Police officers report a child's laughter from the woods of a private estate
A caller who gives their first name as [name withheld], a police officer in northeastern Ohio, describes hearing a small child laughing from the woods of a private estate. [name withheld] was on a midnight-shift call about four years before the broadcast. [name withheld] and a fellow officer, [name withheld], both say they heard it. They found nothing when they searched with flashlights. About four months before the broadcast, the caller says, a caretaker at the same estate told [name withheld] that two children of an earlier owning family had drowned in the estate pond and that laughter had been heard from those woods ever since. The call ends with [name withheld] saying they made no mistake about what they heard, followed by the host's own thoughts on the story.
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 2005.mp3”, starting at 2:24). Is this you, or someone you know? Ask for a correction or removal.
The story as told
[name withheld], who says they are in northeastern Ohio and have been a police officer about ten and a half years, tells of an incident about four years earlier. [name withheld] was working the midnight shift with a fellow officer named [name withheld]. Around 12:30 to 12:45 a.m., they were sent to one of two large estates on the south end of the city. The estates face each other across a street and include a large wooded area. The report was of possible deer hunters on the property. Because armed people might be involved, the officers did not enter the woods. Standing at the wood line listening for voices or movement, [name withheld] says they heard, clearly and unmistakably, the sound of a small child laughing, apparently a few feet inside the tree line. [name withheld] switched on a flashlight, could see perhaps 15 to 20 feet in, saw nothing, and heard no movement or rustling leaves. [name withheld] turned a light on at the same time. Asked whether they had heard it, [name withheld] said it sounded like a little kid laughing. The two looked around, waited about ten more minutes, and left. The incident came up jokingly a few times over the years. About four months before the broadcast, [name withheld] and another officer, [name withheld], returned to the same estate for a house alarm. The caretaker said a cut power line had set it off. Near the woods, [name withheld] said the woods gave them the creeps. The caretaker chuckled and asked whether they had heard the kids laughing from the woods. According to the caretaker, the same family had owned the property for generations. Two small children of an early owning generation had played in the woods and both drowned in the pond there. Family members, maintenance people, caretakers, and visitors had reported the laughter since. Asked by the host whether they thought a ghost and a child were involved, [name withheld] said only that they made no mistake about what they heard and that [name withheld] reported the same.
Reported events, in order
- 0:08
The caller gives their first name as [name withheld] and says they are in northeastern Ohio and are working.
- 0:23
The caller says they are a police officer and that something happened while they were on duty.
- 0:36
[name withheld] says they have been a police officer about ten and a half years. [name withheld] describes two large estates across the street from one another on the south end of the city where they work.
- 0:52
About four years earlier [name withheld] and fellow officer [name withheld] were on the midnight shift. They were called to one of the estates around 12:30 to 12:45 a.m. over a report of possible deer hunters in its wooded area.
- 1:22
Because of the possibility of armed people, they did not enter the woods. They stood on the wood line listening for voices or movement.
- 1:39
[name withheld] says they clearly heard the sound of a small child laughing, apparently from a few feet inside the tree line.
- 1:50
[name withheld] switched on a flashlight, could see perhaps 15 to 20 feet into the woods, and saw nothing. [name withheld] heard no movement and no rustling leaves.
- 2:12
[name withheld] turned a flashlight on at the same time. Asked whether they had heard it, [name withheld] said it sounded like a little kid laughing.
- 2:26
They looked around and stayed about ten more minutes. Nothing came of the call, and they left. Over the years they referred to it jokingly a few times.
- 2:42
About four months before the broadcast, [name withheld] and another officer, [name withheld], were called back to the same estate for an alarm at the main house.
- 2:52
They were met by the caretaker, who explained the power line to the house had been cut, setting off the alarm.
- 3:03
Standing outside near the woods, [name withheld] seemed uneasy and said the woods gave them the creeps. The caretaker chuckled and asked whether they had heard the kids laughing from the woods, and [name withheld] said they had.
- 3:27
The caretaker is said to have explained that the same family had owned the property for generations. Two small children of an early owning generation played in the woods and both drowned in the pond there.
- 3:51
According to the caretaker, family, maintenance people, caretakers, and visitors had all reported hearing the children laughing from the woods ever since.
- 4:37
Asked by the host whether they thought a ghost and a child were involved, the caller said only that they made no mistake about what they heard and that [name withheld] reported the same thing.
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· 1:39
The caller says they heard the clear sound of a small child laughing from a few feet inside the wood line.
- observation· 1:50
The caller says they turned a flashlight on, could see 15 to 20 feet into the woods, and saw nothing.
- observation· 2:06
The caller says they heard no movement or leaves rustling.
- hearsay· 2:18
The caller reports that the second officer, [name withheld], also heard the laughter and identified it as a child's.
- hearsay· 3:13
The caller reports [name withheld] saying the woods gave them the creeps when the two returned to the estate.
- hearsay· 3:14
The caller reports that the caretaker asked [name withheld], unprompted, whether they had heard the children laughing from the woods.
- hearsay· 3:37
The caretaker is said to have explained that two small children of an early owning family played in the woods and both drowned in the estate pond.
- hearsay· 3:51
The caretaker is said to have reported that family, maintenance people, caretakers, and visitors had all heard the children laughing since then.
- observation· 4:37
The caller states they were certain about what they had heard.
- host statement· 4:42
The host asserts he finds the idea of a child remaining on earth horrifying, and links it to EVP recordings of children.
- host statement· 5:01
The host offers the alternative that what is heard is only an echo of a life whose soul has moved on.
