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Venice has a way of holding onto things; history, art, water and apparently, a terrifying experience. Most people that have travelled there usually come away with some form of spooky experience, from what I’ve read. Not always dramatic, not in ways that immediately stand out, but in quieter, more unsettling ways. It’s in the stillness of hotel rooms, in the way sound carries across the water, in the strange heaviness that can settle into a space without explanation.

In 2005, my sister travelled there with her best friend, and her friend’s mum for a birthday trip. It was meant to be a simple getaway; somewhere beautiful, somewhere with deep history and culture; but something about their hotel room didn’t feel right. My sister kindly wrote her experience and I have included it in this blog in quotation marks, completely unedited. Her words, her paranormally tarty experience.

This is exactly how she described it:

“I believe I have had a very creepy experience when I went to Venice, Italy. My best friend, her mum and I went there in February 2005, shortly before my 21st and my friends 22nd birthday. A nice birthday present I think.

The hotel we stayed in was absolutely beautiful. Real vintage Italy and the food was fantastic.

Before you read on, we didn't actually tell each other what we saw or felt until we were on the way home to England at the end of the trip. And I am not lying…so rest assured.”

The First Signs Something Was Off

Nothing obvious happened at first. No sudden shock, no immediate fear, no creepy "I like your skin" muttered from a wardrobe, just a feeling; which is how most of us end up in a corner with crippling fear, clutching some kind of comforting object.

These feelings are the kind that sit quietly in the background, easy to dismiss, until it keeps returning - hopefully to a ridiculously spooky climax... the story continues:

“The first night my friend and I were in the room I felt that we were not alone. I had some strange and very disturbing feelings and I heard noises similar to someone walking around. My friend was always bothering me because she was very drained throughout the entire trip. She is never like that. I have never witnessed her be so ‘out of it’ and lacking in energy. I have since put this down to thinking maybe the spirit, if it was there, was draining her energy?

Anyway, although my friend is a relatively strong skeptic, I did get the impression, once or twice, that even she thought something strange was going on.”

It’s easy to ignore something like that at first. New place, unfamiliar surroundings, broken sleep. There’s all kinds of skeptical, rational answers we could attach. However, from what they have both mentioned, I really don't think this was something easily explained.

The Night Everything Shifted

Photo by Camila Quintero Franco on Unsplash At some point, the feeling changed from something vague into something far more direct, and likely to make anyone of us shat our pantaloons.

“The night I figured that it was possibly haunted was a very strange one. I kept waking up feeling like someone was standing at the bottom of my bed. I have never in my life before or since had such a strong feeling that someone was actually there, watching me, but that I couldn’t see. It was very surreal.

My friend’s bed was directly next to mine and I felt very nervous and too scared to look at the end of where we were lay. I couldn't rest and I had very creepy feelings and I just kept thinking about an old woman.”

Some experiences are unsettling in hindsight, others are unsettling the moment they happen, and this kind is unsettling regardless...

“So as I was trying to settle and had convinced myself it was all in my mind, my friend suddenly turned and stared right into me. She honestly scared me to death. She screamed at me to turn the light on, so I did. But, the oddest thing was that her eyes looked really weird; as though they were not hers. I know that sounds silly but I swear down they didn’t look like hers. She wouldn't tell me why she wanted the light on and just kept saying "I don't like this room!" I was scared but I didn't want to freak her out more so I just told her she was dreaming.”

What They Didn’t Say

Throughout all of this, they didn’t speak to each other about what they were separately experiencing. Not during the night. Not the next day. Not at any point during the trip. If the spirit was just looking for attention, maybe she became angry for the lack of acknowledgment? Ghost teasers are the worst kind of tarts, after all!

“On the plane home the next day she asked me, a bit sheepishly, if I thought that our hotel room might have been haunted. And I said, not so sheepishly, a bit more excitedly, that Yes I did, and that I was dying to say something but thought she'd think I was being silly.”

The Same Experience

Only when they were leaving did they begin to compare what had happened, and the details didn’t just overlap, they matched. This is an interesting point because there have been plenty of spooky goings-on in the world, and I think it’s rare to have two people experience something that terrifies them to the depths of their very souls, and then not mention anything in the moment, or in the immediate moments that follow.

