Motel night clerk takes a call from an empty room
A caller who gives their name as [name withheld], from Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, tells Art Bell about their most recent ghost encounter. About three years earlier they worked the night shift as a motel desk clerk. The caller reports that around 1 a.m. the desk phone showed a call from a room with no registered guest. A brief old woman's voice said it had the wrong party. The caller found the room empty, with the phone on the hook. Their own explanation is that the dead mother of a resident in the next room had been looking for her son. The host notes that the motel phone system is private.
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 1997.mp3”, starting at 45:40). Is this you, or someone you know? Ask for a correction or removal.
The story as told
[name withheld], calling from Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, tells Art Bell that they have had many ghost encounters and picks their most recent. About three years before the broadcast, [name withheld] says, they worked the night shift as a motel desk clerk. A man who lived in room three permanently used to come to the office around 4 a.m. to talk. The caller found the talk inane, and it always ended in long tributes to the man's mother, who had died about ten years earlier. On one of those visits the resident said he thought his mother's spirit might be visiting him, because there had been a knock on the bed board. The caller says they assumed the man had bumped it with his elbow. Soon afterward the resident left to visit his brother in Connecticut, and his room stood empty. Around 1 a.m. the desk phone rang, showing a call from room four, next door. The caller says no one was registered in room four. The caller answered and heard what they describe as an old woman's voice [quote withheld] say [quote withheld] and then fade out to nothing. The caller walked about thirty feet to room four and opened the door. The caller reports no one inside and the telephone on the hook. Their own explanation is that the resident's mother had come in spirit to room three, found him gone, grown confused, gone into room four, and somehow worked the phone. The caller says they have no other explanation. The host remarks that a motel phone system is private and that the call could only have come from room four. He also notes other accounts of spirits making telephone calls.
Reported events, in order
- 0:25
The caller says they worked as a motel desk clerk on the night shift about three years earlier.
- 0:29
A man who lived in room three permanently came to the desk around 4 a.m. on a regular basis.
- 1:35
The resident spoke again and again about his mother, who the caller says had died about ten years earlier.
- 1:44
The resident said he thought his mother's spirit might be visiting him because of a knock on the bed board. The caller says they assumed the man had bumped it with his elbow.
- 2:07
The resident left to visit his brother in Connecticut, and room three stood empty.
- 2:35
Around 1 a.m. the desk phone rang and showed a call from room four.
- 2:44
The caller checked the registration sheet and says nobody was registered in room four.
- 3:04
The caller answered and heard an old woman's voice say [quote withheld] which then faded out to nothing.
- 3:20
The caller walked about thirty feet to room four and opened the door.
- 3:33
The caller reports no one in the room and the telephone on the hook.
- 3:42
The caller offers their own explanation. The resident's mother came in spirit to room three, found him gone, became confused, looked into room four, and somehow made the phone work.
- 4:13
The host remarks that a motel phone system is private and the call could only have come from room four. He also notes other accounts of spirits making phone calls.
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· 0:25
About three years before the broadcast, the caller worked as a motel desk clerk on the night shift.
- hearsay· 1:44
The permanent resident of room three told the caller he thought his mother's spirit might be visiting him because of a knock on the bed board.
- observation· 2:44
The caller says the desk phone showed a call from room four, and that the registration sheet showed nobody registered there.
- observation· 3:10
The caller says they answered and heard an old woman's voice say a few words and then fade out to nothing.
- observation· 3:33
The caller says they walked to room four and found no one inside, with the telephone on the hook.
- interpretation· 3:42
The caller's own explanation is that the resident's dead mother came looking for him in room three and then in room four, and worked the phone.
- interpretation· 4:01
The caller says they have no other explanation for the call.
- host statement· 4:13
The host says the motel phone system is private and the call could only have come from room four.
- host statement· 4:26
The host says there are many accounts of spirits making telephone calls.
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.
A consistent first-person story with a fair amount of detail and a sequence that holds together. The caller admits an ordinary possibility (a guest entering the room). But it has no names, dates, or records, and it rests on one brief strange event, which keeps it below the higher scores.
Evidence for and against
- Firsthand: the caller says they were the desk clerk who took the call and entered the room.
- Concrete details: room numbers, the registration sheet, 1 a.m., a walk of “about 30 feet,” the phone on the hook.
- The caller separates what they perceived from what they infer ([quote withheld]) and states their uncertainty, saying they have “no other explanation.”
