Faceless or featureless figure
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.
A black form, the family cats, and a brother’s hypothermia in an Edison, New Jersey, farmhouse
A caller who says they are calling from Fairborn, Ohio, tells Art Bell that around 1970, when they were nine or ten, their family lived in an old farmhouse on 12 acres in Edison, New Jersey. They report waking at 3 or 4 a.m. and seeing a black, indistinct oval form in the hallway that “slammed into” them and told them “don’t go in.” They then found their younger brother being enveloped by it in their shared bedroom while the family’s cats attacked it. The story ends with their father, described as a police officer, running in with a gun as the thing slid through a window. The brother was reportedly kept overnight in the hospital for hypothermia the next morning.
Two floating featureless figures on a Colorado mountain road
[name withheld], calling from St. Louis, Missouri, tells Art Bell about a nighttime drive they say they took in the mid-1980s while living in Colorado Springs. The caller says they and their girlfriend parked on a dark mountain road above town and saw two black, featureless head-and-torso figures floating silently and rapidly toward them. They fled by car. [name withheld] says their girlfriend later gave a matching account and added that the figures were nearly upon them as they drove off.
Letter on deaths and reported hauntings at the Penfield Place in Illinois
The host reads a letter attributed to [name withheld] in Rockford, Illinois. It recounts the history of a house in north-central Illinois that locals call the Penfield Place. The letter tells of a series of deaths, a bride's disappearance and the later discovery of her dismembered remains, and strange events reported by later tenants. It ends by describing the house as still standing, decaying and in ruins. No document or second witness is presented on air.
Wood-chopping sound and floating shadow at a ranch house
A caller from Kelso, Montana, tells Art Bell about a night several years earlier when the caller and a girlfriend were alone in a large old ranch house. The caller reports hearing a wood-chopping sound outside, then seeing a tall dark shadow float across a propane tank toward them. The next day they found chopped wood scattered around the yard. The caller also reports hearing their mother's voice call them inside the house when no one was there. They say they think the home's earlier large family “were still there.”
Childhood sounds and a cold presence in a Pomona house; a white figure in Ontario
An unnamed caller to Ghost to Ghost 1996 describes strange events in two childhood homes. In a house in Pomona, California, from about age five or six, they heard sounds after their mother left for a graveyard shift. They were repeatedly woken by an extremely cold presence over their bed, and they saw the family dogs escape weekly. In a later house in Ontario, California, around fourth grade, they saw a short, powdery-white glowing man in a navy peacoat walk up the hallway into their room, touch them, and seem to read their thoughts. The caller describes the figure’s face as blank and says the experience was impossible to describe. The host closes the segment with general remarks that children and animals sense such presences before adults do.
Caller describes a black void figure entering a childhood bedroom
A caller who gives their name as [quote withheld] tells Art Bell about something they say they saw as a child of about seven or eight, when they shared a bedroom with their sister. They describe a black head with no dimensions coming through the bedroom door at head height. Then they saw a full black figure with a round, mannequin-like head and arms ending in long tendrils. It moved like a tiptoeing burglar. They say they felt a presence of evil. They claim the thing was “from hell.” Art Bell then calls it classically like a shadow person story.
Hooded figure with sickle in Golden Gate Park before a friend’s motorcycle death
[name withheld], who gives their name on KSFO in San Francisco, tells Art Bell that as a teenager they and a friend were riding bikes in Golden Gate Park in an area called Dark Valley. A hooded, caped figure with a sickle stepped out of the darkness and raised an arm, and the cape touched them as they passed. They say that within that week their best friend, not the friend on the bike, died in a motorcycle crash near the beach. The host suggests the figure may have been the Grim Reaper, and the caller ends by warning against Ouija boards.
A paper Ouija board, a spirit called Tommy, and wall scratches
A first-time caller who gives their name as [name withheld] says they have been sensitive to spirits since childhood. They say a hostile spirit that gave its name as Tommy attached itself to them after a session with a homemade Ouija board about ten years earlier. They describe objects moving, a shadow figure, and their name being called. They also describe a shadow seen in a car and on a porch, and scratches that appeared on their girlfriend’s bedroom wall. They say the activity has largely stopped as long as they do not engage with it. The host tells the caller the spirit is still with them and advises them to get help.
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]
Tall shadow figure in a bowler hat gliding through a grandmother’s basement
[name withheld], calling from Minnesota on a Halloween broadcast, says that roughly fifteen years earlier, when they were nine or ten, they saw a tall, pitch-black shadow figure in a bowler hat glide through the living room of their grandmother’s basement. They ran upstairs and say their grandmother did not believe them. They add that they and their mother had several other experiences in the house and that things were moved without the caller moving them.
Childhood waking, a hooded figure, and floating to the living room
A caller who identifies themselves on air as [name withheld], from the island of Kauai, describes something that happened when they were about six years old. The caller reports waking around 4 a.m. and seeing a black-hooded figure with no visible face. The caller says it looked like the Grim Reaper. They then closed their eyes and found themselves floating on their back down the hallway. About a minute later they woke on the living-room floor under the coffee table. The caller says they stayed there until sunrise and that they still do not know what happened.
16 more stories
- Hooded shadow figure during an episode of sleep paralysis2 min
- A hooded figure at a California motel, later described by the writer’s son2 min
- Figure in trench coat and fedora at a Dallas window3 min
- A faceless girl on a rural road near Cabot, Arkansas4 min
- A lost ringtone plays, then a dark figure leaves the bedroom3 min