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, ordered firsthand story from a police officer, with a second officer on duty. But it is limited to one brief sound, with no sighting, no physical trace, and a vague location. Common ordinary sources of a brief sound in dark woods were not ruled out, and the explanatory legend is secondhand.
Evidence for and against
- Firsthand story from the person who heard the sound, given as a police officer on duty at the time.
- A concrete sequence: midnight shift, call about possible deer hunters, arrival, listening at the wood line, flashlight search.
- A claimed second witness ([name withheld]) who, the caller says, independently identified the same sound as a child's laughter.
- The caller describes what they did not find consistently (no movement, no rustling leaves), the sort of detail that makes a story checkable in principle.
- The caller does not stretch the story: they report a sound, not a visible figure, and do not say they saw anything.
- The event is a single, brief sound with no sighting and no physical trace.
- The location is vague (“northeastern Ohio,” [quote withheld]); no estate, town, department, or date is given.
- The explanatory story (drowned children, decades of reports) comes from an unnamed caretaker and is secondhand, so it cannot support the caller's own claim.
- Ordinary sources of a child's laughter in a wooded area at night (a real person, an animal call) are not ruled out, and the officers never entered the woods.
- The labels showing who is speaking in the automatic transcript are unreliable here: several lines containing the caller's speech are labeled as the host.
- The second witness is claimed but never speaks on air.
- No absolute date, town, estate, or department is named, so nothing in the story can be checked outside the broadcast.
- 1:39
- 2:06
- 2:18
- 3:37
What the model inferred (not said on air): I weighted source proximity and consistency high, and alternative explanations and calibration in the middle. I did not adjust for the caller's occupation beyond its relevance to source proximity. That a police officer is telling the story is treated only as a stated circumstance, not as evidence of accuracy.
The story rests entirely on the caller's word, a claimed but silent second witness, and a hearsay story from the caretaker. There is no evidence of any kind to examine. This places it in the [quote withheld] range.
Evidence for and against
- Weak details that could be checked are offered: first names ([name withheld], [name withheld], [name withheld]), a region (“northeastern Ohio”), a shift (midnight), and rough times (12:30 to 12:45 a.m.; [quote withheld]; [quote withheld]).
- A second witness is claimed to have heard the same thing.
- No photograph, recording, document, mark, or other artifact is claimed or examined.
- The second witness is only asserted by the caller and never speaks on air.
- No names of departments, towns, or estates are given, so the story offers almost nothing that can be checked independently.
- Whether the caretaker actually said what the caller reports cannot be judged from the transcript.
- 0:16
- 4:42
What the model inferred (not said on air): No outside check was performed and none is recorded in the request, so the score is held inside the 11 to 25 range rather than higher.
A child's laugh in dark woods, after the drowning of two children, is genuinely unsettling. But there is no threat, contact, or escalation, and the story ends quietly.
Evidence for and against
- A child's laughter in dark woods during a late-night police call, with a flashlight revealing nothing.
- Two small children are said to have drowned in the pond in those woods.
- The caretaker's unprompted question to [name withheld] suggests the laughter is expected there.
- The host's own comments frame the story as horrifying.
- No threat, harm, physical contact, or escalation is reported.
- The caller and [name withheld] referred to the incident jokingly afterward.
- The encounter is only a laugh heard once, with no follow-up to the caller and an unresolved but quiet ending.
- The drowned-children element is not part of the caller's own experience; it comes only from the caretaker's story.
- 1:50
- 3:14
What the model inferred (not said on air): I placed it slightly below the “genuinely unsettling” level because the story is short, involves only sound, and was treated casually by the officers afterward.
A familiar haunted-woods-with-drowned-children frame. But the police dispatch, the wood-line search with flashlights, and the caretaker's knowing question give it some distinctive character. The score is provisional, since the comparison with the rest of the archive carries little weight with few stories.
Evidence for and against
- The frame is a police radio call for possible armed deer hunters, which is not the usual setting for a haunted-woods story.
- A caretaker asks a police officer, unprompted, whether they have heard [quote withheld] That is a distinctive scene.
- The incident begins as a report of a possible intruder with a firearm rather than as a deliberately sought strange experience.
- The core elements (a ghost child's laughter, a drowning legend, a haunted estate) are familiar ghost-story material.
- Originality is provisional until it is compared with the rest of the archive.
- 1:12
- 3:14
What the model inferred (not said on air): Judged as [quote withheld] on the content alone. The published score will be blended with novelty compared with the rest of the archive, computed automatically.
Scoring confidence 0.68 · analysis confidence 0.72 · checked against outside sources: no · evidence available: The caller's firsthand story (heard only, no sighting); A second witness ([name withheld]) is claimed by the caller but does not speak on air; A third party's story (the caretaker's family legend) reported secondhand; No photograph, recording, document, mark, or other physical evidence claimed or examined. 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 living person, a child or an adult, was present in the woods and laughed unseen. The officers never entered the wooded area to check. · The caller says the officers stayed outside the woods because they were unsure what was there, and that they could only see about 15 to 20 feet into the tree line.
- An animal call from the woods was heard as, or resembled, a child's laughter. · The sound came from inside a large wooded area at night, and the caller says they saw no figure and heard no movement afterward.
- A brief, unclear sound in a dark rural setting with limited visibility was heard as laughter. · The call was sent out for possible deer hunters, and the officers were standing still and listening at a dark tree line.
What stands out
The witnesses are police officers on an active radio call for possible armed hunters, so the strange event comes during an ordinary law-enforcement task rather than a deliberately sought encounter. The caretaker's unprompted question, [quote withheld], is the detail that connects the two events.
Related stories
Matched by shared recurring details, categories, and wording.