I'm Laura Norton, and this is one strange thing, the show where we search the nation's news archives for stories that can't quite be explained.

Now, strangers, when it comes to curses, we like to think that we know a thing or three.

We've brought you cabinets and beds and even entire studio albums that are said to be cursed,

or maybe haunted, or both, depending on who was telling the story. We've even spun a tale of a painting said to carry a curse

in our premium episode on The Crying Boy, a mass-produced piece of art that was blamed for a rash

of fires across England. And curse paintings,

they aren't a new idea. There have been a number of them floating around in history,

pretending one type of doom or another. Sometimes it's the artists themselves, as artists are,

after all, notoriously temperamental, and occasionally, it's entirely out of all of those people's hands.

In fact, once in a while, a painting is just so darn creepy that a legend springs up around it fully formed.

And that's the case for the hands resist him.

Yes, we know. Even the title is perfect. So, there are a lot of ways to tell the story of the

painting, but we think it's best to start with a description. Created in 1972 by William Bill Stoneham,

the painting depicts, well, a haunting scene.

It feels something like a dreamy photo,

which sounds odd we know,

but that will make sense in a little while.

So picture this.

A somber little boy dressed in shorts and a t-shirt

stands in bright sunlight against a shadowy glass door. He is squinting at the viewer. Next to him

stands a doll, a near-life-size doll with articulated joints.

It has a curly brown bob, wears a sundress, and it's holding something.

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