Footsteps, knocks, and bangs
Walking, knocking, rapping, or crashes.
Knocking doors and a bony-handed presence in a relative’s house near Sparta
[name withheld], calling from New York, New York, tells Art Bell about a night in the mid-1980s at their uncle’s and grandmother’s house in southern Greece, near Sparta. They report knocking and violently shaking doors. They then woke to what they call an entity on their back and bony hands holding them face-down. It ended when they screamed and pushed up. A cousin later implied he had a similar experience.
Childhood events in an Oregon City rental house: a hand in the bath and a laugh
A caller who gives their name as [name withheld] tells Art Bell about events in an old rented house in Oregon City, Oregon, where their family lived from about the time the caller was six until they were eleven. They describe lights switching on and off, strange sounds, chairs sliding, footsteps, and a feeling of being watched in the basement. Their parents dismissed all of it. The climax they describe is in the bathroom at about age eleven. They say they felt a hand stroking their neck and then felt snakes falling from the ceiling onto them, followed by a cackling laugh they call the most evil they have ever heard. They say they spoke to a priest about it. Art Bell ends the call because the show was short on time.
Woman in black, locked doors, and a priest's blessing in a Dodge City rental
A caller who gives their name as [name withheld], from Sumner, Washington, describes a house their family moved into in Dodge City, Kansas, about fifteen years earlier. The caller reports flooding, a woman in a black dress seen by their daughter, doors that shut and locked family members in, whispering, a fetal-position stain on the carpet, and footsteps on the stairs. After researching records, the caller and their sister concluded that an elderly former resident was earthbound. A priest blessed the house and fell ill. The caller says they later blessed it themselves and believes the woman went to the light.
Boulders thrown around a camper on the Queets River
Caller [name withheld], from Graham, Washington, describes four men playing poker in a camper beside the Queets River. Around 1:30 a.m., rocks began landing around the vehicle for about three hours, along with grunts that he and Art Bell compared with a recorded “Sasquatch” sound. In the morning, [name withheld] says, large boulders lay in a circle around the camper, and it took two trucks to move them. He dates the event to 1975, says he has never returned to the spot, and offers no cause beyond “something awfully big.”
Six nights in an abandoned rural house: Odors, Ouija board, and footsteps
A caller who says they are a county fraud investigator tells Art Bell they spent six nights with their girlfriend and her daughter in an unoccupied house about 25 miles up a dirt road in Northern California. Local people had told them it was haunted. They report a rotting-flesh smell, cold spots, a chair that flew back and injured the girlfriend’s knee, a door handle turning, footsteps and a slammed door upstairs, a child’s “help me” captured on a tape recorder, and orbs in several hundred photographs. The call ends with the host asking for the caller’s e-mail and website link.
Rented split-entry house: orbs, mist, whispers and a white figure on the stairs
[name withheld], a caller from New Hampshire, tells Art Bell about strange events the caller says began on the first night their family moved into a rented split-entry house about twenty-three years earlier, when they were sixteen. The caller reports a dream of an old man with hollowed-out eyes, then waking to balls of light zigzagging through their room. Later came a mist and cold in the hallway, whispering and footsteps at night, a face staring over their shoulder at the computer, and a white figure with bulging eyes on the stairs. The caller says their brother [name withheld] reported the same experiences. The host ends this part of the broadcast by telling the caller they are haunted.
Footsteps, a shadow at noon, and a voice saying “your brother” in an Alameda house
A caller from Alameda, California, tells Art Bell that she and her five children were hearing slamming doors, footsteps, and other disturbances in a large old house. She says each of them had kept it from the others. She reports a shadow that appeared in daylight, an unsuccessful first appeal to a priest, and a house blessing. Finally, she says, a voice said “your brother.” She then learned her brother had died about two months earlier.
Dream-guided trip, two figures in black, and a black net in a valley
A caller who gives their name as [name withheld] describes a series of vivid dreams or waking dreams over seven to nine months, at some point about fourteen years before the broadcast. In them a voice told them of a place near Papua New Guinea. The caller says they traveled there, encountered a man and a woman dressed in black at an airport, and was then engulfed by a black net in a valley at night before calling on spirits and escaping. The caller says they later came home by way of the Philippines on Halloween and concluded that a spirit watches over them.
