John Bell didn't tell anyone in 1817 when he first spotted strange-looking animals in his cornfield that mysteriously vanished when he tried to shoot them.

Then came the rapping, gnawing and scratching sounds in the night, and complaints from his children that an unseen hand was pulling their hair, tugging at their bedcovers and slapping their faces.

As Bell eventually invited people to stay in his home in hopes of solving the mystery, they told of a spirit who whispered, whistled, quoted Scripture and sang hymns. Even Andrew Jackson, who later became the nation's seventh president, was said to have had a haunting encounter.

When Bell died in 1821, the family blamed a spirit known as the Bell Witch for poisoning him. They also say it broke up his youngest daughter's engagement to a neighbour...