victorian Evil
When Sotiris Charlambous and Joseph Birch found a large Victorian mirror in the dumpster outside of their London flat, they thought they had hit the jackpot. The antique mirror was quite beautiful, with a thick walnut border. They believed it would look great hung up over the radiator in their apartment.
But not long after they hung the mirror up, strange things began to occur to both of them. Sotiris found himself suddenly waking up in the middle of the night with stabbing pains shooting through his entire body. Joseph, usually a very happy twenty year old student, found himself feeling incredibly depressed and void of energy
At first, neither of them made any correlation between their mental and physical symptoms with the mirror. That is, until Sotiris decided to paint the walnut frame a bright silver. After that, their problems only escalated.
Joseph began to experience the same sharp pains that Sotiris felt during the middle of the night. Objects began to go missing, such as keys and documents.
And that’s when Joseph began to notice strange movement coming from the mirror. It began one day when he was alone in the flat. He had been walking down the hall towards his bedroom when he caught movement in the mirror’s reflection out of his periphery. Dark shadows seemed to flicker and move on the glass surface, even when Joseph stood completely still.
The two friends confronted their landlord about the mirror and soon discovered that it had once been his. When they asked if he wanted the mirror back, he quickly shook his head. “I don’t want anything to do with that mirror,” the landlord said.
It didn’t take long for the nightmares to begin. Joseph even began to fear being in the apartment by himself—he was certain that something malevolent was there with him, draining him of his happiness and energy.
Sotiris began to theorize that something awful had happened in front of the mirror, and it had somehow managed to absorb the negative energy from the event. He became convinced that someone had once been murdered in front of its glass surface, and now the mirror brought nothing but discomfort and despair wherever it was.
When the radiator and landline phone mysteriously stopped working, the two friends begrudgingly realized that their troubles were only going to escalate. They decided to put the mirror on Ebay, with full disclosure as to what had been happening to them.
The mirror has since gone to the highest bidder, and the two friends are certain that a feeling of lightness and hope as flooded into their apartment once more. They hope that whoever has the mirror now is well trained in the paranormal and will not experience what they endured while the Victorian mirror was in their home.
4. A Family of Spirits
Most people who have a deep interest in the paranormal have heard about the infamous Myrtles Plantation in St. Francisville, Louisiana. Built in 1796, the house has become known as being one of the most haunted historical locations in the south.
But what some people may not realize is that within the haunted house lays a haunted mirror.
In the hallway, across from the large wooden staircase is a large, rectangular mirror with a gilded gold frame. The mirror has been within the house for well over two centuries, and many eerie stories have surfaced about it.
According to one story, Sara Bradford Woodruff, who lived in the house, along with her husband and children, during the 1820s haunts the house, and is said to be permanently trapped inside the mirror.
Tourists who take their picture in front of the mirror often find strange anomalies in their photographs—creepy looking shadows, or an array of orbs. Some people even claim that they have seen fingerprints and silvery apparitions standing on the staircase reflected within the mirror’s surface.
Some people believe the mirror shows nothing but ordinary reflections, but there are countless accounts of believers and skeptics alike who have seen something paranormal in its ancient surface.
Today, the Myrtles Plantation is open to tours and also serves as a Bed and Breakfast. If you decide to visit, be sure to have your photograph taken in front of the mirror. But be warned—you may not like what you see.
5. Into the Black
Greg Newkirk has always had a profound interest in the paranormal. Over the years, he began to research and track down various objects that others had deemed as haunted. When Greg had collected a sufficient number of items, he, along with his wife Dana, formed the Traveling Museum of the Paranormal & Occult. Essentially, Greg and his wife travel around the country and display their supernatural finds for anyone who is curious.
A couple years ago, Greg was contacted by a young woman about a small mirror with black glass. The woman, who wanted to remain anonymous, stated that her mother had acquired the mirror during a psychic expo. Her daughter thought nothing of the purchase until her mother began to act very withdrawn and subdued. When the young woman confronted her mother, her mother claimed that it was the mirror’s doing…that it was inherently evil.
Skeptical, the young woman took the mirror home with her, concerned over her mother’s mental health. Despite not believing what her mother had said about the dark mirror, nevertheless she found herself feeling oddly uncomfortable and uneasy in her home. After a few short days, she contacted Greg and donated the mirror to the traveling museum.
At first, Greg kept his distance from the mirror—not because he was frightened by it, but because he didn’t want to be disappointed if nothing paranormal occurred. Often times, the museum has supposedly haunted objects donated to it, but nothing strange ever actually occurs. However, since it was newly acquired, Greg brought it along for their next tour.
One their first stop in Pennsylvania, a woman immediately picked up the mirror and gazed at her reflection. Within seconds, she had grown extremely pale and had set the mirror down, hastening to cover it up with a piece of cloth. When Greg asked her what she had seen, the woman replied that she had seen her own corpse in the mirror’s reflection. The woman then stated that the mirror was dark in nature and that she needed to go pray.
Confused but excited by such an account, Greg made it a point to carefully observe anyone else who grabbed the mirror. Some individuals only saw their reflection…but others had much more ghastly things to report.
Another woman in a different location also claimed to have seen her corpse. One man, a supposed diehard skeptic, stated that he had seen his reflection but that it had turned around and had walked completely out of the frame. Another woman claimed that when she looked at her reflection, her mirror image had begun to whisper despite the fact that the woman herself never once opened her mouth while gazing into the mirror.
Greg and his wife continue to tour with the dark mirror, but the paranormal enthusiast admits that he keeps the mirror covered when it resides in their home. He avoids looking at the mirror at all costs. The mirror itself seems to want to draw Greg in, but he has always resisted gazing into the glass surface head on. He has become convinced that whatever the mirror wants to show him, it will not be pleasant.
About the Author: Chelsey Dagner is a full time horror writer and aspiring librarian. When she isn’t writing articles for Blumhouse and The Lineup, she can typically be found watching creepy movies, playing Elder Scrolls, or taking leisurely strolls with her cats. Check out her horror blog at www.macabreadore.com. Chelsey Dagner is a full time horror writer and aspiring librarian. When she isn’t writing articles for Blumhouse and The Lineup, she can typically be found watching creepy movies, playing Elder Scrolls, or taking leisurely strolls with her cats. Check out her horror blog at www.macabreadore.com