Church
A black shape in the bedroom closet after a childhood church prank
A caller who says they are phoning from Austin, Texas, tells Art Bell about a night when they were about seven years old and staying with their Aunt [name withheld] in the country. They woke and saw a pitch-black, nonhuman “thing” sitting in their bedroom closet. They say they could not scream and prayed silently to God in their head. In the morning they found their normally neat toys jumbled in the closet. The caller offers the jumbled toys as the reason they do not accept the experience as a nightmare.
Cold spot, woman, and giant arm during a church overnight
A caller who gives their name as [name withheld], in Pearl, Mississippi, tells Art Bell about a night they and about half a dozen friends spent in their church at the end of a summer. The caller reports a cold spot, a woman seen in the hallway, a huge arm reaching around a classroom door, a moving white pattern on a window, and a face with glowing eyes before the group fled and huddled together. The caller says nothing else happened that night and that they are the only one who has told anyone. The caller thinks the beings were angelic and demonic rather than the dead.
Falling through ground in a cemetery and being lifted out by pressure on their feet
A caller named [name withheld], calling from Houston, Alaska, tells Art Bell a story they say happened about thirty-five years earlier, when they were 13, in Westfield, Massachusetts. They say that while running through an old cemetery beside a church as a shortcut, they fell through the ground into what they assumed was a grave. They were covered in dirt and winged insects. Then they felt a pressure around their feet that lifted them out of the dirt. They say they ran to the far side of the cemetery, where their friends were, and have never entered a cemetery since. The caller offers no explanation for the pressure.
E-mail: Floating woman in nightgown crossing road by old church, 1978
An e-mail read on air from an unnamed listener who describes themselves as a longtime shortwave listener and Coast to Coast AM fan. They recount a night in 1978. They say they were driving their date home in a secluded rural area after midnight when they saw what appeared to be a woman in an old-style nightgown and nightcap cross the road in front of the car by an old church with a graveyard. She was floating above the ground, with no legs and eyes that were “just dark holes.” The woman continues through roadside vines, their date is nearly hysterical, and the writer insists it was [quote withheld]
Noose reported suspended from nothing in a rented former church rectory
A letter read on air, credited by the host to [name withheld] in Alberta, Canada, describes a family that rented a small-town house beside a church and graveyard in the mid-1990s. They decorated it for Halloween with headstones and a hangman's noose. The writer says a scream from downstairs woke them after midnight, and that the writer and their 11-year-old daughter saw a hangman's noose suspended from seemingly nothing on the stairs, which then fell. The writer says they learned the next day that the house had been the old church rectory and that a former pastor of the neighboring church had hanged himself there.
Knocking doors and a shadow figure in an Alaska church residence
A caller who gives their name as [name withheld], from Oregon, tells Art Bell about events when they were about 14. Their family had moved to an Alaskan town so their father could be caretaker of a large church, and the family lived in an apartment attached to it. They report repeated knocking at the church doors with no one there. They also report a dark crouched figure they saw many times in the youth pastor’s office. Later came nights of furniture being thrown and a doorknob rattling in a room built for them off an upstairs classroom. This lasted until they were sent to live with an uncle in Wisconsin in September 1984. The caller states no cause, and the story ends with their departure from the household.
A faceless girl on a rural road near Cabot, Arkansas
A caller the host introduces as “daniel in california” recounts that in 1986 their mother, driving to night work outside Cabot, Arkansas, saw a girl run across a four-way intersection near a church and cemetery. Months later, they say, they were a small child in the front seat and saw a girl with a dress and hair but no facial features on the same road. The story ends with their description of a 1990s Fox “Sightings” reenactment of a 1960s vanishing-girl story on the same road. The host then offers an “echo” idea. The caller claims no cause.
Family account of shut cemetery gates and robed figures at Saint James
A first-time caller tells Art Bell a ghost story they say their mother and older brother told them. According to the caller, they were at Saint James Cemetery on Cal Sag in the middle of the day when the gates shut, church bells rang, and they saw translucent figures in robes coming from the church. The caller says the figures vanished and the gates opened easily when their father arrived.
Felt presence in the downstairs of a Santa Barbara church building
A caller who gives no name tells Art Bell about the church building in Santa Barbara where their family lived while their father was a part-time pastor. The caller says they and others felt something present in the downstairs when it was dark. The caller says they later learned of a suicide in the building and of a former resident who killed his parents. They describe going back and finding the building had become an occult-themed coffee house, whose upstairs tenant would not stay at night.
A healing workshop at a retreat convent: Shared dreams and popping light bulbs
[name withheld], calling from Larkspur near San Francisco, tells Art Bell about a 1988 teacher-training workshop they attended at a retreat convent belonging to a nun's order. The caller says they and the other participants felt a thick, creepy atmosphere in the house. Several of them had the same dream of faces begging for help. A ceremony asking permission seemed to change the atmosphere, and light bulbs repeatedly failed when they operated switches. The caller says psychics they later consulted linked the site to an Indian burial or ceremonial ground, and that the bulb and appliance disturbances faded after a few weeks.
Voice telling a caller to leave a room in a London cathedral
A caller whom the host introduces as [quote withheld] tells a “church ghost story” set in London. In 1994, on a Glee Club tour from Michigan, the caller entered an upper-floor room in a dark Gothic cathedral, and says they heard a voice telling them to get out. The caller says two companions waiting in the hallway looked past them and told them to turn around. The caller found a plaque beside the door stating that someone had been beheaded in that room. The host says he believes the caller and links the message to an earlier EVP program.
Church windows close one by one during a funeral in Montreal
Art Bell reads aloud a letter said to be from Montreal and signed “[name withheld].” It describes the writer’s brother-in-law’s funeral on July 24, 1991. According to the letter, the five open windows along the left wall of the church closed in rapid succession during a pause in the service. Two windows beside the altar closed next. No wind blew and no one was near them. Candles at the coffin bent toward the left and then straightened. The service was interrupted while the parish priest blessed and anointed the coffin. Afterward the priest reportedly told the deceased’s mother that it was “a manifestation” without explaining further.