[Applause] it was 2: a.m. One Night in the early 1970s when Dr Anne Ross was suddenly awoken by a cold chill running through her body the room was unusually freezing an lay there in the darkness aware that something was wrong but she wasn't sure what her husband lay soundly asleep next to her Dr Ross tried to get comfortable again to fall back sleep but that's when she noticed the movement just out of the corner of her eye by the Wardrobe a shape a figure when she looked up properly it was stood by their bedroom doorway
the dim light from the hallway illuminated the room just enough for her to get an idea of what she was looking at Dr Ross thought she must be dreaming still this wasn't possible it's stood around 6 ft tall with a slight hunch to its back it was dark almost Shadow like but this was a very real and very tangible being the bottom half looked very much like normal human legs but its top half was like an animal later Dr Ross would describe it almost akin to a wolf covered in dark black fur whatever it was
it seemed to become aware that Dr Ross was looking at it the creature slowly walked out of the room Dr Ross could hear it creeping along the landing towards the stairs but for reasons she could never really put into words her first reaction was not to wake her husband instead she calmly got out of bed and began to follow silently walking behind the quiet padded sounds of its feet as it walks down the stairs disturbingly Dr Ross claimed that she didn't feel in control at that moment she felt compelled to follow it as though it
were leading her somewhere as she headed down the stairs she got another look at it from the position she was stood she could see it now shuffling down the hallway this second glimpse of the creature was enough to snap her out of whatever trance she appeared to be in the Curiosity was gone and now fear and adrenaline were racing through her body she didn't know what she was seeing but she knew it wasn't good Dr Ross raced upstairs back to her bedroom waking up her husband archaeologist Richard fman he didn't really believe what his wife
had claimed to see but concerned there was an intruder in the home where their children were sleeping the pair searched the house from top to bottom no sign of anyone human or beast could be found it would be easy to chalk this up to Nightmare on the part of Dr Ross however she may not have known it at the time but she wasn't the first to be visited by this creature and she wouldn't be the last Dr Ross was a well-respected expert in the field of Celtic studies it wasn't unusual for her home to be
filled with strange artifacts but just 2 days prior to this incident she had received a package that contained two objects these two objects would go on to become the source of one of the most enduring paranormal Mysteries of all time get yourself a warm drink dim the lights and get comfortable it's long overdue but it's time we talk about one of the great paranormal Tales a story of haunted objects pranksters confused Scholars and even we sheep this is the horrifying story of the hexom heads welcome to the tape Library I'm I'm curious before we get
into this one how many of you have heard of the Hexum heads before let me know in the comments if you have or haven't it feels like such a well-known paranormal case over here in the UK but when I talk to American friends about it they don't seem as familiar this is one of those stories that's been on my list to get to since I pretty much started the channel but I was pushed to do it now after an interesting little Discovery was made back in October in 1976 at 555 p.m. the BBC broadcasted an
episode of its usual early evening current affairs show Nationwide but this particular episode would be burned into the imaginations of an entire generation tonight's show spoke about a discovery two school boys had made of a pair of stone heads that were thought to be Celtic in origin but ever since their Discovery anyone who interacted with the heads had fallen prey to strange phenomena the episode came with interviews with several people involved including Dr an Ross in STK contrast to normal paranormal Fair seeing a respected history scholar talking about strange goings on in the night and
werewolves gave a certain degree of weight to the tale but it wasn't just the creepy story the BBC show paired this with images of severed heads that were disturbingly graphic for a family show plus a quick shot of Oliver Reed from Hammer's curse of the werewolf it was all more than enough to give the kites plenty of nightmares the footage from this segment has existed in the BBC archives ever since however the audio has always been missing making this segment something of a lost Holy Grail for those fascinated by paranormal media but recently using an
AI voice recognition software the audio for the second half has been recovered the BBC released the segment as a Halloween treat on YouTube and for the first time in decades people were able to hear Dr Ross's firsthand account of what she saw in her home that night much like my recent episode on the deok box the story of the Hexum heads is a confusing blend of fiction and reality not helped by the fact that these stories all center around events that took place over a relatively short period of time over 50 years ago details have
been Twisted misremembered disputed leaving the true Tale of the Hexum heads a slightly confusing mess but I've tried my best here to lay it out as close to what apparently happened as possible let's begin with the discovery an event that in itself might be one of the most highly contested events that took place Hexum is a small Market Tower in North umand up in the north of England while it is of course a place with a long deep history as is the case with most towns in England in the 1970s there wasn't really anything remarkable
about Hexum this wasn't a place you expected to be digging up haunted artifacts in any case 11-year-old Colin Robson was at Junior School sat in a classroom creating a small piece of artwork for a competition it was a head crafted out a plaster of Paris a head that was described as ugly by his head master and downright scary by others despite this it won second place in his school's competition why Colin chose to make the head he couldn't say it just popped into his mind when he was trying to think of something to make inov
