Marks and traces
Footprints, handprints, residue, stains, or writing.
Hooded faceless figure in the bedroom and a return during a cardiac arrest
A caller identified on air as [name withheld] of Sacramento describes himself as a 6'9", 370-pound pastor. He says a faceless, handless, hooded figure came through his bedroom door in March of that year and threatened him. It then threw his wife off the bed by the ankles and left what he describes as bleeding hand imprints. He says the same figure appeared beside him a month later when his heart stopped during a hospital stay in San Francisco. It told him it was time to come with it. He says he refused and was revived. He ends by telling the host he believes the figure was probably following him after he once helped a Catholic pastor with an exorcism.
Entity attacks on a child in a late-1800s house in Needles, California
A first-time caller who gives their name as [name withheld] tells Art Bell about what they call an “entity attack” that began when they were about four years old, in a family house in Needles, California. He reports a presence coming through the wall at night, grabbing and dragging them, and family-wide problems with furniture moving. In a final incident, their father was trapped in the basement under a chest freezer. They say the family moved out about two weeks after that, and that they still sleep with their head under the covers.
Hawaiian cemetery prank, a shaking car, and bite marks
A caller who gives their name as [name withheld], from Northern California, relays a story they say their former Boy Scout leader told them about ten years earlier. The leader was a Hawaiian man named [name withheld]. As a teenager in Hawaii, [name withheld] and a friend took two girls to a cemetery as a prank. The parked car they returned to was shaking violently, with the girls screaming and “red eyes” at the windows. [name withheld] is said to have found a bite mark on his ankle that night. His older brother mocked the family’s warning, and the two returned to run over graves and kick over food. The brother is said to have had more than 200 bites counted on his body and to have needed hospital stitches. The caller ends by saying they were shown [name withheld]’s lasting bite marks years later and by discussing Hawaiian cemetery customs.
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.”
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.
Letter: Crying child and a locked room in a Victorian university office
The host reads a letter attributed to [quote withheld] In it, the writer says they worked in the 1980s for a university journalism department housed in an old off-campus Victorian building. They report hearing a child crying that they could never find, a chilling cold on the stairs, and a third-floor door they could not unlock. The letter ends with a friend opening the door, a child’s footprint in dust, a cold vortex on the stairs, and a psychic’s story of a boy’s fatal fall and his mother’s imprisonment there.
Daytime sleep paralysis, a woman speaking in a man's voice, and nails in the head
A caller named [name withheld], speaking from L.A. and formerly of the Truckee area near Donner Pass, reports a series of daytime nap experiences over about two and a half weeks. The caller describes waking up paralyzed and feeling someone sit on the bed. It ended one afternoon, they say, when they saw a woman on the bed who spoke in a man's voice. She told the caller to pull out three nails they felt in their head, and she showed the caller their own body lying beside her. The caller says they refused, returned to their body, and the experience never happened again.
Invisible force pulls caller by the arm at their grandmother's doorway
A caller who gives their name as [name withheld], from San Antonio, Texas, tells Art Bell that many years earlier, at their grandmother’s house, an invisible force grabbed their arm at the doorway, burned it, and pulled them up off the ground. A dog barked and family members struggled to hold them. The caller says their mother and grandmother were drawn into the tug-of-war, and that their grandmother’s words and knife-waving made the force let go, leaving three long red marks on their arm. The caller sees the episode as demonic and says it started their ongoing search for what they call the third dimension.
A former priest blesses the house of a dead radio singer
In a letter read on air by the host, the writer says they were an Eastern Orthodox priest for many years. They describe a 1974 case. A close friend's father, said to have been a popular radio singer and guitar player in the 1940s, died alone of a heart attack. About two months later the friend's mother reported hearing her dead ex-husband singing, seeing him in a rocking chair, and feeling pinches that left welts. The letter writer says they blessed the house with holy water. During the bedroom blessing the mother was thrown backward into the hallway. The writer says they saw welts on her legs afterward, and that the problems stopped after the blessing.
A push on the top bunk and handprints on a boy's chest
An anonymous caller tells Art Bell an “entity attack story” from his childhood. At about age eight, he was lying awake on the top bunk of a bunk bed in a house shared with his grandparents and father. He says he felt a presence and was pushed hard on the chest, bouncing into the ceiling. He says his father came in after he called out and found two handprints on his chest. The caller then offers his own theory that such things come from within and are generated by fear. The host closes the call after a discussion of fear and love.
Invisible two-legged walker and hoof prints in snow, Palmer, Alaska, 1971
Art Bell reads a letter about an event the writer says happened in the middle of winter 1971 in Palmer, Alaska. The writer, then a child taking out the household trash at night, says they heard crunching footfalls in the snow that came toward them although nothing was visible. They then found hoof prints where the unseen walker, which they say moved on two legs, had been. The story ends with the writer running home and saying they do not know what it was.
35 more stories
- Horses, war cries, and an arrowhead in a tree near Pipestone, Minnesota3 min
- Ghost tracks and a truck pushed over a San Antonio rail crossing5 min
- Caller relays aunt’s story of a goat-like figure and hoof prints in an Ohio cellar4 min
- Fax confirming a San Antonio “school-bus ghost tracks” story1 min
- A voice named Harry and charred lumber in a Washington cabin5 min
- A felt presence at night and creased pants on a bedroom chair2 min
- Letter read on air: Red stain and handprint in a Santa Barbara shower2 min
- Stolen skull, flames, and a smoke image in a mirror in a Fort Lauderdale apartment6 min
- Voice in the kitchen, a loosened bulb, and a face in a burnt furnace3 min
- Footsteps and wet footprints in a Route 66 service station2 min
- Car reportedly pushed off railroad tracks at a Clarksville, Tennessee, crossing2 min
- Invisible animal’s paw prints cross a bed in an apartment41 s
- Handcuff marks, “help” in frost, and a light orb at a Phantom Lake house3 min
- Childhood near-death experience under ether after a horse wreck9 min
- Deceased truck driver reportedly visits a Colorado ranch and leaves Pepsi cans4 min
- Black car, red window light, and a note in an orchard5 min
- Leg broken by an unseen kick on lava rock at Kaneohe Marine base7 min