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Imagine a child picking up their favourite doll only to be greeted by demonic screams coming from its metal-clad, twisted body.

The doll shrieks the words to 'hickory dickory dock', repeating the chilling tune in a satanic chant as the terrified child runs away in panic.

It may sound like a horror film, but these are the scenes parents everywhere were greeted with when they brought Edison's Talking Dolls home in the 1890s.

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The dolls, which were an instant commercial failure, were invented by Thomas Edison and feature some of the first recordings ever made. Now, scientists have found a way to bring these ghostly recordings back to life

Now, scientists have found a way to salvage some of these recordings from the original dolls – and many sound just as disturbing as they did more than a century ago.

The eerie dolls, which were an instant commercial failure, were invented by Thomas Edison and feature some of the first recordings ever made.

According to the New York Times, they frightened children so much they were pulled from the shelves after only six weeks.

The Thomas Edison National Historical Park now has a library of recording, and it recently added two more to its collection.

LISTEN: The creepy voices of Thomas Edison's dolls

The dolls frightened children so much they were pulled from the shelves after only six weeks. Pictured is an example of one of the dolls (left) and on the right, the century-old voice mechanism 

Getting these recordings, however, required some innovative thinking as researchers feared the steel phonograph needle would damage the grooves on the cylinder that plays back the sound.

Wax cylinders are delicate, and some of the remaining dolls have mechanisms that are now too distorted to hear anything that resembles the original tune.

To overcome the problem, the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the Library of Congress created an optical scanning method, dubbed Irene-3D.

'The Irene-3D system creates a digital model of the surface of a phonograph record,' says the National Park Service.

'With the digital model, image analysis methods are used to reproduce the audio stored on the record.'

The system relies on a microscope to create images of the grooves in fine detail.

A computer then uses algorithms to recreate the sounds that would have been created by a needle moving through the uneven surface.

While they are creepy, they are not nearly as bad as Edison's early prototypes (right). Thomas Edison's (left) first prototypes featured dolls that spoke with his own, deep, male adult voice,

Several years ago, researchers discovered a mysterious bent metal ring in Thomas Edison's laboratory. They discovered that the microscopic grooves on the ring make up the tune of 'Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star' marking the world's first attempt at a talking doll 

The new recordings come from the collection of Robin and Joan Rolfs and feature voices of more than a dozen young girls hired to recite nursery rhymes.

While they are creepy, they are not nearly as bad as Edison's early prototypes. The inventor's first created dolls that spoke with his own, deep, male adult voice, according to the Washington Post.

A description of one these doll from an 1888 edition of the New York Evening Sun reads: 'Here Mr Edison wound up a sweet little creature as an illustration of his last remark.

'In a hoarse, husky, deep tone the doll growled out these words: "Oh, dear mamma, your dollie is tired now; put me in my little bed, dear mamma."

'The effect was more amusing and instructive than natural.'

This isn't the first time imaging technology has been able to bring Edison's dolls back to life.

The system relies on a microscope to create images of the grooves in fine detail. A computer then uses algorithms to recreate the sounds that would have been created by a needle moving across the surface

The tiny grooves in the ring make up a recording of a young girl reciting 'Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star'

Several years ago, researchers discovered a mysterious bent metal ring in Thomas Edison's laboratory.

They discovered that the microscopic grooves on the ring make up the tune of 'Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star' marking the world's first attempt at a talking doll.

Using advanced imaging technology, they were able to recover a 12-second sound recording of woman reciting a verse of the children's song.

They believe the tin ring was intended to be the key component of one of Thomas Edison's talking dolls.

Historians think Edison hired the woman to make the recording less than two years before he unsuccessfully put the first talking doll on the market.

Edison hoped to mass-produce the toys, but the era's rudimentary technology meant that to make 100 dolls, Edison would have to get artists to recite the lullaby 100 times.

Edison hoped to mass-produce the toys, but the era's rudimentary technology meant that to make 100 dolls, Edison would have to get artists to recite the lullaby 100 times