of itself there's nothing strange about this incident the timeline here instantly becomes a little confusing but in either late 1971 or early 1972 Colin had returned home from school with his brother Leslie the pair were bored to say the least no one else from their family was home yet their mother and father both still at work and what else would two young boys do to pass the time before their family returned home they of course decided to dig holes heading out into the garden to do so initially they were being helpful pulling out weeds and
tidying up but soon it descended into just digging a hole together down deeper and deeper into the soil when they reached around 2T deep Colin shouted out that something was there he reached into the dirt and pulled out a rounded object about the size and weight of a cricket ball he brushed the soil off of it and shouted again to his brother that he had found a head there in Colin's hand was a small Stone head not too dissimilar from the one he had crafted in school sometime earlier that Year Leslie was somewhat jealous at
his brother's miraculous find and the pair continued to dig to see if they could find anything else sure enough just 6 in further down they pulled out another head both heads were a little different from one another but both had a bit of weight to them and appeared to be very old later in this tale a materials chemist named Dr Don Robbins would described them as being different Sexes the first head had a skull-like appearance to it masculine in features but G and bony with a traditionally Celtic hairstyle the other was more feminine more rounded
and expressive in its features some have called them the man and the woman but others refer to the female head as the hag this is the one that many have described as giving off and negative energy below them were tendons that struck out almost like a neck but these were later swn off during studies of the objects with their parents out still the two boys instead rushed to their next door neighbor there Nelly Dodd the mother of the dod family invited the boys inside and the three of them took a look at their strange Discovery
she didn't quite know what to make of it and suggested that the boys should take it to the nearby hexam Abby maybe they could tell the boys what these heads were the boys founded their mother at work telling her they were going to be taking two Old Stone heads to the ABY you know normal boy stuff and they set off to get the answers They Se a priest at the Abbey offered to take the heads and try to find out more about them telling the boys he would return them in a few days time and
that was that an exciting archaological find by two young boys and that's all it was until Colin was awoken a few nights later by screaming Nelly Dodd lived next door with her husband Isaac and their six children for a number of nights after first seeing the heads Nelly's daughters who shared a room had been complaining about a strange sound they described it as a sort of pitter patter of feet that they could hear as they lay in their beds at night Nelly told them they were simply hearing sech falling down the chimney the night of
the incident 7-year-old Marie was terribly sick with an ear infection it had taken Nelly some time to get her daughter to sleep but once she did she was confronted with her son Trevor claiming that someone was touching his leg Trevor shared a bedroom with his younger brother Brian Nelly assumed this was just a case of the boys messing around and told them to go to sleep later Brian would state that it wasn't just Trevor that felt something touch him as he lay in his bed he too experienced what felt like a hand touching his hair
despite there being no one else in the room Nelly went back to Marie's bedroom but just before she did she noticed the landing window was open flapping in the wind she was sure she had shut it Nelly climbed into bed with her daughter planning to sleep in there with her that night sometime in the early hours of the morning Marie was awoken by a strange sound she wasn't sure what it was at first but she instantly knew something wasn't right the scared little girl looked up she quickly jabbed at her mother's side to wake her
as well Nelly opened her eyes and couldn't believe what she was seeing there standing in the room was a large figure that she described as being part man and part Beast the lower half of it appeared to be human but its head almost looked like a sheep and its feet were Hooves Nelly was immediately terrified but in her half awake state she thought this must be some kind of dream that was until the creature reached out and touched her the feel of its clawed hands on her leg was more than enough to snap Nelly violently
awake Nell screamed a scream so loud it awoke not just her husband but the neighbors next door the creature looked at Nelly and Marie momentarily before turning and running down the stairs Isaac DOD came running in to find his wife in hysterics they searched the house but could find no trace of what Nelly had seen however their front door was wide open suggesting someone or something had run out of the house the robsons rushed next door to see what all the commotion was and heard the crazy crazy story that Nelly laid out to this day
Colin Robson remembers the fear in the eyes of Nelly and her youngest daughter whatever they had seen had deeply terrified them just a few days later the heads made their way back to the Robson Boys The Abbey wasn't able to provide much more information beyond the fact they were apparently old almost straight away the strange activity started it began small as these things often do the heads were placed on a Shelf off in the living room when the family would come down in the morning they would have changed positions facing towards the garden where they
