Voices, a child's closet figure, and shadows seen in a Pahrump single-wide
A caller who identifies only as the program's final Wild Card Line caller tells Art Bell that in the summer of 1997, while living in Pahrump with a girlfriend in a single-wide house, they heard unexplained voices. The caller says their girlfriend's four-year-old daughter repeatedly reported a man in her closet, and their girlfriend once reported hearing a toilet flush while alone in the house. The caller says they and another person watched the house one night from about a block away and saw shadows moving inside. They moved to another house across town. The caller says they have since moved back to Nebraska.
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 2001-1.mp3”, starting at 2:08:58). Is this you, or someone you know? Ask for a correction or removal.
The story as told
The caller, the program's final Wild Card Line caller, says the events happened [quote withheld] while they were living in Pahrump with a girlfriend in a house they describe as a patched single-wide. The caller reports that the girlfriend's four-year-old daughter would repeatedly come and say there was a man in her closet. They would look and find nothing. They say they heard voices standing by the front door, and that voices were heard in the back room. Going outside at night with a flashlight, they report seeing nothing. They say they would phone the girlfriend while out on the road and she would say [quote withheld] then say she had just heard a toilet flush although she was the only one in the house. Asked by the host whether a child might have been over at her mother's, they reply only that [quote withheld] They say they parked about a block from the house one night and watched it, seeing shadows moving back and forth inside while the next-door neighbor's light came through the windows. They say they did not stay long and moved to another house across town. The host tells the caller there are haunted houses in Pahrump, Nevada. The caller says this was the only one they knew of during about six years there, and that they have since moved back to Nebraska after getting off the truck.
Reported events, in order
- 0:03
The caller says the events happened around the summer of 1997.
- 0:09
The caller says they were living in Pahrump at that time, in a house they describe as a patched single-wide, with a girlfriend.
- 0:22
The girlfriend's four-year-old daughter repeatedly said there was a man in her closet; the caller looked and found nothing.
- 0:22
The caller says they heard voices standing by the front door, and that voices were heard in the back room.
- 0:39
Going outside at night with a flashlight, the caller reports seeing nothing.
- 0:50
Phoning from the road, the caller says their girlfriend reported hearing a toilet flush while she was the only one in the house.
- 0:58
The caller says they parked about a block away one night and watched the house.
- 1:09
From there, the caller says, they saw shadows moving back and forth inside, with the next-door neighbor's light in the windows.
- 1:16
The caller says they did not stay there long and moved to another house across town.
- 1:56
The caller says this was the only such place they knew of in about six years there, and that they have since moved back to Nebraska.
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· 0:03
The caller says the events happened about the summer of 1997.
- hearsay· 0:22
The caller reports that their girlfriend's four-year-old daughter repeatedly said a man was in her closet and that nothing was there when they looked.
- observation· 0:22
The caller reports hearing voices by the front door and voices being heard from the back room, with nothing visible outside.
- observation· 0:39
The caller says they went outside at night with a flashlight and saw nothing.
- hearsay· 0:52
The caller reports that their girlfriend, alone in the house, told them by phone she had heard a toilet flush.
- observation· 0:58
The caller says they and another person parked about a block from the house one night and saw shadows moving inside.
- observation· 1:09
The caller reports seeing shadows moving back and forth in the light from the next-door neighbor that was visible in the windows.
- host statement· 1:26
The host asserts, without citing the caller, that there are haunted houses in Pahrump, Nevada, with references on the web.
- interpretation· 1:56
The caller describes the location as a haunting and says it was the only one they knew of in the town during about six years there.
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 clear but brief firsthand story with several particulars that could be checked and no contradictions, but with easy ordinary explanations available and very little detail about how the alleged events were tested. This places it at the lower end of the [quote withheld] level.
Evidence for and against
- Firsthand testimony from someone who says they lived in the house ([quote withheld]).
- Concrete particulars: season and year, town, type of dwelling, the child's age, the block-away observation, and the flush detail.
- The caller describes checking with a flashlight (“don't see nothing”), and the sequence follows a coherent order with no self-contradiction.
- Ordinary causes fit several reports: sound and plumbing noise in a patched single-wide, a four-year-old's report about a dark closet, and silhouettes seen through lit windows at a distance.
- No names, address, or dates beyond a season and year; no documentation or physical trace mentioned.
- The caller answers the host's question about whether a child might have been over at the mother's with a deflection ([quote withheld]) rather than detail.