“She began to tell me some very similar experiences, like feeling a presence at the end of the beds, the mirror at the end of the bed moving (which didn't happen to me but the mirror being at the end of the bed was obviously in the area I didn’t like), the bathroom doorway and sleepless nights. She told me that night she awoke with a sudden jolt, she said she actually saw an old woman stood at the end of the bed, looking angry and deathly ill! She said she felt like this old woman didn't want us in that room.

That was the feeling I had all the time there. We were not wanted there. I couldn't believe what she was saying. My mouth dropped because I had felt very similar things and the old woman comparison was just plain weird.” “It's hard to explain and it's hard to convince someone that we honestly didn't tell each other anything until we were coming home. The shared experiences were uncanny and it scares me still to this day.

I only wish I was familiar with how to investigate, because I would have tried some experiments. At the time I was only just beginning to really get into that side of the paranormal. One day I would love to go back, get the same room and see if anything happens.”

I wish to add an important detail here: I have heard the accounts of both my sister and her friend, and a detail which I find fascinating: when my sister saw her friends eyes look different, when she jolted awake, my sister says her friends eyes were open and very scary looking. However, her friend is completely certain that her eyes were closed. Make of that what you will, Spooklings!

Final Thoughts

Some experiences are easy to dismiss and I don’t think this is one of them.

There’s no single dramatic moment, no clear explanation, just a series of consistent details experienced separately, in silence, and only confirmed when it was over.

Venice is a city layered with history; there are buildings that have stood for centuries, holding onto the lives that passed through them. Most of the time, that history stays where it belongs, but every now and then, in certain places, it seems to project itself onto living visitors (flirty).

And sometimes, the only sign is a feeling; a quiet, persistent, and impossible to ignore feeling that you’re not alone...

and that you were never welcome there at all.

Anyone who knows me well will be able to tell you that, despite my insatiable hunger for things paranormal, one part of the ghoulish world that does indeed terrify me to my very soul is possession. One story in particular has always stuck with me: the true events that inspired the book, and later the 1973 film, The Exorcist. Though the events that happened in 1949 can't be truly proven or disproven, it is one of the world's scariest cases. So, I have written this while sitting in a bath of holy water, covered in pages of the Bible that I taped to myself, while listening to 'Songs of Praise' on repeat, with a necklace of garlic - because why not? May as well! Keep all my bases covered.

Possession is one of the scariest things, and I am honestly happy to live in my haunted flat in comparison to the happenings that have been reported in most possession cases. I've almost filled my pantaloons several times while researching and writing this blog. Please enjoy, or hide under your covers, which ever works.

Let's Begin

In early 1949, a 13-year-old boy became the centre of what is still one of the most famous exorcism cases in the world. Today he is known by pseudonyms like Roland Doe or Robbie Mannheim. His real identity has never been publicly confirmed; I can't imagine having this kind of story stuck to you being a comfortable thing. He lived with his family in Cottage City, Maryland, and later stayed with relatives in St. Louis, Missouri.

One common version of the story claims Roland used a Ouija board to contact his recently deceased Aunt Harriet, who had an interest in spiritualism. This makes for a chilling origin story, but it doesn’t actually appear in the priests’ 1949 diaries. It seems it was added in later accounts, like Thomas B. Allen’s 1993 book Possessed. Whether it happened is unknown.

What is documented is that Roland’s family reported strange phenomena: scratching and banging noises in the walls, objects moving without explanation, and his mattress shaking violently. Even schoolteachers supposedly witnessed his desk sliding across the floor.

Family and friends later said red marks and scratches sometimes appeared on his skin. In the priests’ notes, words like “hell” and “evil” were recorded as randomly forming on his body. Whether these were self-inflicted, misinterpreted welts, or genuinely unexplainable remains an open question.

Enter the Priests

After local ministers failed to help, the family sought Catholic assistance - they seem to be the number 1 experts for this kind of creepy thing. Father William Bowdern, S.J., of St. Louis, took the lead, assisted by Father Walter Halloran and others. Over several weeks in March–April 1949, they conducted nightly exorcism rites.