had been found the heads will be put back in their place only to be found moved again the following day colins mother and father were intrigued by this and began leaving their heads in different positions sure enough overnight they would move and once more the family would be awoken in the middle of the night by the sounds of their Taps running Colin's father was convinced one of the children was getting up in the middle of the night doing all this but he never was able to catch any of them in the act when the family's
oldest daughter Wendy came back from her honeymoon she found her family a little obsessed with these strange heads she placed them under her bed hoping to put a stop to this whole thing but sure enough when she woke up in the morning the heads had moved then item started breaking pictures would fall off the wall a mirror was found placed on top of a frying pan that was on a kitchen counter below it but there wasn't a crack on the mirror it was as if someone had carefully removed it and put it there ornaments were
smashed on the ground with the family becoming convinced that they saw them not fall but fling themselves across the room smashing on the opposite wall the family also began discussing the feeling that there was something in their home no one ever saw anything not like Nelly next door had in fact at this point no one had made the connection between what she had seen and the heads coming into her home but there was just a general feeling that the robsons were never alone it wasn't just inside the house that these strange events were taking place
shortly after the heads had been dug up a large flower began to grow up from the spot where the boys had found them what made this so weird though was if you were to look out to the Garden from inside the house it was as if the flower was being lit up by a bright light but if you went outside to take a look it just seemed totally normal there was no light then there was the crying a sound that no one had heard before they had dogged their heads up but afterwards the family would
hear in the dead of night coming from their Garden the sound of a baby crying the Press quickly became interested in the heads the initial Discovery had drawn their interest but the subsequent Poltergeist like activity and the apparent sighting of a half man half sheep were too good to pass up numerous papers got in contact with the family and ran stories on the Hexum heads now this is where the timeline seems to get very confusing I've read quite a lot on the Hexum heads and almost every account seems to explain the events that followed in
a slightly different way for the most part in this story I've tried to R on what was said directly from the people involved but even that seems to be up for contention according to Colin Robson television presenter and Reverend Peter mof turned up on their doorstep one day to interview the children about the head he explained that a Doctor Anne Ross was going to be in the area giving a lecture and he was Keen for her to see the heads Dr Ross was an expert in Celtic history and many believes at this point that these
heads have been left here centuries ago by a Celtic tribe Jenny Robson Colin's mother apparently told Peter moof he could take the heads and that they didn't want them back not after all the strange events have begun if the heads ever made it back to the Robson household is another detail that appears to be disputed but Colin Robson claimed that this was the last time he saw the original Heads This is how they ended up in the possession of Dr Ross who believed that the heads were Celtic in origin and believed that the garden may
have been the home of a Celtic Shrine stating in one report that they quite often worshiped human heads that were taken from their enemies she even stated that if this were the case then she believed it wasn't out of the realm of possibility that the sight the heads were found was in fact haunted she wanted to get them tested to prove their authenticity one way or the other but why would an academic who has been referred to by many as a quiet reclusive type be so Keen to public speak about the idea of a haunted
Celtic Shrine well as we know Dr Ross had her own experience shortly after taking the heads in Dr Ross had taken the heads to her home in Southampton and they were far from the only Celtic objects that were there Dr Ross was used to studying these artifacts but there was something unusual about the Hexum heads from the moment she handled them Dr Ross felt there was something special about them she was immediately hit with a strange sense of unease as she handled the heads she instantly locked them away in her study and planned to leave
them there until she could take them to Newcastle for further study one or two nights after they arrived Dr Ross was awoken by a strange sound and that is when she saw the half man half creature we spoke about at the start of tonight's story at this time Dr Ross claimed she did not connect what she saw with the heads themselves I'm unsure if Dr Ross was aware of the supernatural claims that have been made by the robsons or the half sheep half M report by the dod family as I say the timeline is a
little confusing to say the least it's possible that she was brought into this tale purely through the lens of understanding where these heads came from rather than having anything paranormal explained to her but equally it's possible she had read the stories and these were playing on her mind regardless it appears that Dr Ross nor her husband decided to tell the rest of their family about what happened that night which makes What followed all the more strange Dr Ross and her husband returned home one afternoon just a few days later to find their teenage daughter benice
in what they described as a State of Shock she was shaking and deafly pale they asked her what happened and Dr Ross's blood ran cold as she heard her daughter's encounter Benise had returned home from school 2 hours earlier she had opened the front door and walked in she headed to the stairs and took one step up as she glanced up she was shocked to see a huge black figure standing on the stairs just a few feet above her Benise froze to the spot whatever this was it didn't look human it was some sort of
