Caller reports fingers closing on their wrists and ankles after mocking a friend
A caller from Mississauga, Ontario, tells Art Bell that they mocked a female friend’s story of being attacked by “this thing.” About a week later, the caller says, the same thing came to them while they slept. The caller reports fingers curling one at a time around their wrists and then their ankles, and says they bolted upright to find nothing there. They also say their boyfriend later told them the thing came to him in a dream. The call ends abruptly as the host wraps it up.
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 2004.mp3”, starting at 1:25:56). Is this you, or someone you know? Ask for a correction or removal.
The story as told
A caller who says they are in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada (and who first jokes that they may have dialed the wrong number) tells Art Bell they [quote withheld] The caller reports that one night, over drinks, a female friend said she needed to talk about something and told the caller, in the caller’s words, [quote withheld] The caller says they did not take it seriously and told the friend she should see a psychiatrist. About a week later, the caller says, the same thing came to them. The caller says it was almost as if it came because they had mocked it. Art asks whether it was a sexual assault, and the caller answers, [quote withheld] The caller says they were asleep on their stomach and their mother was at home. The caller felt fingers curl around one wrist, one finger at a time, and thought their mother had come into their room and was grabbing their arm. The caller says the fingers then went around their other arm and then around their ankles, and they knew there was more than one person in the room. The caller bolted upright, and [quote withheld] The caller says they did not tell the friend but did tell their boyfriend. He told them he confronted it in a dream. It came to him in a dream, he was not scared, and it [quote withheld] The caller’s story trails off in the middle of a sentence ([quote withheld]). Art concludes, [quote withheld]
Reported events, in order
- 0:28
The caller says a female friend told them over drinks that she is attacked by “this thing.”
- 0:32
The caller says they dismissed the friend’s story and suggested she see a psychiatrist.
- 0:42
About a week later, the caller says, the thing came to them.
- 1:06
The caller reports feeling fingers curl around one wrist, one finger at a time, and thinking it was their mother.
- 1:29
The caller reports the fingers going around the other arm and then around their ankles, and knowing more than one person was in the room.
- 1:43
The caller says they bolted upright and there was nothing there.
- 1:54
The caller says they told their boyfriend, who told them it came to him in a dream and [quote withheld]
- 2:13
The call ends. The host remarks that it is not good to mock such things.
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· 1:06
Fingers curled around the caller’s wrist one at a time as they lay sleeping on their stomach.
- observation· 1:29
The fingers then went around the caller’s other arm and then their ankles, which they took to mean more than one person was in the room.
- observation· 1:44
When the caller sat up, nothing was visible in the room.
- interpretation· 0:50
The thing came to the caller because they had mocked it, or to show that it exists.
- interpretation· 1:06
The caller thinks the experience could have been a sexual assault.
- hearsay· 0:28
The caller’s female friend said she is attacked by “this thing.”
- hearsay· 1:54
The caller’s boyfriend told them the thing confronted him in a dream and terrified him, after he was not scared.
- hearsay· 2:08
The caller’s boyfriend said it reduced him to a five-year-old self and then terrified him.
- host statement· 2:13
The host says it is unwise to mock such things.
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 firsthand story with a concrete sequence of sensations and no contradictions, but very brief. An easy sleep-related explanation fits the circumstances the caller reports, and no one backs up the story.
Evidence for and against
- Firsthand: the caller describes their own sensations ([quote withheld]).
- Detail in order: wrist, other arm, ankles, then sitting up.
- The caller answers the host’s questions directly.
- The caller gives a location (Mississauga, Ontario, Canada).
- The setting and waking state make a sleep-related explanation fit easily.
- No figure or object was seen (“was nothing”), leaving nothing to check.
- No date, time, or other identifying specifics are given.
- Part of the story is relayed from others (a friend and a boyfriend).
- Speaker labels are smoothed or uncertain at several lines.
