Farm or rural property
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.
A figure dancing on a fence post on a country road in northern Alberta
Art Bell reads a letter from a listener named [name withheld]. It describes a walk home along a country road in northern Alberta about fifteen years earlier. [name withheld] writes that they and their friend [name withheld] saw a thin, emaciated human form standing on a roadside post, slowly dancing. Months later, [name withheld] was diagnosed with cancer and died. [name withheld] concluded that the figure had been [name withheld] himself.
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.
Basement door, a shared dream, and a slow-burning teddy bear in a country home
A caller who gives their name as [name withheld], from Dayton, Ohio, describes several “spooky moments” in a country home that the caller and their husband bought in the mid-1970s. A basement door opened by itself each evening at supper time. Their son said something was coming into his room. One night the caller and their husband reportedly shared the same vision of their daughter being raised out of bed and slammed to the floor. They found the daughter asleep and unharmed on the floor. They concluded there was an entity in the home. They blessed the rooms with holy water and burned a handmade teddy bear the caller distrusted, which, the caller says, took hours to burn. The caller says they left the house with their children a few months later.
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.”
Ouija board channeling and a father’s figure in an Ohio farmhouse
[name withheld], calling from San Clemente, tells Art Bell about something they say happened when they were about fourteen or fifteen, in an old farmhouse in Ohio. They and a girlfriend used a Ouija board, a Christmas gift, to channel spirits. The caller says that on their first try they seemed to watch from outside their body. A spirit complained about the candlelight, their dead father briefly appeared, and then their vision went black and showed two-headed serpents and red-eyed rats. The caller says they came to with the lights on and their friend panicking. The caller ran to the bathroom, unable to breathe, with chest pain and a burning feeling. They never tried it again.
A woman in 1800s dress, a boulder death, and a disturbed forest circle
Mary, calling from Salem, Oregon, tells Art Bell a story they call [quote withheld] about their brother-in-law, [name withheld]. Mary says that during a birthday party they went out for burgers and, waiting out front, saw a woman in 1800s clothing whose feet they could not see. When they looked back, the woman was gone. Mary reports that while they were away, [name withheld] was struck by a boulder on a forest trail and died. Months later, Mary says, an acquaintance said a ceremony [name withheld] had been performing was interrupted when the acquaintance stubbed out a cigarette in his circle and a growling, monster-like sound came down the hill. Mary says some of them think that whatever it was came and got him.
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.
Screaming, shaking, and red eyes at an Alabama plantation slave cabin
A first-time caller who identifies themselves as [quote withheld] tells of a trip they say they and some friends made in about 1988 or 1989 to a decrepit old plantation house and its fallen-down slave quarters in Alabama. The caller had heard the site was the scene of a mass killing. They say that when they touched the door of one cabin, screaming and banging broke out and the whole shack shook “like an earthquake.” The noise seemed to stay right over their heads as they ran, and the caller saw big bright red eyes looking out the cabin window at them. They say the group drove off and never returned to the area.
Circuit breakers flipped off in a farmhouse basement
A caller identified on air as [name withheld] from Michigan describes a night in 1994 alone in their parents' large 1870s farmhouse. They came home to a dark house and found every light and appliance dead. Going down to the basement to the circuit box, they say they felt an increasingly malevolent presence. They say the family cat hissed, clawed its way out of their arms, and fled upstairs. At the box they found every breaker flipped to the off position in a house they say was locked. They switched them on and left the house.
Teen dream of a house and pasture, later found ruined near St. Louis airport
A caller who gives no name or location says that in their teens they had two dreams in one night. The first showed an idyllic road with grazing livestock and an old house; the second showed the same road with dead animals and an axe attack. About six months later, the caller says, they and two companions found a ruined house off a driveway near the St. Louis airport, felt a presence, and fled when their Jeep would not start. The caller ends by saying that over the years, the only explanation they and their cousin agreed on was an economic one.
A sister’s illness, angel sightings, and a post-death garden vision
A caller who gives their name as [quote withheld] recounts, on the Wild Card Line, a family story about their younger sister’s illness and death in 1980. The caller relays that during a month of incoherence after strokes she described a [quote withheld] in their parents’ room. The caller says their grandfather reported angelic figures over her on three occasions and their father reported Lucifer appearing to him in the orchard. After her burial, the caller says, their grandfather described a vision of her in a garden. The story ends with the host’s closing remarks and the caller adding that a man in California told them he had seen the identical vision at the same time.
50 more stories
- Chains, a plea for peace, and grave markers in a Logan County field2 min
- Blind caller reports a warm presence guiding their dog around a country road corner2 min
- A wild man figure reported near an archaeological dig on the Luxembourg-Belgian border4 min
- Red eyes in the woods across from a rural Louisiana house3 min
- Figures in a field, a shrinking shape, and a child’s face in a drain pipe7 min
- An 1880 house with chairs moving, a door opening, and rose and tobacco scents3 min
- Phantom hoofbeats on a gravel driveway at 10 p.m.1 min
- Voice in the kitchen, a loosened bulb, and a face in a burnt furnace3 min
- Coon hunter reports six glowing chanting figures in Pennsylvania woods2 min
- A woman steps from a curtained closet and removes a crying child's skates4 min
- Night vision goggles, an upside-down man, and a sheep on a Colorado farm4 min
- Trucker's family tale of Aunt [name withheld] stirring apple butter with her arm2 min
- Transparent figure rocking upstairs in an old Hawaiian plantation home4 min
- Police officer reports a man and dog who vanished on a foggy road near an old homestead3 min
- Caller says a Japanese art student was followed by a ghost from her family’s farm2 min
- Dark winged figure flying above trees at a farm at 3 a.m.1 min
- Walking boots without a body on a logging road near Knoxville3 min
- Invisible two-legged walker and hoof prints in snow, Palmer, Alaska, 19713 min
- Equipment failures and a truck fire at a logging site said to be a burial ground3 min
- A friend's demon seen only in reflections, and a face in a truck mirror2 min
- Human head seen in a Norwegian mine and its disappearance3 min
- Caller recalls being born dead and watching from the ceiling4 min
- Unseen runner and a struck fence at an abandoned slaughterhouse4 min
- Orbs, a freight-train rumble, and a shadow orb in a former chicken coop5 min
- Caller relays friend’s account of two headless men in black suits crossing a field3 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
- Empty charred casket and a freshly dug hole in a cemetery found as boys6 min
- A cabin in the woods near Cloudcroft furnished only from the 1940s4 min
- Security guard reports a following sound and orange orbs at the Yorktown Victory Center3 min
- Hunters report formally dressed couple who vanish and leave no tracks in snow3 min