The eighth mysterious “witch bottle” has already been found: it’s better not to open it

Mysterious “witch bottles” have washed up on the shores of the Gulf of Mexico, and people are afraid to open them, writes the Daily Mail.

The bottles get their name because their sender is unknown and they often contain strange items inside, including what some fear is a spell.

The newly discovered “witch bottle” contained clusters of shells on the glass, indicating that the artifact had been in the water for some time.

Jace Tunnell told Fox News that eight witch bottles have been found since 2017 and they don’t scare him, but he won’t open them because they’re supposed to have “spells and stuff.”

Tunnell’s wife doesn’t want to take any chances either and told him he shouldn’t bring “any spell bottles” home.

“Witch bottles,” as the Daily Mail notes, are often found in the UK, and they can be filled with items such as hair, herbs, blueprints, fingernails or body fluids. In recent years, about 200 bottles have been found in walls, manure heaps or buried underground.

“Back in the 16th and 17th centuries, there was a strong belief in witches and their ability to cause disease through spells,” McGill University’s Office of Science and Society told Fox News.

“But evil spells could be protected from by placing them in a witch’s bottle, which, if properly prepared, could actually reflect the spell itself while tormenting the witch,” the McGill University office added.

Because of this, the witch would have no choice but to lift the spell and allow the victim to recover, the explanation states.

According to Jace Tunnell in a video he posted online last October, there are many reasons why people create bottles like this.

“Some bottles with spells are intended for protection,” said the researcher. “They perform a ritual during which they use incense, smoke and the like.”

Tunnell added: “Sometimes it’s for health, for good luck – there are lots of reasons why people might have spell bottles.”

The College of William and Mary’s Center for Archaeological Research also discussed the history of the witch’s bottle nails.

“The suffering person would bury a bottle filled with nails under or near their fireplace, believing that the heat from the fireplace would give the nails energy that would break the witch’s spell,” the university said.

Tunnell said in his video that there are people who create witch bottles only to throw them into the ocean. However, he has no idea how the bottles he found ended up in the ocean in the first place.

“When it comes to man-made debris, it’s about telling people that if you see debris on the ground, pick it up,” Tunnell told Fox News.

“A lot of what we find, even if it’s far from land, ends up in the nearest waterway if it rains. Where does it go? In the ocean,” Tunnell added.

Other items found by Tunnell include an abandoned drone, an escape module, lost ship supplies and 30 bottled messages.

Based on weather conditions and tide patterns, Tunnell can guess where the washed-up items came from. However, he doesn’t think any of the items discovered come from the United States. Some of the bottles he found, he told Fox News Digital, were “real thin yellow vinegar bottles” made in Haiti that “bear sea turtle bites” when they wash up on shore.

There is also the possibility that bottles matching this description could have come from the Caribbean or South America.