animal without warning it charged towards Benise but at the last second it vaed over the banister to the corridor below and ran off deeper into the house much like her mother strangely Benise claimed that she felt compelled to follow it but yet again there was no sign of it it had just vanished Benise suddenly regaining her senses fell to the floor in Terror and there she remained until her parents returned home following this the family heard the sounds of the soft padded Paws of an animal landing on the hallway floor time and time again as
though what Benise saw was playing out stuck on some sort of loop at times they believed they caught glimpses of a large dark figure out of the corner of their eyes but never got a good look at it again often times while working alone in her study the Dr Ross's door would violently jolt open to reveal no one outside it Dr Ross had the heads tested and it was estimated that they were in fact around 1,800 years old and were Celtic in origin a spanner would soon be thrown into the works of the whole Hexum
head story though when a lorry driver named Dez craigy contacted the papers to explain he had formerly lived in the robson's home and what's more he had created the heads himself as a gift for his young daughter Dez claimed that his daughter came running into the room one day excitedly telling him that the heads he had made her when she was a child were on TV Dez would tell the Evening Chronicle that he made them about 16 years prior his father had lived in the robson's house until about a year ago and the craigy family
called its home for 30 years he made the heads from bits of stone and mortar just quickly rolling them up like a snowball and gouging a face in each of them and gave them to his daughter who would use the foil from penguin bars to make eyes for them he actually made three but it appears one was never found Dez found the entire thing hilarious Dr an Ross was curious about Craig's claims and wanted to see him create a repca to demonstrate his abilities the reason for this was that while she thought it was certainly
possible ible that these were not as old as she believed if they were a recent creation they had been created to look as close to a Celtic head as possible this wasn't just a crudely thrown together art project as Desa claimed it had all the characteristics you would expect to see in a genuine artifact she also believed that the heads contained some kind of power after all how else could she explain what was currently going on in her home craigy did create a replica but most didn't see a distinct resemblance between the replicas and the
original heads in recent years or for Paul screeton did some more digging into Dez and discovered he had quite the reputation of being a prankster if he did just make the claim of creating the heads as an attempt to get an attention though he did stick with the story for the rest of his life there is also the strange photo that screeton included in his book which appears to show Dez with the original heads but no one including des's son can clarify when and where the photo was taken one consideration that could be made is
that maybe Dez did make free heads while living in the property but that these were not the same heads that were dug up maybe something there influenced him planting the idea of the heads in his mind maybe this is why an 11-year-old Colin would make his own heads just before digging the Celtic heads up a sort of faded memory floating around the Garden in hexom entering the resident minds but it wasn't just Dez Craig's claims that put doubt on their heads geologists in Newcastle and Southampton appear to have differing views on the age of the
heads with one expert claiming they were in fact close to 2,000 years old while the other believed the material they were made from suggested there were a much more recent creation eventually Dr Dr Ross decided she needed to get the heads as far away from her family as possible she sent them off to newcastle's Museum of Antiquities and almost immediately the strange phenomena that was taking place in her home stopped but there are three mysteries associated with the Hexum heads the first is where they came from the second is what power if any did they
have the third is what happened to them the hex head seemed to pass through various institutes and into different hands after Dr Ross passed them on but at some point they made their way to Dom Robbins the man who popularized the stone tape Theory the idea that somehow the images of events and people can be stored in rocks and other objects as almost like a spiritual Echo he believed this could explain what was happening with the heads that they had somehow captured some sort of past event and maybe the strange half man half beast creatures
people were seeing and the other strange phenomena was simply this playing out after the heads were Disturbed while he didn't witness any direct apparitions as some of the previous owners did robins believed that there was something to these heads they gave off an undeniable atmosphere and he couldn't help but notice it felt like the eyes could see him wherever he placed them there have been many claims made about who the heads ended up with but according to Rob Robins he passed them on to a man named Frank Hyde Frank had a keen interest in all
aspects of the Paranormal and Robbins believed that he may be able to give insight into what was going on with the heads Hyde took the heads into his custody and promised to keep Robins updated on any findings apparently shortly after this Hy was involved in a pretty serious car accident he was alive but injured Robins attempted to get into contact with Hyde but found it tricky to nail the man down over the following years he frustratingly struggled to get any information from Hyde about the heads until eventually he just seemed to vanish Robbins was quoted
as saying it was like he had walked into a fairy hill in a folk tail and with that the Hexum heads were gone leaving behind one of the most compelling and enduring paranormal Mysteries of all time so what really happened well that's not an easy question to answer as I've already stated trying to pin down the details of this one has proved really difficult for what is essentially such a simple story every single element seems to have multiple differing takes on events even the year that the heads were found is disputed which starts you off