A 10- to 12-foot shadow with red eyes on a marsh shortcut in Freeport, New York
A caller identifying themself as [name withheld] from North Bend, Oregon, tells Art Bell about a night roughly 25 years earlier. At 17, they took a shortcut through a marshy area behind an old railroad station in Freeport, New York, on Long Island. They say they heard what sounded like dog tags clinking and then two-footed footsteps coming toward them from out of sight, and decided to run. As they reached a hill, a 10- to 12-foot dark outline with red beady eyes stepped up from the bank in front of them. They report freezing, then fleeing about two miles home. They say they never told their parents and have told only one person since. They describe the encounter as possibly a “bridge” to something else rather than naming it.
Sounds, a voice, and a horned face in a school dormitory room at night
[name withheld], calling from Brighton, Colorado, says that as a 16- or 17-year-old student at a School for the Visually Impaired in Louisiana, they heard kicking and scratching outside their dormitory window. Then they heard a voice telling them to sleep. Then they woke to their bed shaking and an orange-red, horned face at their closet door. They say they felt frozen, prayed, and were carried out of the room, their feet not touching the floor, to their best friend’s room, where they stayed the rest of the night. Asked for their present view, they say they never figured out what it was. They agreed with the host’s suggestion that they may have a guardian angel.
Tall shadow figure in woods linked by caller to neighbors’ candles
[name withheld], calling from Atlanta, Georgia, tells Art Bell a story they say began years earlier at their own house. It involves their wife and the neighbors of her ex-husband, who they say were practicing an occult tradition. The caller reports orbs and nighttime footsteps on the nights the neighbors’ candles were lit. Then came a bang on the roof and a large shadowy figure in the woods across the street. The caller and their wife finally watched it run into the light and seem to vanish, while its footsteps stayed audible. The story ends with the caller praying over the property and the activity stopping. Art comments that people who dabble in such things live to regret it.
Dark cloud and disturbances at a remote lakeside recording studio in Oklahoma
Art Bell reads a letter on air from a fellow ham named [name withheld], who says they built and ran a recording studio for a well-known rock star in eastern Oklahoma. [name withheld] describes a malevolent dark cloud that appeared in their room one night. [name withheld] also describes later disturbances that drove the first guests away from the finished studio. The letter ends with the “spirit” said to make life hell for anyone it disliked.
98 more stories
- Reported poltergeist activity at the Provincetown Inn, Cape Cod4 min
- Recurring footsteps on a deck and a hammer thrown in a workshop1 min
- Metallic sounds, a figure by the partition, and a moving bed in a Taiwan apartment2 min
- Caller relates Yeats's poem “The Ghost of Roger Casement” and Irish neutrality1 min
- Chains, a plea for peace, and grave markers in a Logan County field2 min
- Disturbances in a rented upstairs apartment above an old store5 min
- Childhood home in Granite City, Illinois, with flying plates and slamming doors4 min
- A girl's laughter and a slamming door in a rented trailer in Cookville, Tennessee2 min
- House spirit, a child's great-grandfather, and keys turning in the lock3 min
- Widow reports late husband massaging her feet and putting her to sleep1 min
- Letter about footsteps and knocking after a grandmother's funeral2 min
- Unseen running and a fall heard in an Illinois apartment hallway2 min
- A reported ghost dog in an old Bothell, Washington, apartment1 min
- Footsteps on the roof while the caller's husband was at his shop3 min
- Disorientation, a dry river crossing, and a chair-shaped rock in the Wind River Range4 min
- Rented Ohio mining-town house: footsteps, greyhounds, and a man at the door3 min
- Unexplained knocking on a signal-shack hatch aboard a Navy oiler4 min
- Caller relays aunt’s story of a goat-like figure and hoof prints in an Ohio cellar4 min
- Letter about Scrabble tiles rearranged overnight and a stereo changing channels2 min
- Lights, ringing phones, and footsteps at a southern Idaho radio station3 min
- Footsteps and a felt presence on a gravel path at Custer Battlefield3 min
- Loud crash on the host’s radio room door during a broadcast break4 min
- Cold spots, footsteps, and a bang in an attic at a friend’s house in Oswego2 min
- Loud bang on the host's studio door during a broadcast1 min
- Phantom hoofbeats on a gravel driveway at 10 p.m.1 min
- Footsteps from the basement, a shotgun and knives moved in a childhood home4 min
- Letter: Discarded stuffed Ewok and scratching sounds from a bedroom closet1 min
- Fax: Root beer carried down stairs by itself at a 40-day memorial gathering1 min
