In an online auction in New Zealand, two glass ampoules that contain the ghosts of an old man and a young girl have been sold for NZ$2,000 ($1,395:£935) last Monday. The auction attracted not less than 200,000 page viewers on the Trade Me website.

Avie Woodbury, owner of the phials, stated that the ghosts were captured and stored in holy water by an exorcist. The ghosts were caught in her Christchurch house.

Mrs. Woodbury convinced bidders that she had experienced outlandish activities in her home. Examples of these bizarre activities are the boiling of the jug by itself, voices from the other rooms, and items going missing and showing up in weird places. Her niece also told her that she had spoken to a little girl.

In July 2009, a member of a local spiritualist church performed an exorcism and the house returned to normal. The ghost of the old man and the girl had been safely contained in two separate phials with holy water. Mrs. Woodbury wanted to get rid of them but she thought someone might like to play with it.

The website was viewed for about 220,000 times in a week and had received comments from practical issues on how to ensure that the ghosts stay in the bottles. Also, concerns over the morality of selling another person’s spirit came up as an issue.

Safer Smoke NZ, a company which produces electronic cigarette substitute, got the closing bid for NZ$ 2830 for the two bottles.