This is the true story of the 
Haunted Painting, the  most bizarre and frightening tale I’ve heard in quite a while.

In February, 2000, the haunted painting was put up for sale on eBay  and an auction begun. Today, many wonder if it was a true story, or a  marketing ploy. Item 251789217 was it’s name on eBay, but it quickly  became known on the Internet as “The Haunted eBay Painting.” 
 The item description in itself was bizarre: 
 WHEN WE RECEIVED THIS PAINTING, WE THOUGHT IT WAS REALLY GOOD ART. A ”  PICKER ” HAD FOUND IT ABANDONNED BEHIND AN OLD BREWERY. AT HTE TIME WE  WONDERED A LITLLE WHY A SEEMINGLY PERFECTLY FINE PAINTING WOULD BE  DISCARDED LIKE THAT. ( TODAY WE DON’T !!! ) ONE MORNING OUR 4 AND 1/2  YEAR OLD DAUGHTER CLAIMED, THAT THE CHILDREN IN THE PICTURE WERE  FIGHTING, AND COMING INTO THE ROOM DURING THE NIGHT. NOW, I DON’T  BELIEVE IN UFOS OR ELVIS BEING ALIVE, BUT MY HUSBAND WAS ALARMED. TO MY  AMUSEMENT HE SET UP A MOTION TRIGGERED CAMREA FOR THE NIGHTS. AFTER  THREE NIGHTS THERE WERE PICTURES.THE LAST TWO PICTURES SHOWN ARE FROM  THAT ‘STAKEOUT’. AFTER SEEING THE BOY SEEMINGLY EXITING THE PAINTING  UNDER THREAT, WE DECIDED, THE PAINTING HAS TO GO.PLEASE JUDGE FOR  YOURSELF. — BEFORE YOU DO, PLEASE READ THE FOLLOWIND WARNING AND  DISCLAIMER. —-WARNING: DO NOT BID ON THIS PAINTING IF YOU ARE  SUCCEPTIBLE TO STRESS RELATED DISEASE, FAINT OF HEART OR ARE UNFAMILIAR  WITH SUPERNATURAL EVENTS. BY BIDDING ON THIS PAINTING, YOU AGREE TO  RELEASE THE OWNERS OF ALL LIABILITY IN RELATION TO THE SALE OR ANY  EVENTS HAPPENING AFTER THE SALE, THAT MIGHT BE CONTRIBUTED TO THIS  PAINTING. THIS PAINTING MAY OR MAY NOT POSESS SUPERNATURAL POWERS, THAT  COULD IMPACT OR CHANGE YOUR LIFE. HOWEVER, BY BIDDING YOU AGREE TO  EXCLUSIVELY BID ON THE VALUE OF THE ARTWORK, WITH DISREGARD TO THE LAST  TWO PHOTOS FEATURED IN THIS AUCTION, AND HOLD THE OWNERS HARMLESS IN  REGARD TO THEM AND THEIR IMPACT, EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED.———— NOW THAT WE  GOT THIS OUT OF THE WAY, ONE QUESTION TO YOU EBAYERS. WE WANT OUR HOUSE  TO BE BLESSED AFTER THE PAINTING IS GONE, DOES ANYBODY KNOW, WHO IS  QUALIFIED TO DO THAT? 
 Shortly thereafter, in response to questions about the piece, the  sellers posted the following addition: 
 THE SIZE OF THE PAINTING IS 24 BY 36 INCHES, SO IT IS RATHER LARGE.  AS I HAVE HAD SEVERAL QUESTIONS, HERE THE FOLLOWING ANSWERS. THERE WAS  NO ODOR LEFT BEHIND IN THE ROOM. THERE WERE NO VOICES, OR THE SMELL OF  GUNPOWDER, NO FOODPRINTS OR STRANGE FLUIDS ON THE WALL. TO DETER  QUESTIONS IN THIS DIRECTION, THERE ARE NO GHOSTS IN THIS WORLD , NO  SUPERNATURAL POWERS, THIS IS JUST A PAINTING, AND MOST THESE THINGS HAVE  AN EXPLANATION, IN THIS CASE PROBABLY A FLUKE LIGHT EFFECT. I ENCOURAGE  YOU TO BID ON THE ARTWORK, AND CONSIDER THE LAST TWO PHOTOGRAPHS AS  PURE ENTERTAINMENT, AND PLEASE DO NOT TAKE THEM INTO CONSIDERATION, WHEN  BIDDING. AS WE THINK IT IS A GOOD IDEA TO BLESS ANY HOUSE, WE STILL  WELCOME INPUT INTO THAT PROCEDURE. 