- The story ends in the middle of a sentence when the host wraps up.
- 1:06
- 1:29
- 1:44
What the model inferred (not said on air): Judgment by part: closeness to events (firsthand, brief) about 21; specific detail (a sequence of sensations but nothing checkable about when or where) about 10; consistency about 15; other explanations (a sleep or waking state fits well) about 5; calibration of claims (the caller separates out [quote withheld]) about 7.
The story rests on the caller’s word, with no documentation. The only supporting element is a claimed additional witness (the boyfriend) who does not speak on air.
Evidence for and against
- The caller’s own firsthand account of the sensations.
- The caller says another person reported an experience ([quote withheld]).
- No photograph, recording, document, or physical trace is claimed or examined.
- The claimed secondhand experiences are not independently confirmed on air.
- Nothing in the story can be checked, even in principle (no date, address, or named institution).
- Whether the friend or boyfriend ever spoke on air is not shown in this excerpt.
- 1:54
- 1:45
What the model inferred (not said on air): Band 11 to 25 because only claimed other witnesses are present. No physical evidence is claimed and no outside check was performed, so the score stays near the bottom of that band.
The story puts something unseen in the bedroom and has it touch a sleeping person, escalating limb by limb, with an implied sexual assault. It ends unresolved, with a second person said to have been terrorized in a dream.
Evidence for and against
- Contact while asleep in bed: fingers around wrists and ankles.
- An implied sexual assault (the friend’s claim of being “raped,” and the caller’s [quote withheld]).
- Escalation: one wrist, the other arm, both ankles, and more than one presence.
- A second person said to have been “terrified” in a dream.
- No resolution: [quote withheld]
- Nothing is seen, described, or named. The story is short and ends in a wrap-up.
- The host’s closing tone is light ([quote withheld]).
- The caller’s story is cut off before any fuller description of the aftermath.
- 0:28
- 2:08
What the model inferred (not said on air): Placed above the “genuinely unsettling” anchor because of the implied sexual element and the intrusion into sleep, but below the frightening band because nothing is seen or described in graphic detail.
A bedroom encounter with an unseen toucher is a familiar frame. It is made somewhat distinctive by the finger-by-finger closing on each limb and by the “mocking” trigger.
Evidence for and against
- An unusual detail: fingers closing one at a time around a wrist.
- An unusual frame: the experience is presented as a result of mocking the being.
- An unseen presence touching a person in bed is a recurring ghost-story pattern.
- A dream confrontation with the same being is a common motif.
- Novelty compared with the rest of the archive cannot be judged from a single transcript.
- 1:06
- 0:50
What the model inferred (not said on air): A provisional automatic score only. The published originality score would be blended with how new the story is compared with the rest of the archive, which is not available here.
Scoring confidence 0.55 · analysis confidence 0.60 · checked against outside sources: no · evidence available: The caller’s firsthand story (a spoken call); Claimed secondhand stories from a friend and a boyfriend, relayed by the caller, neither speaking on air; No documents, photographs, recordings, or physical traces claimed. The originality score blends the model's score (55) 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 sleep-related hallucination while waking up could produce the sensation of being touched, with no figure seen on sitting up. · The caller says they were asleep on their stomach and “coming to” as the sensations occurred, and reports nothing was in the room when they sat up.
- Having heard the friend’s story about a week earlier could have primed the experience. · The caller places their own experience [quote withheld] after the conversation in which the friend described being attacked by the thing.
- The boyfriend’s reported dream could reflect his having been told the caller’s story before he dreamed. · The caller says they “didn’t say anything” to the friend but [quote withheld] who then reported the dream.
What stands out
The distinctive part is the sequence of touch. The caller describes fingers closing around each limb one finger at a time, which is more specific than the usual report of a presence in the bedroom. The call also folds in two other people’s claimed experiences, a friend’s and a boyfriend’s, within one short call.
Related stories
Matched by shared recurring details, categories, and wording.