Man Freaked Out After Finding Bizarre Skull on House's Roof: 'Witchcraft'

A homeowner has told Newsweek of the moment he "freaked out" after finding bizarre skeletal remains on the roof of his home.

Horia, who lives in the commune of Thuir, near Perpignan in southwestern France, is still at a loss to explain what he found that day. "I discovered it because my cat had a fight, and his collar fell off right there," he said.

Nestled in a space on top of the roof tiles sat a cage containing two pieces of an animal skull. Its long bone structure suggested it may have once belonged to a horse or bovine animal. Horia could not explain why it was there, although he said one thought immediately came to mind: "Witchcraft."

That is not entirely out of the realm of possibility either. A 2022 study published in the scientific journal PLOS One identified 140,000 people from 95 countries and territories who held witchcraft beliefs.

It is little wonder then that Horia immediately assumed the dark arts were at play. "I freaked out," he said. "I told my family. We all had no idea what it was at first and thought it was witchcraft."

Eager to find answers, Horia turned to the internet and Reddit, posting a picture of the skull alongside the caption: "Skull in cage on my roof. What and why?"

The theories soon flooded in. "They may have been left out to be picked clean by bugs and stuff prior to being used for art or something," one user wrote.

"The sun will also bleach it white, the cage might've been to keep a fox or raccoon or some other animal from chewing on it," another posted. "A lot of animals that aren't even carnivores like squirrels will chew on bones for calcium."

A third agreed that the previous owner of Horia's house was "Probably cleaning it up" for later use as part of a display.

"I worked at a weird old hunter guy's house, asked what's with all the flies and 5 gallon buckets, all deer and roadkill skulls and bones. Rearticulated em for display," they wrote. "Everyone's got some kinda weird hobby out there. Keeps life interesting."

That theory was further backed up by another Reddit user who commented: "I had a veterinarian student as house mate during university. He also once did this with an animal skeleton to get the last bits clean to make it fit for an exhibition of some sort."

Other users, however, couldn't resist seeing the spooky side of it all. "It's a curse, beware!" one wrote, with another adding that "black magic" could be at play. Despite the vast number of comments suggesting bone bleaching, Horia said the "the answer is still unclear."

"Some people think it's for bleaching the bones to be then used as decoration," he added. "The cage is situated on top of a house that used to belong to some sage burning women. Now it's changed ownership multiple times; the cage looked like it was there for a long time."