- Host reports loud pounding on his studio door during a broadcast3 min
- A woman’s head and shoulders emerging from an attic closet in an old converted home3 min
- Vancouver house with reported voodoo history and a priest who would not enter6 min
- Moved tables and wheelchairs in an American Legion hall in Bremerton3 min
- Usher figure falls from the balcony of the Capitol Theater, Flint4 min
- Host rejects bedside-ghost stories and recalls a loud bang on his door1 min
- Missing items and a refilled coffee cup in a former funeral home in Providence3 min
- Late mother-in-law appears in her former bedroom; a footprint in the carpet8 min
- Rummaging sounds and a hair pull in USS Enterprise switchgear rooms6 min
- Knocking, pulled covers, and a figure in 1920s dress on a hotel's fifth floor3 min
- Flying boxes, voices behind a bolted hatch, and a spinning compass at sea6 min
- Natchez burial lore and reported noises in a New Orleans East subdivision3 min
- House lights, pounding, and a whispered encouragement in a junior high theater5 min
- 1840 Underground Railroad house: a ball slides to a child and a door latch moves5 min
- A figure in period flying gear in the cockpit of a parked F-4 at an Air Force hangar3 min
- Shadowy figure at the door of a Nebraska church parsonage bedroom3 min
- Police officer recalls a dog-headed figure entering their childhood bedroom3 min
- Footsteps on the stairs and a cold, angry presence in a Colorado Springs house2 min
- Windows, doors, lights, and pounding in a previous house15 s
- Host recalls a loud boom on his studio door with nothing outside2 min
- Child’s night visitor “[name withheld]” matched to a gravestone and a photograph5 min
- Drumming heard for weeks in an old Kansas house said to stand on a burial ground2 min
- Attic noises and a presence in a family’s Victorian house4 min
- Knocking doors and a shadow figure in an Alaska church residence6 min
- Man in a hat seen at window and bedside in a Nebraska rental house7 min
- Disappearing objects and a front door that opened by itself in an old house6 min
- An oval clock found across the room in a Chicago apartment4 min
- A voice singing along with Beatles records in an empty living room2 min
- A sliding couch and a giant hand reported in a childhood home in Oregon4 min
- Two figures seen through sheer curtains at an old roadhouse near Prescott, Arizona3 min
- Invisible two-legged walker and hoof prints in snow, Palmer, Alaska, 19713 min
- Attic thumps and old glass negatives in a Hyde Park house4 min
- Chain-dragging clanks overhead in the attic of the caller's parents' house1 min
- Reported music, elevator doors, and a rooftop push in a Saskatoon hotel building6 min
- Retired officer hears thumping in empty condo above where a man died4 min
- Noises of a file cabinet being ransacked below a Plymouth, New Hampshire apartment2 min
- Banging, moved objects, and a statue’s eyes at an abandoned courthouse10 min
- Laughing in the basement, a woman in white, and shadow figures in a family home6 min
- Footsteps and wet footprints in a Route 66 service station2 min
- Orbs, a freight-train rumble, and a shadow orb in a former chicken coop5 min
- A door, a figure on a cross, and footsteps in a rented 110-year-old house in Paw Paw, Michigan6 min
- Screaming, shaking, and red eyes at an Alabama plantation slave cabin4 min
- Deceased truck driver reportedly visits a Colorado ranch and leaves Pepsi cans4 min
- Figure in an old Portland house points to the door and says “get out of my house”3 min
- Voices in the basement and a touch in the shower of a rental home3 min
- Letter: Ceiling noises, a weeping ghost, and bones found in an attic5 min
- Circuit breakers flipped off in a farmhouse basement5 min
- Out-of-body story from a father during a stroke in a Brampton house3 min
- A deceased neighbor's chest stored in a boy's bedroom—Part 12 min
- Woman in black knocking on a window from inside a Chicago house, 19824 min
- Newspaper carrier reports a translucent man pumping water that never overflows4 min
- Figure leaning over a bed in a Calgary apartment; activity ends after a note3 min
- Footsteps of “Footie Pajamas” and a depressed bed at a Mayport military home3 min
- A toilet torn from the floor and thrown down the stairs of a vacant farmhouse3 min
- Voices from the basement and footsteps on the stairs in a rented Atlanta room3 min
- Dead uncle seen in boys’ bedroom on the day he had promised to visit4 min
- Callback: A dead uncle’s footsteps and a father seen in a shared dream2 min
- Whistling, flying knives and a figure in a TV reflection in an 1860s Stillwater house4 min
- Haunted house bought in Ohio: closet racket, knocks on a bedroom door, a bouncing cat cage, and growling6 min
- Recurring evening thump at the door and a cat watching something in the room2 min
- Footsteps and grunting in an abandoned 1920s building in Lake Elsinore6 min
- Slow, heavy footsteps in a dark Phoenix hallway, heard by two people4 min
- Weights restacked in a lighthouse exercise room5 min