Their diaries describe violent episodes: Roland growling, speaking in guttural tones, showing unusual strength, and lashing out at the clergy. Halloran later said the boy once broke free of restraints and injured him. At one point, Bowdern claimed the mattress seemed to levitate.

The climax came at the Alexian Brothers Hospital in St. Louis. According to Bowdern’s diary, after a final session invoking St. Michael the Archangel, Roland suddenly calmed. The priests recorded that he later said he’d had a vision of St. Michael defeating the devil. That night marked the end of the disturbances. Although the visions of St. Michael defeating the devil may indeed be true, it's a little too sudden a change for my liking, and comfort. If I was one of the priests, I wouldn't trust it. I'd also be really disappointed that the end result wasn't more...showy... you know? This is Beelzebub we're talking about, isn't it?

The Records Left Behind

Unlike many possession tales, this one has some paper evidence, specifically the 1949 diary of Father Raymond Bishop, S.J., which survives and provides a blow-by-blow account of the exorcism attempts. It notes when the marks appeared, whenever Roland cursed (ooof, naughty), when prayers were read, and when he became calm again. This kind of detail is usually lacking in most cases, from what I've read. Though I would have expected more flinging of faeces or something rather than swearing.

The story also leaked to the press. In August 1949, The Washington Post ran an article headlined “Priest Frees Mt. Rainier Boy Reported Held in Devil’s Grip.” - drama! - It was sensational, but brief, and did not include the Ouija board backstory or many of the dramatic details that would become part of the legend.

Think of it as the 1949 equivalent of a viral tweet: short, striking, but missing most of the nuance.

A Hollywood Legacy

Author William Peter Blatty discovered the case while at Georgetown University. Using it as inspiration, he wrote The Exorcist (1971), changing the possessed child into a girl and embellishing the horrors for fiction. The film adaptation (1973) then cemented Roland’s ordeal as the archetype of modern possession.

So in a roundabout way, Roland is indirectly responsible for an entire generation of people, myself included, who may have watched the Exorcist a little too young and then slept with rosary beads underneath their pillow for 5 years afterwards, because I'm cool.

Sceptical Perspectives

Ah, yes! Let's go into some rational explanations to chase those horrid images away!

Sceptics and scholars have poked at the case for decades:

Psychological angle: Roland was an only child, shy, and grieving. Some believe he may have been suffering from a mental illness or emotional breakdown. His symptoms — sudden aggression, trances, voice changes — could point to dissociative disorder or psychosis.

Poltergeist hypothesis: Paranormal researchers note poltergeist activity often surrounds stressed adolescents, particularly during puberty (to be fair, I seemed possessed during those years). If the noises and movements were real, they might have been a subconscious outlet of energy — or, more mundanely, mischief.

Self-inflicted wounds: Even Father Halloran later admitted he wasn’t sure if Roland made the scratches himself. The fact that reports of “words” forming on his body vary in timing and clarity, makes this detail questionable.

Exaggeration over time: The most famous flourishes — the Ouija board origin, levitating beds, and dramatic chest messages like “it’s over” — appear mainly in later retellings, not the earliest diary or newspaper sources.

Sceptics argue the whole saga was an unfortunate storm of grief, suggestibility, cultural belief in the devil, and a teenager’s volatile behaviour — amplified by priests who saw their role as spiritual soldiers in a literal war with evil.

Roland reportedly grew up to live a quiet, ordinary life. Researchers who believe they’ve identified him say he avoided publicity, and never discussed the events. He married, had a career, and by all accounts did not suffer further supernatural torment.

Closing Thoughts

The case of Roland Doe is fascinating because it straddles two worlds. On one side, we have diaries, priest testimony, and newspaper reports — far more documentation than most possession stories. On the other, many of the spookiest details appear only in later, second-hand retellings; something that I am relieved to know because those details are hella-scary.

Whether you see a boy overtaken by evil, or a tragic case of grief and psychological stress shaped by religious expectation, Roland’s story remains legendary in both the paranormal world, and the fantasy world of Hollywood.

And if your bed ever starts levitating, remember: bathe in holy water and avoid pea soup.

Till death - or my next blog - do us part, Spooklings 💋