The internet has been gripped by a Ouija board-like game called Charlie Charlie Challenge.

More than two million people have used the hashtag #CharlieCharlieChallege over the past 48 hours. It's a game which involves balancing pencils over the words "yes" and "no" on a piece of paper. Players ask questions which are supposedly answered by Charlie - a mysterious demon who spookily moves the pencils, if you believe in that sort of thing.

But where did the game come from? Several reports and tweets claim the game's origins are in Mexico. For example, one of the most retweeted videos about Charlie Charlie Challenge, shows a popular Mexican beer brand and the Spanish words for "yes" and "no":

There's just one problem. The game has nothing to do with Mexican folklore, the BBC reports.

"There's no demon called 'Charlie' in Mexico," says Maria Elena Navez of BBC Mundo. "Mexican legends often come from ancient Aztec and Maya history, or from the many beliefs that began circulating during the Spanish conquest. In Mexican mythology you can find gods with names like 'Tlaltecuhtli' or 'Tezcatlipoca' in the Nahuatl language. But if this legend began after the Spanish conquest, I'm sure it would've been called 'Carlitos' (Charlie in Spanish)."

"Mexican demons are usually American inventions," she says.

Describing the game as a traditional Mexican way to summon the dead is probably a way to make it sound mysterious or meaningful - in the same way that the Ouija board has its roots in a clever bit of 19th century American marketing rather than ancient Egypt.

What's actually moving the pencils?

What actually moves the pencils is nothing more than gravity. They just wouldn't sit still even if you wanted them to.

With the Charlie Charlie game, however, nobody is actually touching the pencils. But they are still likely being pushed - the pencils have to be so finely balanced on top of each other that even the slightest movement from a breath or slightly tilted surface will push it around.

The arrangement of pencils that the game requires means that they'll always move, because it's just not a natural position for them to be in.

If you'd like to debunk the game for yourself, try doing the same thing without the paper and without the incantation. Pencils placed on top of and across each other always move around, whether or not a demon is summoned to push them.

 

It is suggested that, although the video above is more than seven minutes long, viewers watch it till the end.