11 Teens Found Collapsed at School in Colombia after Using Ouija Board

11 teens, ranging in age from 13 to 17, were found by teachers after having collapsed in a hallway at Agricultural Technical Institute in Hato, Colombia, following an incident in which they had reportedly used a Ouija board.

Ouija boards—flat boards with numbers and letters written on them that spell out answers to questions asked by participants according to the location of a planchette held by those participating—are controversial in the paranormal community, with some positing that they act as a sort of “gateway” for dark forces.

Whether or not the teenagers involved in this incident were afflicted by such forces is up for debate.

Skeptics maintain that it is the ideomotor phenomenon that is responsible for any apparent efficacy had by Ouija boards, and that they are no more capable of contacting the dead than any other board game.

However, Jose Pablo Toloza Rondón, the mayor of Hato, said in a statement that the Ouija board playing a part in the teens condition had not been ruled out.

“The children were passed out; at the time they were found they were short of breath and thick drool was coming out of their mouths. It is not ruled out that it was the Ouija board, that is part of the investigation. Others say that they consumed water from a container, others that they came from a pool and had been given something to eat,” he said.

An interview with the teens later determined that they had, in fact, all drank from the same glass.

They were taken to Manuela Beltrán Hospital, in the district of Socorro, where they spent the day receiving treatment for their seemingly mysterious illness.

“We went to El Hato and we found 11 patients between 13 and 17 years old with vomiting, abdominal pain and muscle spasms," explained Juan Pablo Vargas Noguera, emergency medical coordinator at Hospital del Socorro. "We did not find psychological alteration in the children, taking into account that it was said that it would have been from playing the Ouija board.”

"The medical report says it was due to food poisoning," he added.

The rectory of the Technical Institute has so far declined to rule on the case, saying that they will wait until the facts are clarified with authorities.

Claims of mass possession or affliction by spirits are relatively common, especially in developing countries, and several such incidents have been reported on by the Singular Fortean Society since 2018.

In October of 2019, 20 girls at Fumbisi Senior High and Agric school in the village of Fumbisi in Ghana’s Builsa District collapsed due to the reported presence of a ghost on campus. A similar case was reported in India earlier that year, when at least five girls attending a government high school were reported to be “possessed.” Meanwhile, that same year, inmates at a women’s prison in the Tihar Jail prison complex in India reportedly had repeated encounters with the ghost of a mysterious, wailing woman. And in October of 2018, parents in Peru were concerned that 'demonic forces' had possessed their children following an incident at a boarding school involving a ouija board.

These reports are often taken seriously by authorities, and in 2018, Inocencio Pérez, mayor of the northern Colombian city of Pajarito, declared that all minors under 17 years of age be subject to a curfew following a series of what he considers attacks by "evil spirits" invoked using the popular social media application Whatsapp.

To report your own encounter with the impossible, reach out to us directly at the Singular Fortean Society through our contact page.

If you enjoyed this article and would like to support the Singular Fortean Society, please consider becoming an official member by signing up through our Patreon page—membership includes a ton of extra content and behind-the-scenes access to the Society’s inner workings.