For tonight’s all-new episode of Ghost Adventures, Zak Bagans and company are traveling to Hollywood, CA, a city built on dreams and tragedy, to investigate the Ripley’s Believe It or Not! Museum. The quirky museum is chock full of oddities, but at first thought, that doesn’t necessarily lead one to assume it would be haunted. According to the Travel Channel description of the episode, employees of the museum have claimed to be “adversely affected by its rare artifacts.”
A common theme among all ghost hunting and paranormal investigation shows are spirits that have attached to objects. One prime example is the Raggedy Ann doll encased at The Warrens’ Occult Museum in Monroe, CT that spawned the legend of Annabelle. The Hollywood museum may not have the demon-possessed doll, but it does feature plenty of antique items, including an “authentic” vampire killing kit and shrunken heads.
There aren’t many references to the supposed hauntings of Ripley’s Believe It or Not! In Hollywood, though magician and ghost enthusiast Tom Ogden wrote about the local legends in his 2009 book, Haunted Hollywood: Tinseltown Terrors, Filmdom Phantoms, and Movieland Mayhem. Ogden writes about the “ghost of a little girl” thought to inhabit the museum, which was once a bank. According to Ogden, “several people were gunned down in the building many years ago during a bank robbery.” The young girl in question was believed to have survived the shooting because she was in the bathroom, but her parents perished. One spirit said to stroll the museum is that survivor, who returns to the trauma of the incident as a young girl.
Which artifacts are giving employees trouble is yet to be known as it doesn’t seem to be a publicly discussed topic, but the museum does boast having “over $1,000,000 of Marilyn Monroe’s memorabilia.”
See what the Ghost Adventures crew uncovers during their overnight stay at Hollywood’s museum of oddities, Ripley’s Believe It or Not!, at 9 pm EST on the Travel Channel and the Travel Channel app.