Séance in a Knoxville apartment and a swollen window that fell
An unnamed male caller, speaking from New Orleans, tells Art Bell about a summer night in 1956 when he was a freshman at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. He says he and a group of friends at a party in his downstairs apartment held a séance. They deliberately tried to contact Lucifer and then cursed him. On the caller’s turn, he says, a window that had taken two people to force open fell shut. He says the party ended, the guests left in silence, and he never did anything of the kind again.
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 2000-1.mp3”, starting at 1:28:08). Is this you, or someone you know? Ask for a correction or removal.
The story as told
The caller, an unnamed man who was then a college freshman, is speaking from New Orleans. He tells Art Bell about a summer night in 1956, when he was about nineteen and attending summer school at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. He says he lived in one of two downstairs apartments in an old house that held five apartments, and that he hosted parties there. On a hot, sticky Saturday night, with all the windows open, he says one window could not be opened because the old house was swollen. It took two of them to force it up.
He says the group decided to hold a séance. After wondering whom to contact, someone suggested calling up Lucifer. They sat in a circle on the floor with a candle in the middle and the lights out, and “challenged” the devil to give a sign if he were real. He says they went around the circle three or four times and nothing happened, so someone suggested cursing him with the foulest names they could think of. On the third circuit, he says, it came to his turn and he [quote withheld] Then the swollen window fell. He says the party ended, that he never did anything like that again, and that some “white faced people” left his apartment in total silence, terrified.
Asked his age, he says about nineteen. He says he is sixty-two now and will always remember it. He adds that he has read since then that if you invite “them” in, they will come.
Reported events, in order
- 0:08
The caller says he was a freshman at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville.
- 0:17
He places the events in the summer of 1956, while attending summer school.
- 0:26
He lived in one of two downstairs apartments in an old house divided into five apartments. Parties were held there.
- 0:39
A party with friends took place on a hot, sticky Saturday night, with all windows open.
- 0:52
One window could not be opened. It took two people to force it up.
- 1:10
The group decided to hold a séance.
- 1:18
Someone suggested calling up Lucifer.
- 1:30
They sat in a circle on the floor with a candle in the middle and the lights out.
- 1:53
They challenged the devil to give a sign if he were real. After three or four trips around the circle, nothing happened.
- 2:06
Someone suggested cursing him with the foulest names they could think of.
- 2:54
On the third trip around the circle, when it reached the caller, he says he [quote withheld]
- 3:00
The swollen window fell.
- 3:23
The party ended. The caller says he never did anything like that again.
- 3:44
He describes total silence and terrified guests leaving the apartment.
- 3:52
Asked his age at the time, he says about nineteen. He says he is now sixty-two.
- 4:16
He adds that he has read since then that if you invite them in, they will come.
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· 0:52
One window in the apartment could not be opened because the old house was swollen.
- observation· 1:01
It took two people to raise that window.
- observation· 1:18
Someone in the group proposed contacting Lucifer at the séance.
- observation· 1:53
The group challenged the devil to give a sign if he were real.
- observation· 3:00
The swollen window fell during the caller’s turn in the cursing circle.
- observation· 3:10
The window fell very fast, described as falling [quote withheld]
- interpretation· 4:16
The caller’s stated conclusion is that inviting such beings brings them.
- host statement· 4:25
Art Bell asserts that choosing Lucifer to begin with was a poor choice.
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 short, coherent firsthand story with concrete setting details. But the single strange event has an easy ordinary fit (a swollen sash window falling), and no independent check is possible. It is scored in the upper-middle range accordingly.
Evidence for and against
- Firsthand participation in the events described.
- Specific time, place, and setting: 1956 summer school, University of Tennessee, a five-apartment house, a hot Saturday night.
- Coherent, sequential story that answers the host’s questions about place and age.
- The caller does not claim to have seen or heard a figure or presence.
- The one reported strange event, a hard-to-open sash window closing, has an easy physical explanation in an old, swollen window.
- No second witness speaks on air, despite the claim of a room full of guests.
- The caller’s causal link rests on a general notion he says he read later rather than on anything observed.
- The labels showing who is speaking are badly scrambled in this part of the broadcast, so several lines cannot be confidently assigned to the caller or the host.
- Two short passages are marked low-confidence word transcription near the moment the window falls.
- 0:17
- 1:01
- 3:00
What the model inferred (not said on air): The component weights are my judgment. Source proximity and specificity are strong on content. Resistance to alternative explanations and calibration are weak, which keeps the total below the mid-70s.
The story is the caller’s word plus claimed second witnesses, with a few specifics that could be checked (date, university, city) but were not. That places it at the bottom of the 11 to 25 range rather than at 0 to 10.
Evidence for and against
- Specifics that could in principle be checked are given: 1956, University of Tennessee in Knoxville, a five-apartment house.
- Multiple people are claimed to have been present.
- No document, recording, photograph, or physical trace is offered or examined.
- The claimed group of witnesses is unnamed and does not speak on air.
- No outside check was performed, so the hard cap of 50 applies and the lower ranges are the realistic ones.
- The number of people present is never stated, so the strength of the “claimed witnesses” element cannot be gauged.
- 0:08
- 0:39
What the model inferred (not said on air): Assigning “claimed other witnesses” uses up the whole range. Nothing in the transcript raises it to the “physical evidence claimed” range.
The devil-summoning setup and the abrupt window slam in a darkened room give one genuinely unsettling moment. But the story stops there, with no threat, contact, or aftermath.
Evidence for and against
- The group deliberately tries to summon and then insults a figure identified as the devil.
- A sudden loud event at the climax in a dark, candle-lit room.
- Guests described as white-faced, in total silence, terrified.
- A closing warning that inviting such things brings them.
- Only one strange moment occurs, and nothing persists after it.
- The caller states he never repeated the activity and reports no later events.
- Because the labels are scrambled, it is unclear whether the word “terrified” is the caller’s or Art’s.
- 3:36
- 3:44
What the model inferred (not said on air): This is my reading of the effect on listeners. The transcript itself contains no claim of harm or continued presence.
A very familiar séance-gone-wrong setup carries one concrete, unusual physical detail: the window that took two people to lift. That fits the [quote withheld] range.
Evidence for and against
- The distinctive hinge is the window: it was swollen, needed two people to force up, and then fell.
- The group escalates from polite challenge to deliberate cursing before anything happens.
- A séance that produces a sudden bang or slam is a stock ghost-story setup.
- Summoning a named evil figure as a dare is a familiar device.
- Whether the striking detail is the caller’s own or a habit of retelling cannot be determined from the transcript.
- 3:10
What the model inferred (not said on air): Provisional model score. The comparison with the rest of the archive carries little weight in the pilot.
Scoring confidence 0.55 · analysis confidence 0.58 · checked against outside sources: no · evidence available: The caller’s firsthand story by telephone; Claimed but unnamed group of party guests said to have been present; none speaks on air; No documentation, photograph, recording, or other material evidence offered or examined. 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 window simply fell on its own from the position it had been forced into. · The caller stresses that the sash was swollen and needed two people to force up. An old wooden sash propped or jammed open can slip and slam shut under its own weight, especially in a hot, humid house.
- A coincidental event in a tense, expectant setting was taken as a response. · A darkened room, a candle, and a group shouting and cursing repeatedly create a setting in which a sudden noise is attached to the activity just before it.
What stands out
What stands out is the caller’s emphasis on how hard the window was to open. It was swollen in an old house and needed two people to force it up. Set against that is the single event he reports: it fell during his turn in the cursing circle. The group also deliberately chose Lucifer as the target rather than, as Art puts it, starting anywhere else.
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