Lights, a door, and voices in a boarded-up plantation house outside New Orleans
An unnamed caller tells Art Bell that they were visiting their sister in St. Bernard Parish near New Orleans. At night, they, their sister, and their wife trespassed into a boarded-up plantation house owned by a sugar company. They report a light sweeping across a room, light appearing through floorboard cracks above them, the sound of a metal-handled door swinging shut, a sudden drop in temperature, and finally what they took to be men’s voices calling. The story ends abruptly when the host enforces a time limit before the caller can finish.
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 1998.mp3”, starting at 2:49:20). Is this you, or someone you know? Ask for a correction or removal.
The story as told
The caller says they were in Texas for an antique show and, on the way back, visited their sister’s house in St. Bernard Parish, just outside New Orleans. They say their sister took them on an unusual tour and showed them a boarded-up plantation house, written in the transcript as “laboe,” owned by a sugar company. She began telling them stories about it. They say they wanted to go inside right away, and she said she had been waiting for them to visit so they could sneak in.
A few days later, after rain had delayed them, they, their sister, and their wife went at night. They went behind a VFW hall, took a roundabout route over a fence and through cane fields, and broke a small board to get in. They describe the house as huge, with about eight ground-floor rooms, and say they searched for a staircase.
They pointed their flashlight at the floor and covered it with a towel so they would not be seen. They say a flashing light shot across the room in a swooping up-and-down motion. Their wife and sister saw it better, they say, while they caught it out of the corner of their eye. Thinking it was security, they switched the flashlight off. They looked out through the boarded doors and saw nothing within a few hundred yards. They say their sister then reported a light above through the floorboards, and they saw light through floorboard cracks elsewhere, with the larger holes unlit. They dismissed it as paranoia.
On their second pass through the ground floor, looking for the stairs, they say they heard what sounded like a large metal-handled door swinging shut. Then wind rose and the temperature dropped about twenty degrees, and all three panicked, thinking they had been caught. The host then cut the call short. The caller’s last reported detail was hearing what sounded like the voices of enslaved men calling.
Reported events, in order
- 0:15
The caller says they were in Texas doing an antique show and stopped at their sister’s house in St. Bernard Parish, just outside New Orleans, on the way back.
- 0:25
They say their sister showed them a boarded-up plantation house (written in the transcript as “laboe”), owned by a sugar company, and told them stories about it.
- 0:52
They say they proposed going inside and their sister said she had been waiting for them to visit so they could sneak in.
- 1:11
They say the party was themself, their sister, and their wife, all adults.
- 1:19
They say rain delayed them a couple of nights. A few days later they went with a towel and a flashlight.
- 1:45
They say they went behind a VFW hall, took a roundabout route over a fence through cane fields at night, and got inside.
- 2:06
They say they broke a small eight-inch board getting in and otherwise destroyed nothing.
- 2:12
They describe the house as huge, with about eight rooms on the ground floor, and say they looked for a staircase.
- 3:10
They say a flashing light shot across the room in a swooping motion up, down, and up again. They say their wife and sister saw it better than they did.
- 3:19
They switched off the flashlight, thinking it was security. The group went to the boarded doors and saw nothing within a few hundred yards.
- 3:48
They say their sister reported a light above them. They then saw light through floorboard cracks in a different place, with the larger holes unlit.
- 4:22
They say they dismissed it as paranoia and they continued.
- 4:35
They made a pass through the ground floor, could not find the staircase, and began a second pass.
- 4:48
They say they heard what sounded like a large metal-handled door and something swinging closed.
- 5:04
They say wind started blowing, the temperature dropped about twenty degrees, and all three panicked, thinking they had been caught.
- 5:22
The host tells the caller time is nearly up. The caller says it gets better.
- 5:28
They say they heard what sounded like the voices of enslaved men calling, and the story is cut off there.
- 5:44
They restate the location: St. Bernard Parish, the plantation house written in the transcript as “laboe.”
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
The caller says their sister showed them a boarded-up plantation house outside New Orleans, owned by a sugar company, and told them stories about it.
- hearsay· 0:50
The caller says their sister told them stories about the house, but the transcript does not give the content of those stories.
- observation· 3:10
The caller says a flashing light shot across the room in a swooping motion upward, down, and up again.
- observation· 3:03
The caller says their wife and sister saw the light more clearly than they did. They saw it only out of the corner of their eye.
- observation· 3:55
The caller says their sister reported a light above them through the floorboards, and they then saw light coming through the floorboards in a different place.
- observation· 4:09
The caller says only narrow cracks of light appeared. The larger holes in the ceiling were not lit.
- observation· 4:48
The caller says the noise sounded like a large metal door handle and something swinging shut.
- observation· 5:07
The caller says the temperature dropped about 20 degrees and that all three of them reacted.
- observation· 5:28
The caller says they heard what they took to be the voices of adult men calling, which they likened to the voices of enslaved people.
- interpretation· 4:48
The caller describes the noises as the kind of thing associated with a haunting, without saying what caused them.
- interpretation· 5:07
The caller says that when they were frightened they put it down to the chance of being caught trespassing rather than to ghosts.
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 clear firsthand story that holds together, with concrete place and sequence detail. But it has no checkable dates or names, and plain ordinary explanations are available for most events, which the caller partly acknowledges. Scored mid-range: strong on closeness to the events and coherence, weak on resisting ordinary causes.
Evidence for and against
- Firsthand story with an ordered sequence: tour, plan, route in, entry, search, light, door sound, temperature drop.
- Concrete settings: St. Bernard Parish, a VFW hall, cane fields, eight ground-floor rooms, a towel, and a flashlight.
- Good calibration: the caller says they saw the first light only out of the corner of their eye, that they dismissed the second as paranoia, and that their fear was of being caught rather than of ghosts.
