WELLINGTON?Two glass vials said to contain the ghosts of an old man and a young girl have been sold online in New Zealand for nearly 2,000 US dollars.

The sale for $1,978 (2,830 New Zealand dollars) to a company selling electronic aids for giving up smoking was confirmed Tuesday after auction website Trademe ruled out a phantom bidder who had pushed the price up to $5,000.

Avie Woodbury, from the southern city of Christchurch, said she put the bottled spirits up for sale after an exorcist from a spiritualist church captured two ghosts in her home and put them in vials of "holy water".

The spirits?said to be of an old man named Les Graham who died in the house during the 1920s and a powerful and disruptive "little girl"?allegedly turned up in the house following an experiment with a Ouija board.

Woodbury said the ghosts had prevented her from eating or sleeping.

"I would get things like the jug boiling itself, touching on the back of my neck, voices from other rooms, and items going missing then turning up in weird places," she said.

"The dog was mental, he wouldn't go into certain rooms and my brother's daughter would stay with me and she said she spoke to a little girl."

"We have had no activity since they were bottled on July 15, 2009."

The auction drew plenty of scorn, including one online comment from a man who claimed he had suffered from multiple personalities because of two spirits trapped in bottles.

"I think they are called Jim Beam and the other is Johnnie Walker," he said.