Ghost child
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.
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.
Smoke-like ghosts and an aggressive figure in a Fulton, Missouri, home
A caller who gives his name as [name withheld], in Portland, tells Art Bell he had a “ghost experience” in 1988 while a student at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri. He was in his cousin’s home with his cousin [name withheld] and a friend, [name withheld]. He says smoke-like, see-through figures appeared one after another in the living room: an older woman, three boys playing jacks, then a girl doing cartwheels. Then an angry man burst in and swung at him without making contact. He says he remembers little afterward, that the friends were whimpering, and that one of them quit school. He says it changed their lives.
Two tomb robbers found dead in a New Orleans above-ground cemetery
[name withheld], calling from New Orleans, tells Art Bell that they and their younger son were visiting and cleaning their grandmother's tomb in an old above-ground cemetery. They found several tombs broken into. In the tomb of a girl said to have died in a scarlet fever epidemic, they found the recent bodies of two young men. The caller says the cemetery keepers called the police and that they later heard both men had died of heart attacks. The call ends with the caller saying the little girl took her revenge on the men who tried to break into her tomb.
Paralysis, a shaking bed, and a smiling girl with empty eyes
A caller named [name withheld], phoning from Virginia, tells Art Bell about a night in August 2000. The caller says they woke in bed to sudden cold, total paralysis, a shaking bed, and the sight of a smiling girl of about eight or nine with “empty” eyes. The caller says they prayed and everything stopped. Their mother, their grandmother, and later their wife each told the caller the same thing had happened to them.
Child figure in the Harnden house and a newspaper article of a 1958 murder-suicide
A caller recounts that in 1958, when they were 10 years old, they and their father stopped at an abandoned Tennessee house the family called the Harnden house. Upstairs, the caller says, they saw a three-year-old blonde-haired girl, who fled into a bedroom. The door resisted their father, and a search of the room found no one. The story ends with a local chief showing them a newspaper article describing a doctor's murder-suicide in the house. The host asks whether the girl's spirit remained.
Figures in a field, a shrinking shape, and a child’s face in a drain pipe
[name withheld], calling from Lakewood, Colorado, tells Art a firsthand story they say they also told on the program about two years earlier. The caller reports that many years ago, driving home after taking their grandfather to a sporting event, they stopped at a bend in a country road. They saw two figures in the grass that appeared to shrink into a black-and-white furry shape, which ran into a roadside drainage pipe. A child’s face then appeared at the mouth of the pipe. The caller says their father later told them a woman at that spot had lost a child and was said to have used black magic. The caller concludes they saw that child’s ghost. The story ends unresolved, with Art reflecting on a trapped spirit versus a repeating “loop.”
Haunted family house in Lorain, Ohio: Slapping, shadows, and something on the bed
A caller from Lorain, Ohio, tells Art Bell they are speaking from what they call a haunted house, the home their grandfather built. They say strange events have gone on since they were about five. The caller reports having seen clouds, formations, and shadows, and hearing voices calling names. They say friends were slapped in the face while sleeping over, and that they feel something sit on their bed at night. They say their mother consulted a parapsychologist who believed it was a child that likes to play games. The host, running out of time, warns of danger and tells the caller to get out.
A child's voice and figure in a Las Vegas family home
A caller who gives their name as [name withheld], from Las Vegas, tells Art Bell a [quote withheld] from when they were about 17 and living in their parents' newly bought house. They report a little boy's voice in the backyard asking for his grandpa, a child figure their mother saw on the stairs, their son's folded laundry found unfolded, and a small figure at the foot of their bed that disappeared. After their infant son died in November, they say, the boy appeared beside the bed asking “where's the baby.” A neighbor later told them a boy who had stayed with his grandparents had been killed by a car in the road. They describe the boy as friendly, eight or nine years old, and still looking for his grandfather.
Vision of hellfire, a figure in the doorway, and a child-sized shape in the hallway
A male caller who does not give his name tells Art Bell about a night at home in bed with his wife. He felt something was in the room, then had what he calls a vision of [quote withheld] He says he then saw a figure move from the bathroom into the doorway. He also saw a small, child-sized figure run from the bathroom into his son’s room, where both children were asleep. He reports that his wife afterward described to him the same person he had seen. The host closes by commenting on prayer and on whether such a thing is “erased” or merely “released.”
A truck pushed at San Antonio train tracks and children’s crying
A caller who gives their name as [name withheld] and their location as San Antonio tells Art Bell that on Halloween they and friends repeatedly drove a large pickup truck over the local train tracks. On the third pass, after the driver braked on the slope and released, the caller says the truck was pushed over the tracks and that they and the others heard children crying. The host warns the caller that testing it that way was going too far.
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.