- No date, no names of the owners or of the two second witnesses, and the house name is given only in an uncertain transcription (“laboe”).
- Simple ordinary explanations fit several events. The caller raises security as the likely source of the first light, notes the wind rising just before the door sound and the temperature drop, and describes a dark boarded building at night.
- The two claimed second witnesses do not speak on air, so their part is only the caller’s word.
- The ending is cut off by the host’s time limit, so the story may be incomplete.
- The labels showing who is speaking are confused in several lines, so some short lines cannot be firmly attributed.
- 3:03
- 5:07
What the model inferred (not said on air): The component scoring is my judgment from the transcript. Closeness to the events is 21 of 25 (they were there, but two of the reported observations are credited to others in the party). Specificity is 13 of 20 (place and sequence concrete, no dates or names). Internal consistency is 15 of 20 (coherent, no contradictions, but the story is cut off). Other explanations are 5 of 20 (security lights, wind, and their own flashlight fit easily). Calibration of claims is 10 of 15 (sighting from the corner of their eye, “paranoia,” fear framed as fear of security). No cap applies: it is not secondhand at its core, it is not presented as a joke or fiction, and 5.8 minutes of content is enough to assess.
The story rests on the caller’s word plus two claimed but silent second witnesses. A place name is given that could in principle be checked, but it was not checked and its transcription is uncertain. This sits in the score band of 11 to 25.
Evidence for and against
- A specific place that could be checked is named on air: [quote withheld] with an owner described as a sugar company.
- A specific route in is described (behind a VFW hall, over a fence, through cane fields) along with a specific act (breaking an eight-inch board).
- No photograph, recording, document, or physical trace is claimed or presented.
- No second witness speaks on air. The wife and sister are reported but silent.
- No outside check was done.
- The house name as transcribed (“laboe”) may be wrong, which weakens even the limited checkability of the place.
- 5:44
- 1:11
What the model inferred (not said on air): Band assignment follows the scoring guide: checkable specifics given (names, dates, places, records) but not checked, or other witnesses claimed. The hard cap of 50 applies and is not approached.
The setting (nighttime trespass in a boarded, run-down house) and the escalating sequence of light, door sound, cold, and distant voices are genuinely unsettling. But there is no threat, contact, or menacing figure, and the caller undercuts it with their own ordinary frame of reference.
Evidence for and against
- A dark, boarded plantation house entered at night by trespass.
- Eerie behavior of light: a light sweeping across a room and lights appearing only through narrow floorboard cracks.
- A sudden twenty-degree drop and a door swinging shut, with the group panicking.
- An unresolved closing image of adult men’s voices calling, cut off mid-sentence.
- The caller repeatedly frames the group’s fear as fear of being caught trespassing, and says they dismissed events as paranoia.
- No threat, injury, or hostile presence is reported. Nothing follows them or touches anyone.
- The most unnerving element (the voices) is reported in a single cut-off sentence, so its detail is unknown.
- 3:10
- 5:28
What the model inferred (not said on air): This is my editorial judgment of the story’s effect on a listener, not a claim about events. It sits above “mildly eerie” because of the confinement, darkness, and building sensory detail, and below “frightening” because nothing menacing is reported.
A familiar frame of trespass into a haunted building carries a few unusual specifics, notably the light appearing only through narrow cracks and the caller’s insistence that the party feared capture rather than ghosts.
Evidence for and against
- A distinctive detail: only narrow floorboard cracks were lit, while the larger holes were not.
- The caller’s framing of the group’s fear as fear of security rather than of ghosts.
- The closing image of adult men’s voices “calling” inside a boarded plantation house, left unresolved.
- The frame is familiar: nighttime trespass into an abandoned, reputedly haunted old building.
- The parts are stock: a moving light, a cold drop, a door sound, distant voices.
- Originality compared with the rest of the archive cannot be calculated from this story alone.
- 4:09
What the model inferred (not said on air): This is a provisional estimate from the content only. The published originality is calculated against the rest of the archive and is labeled provisional while the archive is small.
Scoring confidence 0.60 · analysis confidence 0.62 · checked against outside sources: no · evidence available: firsthand telephone story from one caller (the storyteller); two further claimed second witnesses (their sister and their wife) who are described but do not speak on air; no photographs, recordings, documents, or physical traces claimed or presented; no outside check was performed. The originality score blends the model's score (48) 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.
- The sweeping light was another light source, such as a security patrol, a vehicle, or reflected light, rather than something strange. · The caller says they switched the flashlight off because they thought security was flashing a light, and that they were standing three to four hundred yards from anything. So a human light source outside the building is a possibility the caller raises but the transcript does not confirm.
- The light seen through the floorboard cracks came from their own flashlight or another source below or outside, shining through gaps. The uneven look is what an outside light through irregular gaps would look like. · The caller describes pointing the flashlight at the floor and covering it with a towel, and says the light showed unevenly, through cracks rather than holes.
- The door sound and the sudden temperature drop were wind effects, a loose door swinging in a boarded, unheated building and cold night air moving through, rather than something unseen. · The caller notes [quote withheld] and the house is described as boarded up and long unused.
- The “voices” were distant outside sounds (people, animals, wind, or noise from the building) carried into the house, or came from the group’s expectations in a place described to them as haunted. · The caller says the final sounds came just as the wind rose, and they describe them only as sounding like distant men calling. No words are reported.
What stands out
The story is unusual mainly because the caller undercuts it themself. They say the party’s repeated panic was fear of being caught trespassing rather than fear of ghosts, and they dismiss their own second sighting as paranoia. The detail that only narrow floorboard cracks, not the larger holes, were lit is also distinctive.
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