Chopper the talking ghost

A visit to the dentist is scary enough. Clients of Dr. Karl Bachseitz soon found another reason to dread visiting his dental practice in Neutraubling, Germany. A talking ghost who called himself Chopper!

In a small dental practice in Neutraubling, Germany, Dr. Karl Bachseitz and his 17-year-old dental assistant Claudia Judenmann are known worldwide for a rather peculiar reason. One day in 1981, a patient leaned over her dental chair to use the spittoon. It seems the bowl screamed back at her”Shut up!“Not an isolated incident, a few days later another patient went to do the same when he heard”Open your mouth wider, stupid! The voice was a male voice with a Bavarian accent, which Dr. Bachseitz called Chopper… the talking ghost! Chopper was apparently quite a personality. He interrupted phone calls on the phone line and also hurled expletives at both patients and Dr. Bachseitz during consultations. It came not only from the spittoon, but from the toilet and the voice appeared all over the operating room. Chopper even threatened physical violence against Dr. Bachseitz and his wife. However, young Claudia was the only one who was spared of Chopper’s ghost. In fact, he spoke very nicely to her. The dentist’s clients didn’t really enjoy the dentist on a normal day, let alone a day when a ghost is hurling expletives at them and so they went elsewhere for their dental needs.

Image source: Strangeco

In 1983, Dr. Bachseitz’s company was in trouble due to a lack of customers and so he decided to take legal action against Chopper. When the police were called, they obviously did not take the allegations seriously at first. They searched the property for any speakers or electrical equipment that could be causing the voice, but nothing was found. As the news spread among the locals eager to experience Chopper, the media soon found out and descended on the dental office, all eager to meet Chopper. Journalists traveled from all over the world to see Chopper in action. The Regensburg criminal investigation unit took over the case and established the Soko Geist division, which was tasked with solving the case. Meanwhile, the media was mainly interested in Claudia, whom they nicknamed “sugar doll” and who often demonstrated her friendship with Chopper. The cameras loved her and she loved the attention. The local telecommunications company spent 60,000 marks to try to catch a person they believed was intercepting calls posing as Chopper, using a trap circuit. They also repair Dr. Bachseitz’s bungalow with new phones and lines, thinking this would solve Chopper’s mystery. He of course had the last word and said: “I’m still on the right track!”

“Now we are at the end of our rope. I am slowly starting to believe in ghosts” Detective Inspector Erich Tietz

Claudia was portrayed as a talented medium and instead of Chopped being the ghost of the dentist, he was now marketed as Claudia’s ghost. She was offered 120,000 marks for exclusive contracts that she had allegedly rejected. The next plan was to involve the famous German parapsychologist Hans Bender to try to find out what was going on. Bender was certain it was not a psychological phenomenon, but the fact that such a famous personality was involved meant that spiritualists from all over the world thought there must be something going on. Although the media attention is annoying, it ultimately brings attention to something interesting for the police. They began to notice something focused on Claudia during filming: she always turned her back to the cameras when Chopper spoke. It didn’t take long for the police to witness Chopper’s true origins…Claudia.

On March 3, 1983, Claudia, Dr. Bachseitz and his wife were taken to the police station for questioning, where Claudia admitted that she was Chopper. Dr. Bachseitz”There may have been something, but it only came from my subconsciousThe two took advantage of the tiles and acoustics in the dental practice and produced what was described as vocal acrobatics rather than a form of ventriloquism. It appears that there really were some calls to the practice in 1981 that were abusive in nature, which some speculate could have been the catalyst for the team that created Chopper. Claudia initially thought the calls came from two of her admirers, but it could even have been Dr. Bachseitz’s wife who, out of boredom, answered the voice of a goblin on the home telephone served as inspiration.

Claudia was fined 1,500 marks. Bachseitz and his wife received a much higher fine and also had to compensate the Bundespost with 35,000 marks as compensation for all costs incurred to resolve the case that Dr. Bachseitz first reported. Claudia changed her name and withdrew from the spotlight. Dr. Bachseitz and their wife admitted themselves to a psychiatric institution. Chopper was never heard from again, but it remains a colorful part of history.

References

https://strangeco.blogspot.com/2018/01/the-dentist-and-his-chopper-fake-or.html

https://www.spiegel.de/geschichte/legendaere-spuk-posse-claudias-geist-a-947494.html

https://www.mittelbayerische.de/archiv/1/chopper-der-spuk-aus-dem-spuckapf-11316662

https://www.mumien-monster-mutationen.de/specials/chopper-schlimmer-als-zahnschmerzen/