A black shape in the bedroom closet after a childhood church prank
A caller who says they are phoning from Austin, Texas, tells Art Bell about a night when they were about seven years old and staying with their Aunt [name withheld] in the country. They woke and saw a pitch-black, nonhuman “thing” sitting in their bedroom closet. They say they could not scream and prayed silently to God in their head. In the morning they found their normally neat toys jumbled in the closet. The caller offers the jumbled toys as the reason they do not accept the experience as a nightmare.
This clip comes from the source recording. AI chose where it starts and ends, so it may start or end a little early or late. The word-for-word transcript is not published. You can hear the source recording on the Internet Archive (file “Ghost to Ghost 1994.mp3”, starting at 1:25:45). Is this you, or someone you know? Ask for a correction or removal.
The story as told
The caller says they are calling from Austin, Texas. When they were about seven years old, they stayed with their Aunt [name withheld] in the country. The family attended a charismatic church where the children were kept at the back. The caller says that they and the other children, bored, nailed a salamander to the wall with a pen. They told the adults that if God did not accept the sacrifice, they were giving it to Satan. The adults, the caller says, were upset but did nothing. The caller then says that the next night, while asleep, they “bolted straight away” and looked into their closet, where a “thing” was sitting. The caller describes it as darker than the already dark room. They could see it because the air around it seemed to repel it. The caller says the only solid-looking part was its teeth: [quote withheld] The caller says its eyes first looked like pools of blood and then got two blue dots like their own eyes. According to the caller, their heart beat faster, and they tried to yell and could not. Their voice “just stopped.” They finally cried out to God in their head. The next thing they knew it was morning and they were lying in bed, with no memory of time passing. Asked by Art Bell whether it could have been a nightmare, the caller says that would have been their attitude except for what they saw. The caller says that when they opened the closet in the morning, their toys, normally lined up neatly on shelves, were jumbled, turned over, and upside down, though none were broken. The call ends with the host thanking the caller.
Reported events, in order
- 0:10
The caller says that as a child of about seven they stayed with their Aunt [name withheld] in the country.
- 0:23
The caller describes attending a charismatic church where the children were made to stay at the back.
- 0:35
The caller says they and the other children nailed a salamander to the wall with a pen and told the adults they were giving it to Satan if God did not accept the sacrifice.
- 0:57
The next night the caller woke suddenly (“bolted straight away”) from sleep.
- 1:07
The caller says they looked into their closet and saw a “thing” sitting there.
- 1:21
The caller describes the figure as blacker than the dark room, its edges visible because the surrounding air seemed repelled by it.
- 2:00
The caller describes its teeth as [quote withheld]
- 2:05
The caller says its eyes looked like pools of light blood and then got two blue dots like their own eyes.
- 2:23
The caller says their heart beat faster and that when they tried to yell for help their voice “just stopped.”
- 2:35
The caller says they cried out to God in their head and the next thing they knew it was morning, with no memory of time passing.
- 2:50
Art Bell asks if it could have been a nightmare. The caller says that would have been their attitude except for the way the thing looked.
- 3:01
In the morning the caller opened the closet and found their toys jumbled end on end and turned upside down, though they were normally neatly shelved and none were broken.
- 3:33
The caller repeats their description of the figure, and the host closes the call.
Claims
Each claim is labeled as something the person telling the story noticed (observation), what they made of it (interpretation), something others told them (hearsay), or something the host said (host statement).
- observation· 1:07
The caller looked into their bedroom closet and saw a “thing” sitting there.
- observation· 1:21
The figure was blacker than the dark room, and its edges were visible because the surrounding air seemed to repel it.
- observation· 2:00
The only solid-looking part was its teeth, shaped like a triangle with a slit ending in a small round thing.
- observation· 2:16
Its eyes changed from pools of light blood to two blue dots resembling the caller's own eyes.
- observation· 2:27
When the caller tried to scream for help, their voice stopped, and they could not make a sound.
- observation· 2:41
The caller woke in the morning in bed with no memory of the time between the sighting and waking.
- observation· 3:21
In the morning the caller's toys, normally kept straight and neat, were jumbled and turned upside down, though none were broken.
- interpretation· 2:52
The caller rejects the suggestion that the experience was a nightmare because of the thing's appearance.
- interpretation· 2:52
The caller says nothing on earth could look like the thing they saw.
- observation· 0:40
As children the caller and the others nailed a salamander to a church wall and told the adults it was a sacrifice they would give to Satan if God did not accept it.
Scores, with reasons
An AI model gave these scores using a fixed set of scoring rules (scoring-v1). They are editorial judgments and rough guides, not the odds that anything paranormal happened. How scoring works.
