Stolen skull, flames, and a smoke image in a mirror in a Fort Lauderdale apartment
A caller who calls themselves “Lady of Kinnick” and says they are in Kinnick, Alaska, tells Art Bell about events they place about 23 years earlier in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The caller reports taking a realistic plaster skull from a commercial haunted-house exhibit. The caller says they later saw flames shoot from it and found the insides of two wooden shoes charred. The caller says two teenage visitors reported a picture of the caller asleep formed in smoke in their mirror. The caller says they moved out that day. The call ends with the caller speaking to a third person about Satan, and Bell saying he has no way of being as sure as they are.
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 3:36:45). Is this you, or someone you know? Ask for a correction or removal.
The story as told
The caller, who gives their name only as “Lady of Kinnick” and says they are in Kinnick, Alaska, tells Art Bell that what they are describing happened [quote withheld] The caller says that was a time when the caller “wasn’t living right.” The caller says they were then in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, near Broward General Hospital, and that a house there had been turned into a commercial haunted house with exhibits and booths. The caller says their father was killed in an airplane crash on Thanksgiving Day before they were born, and his body was not found until they were about six months old. A pair of wooden shoes he brought back from military service came to the caller after their aunt, whom they describe as very psychic, died. The caller says that at the last exhibit of the haunted house, just before the exit, they reached over, took a realistic-looking plaster skull, and carried it out in their handbag. A couple of months later, in their apartment, the caller says they placed the skull on top of a television set that had not worked in years and had no wall plugs. The caller calls it something you might call an altar, with a wooden shoe on each side and a mirror behind, and a crocheted green cloth hanging over the mirror. Their son was then a couple of months old. The caller says that after they went to sleep, they kept hearing a voice telling them to wake up and had a hard time waking. When they woke, the caller reports, flames were shooting from the side of the skull like a blowtorch, with no ashtrays or cigarettes present, and the insides of the shoes were charred. The caller says they took their son outside, poured a bucket of water over the skull, and let the smoke out. Two teenage girls the caller knew, who worked at a Burger King on Sunrise Boulevard, then visited. The caller says they asked the girls to go inside and tell the caller what they saw, and the girls came out [quote withheld] They said the mirror held a picture of the caller asleep on the bed, done in smoke. The caller says they moved out that day. Asked whether that is when the caller changed their life, the caller says they were not baptized until 1988. The caller then speaks to a person they call “Harlet” (or “Harlot”) and says this person summoned Lucifer and talked to Satan. Bell says he has no way of being as sure as the caller is.
Reported events, in order
- 0:07
The caller calls themselves “Lady of Kinnick,” says they are in Kinnick, Alaska, and says the event happened about 23 years earlier.
- 0:17
The caller says the period was one when the caller “wasn’t living right” and that it took place in Fort Lauderdale, down from Broward General Hospital.
- 0:48
The caller says their father was killed in an airplane crash on Thanksgiving Day before they were born, and that his body was not found until they were about six months old.
- 1:16
The caller says their psychic aunt had a pair of wooden shoes their father brought back from military service, and that they came to the caller after the aunt died.
- 2:02
The caller describes a commercial haunted-house exhibit near Broward General Hospital and says they took a realistic plaster skull from the last exhibit before the door.
- 2:44
The caller says they placed the skull on an unused television set with a wooden shoe on each side and a mirror behind, with a crocheted green cloth over the mirror.
- 3:04
The caller says they heard a voice telling them to wake up and had a hard time waking. Their son was then a couple of months old.
- 3:26
The caller reports flames shooting from the side of the skull like a blowtorch, with no ashtrays or cigarettes present, and the insides of the shoes charred.
- 3:43
The caller says they took their son outside, poured a bucket of water over the skull, and let the smoke out of the apartment.
- 3:59
Two teenage girls the caller knew, who worked at a Burger King on Sunrise Boulevard, visited. The caller asked them to go inside and tell the caller what they saw.
- 4:30
The caller says the girls came out [quote withheld] and reported a perfect picture of the caller asleep on the bed, done in smoke in the mirror.
- 4:39
The caller says they moved out that day, and that they were not baptized until 1988.
- 5:15
The caller speaks to a person they call “Harlet” (or “Harlot”) and says that person summoned Lucifer and talked to Satan.
- 6:03
Bell thanks the caller for the call and says he has no way of being as sure as they are.
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· 3:26
Flames were shooting from the side of the skull like a blowtorch, with no smoking materials present.
- observation· 3:33
The insides of the wooden shoes were charred.
- observation· 3:04
The caller heard a voice telling them to wake up while they were asleep.
- hearsay· 4:30
Two teenage girls reported seeing a picture of the caller asleep on the bed formed in smoke in the mirror.
- interpretation· 0:17
The caller says that at the time they were not living right.
- interpretation· 5:18
The caller says the person they speak to summoned Lucifer.
- host statement· 6:03
Bell says he has no way of being as sure as the caller.
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 detailed firsthand story with concrete places and objects and a consistent sequence. But no ordinary explanations are addressed, and the most striking element, the smoke image, was reported to the caller by others rather than seen by the caller.