on a difficult Road almost immediately I don't think this necessarily points to the whole thing being a hoax however obviously newspapers were not sending out their top reporters to jump on what was essentially a silly local paranormal story leading to numerous factual errors in the initial reports even down to the witness's names I don't think this really became such a big story until years later when the BBC Nationwide program was aired by that time the location of the heads was unclear and no more serious research could be done on them than what had already been
carried out there's also the fact that many of the people who are still talking about this event now who were Direct involved were literally children when these events took place retelling events that took place decades ago over a short space of time most likely their memories of what happened is the result of how their families had retold the stories in their households over the years the half man half beast that Dr Ross and Nelly dods saw is an interesting aspect of the story it's often reported as appearing to be a werewolf but while Dr Ross
described this as more wolflike Nelly DOD was very clear that it had the head of a sheep or a Ram one interesting story that came out as a possible explanation to this came from the slaughter house that was located close to the houses in Hexum apparently around the time of Nelly's shocking experience a small group of locals had gotten rather drunk and decided to steal meat from the slaughter house Apparently one of these men was walking down the street with a sheep slung over his back a man who spoke to Paul scon said he believed
that this in fact is what Nelly DOD saw that night although there appears to be no evidence that this event took place nor does it really match up with her experience there are also suggestions that the abattoir in question is also the home of several reported ghost sightings including that of a phantom half man half sheep although it seems these claims were made after the Hexum head story broke if you are familiar with the story and you have noticed that my retelling of the discovery of the heads appears to differ from the more commonly told
version then that's because it is different I have taken much of the information about the initial Discovery and what took place in the first few days from an interview with Colin Robson that was conducted in more recent years while it's debatable if this version is the most accurate I thought it made the most sense to go with what he claimed happened although he doesn't seem to call the events timeline with the greatest of confidence it's hard not to see why this mystery has captivated so many people over the last 50 years it's a mystery on
top of a mystery on top of a mystery the discovery of the BBC Nationwide episode has given the Hexum heads a bit of a Resurgence in interest maybe it's time to begin the search again maybe someone out there listening to this can be the person to finally find the Hexum heads and put this strange mystery to bet once and for all that's all for this entry into the tape Library again as I said this is another tough one to talk about I really do try my best to present these stories as close to what people
directly involved claimed happened in this case that likely doesn't present the clearest of narratives but hopefully this wasn't too confusing a big source of a lot of the information I included here comes from Paul screen's book The Quest for the the Hexum heads I maybe wouldn't recommend this book as an introduction to the topic it doesn't lay out a very clear Narrative of the story but if you are already familiar with the story then it's likely the most in-depth resource on the Hexum heads you could hope to find and with that we've come to the
end of the tape library in 2024 and it's hard not to be a little reflective when it gets to this time of year this time 12 months ago the tape Library had 10,000 subscribers which at the time I was Blown Away by as of writing this on YouTube alone 270,000 of you crazy people have clicked that subscribe button so you can join me on these strange stories because of your incredible support I've been able to turn this into my full-time Focus I never even planned for the tape library to be anything other than some short
films where I could explore urban legends and Ghost Stories the intention was never to create a popular YouTube channel or podcast it was just a little creative outlet for me with no end goal in mind so thank you thank you all so much for joining me on this journey and for creating such a fun little Community I really do enjoy reading all your comments and I try to respond to as many of you as possible but saying that it's with a heavy heart that I have to announce that the tape library in 20125 will be
no I'm just kidding just wanted to provide one last scare for the year I've got so many dives into the strange and The Unexplained plan to share with all of you and maybe even one or two fun collaborations on the horizon I'm in the process of putting together a rough schedule for next year as it takes me a long time to put these together so I like to plan ahead if there are any stories you really really want me to cover now as your chance to suggest them drop me a comment below and let me
know what you want to see from the channel in 2025 thank you all so much for this year I hope you all have a lovely Christmas season whatever you get up to whether you celebrate it or not and I will see you all on the other side of the new year of course an extra special thank you to the people who support the show through patreon and YouTube memberships our tape Library archist UMO Grim Sandy Lusk re 1731 mirrror Judith hacker Gabrielle Eric Salas Destiny M ashar's books lady bet Noir Adeline Peter mccan Georgia Harvey
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I genuinely appreciate each and every one of you until next year my friends pleasant dreams [Music]