This is a firsthand story with a coherent sequence and unusual detail. But it rests on a childhood memory of an unstated date, and sleep-related explanations fit much of the sequence.
Evidence for and against
- A named relative and age: [quote withheld]
- Concrete visual detail: [quote withheld]
- A counterclaim to a dream explanation: [quote withheld]
- Waking from sleep, inability to make a sound, and no memory of elapsed time: [quote withheld]
- The host himself raises an ordinary reading: [quote withheld]
- No year, town, or other person is named for the event, so it cannot be located or checked.
- A memory of an event from about age seven, told in 1994.
- Several sentences about the closet being open or closed are garbled, and their sense is unclear.
- 0:10
- 2:00
- 2:41
What the model inferred (not said on air): Components scored as: closeness to the source 19 (firsthand but a childhood memory); detail 12 (age and relative named, no date or town); consistency 15 (coherent, with one garbled passage); alternative explanations 5 (sleep-related imagery and an ordinary disturbance of the toys fit well); calibration 8 (the caller separates what they saw from the nightmare suggestion but offers no cause).
There is only the caller's word. The one claimed physical trace, the disordered toys, was brief, in the past, and is neither documented nor examined.
Evidence for and against
- A claimed physical trace in the closet the next morning: [quote withheld]
- No photograph, recording, document, date, or address is offered.
- No second witness is claimed for the sighting, and none speaks on air.
- The caller does not say whether the toy arrangement was ever photographed.
- 3:21
- 3:31
What the model inferred (not said on air): Placed in the 0 to 10 range (the caller's word only). No outside check was done, so the ceiling of 50 does not limit the score here.
A child alone at night, a black nonhuman form inside a bedroom closet, an inability to scream, and no resolution give the story a lasting unease, though nothing physical happens to anyone.
Evidence for and against
- A child of about seven, woken at night, sees the figure in their closet.
- A detailed description of teeth and eyes: [quote withheld]
- Loss of voice at the moment of fear: [quote withheld]
- No threat, contact, injury, or pursuit is reported.
- The call ends with the host politely closing it.
- The passage about the closet is partly garbled, so the exact sequence in the morning is unclear.
- 1:07
- 2:27
What the model inferred (not said on air): Judged on story content only. A child at the center, a bedroom intrusion, an unnerving description, and an unresolved ending raise it. The absence of harm to anyone keeps it below the high anchors.
A familiar childhood-bedroom pattern (waking at night, a figure in the closet, toys disturbed), combined with a distinctive, nonhuman description of the figure and an unusual earlier episode of a staged church “sacrifice.”
Evidence for and against
- A nonhuman shape with teeth: [quote withheld]
- Surroundings that seem to repel the figure: [quote withheld]
- Its eyes take on the caller's own look: [quote withheld]
- A stock pattern: waking at night, a figure in the closet, disturbed objects in an old family house.
- The “couldn't scream” beat and the morning-after discovery are common ghost-story elements.
- Novelty compared with the rest of the archive cannot be worked out here, so the score is provisional.
- 2:00
- 1:46
What the model inferred (not said on air): The model score is 62. The pattern is familiar (anchor 50), and the description of the figure plus the earlier church prank push it somewhat higher. No comparison with the rest of the archive is available at this stage.
Scoring confidence 0.60 · analysis confidence 0.65 · checked against outside sources: no · evidence available: The caller's own telling, given live on air; A claimed physical trace (toys found disordered the next morning), not examined or documented. The originality score blends the model's score (62) with how rare the story's details are across the archive. This method is still provisional.
Ordinary explanations to consider
These are possibilities only. None is a finding about what happened.
- Sleep-related imagery (a vivid dream or a waking hallucination) around a night waking. · The caller says they woke suddenly from sleep, could not shout, and then found themselves in bed in the morning with no memory of the time between.
- The inability to call out reflects a normal in-between state of sleep and waking rather than an outside cause. · The caller says they tried to yell and that their voice “just stopped” right after waking.
- The jumbled toys were moved by another person in the household, or by the caller, rather than by the thing the caller saw. · The caller found the disorder only the next morning. They say none of the toys were broken and that they opened the closet themselves.
What stands out
The caller describes the figure not as a human-shaped ghost but as a nonhuman shape: a black form whose surroundings seem to repel it, with triangular teeth and eyes that turn into two blue dots like the caller's own. The caller ties it to a staged church “sacrifice” by the children. The caller never names a cause for it.
Related stories
Matched by shared recurring details, categories, and wording.