Mysterious ‘witch bottles’ appear along the Gulf of Mexico – and researchers are avoiding opening them

Some ‘witchy’ bottles have washed up along the Gulf of Mexico and one researcher is refusing to open them.

Researcher Jace Tunnell found what investigators call a “witch’s bottle” on a beach near Corpus Christi, Texas, in an area monitored by Harte on November 15.

The bottle gets its name because it comes from an unknown sender and often contains strange objects, including a few spells.

A recent witch bottle contained gooseneck barnacles in clusters on the glass, meaning the artifact had been in the water for some time.

Tunnell told Fox News that eight witches’ bottles have been discovered since 2017 and he isn’t fazed by them, but he won’t open them because they are said to contain “spells and stuff.”

Tunnell’s wife also does not dare to take any risks and told him that he can bring shells into the house, but “no spell bottles.”

People who are superstitious fear opening witch bottles because they believe the items contain various spells

Witch bottles are common discoveries in Britain and can be filled with objects such as hair, herbs, plans, nails or bodily fluids.

Nearly 200 bottles have been found over the years in walls, manure piles or buried underground.

“In the 16th and 17th centuries, there was a strong belief in witches and their ability to cause disease by casting a spell,” the McGill University Office of Science and Society reported via Fox news.

“But the evil spells can be warded off by enclosing them in a witch’s bottle, which, if properly prepared, can reflect the spell itself and at the same time torment the witch,” McGill University Office added.

This would leave the witch no choice but to remove the spell and allow the victim to recover.

Witch bottles are common discoveries in Britain and can be filled with objects such as hair, herbs, plans, nails or bodily fluids

People make witch bottles for protection and various health reasons

According to Tunnell in a YouTube video he posted last October, there are several reasons why people would make these types of bottles.

“Some spell bottles are for protection,” the researcher said.

“They do a ritual where they have incense and smoke and things like that.”

Tunnell added: ‘Sometimes they do it for health reasons, for luck – there are all kinds of reasons why people would have spell bottles.’

The William & Mary Center for Archaeological Research also discussed the history of nails in a witch’s bottle via The Charlotte Observer.

“An affected person buried the nail-filled bottle under or near the hearth, thinking that the heat from the hearth would trigger the nails to break a witch’s spell,” the university said.

Tunnell said in his YouTube video that there are people who make witch bottles and throw them in the ocean.

However, he has no idea how the bottles he found were even in the ocean.

“When it comes to man-made waste, it’s about telling people that if you see a piece of trash on the ground, it needs to be picked up,” Tunnell told Fox News.

“A lot of what we find, even if it’s far inland, ends up in the nearest waterway when it rains. Where is that going? The ocean,” Tunnell added.

People have also created witches’ bottles to throw into the ocean and possibly be discovered by researchers like Tunnell

Other items Tunnell found that he recorded on his YouTube channel Beach Upcoming Episodes include an abandoned drone, a rescue pod, lost ship supplies and 30 messages in bottles.

Tunnell and other Harte researchers were able to guess where the washed-up objects came from based on weather and tidal patterns.

However, Tunnell does not suspect that the found objects come from the US.

Some of the bottles he discovered were what he told Fox News Digital “real thin yellow vinegar bottles,” manufactured in Haiti, that “have sea turtle bites in them” when they wash up on shore.

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