Yellow eyes and an unseen figure at the top of the stairs on a 13th birthday
A caller who gives their first name as [name withheld], calling from Port St. Lucie, Florida, tells Art Bell about “strange things” in the house where the caller and their sister grew up. They end with an encounter on their 13th birthday, when they say they struck something unseen at the top of the stairs and saw yellow eyes. The host asks whether they brought it on themselves, and the caller agrees, saying [quote withheld]
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 2003.mp3”, starting at 2:25:11). Is this you, or someone you know? Ask for a correction or removal.
The story as told
The caller, who gives their first name as [name withheld] and says they are calling from Port St. Lucie, Florida, tells Art Bell that as children the caller and their sister lived in a house where [quote withheld] The caller says their sister was afraid to go inside and would greet the house from the porch. The caller also says that while the family watched television, a small picture on a nightstand flipped into the air and landed standing upright. On their 13th birthday, with their mother preparing a party, they say they went to shower. Their bedroom and their sister’s were on the top floor, and they say nobody else was upstairs. As they reached for the hallway light, they say, it went out. They ran to the kitchen for a flashlight, knocked a towel off by a window, and got the flashlight down from above the counter. The caller ran up the steps and reached toward their bedroom light. They say their arm struck something solid and stopped mid-stride. The caller looked up and saw yellow eyes, [quote withheld] The caller says they screamed and jumped down the whole flight of stairs and across the living room. Their mother came running upstairs with a butcher knife from the kitchen. The caller then says they read the Bible and admired the man who fought Satan in a graveyard and knocked him over a gravestone, and that they had wanted to do the same. The host asks whether they brought it on themselves. The caller agrees and adds that [quote withheld] The host thanks the caller and moves to the next caller.
Reported events, in order
- 0:57
The caller says strange things happened in the family house when the caller and their sister were children.
- 1:03
They say their sister was afraid to go inside and would “pet the porch” first. This is the caller’s description of her behavior, not her own account on air.
- 1:15
They say a small picture on a nightstand flipped into the air while the family watched TV and landed upright.
- 1:37
On their 13th birthday, their mother was preparing a party and they went to shower. Their bedroom and their sister’s were on the top floor, and they say nobody was upstairs.
- 1:54
The hallway light went out as they reached to turn it on.
- 2:01
They ran to the kitchen for a flashlight, knocked a towel off by a window, and got the flashlight down from over the counter.
- 2:24
Running up the steps, they reached in a wide sweep for their bedroom light and struck something solid. Their arm stopped mid-stride.
- 2:58
They say they looked up and saw what they could only describe as yellow eyes and “terror.”
- 3:18
They say they screamed and jumped down the whole flight of stairs and across the living room floor.
- 3:39
They say their mother ran upstairs with a butcher knife from the kitchen.
- 3:50
They say they read the Bible and admired the man who fought Satan in a graveyard and knocked him over a gravestone, and that they had wanted to do the same.
- 4:16
The host asks whether they brought it on themselves, and the caller agrees. Both put it down to intent and wish, not a board. The caller ends with the line [quote withheld]
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· 0:57
The caller says strange things happened in the family house while the caller and their sister were children.
- hearsay· 1:03
The caller reports that their sister was frightened to enter the house and would greet it on the porch.
- observation· 1:26
The caller says a small picture on a nightstand flipped up into the air while they watched television and landed standing upright.
- observation· 1:59
The caller says the hallway light went out as they reached to switch it on.
- observation· 2:51
The caller says their swing at the bedroom light struck something unseen that stopped their arm mid-stride.
- observation· 3:08
The caller says that when they looked up they saw yellow eyes and “terror,” but they give no further description of a body.
- interpretation· 3:08
The caller believes what they saw was a demon.
- observation· 3:41
The caller says their mother ran upstairs with a butcher knife from the kitchen.
- interpretation· 4:07
The caller says they had [quote withheld] do what the biblical figure who fought Satan in a graveyard did, and they agree with the host that this was connected to the event.
- host statement· 4:25
The host says that intent and wish, not a Ouija board, invited the experience.
- interpretation· 4:34
The caller agrees and says the mind is a gateway.
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.
Judgment from the transcript, by part. Closeness to events: 21 (firsthand, but a brief childhood memory). Specific detail: 12 (the birthday and the order of events are given, but not the date or decade). Consistency: 15 (a coherent order, though several speaker labels seem misplaced). Other explanations: 6 (a light failure, darkness, and a recent viewing of Jaws fit easily). Calibration: 7 (they admit the limits of their description but jump to [quote withheld]). The total is 61, adjusted down to 55 because the era is not stated and household details are unresolved.
