A Saugus woman says her friend's flashlight flickered, the room went cold, and a dead bird turned up in her bedroom days after she visited the Annabelle doll at Salem's new occult museum — and she's not alone in reporting strange happenings since brushing up against the notorious artifact.
Kayla Jackson, who lives in Saugus, visited the Annabelle doll at the Haunted Warren Museum in Salem and later posted a TikTok video detailing a string of unsettling incidents, according to NBC Boston. Jackson said her friend's flashlight flickered while they were inside the exhibit and that the room noticeably grew colder once she entered Annabelle's display area.
Two days after the visit, Jackson said she found a dead bird in her bedroom despite her windows being closed and locked. She also described a radio glitching during a car ride home from dinner with a friend, though the friend told her the music returned to normal once Jackson got out of the car. Jackson said her mother interpreted the bird as an Italian omen signaling impending danger or disaster, and that her father smudged the house with sage afterward. Jackson has stopped short of claiming she can prove Annabelle caused any of it.
A Second Account of Strange Noises
Another woman cited in the same report said she woke up on a recent Wednesday night to the sound of a crash resembling dishes falling from a dish rack — only to find no dishes had actually been sitting on the rack. The anecdote adds to a wave of viral claims tying ordinary household mishaps to a brush with the Annabelle doll, a phenomenon that has followed the artifact for years.
Inside the Haunted Warren Museum's Salem Debut
The Haunted Warren Museum officially opened at 259 Essex Street in downtown Salem on August 27, 2026, housing more than 1,000 occult artifacts across 13 themed rooms, according to iHorror. The exhibit marks the first public display of the Warren family collection since 2019, after comedian Matt Rife and YouTube creator Elton Castee acquired Ed and Lorraine Warren's Monroe, Connecticut home in August 2025 and entered a five-year agreement to serve as legal guardians of the collection, which remains leased from the Warren family. Rife has described himself as the collection's guardian rather than its owner.
The original Warren Occult Museum in Monroe closed to the public in 2019 over residential zoning violations, according to the same report. The collection later sought a commercially zoned site, which it eventually found in downtown Salem.
The museum's FAQ sets a minimum age of 12 and says the exhibit includes an alternate bypass corridor for guests who prefer to skip the Annabelle gallery entirely, per the Haunted Warren Museum. Self-guided flashlight admission starts at $66.60. The low-light, flashlight-only format is central to how the entire tour is experienced.
Noise Complaints Capped the Museum's Hours
The Salem City Council rejected organizers' request for a 2 a.m. closing time, allowing the museum to close at 10 p.m. on weekdays and midnight on two weekend nights a week in a trial. The dispute echoes the residential-zoning issue that led to the original Connecticut museum's closure, underscoring the tension between a commercial paranormal attraction and the neighborhoods hosting it.
The museum's run at 259 Essex Street is also temporary — organizers are operating under a lease through December 23, 2026, while they search for a permanent, year-round location with expanded commercial hours, according to the Haunted Warren Museum.
Why the Timing Matters in Salem
The exhibit opened in Salem ahead of the annual Salem Haunted Happenings festival in October.
The Doll's Dark Reputation — and the Skeptics
Claims that Annabelle is cursed have followed the doll into national headlines before. In July 2025, lead New England Society for Psychic Research investigator Dan Rivera, 54, died suddenly of a cardiac event in a Gettysburg hotel room while hosting the nationwide ‘Devils on the Run' Annabelle tour, though county coroner officials confirmed the doll was not in his room, according to FOX 29 Philadelphia. The coroner publicly attributed Rivera's death to a pre-existing heart condition in an effort to dispel online paranormal conspiracy theories.
The real Annabelle is, in fact, a standard fabric Raggedy Ann doll given by her mother to a nurse named Donna in 1970 — a far cry from the vintage porcelain doll depicted in Warner Bros.' ‘The Conjuring' film franchise, per All That's Interesting. The original doll sits in a glass case bearing a hand-carved inscription of the Lord's Prayer, while a sign beneath the case reads ‘Warning, positively do not open.’
The collection is now on public display in Salem under its new guardians.
