Thomas Edisons creepy 134-year-old talking doll the stuff of nightmares

She came out to play — and petrify.A 134-year-old talking doll invented by Thomas Edison managed to spook social media users — who called it “horrifying” and “the stuff of nightmares.”Before Halloween, the National Park Service posted a Facebook photo of the doll, on display at Thomas Edison National Historical Park in West Orange, NJ, one of the famed inventor’s earliest creations.They also added a link to the eerie audio of the seemingly innocent toy — with blonde curls and blue dress — and users were horrified, with one calling it “the creepiest voice you will ever hear.”“The doll and her voice are TERRIFYING,” another wrote.“That voice is no doll, that’s a danged demon,” someone added.“Coincidentally, Edison invented the light bulb shortly thereafter.

And never turned it off again at night,” another quipped.“I’ve never heard anyone say, ‘Oh, she’s so cute,'” archivist at Thomas Edison National Historical Park, Leonard DeGraaf, told The Post.Edison, an Ohio native who moved to West Orange, NJ, in 1886 and whose legendary lab and residence are preserved at the historical park — created the doll in 1890 after he invented the phonograph.It has a mini phonograph mechanism inside its body that plays roughly 20-second recordings, which varied in each doll, but included songs such as “Mary Had a Little Lamb,” “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” and “Baa Baa Black Sheep,” along with the prayer, “Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep.”“They produced about 10,000 dolls and only sold about 2,500,” said DeGraaf.“These early recordings, if you weren’t in the room when the recording was made, you’d have a hard time understanding what was said,” he said.The doll made history as the first commercially-produced recorded-audio entertainment device in the world — and the women who taped their voices are thought to be the first paid recording artists.“We had never before been able to record a human voice or a sound o...

Read More 
PaprClips
Disclaimer: This story is auto-aggregated by a computer program and has not been created or edited by PaprClips.
Publisher: New York Post

Recent Articles