- The story is compressed at the host's request because the program was ending, so omissions cannot be read as weakness.
- The automatic transcript of the long run-together lines is rough and partly garbled.
- 0:20
- 0:22
- 0:39
- 1:16
What the model inferred (not said on air): The component scores are my judgment of what was said: closeness to the source 21/25 (firsthand resident, though some content arrives through the girlfriend's and child's reports), specificity 12/20, internal consistency 15/20, alternative explanations 4/20, calibration 6/15.
This sits in the [quote withheld] level. Nothing was examined on air and no outside check was performed, so the score is well within the hard cap of 50.
Evidence for and against
- Some specifics that could be checked in principle are given: a season and year ([quote withheld]), a town (Pahrump), and a described type of dwelling.
- Other witnesses are claimed: the girlfriend and her four-year-old daughter.
- No documentation, photograph, recording, or physical trace is claimed.
- The second witnesses are described but neither speaks on air; the host's remarks about haunted houses in Pahrump are general assertions, not backing for this case.
- No name, address, or distinguishing information is given that would allow the reported house to be identified.
- 0:03
- 0:22
What the model inferred (not said on air): The placement is my judgment; nothing in the broadcast verifies anything.
The elements (a child's closet figure, unexplained sounds in a small home, and watching the lit windows of one's own house from down the street) are genuinely unsettling in a way that invades the home. But there is no threat, no escalation into harm, and no vivid sensory horror, which keeps it in the middle range.
Evidence for and against
- A child reports a man in her closet.
- Unexplained voices at the door and in a back room, and a toilet flushing while the girlfriend says she was alone.
- The image of two people parked down the street at night watching shadows move back and forth inside their own home.
- The telling is compact and matter-of-fact, and the story ends with the household simply moving away.
- No claim of harm, threat, physical contact, or malevolence toward anyone.
- The brief, rushed telling limits how much atmosphere comes across.
- 0:52
- 1:09
What the model inferred (not said on air): The score reflects the story's content as a listener experiences it, not any judgment about whether it happened.
A familiar haunted-home frame with a few distinctive concrete details, notably the phone call about the toilet flush and the watching of the house from a block away. This is provisional; the comparison with the rest of the archive is not yet meaningful for a pilot.
Evidence for and against
- Distinctive details: a patched single-wide, a toilet flushing heard by phone by the person alone in the house, and the couple driving a block away to watch their own home.
- The caller's claim that this was the only such place they knew of in roughly six years in the town.
- A haunted rented home with voices and a figure seen by a child is a familiar frame.
- The block-away view of shadows through lit windows echoes the common [quote withheld] image.
- A very short story, which limits how much distinctive material could be described.
- 0:52
- 0:58
What the model inferred (not said on air): The originality score is my estimate from the content; the published score compared with the archive depends on the archive and may differ.
Scoring confidence 0.50 · analysis confidence 0.62 · checked against outside sources: no · evidence available: The caller's firsthand testimony to the host, given briefly because the program was ending; Claimed second witnesses who do not speak on air: the girlfriend (phone report of voices and a toilet flush) and her four-year-old daughter (closet); No photograph, recording, document, or mark is mentioned; nothing was examined on air. The originality score blends the model's score (40) 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.
- Sound carrying through thin walls, and plumbing noise, in a manufactured home. · The caller describes the dwelling as a [quote withheld] and reports sounds at the door, in the back room, and in the bathroom, plus a toilet flush. In a manufactured home with thin shared walls and plumbing that can knock or run, household and plumbing noise is a plausible source for some of the reported sounds.
- A young child's misreading of a dark closet or ordinary shapes in the bedroom. · The [quote withheld] report comes from a child the caller gives as four years old, an age when children often read closet and bedroom shapes through imagination or in the dark. The caller says they looked and found nothing.
- Silhouettes at a distance produced by ordinary movement or shifting light sources seen through lit windows. · The shadows were seen from about a block away at night, through windows lit by the next-door neighbor's light. Silhouettes seen through lit windows from that distance can be produced by ordinary movement inside, by passersby, or by moving light sources and shadows.
What stands out
The story turns on small domestic details rather than a dramatic appearance: a four-year-old's report of a man in her closet, voices heard at the door and in a back room, and, most distinctively, a telephone report that a toilet flushed while the girlfriend believed she was alone in the house.
Related stories
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