- The motel and the other people involved are not named, so nothing can be traced.
- The one strange event, a call shown from an empty room, could have come from routing, a misdial, or a brief visitor. The caller's own remark about a possible open door and a guest fits that.
- The knock on the bed board is secondhand, reported by the room-three resident.
- The labels showing who is speaking alternate in a way that does not match the dialogue. Several lines also carry a tag marking possibly invented words.
- No date beyond [quote withheld] and no motel name.
- 0:25
- 2:44
- 4:01
What the model inferred (not said on air): The weights for each component (source proximity about 22, specificity about 15, internal consistency about 16, alternative explanations about 12, calibration about 11) are my own judgments from what was said in the broadcast, not from the caller's manner.
Only the caller's word is present, along with a few specifics that could in principle be checked but were not. That puts it in the bottom range, at the upper end because a town, a time frame, and room numbers are given.
Evidence for and against
- Some specifics could in principle be checked: Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania; a motel; a night desk shift; rooms three and four; roughly three years before the broadcast.
- A claimed second person (the room-three resident) is said to have had a related experience, though he is not on air.
- No physical evidence of any kind is described as kept, produced, or examined.
- No second witness speaks on air. The resident of room three does not appear.
- No motel name, no records, and no names of the people involved.
- The motel is not named, so the workplace cannot be identified from the transcript alone.
- 0:07
- 3:33
What the model inferred (not said on air): Scored only on what is in the transcript. No outside check was done.
An eerie, quiet setting: a lonely night shift, an empty room calling the desk, a fading voice. But there is no menace, no escalation, and no physical element, so it falls in the mildly unsettling range.
Evidence for and against
- A telephone ringing at 1 a.m. at a night desk and showing a call from a room where no one was registered.
- A voice described as coming [quote withheld] and fading “out to nothing.”
- The image of a dead woman searching room to room for her son.
- No threat, harm, or hostile element is reported.
- The caller describes the episode as not particularly frightening and as teaching them a lesson. That is their own view of the story, not how they told it.
- The only words reported are an everyday wrong-number apology.
- Whether the host's closing remarks belong to the story or are just commentary on this part of the broadcast.
- 2:35
- 3:04
What the model inferred (not said on air): The score reflects what happens in the story (the setting, the emptiness, the unexplained voice), not the caller's tone or the host's reaction.
A familiar “spirit telephone call” setup built around an unusual detail: the mother looking in the wrong room. It is a distinctive turn on a common theme, not a wholly new kind of event.
Evidence for and against
- The distinctive detail is the dead woman apparently searching the wrong motel room for her absent son and working a hotel switchboard to do it.
- The setting and the caller's job, a night desk clerk in a mostly empty motel, give the story a specific feel.
- A call through a telephone from a dead or absent person is a recurring theme, and the host recognizes it as one.
- The knock on the bed board is a familiar household rapping element.
- Originality is provisional until it can be compared with the rest of the archive.
- 3:42
- 4:26
What the model inferred (not said on air): This is a provisional automatic score. The part that compares it with the rest of the archive cannot be worked out here and is labeled provisional.
Scoring confidence 0.60 · analysis confidence 0.70 · checked against outside sources: no · evidence available: The caller's firsthand spoken story only; No phone records, registration sheet, recording, or photograph described as kept or examined; No second witness speaks on air; the resident of room three is reported but does not appear. The originality score blends the model's score (58) 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.
- Someone with access to room four (a guest, a staff member, or a person with a key) placed the call and left before the clerk walked the roughly thirty feet to the room, so the room was empty when the clerk arrived. · The caller raises the possibility of a guest using the room and mentions a possible open door: [quote withheld]
- A misdialed or misrouted call from outside the motel, which the desk equipment showed as coming from room four. · The only words reported are a wrong-number apology: [quote withheld] The host's statement that the system is “utterly private” is his assertion, not a verified fact.
- The inside of room four was not fully checked, or the person who called left in the short time before the clerk arrived. · The caller reports a short interval between answering the call and reaching the room: [quote withheld]
What stands out
The strange part is not something seen. A motel switchboard showed a call from an empty room with no registered guest, and the caller sees it as a dead woman searching the wrong room for her son. No figure, sound, or physical trace outside the telephone system is reported.
Related stories
Matched by shared recurring details, categories, and wording.