What Is Really Behind the 'World's Most Cursed Object' at Zak Bagans' Museum?

The most striking piece in Zak Bagans' The Haunted Museum, located in the center of Las Vegas, is a wine cabinet presented as the 'World's Most Cursed Object.' Also known as the 'Dybbuk Box,' the item is claimed to bring evil and death to anyone who disturbs it.

Bagans, the host of the Travel Channel program 'Ghost Adventures,' says he felt a bad energy when he added the cabinet to his collection in 2017. The museum also displays Ted Bundy's glasses, a painting made from ashes, and a Camaro that belonged to David Koresh.

According to the museum's website, shortly after the cabinet arrived, holes began appearing in the walls, suggesting that something was trying to get out of the item. In 2018, during a Halloween broadcast, Bagans planned to open the cabinet but said he could not bring himself to take that step because of the intense evil he sensed inside it.

The problem is that the Dybbuk Box is an ordinary wine cabinet. Kevin Mannis, who sold the item on eBay in 2001, admitted in a 2021 interview that he invented the detailed paranormal story as a social experiment. Mannis even took on film consulting work after the 2012 movie 'The Possession' was based on the story.

According to Mannis' listing, he obtained the cabinet from the granddaughter of Havela, a Holocaust survivor who had managed to escape from Nazi-occupied Poland. He described how Havela's in-laws never opened the cabinet and believed a dybbuk, the evil spirit of Jewish folklore, lived inside it.