Evidence for and against
- Firsthand telling of a sequence they say they lived: the light failing, getting the flashlight, hitting something, the eyes, and the flight downstairs ([quote withheld]).
- Concrete details: a 13th birthday, a party being prepared, bedrooms on the top floor, and a flashlight above the kitchen counter.
- They limit their own description instead of embellishing the figure: [quote withheld]
- The event is a memory from years ago, with no date or decade given (“My 13th birthday”).
- An ordinary explanation fits easily. The light fails first ([quote withheld]), the hallway is dark, and the caller says they had [quote withheld]
- Nobody backs up the story. The sister and mother are mentioned, but neither speaks or is said to have seen the figure.
- No decade or calendar date for the events is given.
- Several lines carry speaker labels that seem swapped between the host and the caller.
- Some passages show signs of smoothing in the automatic transcript.
- 2:04
- 2:58
- 3:25
What the model inferred (not said on air): The split by part and the downward adjustment are my own editorial judgment. The details cited come from the transcript. I have deliberately not used the caller’s tone or the host’s enthusiasm.
This is the caller’s word, with a few identifying details that no one checks on air. No physical evidence is claimed and no other witness is heard, so it falls in the low band just above the lowest one (the caller’s word only).
Evidence for and against
- The caller gives a first name (“[name withheld]”), a location ([quote withheld]), and a call sign. These could be checked in principle but were not.
- The story includes an identifiable occasion (their 13th birthday).
- No photograph, recording, document, mark, or other object is claimed or examined.
- No second witness speaks. The sister and mother are described secondhand.
- The host offers no independent information about the house or the family.
- It is not stated whose call sign KG4YQK is, though context suggests the caller’s.
- 0:15
- 0:31
What the model inferred (not said on air): The band follows the scoring guide. The identifying details listed come from the transcript but were not examined or checked.
A dark-staircase encounter with glowing eyes and an unseen solid presence, experienced by a 13-year-old, is truly unsettling but brief and quickly escaped. It sits near the middle of the scale rather than at the frightening end, because nothing continues and no harm is reported.
Evidence for and against
- A child alone in a dark upstairs hallway hits something unseen ([quote withheld]).
- Only the eyes are seen, and “terror” is the only description they have.
- The mother’s response, running up with a butcher knife, shows a household in alarm.
- The story opens with wry household detail ([quote withheld]) and a comic picture-flip.
- No injury, follow-up, or return of the figure is reported. The encounter is a single event.
- The figure is never described beyond the eyes, so the full image a listener forms is inferred.
- 2:51
- 3:08
What the model inferred (not said on air): The rating is a judgment about how the story plays to a listener, not about whether it is true.
Provisional automatic score of 45. The frame is familiar (a child, a staircase, the dark, glowing eyes), with two somewhat distinctive details: touching an unseen thing before seeing it, and blaming their own intent. The published originality score is computed against the archive and is labeled provisional while the archive is small.
Evidence for and against
- The unseen presence is first noticed by a physical collision, when their arm stops mid-swing, before anything is seen.
- The caller blames the event on their own wish and intent, not on a place or object, and closes with [quote withheld]
- A child frightened in a dark hallway and glowing eyes are long-standing ghost-story elements.
- The escalating events in the house (a moving object, a failing light) are familiar patterns.
- Novelty compared with the rest of the archive cannot be judged from a single transcript.
- 2:51
- 4:34
What the model inferred (not said on air): This is a judgment against the list of story motifs. No comparison with the rest of the archive was computed here.
Scoring confidence 0.60 · analysis confidence 0.72 · checked against outside sources: no · evidence available: The caller’s firsthand spoken story (a childhood memory, told decades later); No physical evidence, recording, photograph, or document is claimed or examined; No second witness speaks on air. A sister’s fear and a mother’s reaction are described but not voiced by them. The originality score blends the model's score (45) 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 startled child in a dark hallway, who had recently seen a frightening film, could misperceive a shape and reflexively hit a doorframe, bannister, or other fixed object. · The caller says they had [quote withheld] and were a 13-year-old alone in a dark upstairs hallway after the light failed.
- A bulb or circuit failure would remove the light, making any figure or object in the hallway impossible to identify in the dark. · The hallway light is reported to have gone out right before the encounter ([quote withheld]).
- Vibration, a draft, an unsteady surface, or another person in the room could account for a small object being moved. · The picture reportedly flipped up off a nightstand and landed upright while the family watched television.
What stands out
The presence is felt before it is seen. The caller says their outstretched arm struck something solid at the top of the stairs. They see the whole episode as something they invited through intent and wish, not through any object or place.
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