 After this description, there were eight shots of the item. Two were  overview shots. Slightly left of center on the canvas, we see a boy of  perhaps five or six, with sloping shoulders and a heavy brow, scowling  at us. He is dressed as we would expect any early- or mid-twentieth  century middle- or lower-class young boy to be dressed: a blue  tee-shirt, greenish shorts, short socks and shoes. His dirty-blonde (or  dirty blonde) hair is cropped into a very short crew-cut on his blocky  head. His expression – his small, deep-set eyes, and his slightly  downturned frown – are the look of an alien: disdainful curiosity. “You  are not supposed to be here.”
To his right, propped against a window moulding (or perhaps  free-standing, it’s difficult to tell), is a life-sized wooden doll  girl. She’s wearing a faded blue dress. She only has empty holes for  eyes, but her mouth is articulatable (and closed). In her hands she’s  clutching what at first looks like some sort of tall bottle or canister  tied with a string, but on closer inspection appears to be a tall  battery (complete with little lightning bolt) with mad, dangling clips. 
 The two are standing on a street curb, in front of a full-length  window. The building behind them is completely dark inside, but reaching  forth from the darkness we can distinguish at least a dozen tiny hands.  Some of the hands are lower, some higher, but none are higher than the  two central figures; if these are, indeed, children’s hands, some of the  children are on the floor. It is not clear whether the hands are  reaching for the window pane, the light, or the boy and the doll. 
 Four more shots were details of the boy, the boy’s face, the doll’s  face, and the doll’s battery (or whatever it is). But the last two shots  were the ones that were supposedly made by the motion-activated still  camera. They are clearly different from the daytime shots. Because the  flash was centered on the boy (being the central figure on the canvas),  and because it’s a rather large painting, the doll (who was, as I said,  towards the left edge of the painting) is obscured by shadow, but the  photographs clearly show that now, her mouth is open. 
 After the auction began, viewers started to report strange happenings  whenever they tried to view the page. All of them – spectral voices,  hot flashes, black-outs and “mind-control experiences” – are typical of  mass hysteria. One man, a Native American spiritualist in Mississippi,  claimed that the painting had evil in it, and after having viewed it on  his web browser he had to cleanse his house by burning white sage. 
 More than thirteen thousand people bid on the work. The buyer, who  remains anonymous (his E-Bay login was ionia7) but bought the work for  $1025 US, claims that although the story of the arguing spirits is  compelling as a curiosity, he was more interested in the composition of  the work and was “buying to sell.” He says that it seems to have been  produced some time between 1965 and 1975, and is entitled “The Hands  Resist Him.” It is signed, but the current owner has not released the  artist’s name. He has never experienced any unusual effects, and calls  the work “a good example of surrealism from that period. 
 I think it’s pretty clear that everything which happened to people  who viewed the painting through the web was the result of the power of  suggestion. On the other hand, I remain skeptical but agnostic as to  whether the painting itself is animate. If it were a hoax, the trickster  employed the most cunningly inconsistent assertions, destroying the  reader’s ability to restore any suspended disbelief. Even if it isn’t  legit, there would have to be something seriously wrong with someone to  have painted the thing in the first place. I mean, they would have to be  fucked in the head quite badly. If you saw the work, you’d understand.  It’s just spooky. It is not at all surprising that it provokes such  extreme reactions. 
 The new owner of the painting claims he found an inscription on the  back saying the title of the picture was “The Hands Resist Him”. He also  found a signiature, but refuses to say who the painter was. He says he  received thousands of e-mails from people claiming they were “repulsed”,  made “physically ill” and “suffered from blackout/mind control  experiences” just by viewing the pictures of the painting online.
 An exorcist type of voice, along with a blast of hot air, like  standing in front of an oven door. Two friends crying after this  experience and praying until a minute had passed and everything went  back to normal.
A new Epson printer that ate and mutilated page after page when the user  tried to download images of this oil.
The Native American who became so ill he had to cleanse his house by  burning white sage. He warned me not to put this item around small  children, and that there is great evil contained here.
 As I recall, both the owner of the gallery where ‘The Hands Resist  Him’ was displayed and the art critic who reviewed it were dead within a  year of the show.
 Seller: MrNoReserve. Winner: Ionia7. Price: $1,025.00