First time telling anyone
Dark woman from the attic and phantom table-setting in a childhood home
A caller tells Art Bell about a childhood haunting in their family home. The caller says they and their brother were visited at night by a dark female figure they called the doll stall woman, who came down from the attic through a closet. They later heard table-setting sounds and saw white legs in old-fashioned pajamas moving around the dining table. Then a spirit entered their room and grabbed their legs. The caller says this is the first time they have told anyone about it.
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.
Ball of light approaches campers near 29 Palms and scans caller
A caller on the Wildcard Line tells Art Bell that in March 1993 they and their girlfriend were camping near 29 Palms when they saw distant lights moving south to north. The caller says a basketball-sized ball of light came out of a large craft and approached within about 48 inches. It seemed to scan their brain, then focused on their girlfriend before returning to the craft. The caller reports she was traumatized and spent about eight months in therapy. The call ends with Art Bell’s speculation about downloaded information.
Childhood closet and bedroom doors, a green light, and paralysis
A caller who gives their name as [name withheld] recounts events from when they were six years old. They watched their closet doors and bedroom door night after night. One morning the closet doors were fully open. They were unable to move in bed at times. One night the bedroom door appeared lit from behind with green light and mist before falling backward away from them. The caller says they then ran to their parents’ room and slept there, and that their parents acted as if nothing was wrong. The story ends there, and the host moves to the next caller.
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.
Struck by a hearse at six, an out-of-body experience, and later night visitations
A caller who gives her name as [quote withheld] tells Art Bell that at about age six she was hit by a hearse while crossing a street. She then found herself floating above her own body, looking down at herself on the ground. She says this was the start of recurring nighttime “visitations by ghosts” that came before a close friend or relative in her family died. She describes one night when she felt fingers crawling up her neck and grabbing her hair while she lay in bed beside her sleeping husband. The story ends with her reporting later visitations in which she saw shadows moving on the wall. The host then comments generally on near-death experiences and the events that follow them.
Old man’s head with a stretched neck hanging in a workshop
A caller from Paso Robles, California, tells Art Bell that a few nights earlier they were working on rocks and jewelry in their shop after midnight and listening to the program. The caller heard a creaking and saw the lights surge. The caller then looked to their right and saw an old man’s head hanging in midair, the neck stretched out about a foot, watching them. The caller says they told it they did not mind it hanging around but that it was “your pad” and to leave them alone. Art comments that he finds it as hard to believe as the earlier ankle-grabbing story, restates the image, and moves on. No outcome or follow-up is reported.
Retired officer hears thumping in empty condo above where a man died
A caller who identifies themselves as a retired police officer from the Midwest tells Art Bell about a disturbance call roughly fifteen years earlier. A downstairs resident reported loud thumping from the condominium above her. The caller says they and the building manager found that the noise came from above the spot where the previous occupant, [name withheld], had died of a heart attack. The caller says they wrote the incident up, that the resident later moved out because the thumping continued, and that it has bothered them ever since.
Armed party walks through a sprung ambush near the Cambodian border, 1968
A caller who says they were a Vietnam veteran describes an evening in 1968 when they and five other infantrymen set an ambush near a fire base close to the Cambodian border. One of the six woke the others, and they all saw a small armed party of Vietnamese approaching. When the ambush was sprung, the party reportedly kept walking through without reacting. The caller says they have never told anyone about it before and that it had a big effect on their life.
Letter: A child hears a pleading girl in a window eight blocks from home
The host reads a letter attributed to [quote withheld] The writer says that as a young child she had past-life memories of another family and believed she had been adopted. She reports that whenever her family drove past that family's house, about eight blocks from her own, she heard a girl pleading for help. Eventually she saw the girl's silhouette in a window, while her parents could not hear anything. She says she later concluded the family was her own past life and that the pleading ghost was herself. The letter ends with her question about what a ghost is if not an earthbound soul, and the host moves on to the next caller.
Letter: A shadow resembling the writer’s late father, popcorn and cigar
Art Bell reads a letter he attributes to [quote withheld] The writer describes watching his father’s shadow on the wall as a boy. He recalls a prediction by his father that he would join him in America on his 66th birthday, and an Ouija board spelling “DAD” years later. He then describes an apparent shadow of his father in his kitchen on that birthday, which he says came just before a heart attack. The letter ends with the writer’s claim that his wife later smelled popcorn and cigar smoke at home, and that he had never told anyone what he saw until now.
Humming voice and a namesake tombstone in Covington, Georgia
A caller who gives their name as Mary tells Art Bell they once lived in a garage apartment in Covington, Georgia. It stood behind a mansion and overlooked the cemetery on Elm Street. Alone there one night in early 1975, they report the television acting strangely, an apartment that would not stay warm, a face seen in a small window at the top of the landing, and a humming they describe as a voice, not anything mechanical. The next morning, walking the cemetery, they say they found a tombstone for a young woman named [name withheld] who died in 1873 at sixteen. They note their own maiden name was Robin. They say they got out of there.