Evidence for and against
- Specific settings and objects: Fort Lauderdale near Broward General Hospital, a named street and workplace, a skull, two wooden shoes, a mirror.
- Consistent chronological sequence from taking the skull to moving out, with answers to the host’s questions that fit the story.
- The mirror image was reported to the caller by two girls, not seen by the caller.
- An object taken from a commercial haunted-house exhibit is the apparent source of the fire, an explanation the caller does not consider.
- The voice and the difficulty waking after going to sleep are not discussed as possibly sleep-related.
- The labels showing who is speaking in the transcript mix the host and the caller, so some lines may be assigned to the wrong speaker.
- The spelling of the caller’s location (“Kinnick”) and of the person they speak to at the end is unclear.
- No follow-up is given on whether anything happened after they moved out.
- 0:07
- 3:26
- 4:30
What the model inferred (not said on air): The component scores are my judgment. Closeness to the source is high (firsthand, though one element is secondhand). Specificity is moderately high, and internal consistency is high. Alternative explanations score low because none are addressed. Calibration scores low because the caller states the story flatly without separating what they saw from what they conclude.
Only the caller’s word is present. Two witnesses are claimed but do not speak on air, and no physical evidence is offered or examined.
Evidence for and against
- Specifics that could be checked are given (Fort Lauderdale, Broward General Hospital, Sunrise Boulevard, Burger King), though none were checked.
- Two witnesses are claimed to have seen the smoke image in the mirror.
- No photograph, recording, object, or document is presented or described as available.
- The two claimed witnesses never speak on air, and the caller relays what they said.
- No outside check was done.
- It is not stated whether the skull, shoes, or mirror still exist or were kept.
- The identity of the two girls and their full story are not given.
- 4:15
- 4:30
What the model inferred (not said on air): Claimed witnesses who do not speak place this in the 11 to 25 range rather than the range for the caller’s word alone. Nothing that could be checked is actually examined, so I score at the low end.
Fire erupting from a stolen skull in a bedroom, charred shoes, and an image of the sleeping caller formed in smoke in a mirror are vivid and intrusive. But the story is not told as a threat, and the host’s joking lowers the tone.
Evidence for and against
- Flames described as shooting from the skull like a blowtorch inside the caller's apartment.
- The image in the mirror is of the caller asleep, in the room where their infant son was.
- An unexplained voice wakes them, and they have trouble waking, before they find the fire.
- No injury, attack, or hostile presence is reported.
- The host jokes about the skull, and the story ends with the caller moving out rather than escalating.
- Nothing is described as following the caller after they left.
- Whether the smoke image was still there when the caller looked is not stated.
- The transcript does not describe the girls’ manner beyond the caller saying they looked pale.
- 3:26
- 4:30
What the model inferred (not said on air): The creepiness rating is my judgment about the story as heard. It weighs the fire and the smoke image of the caller against the lack of any threat or lasting consequence.
The story combines familiar haunted-object and mirror motifs with an unusual trigger (a prop skull taken from a commercial haunted house) and an unusual result (a smoke image of the sleeper rather than a figure).
Evidence for and against
- The skull is described as taken from the last exhibit of a commercial haunted house, not found or inherited.
- The reported effect is fire and a smoke image rather than a visible ghost.
- Wooden shoes that belonged to the caller’s dead father are arranged around the skull, adding a personal detail.
- Fire, charred objects, and images in mirrors are familiar motifs in ghost lore.
- The story’s outline (moving into an apartment, a nighttime event, moving out) is common.
- Comparison with the rest of the archive cannot be made from a single transcript; this is the provisional model score.
- The description of the smoke image is secondhand, so its detail may be less reliable.
- 2:02
- 3:17
What the model inferred (not said on air): In my judgment, the unusual combination of a stolen haunted-house prop and a smoke self-portrait lifts this above stock haunting elements, but each part is familiar on its own.
Scoring confidence 0.60 · analysis confidence 0.70 · checked against outside sources: no · evidence available: The caller’s firsthand story; Claimed secondhand report from two teenage girls who do not speak on air; No physical evidence, photograph, recording, or document presented or examined. The originality score blends the model's score (68) 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.
- A novelty or stage prop from a commercial haunted-house exhibit could have contained a fire or chemical effect that later ignited. · The caller says the house was turned into a haunted house with [quote withheld] and that the skull was the last exhibit before the exit.
- Smoke and soot from the fire could have settled on the mirror and been read as a recognizable figure. · The caller says they [quote withheld] and describes a mirror directly behind the skull with a crocheted cloth hanging over it.
- The voice and the difficulty waking could have happened while falling asleep or waking up. · The caller says [quote withheld] and that they had [quote withheld]
What stands out
The strange events are attached to an object taken from a commercial haunted-house exhibit, not to a place. They consist of fire, charring, and a smoke image, not a figure. The call also ends with the caller speaking to an absent third person about Satan, which is not part of the skull story.
Related stories
Matched by shared recurring details, categories, and wording.