Hospital or nursing home
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.
Letter: A cardiologist's notes on a patient's near-death experience
The host reads a letter from a listener whose uncle is described as a cardiologist. The listener asked him about near-death experiences (NDEs) in his patients, and the letter relays the uncle's notes on one case. According to the letter, a 23-year-old male patient awaiting a pacemaker implant had an NDE during a resuscitation. He described being struck on the chest, then floating in blackness. He saw a conveyor belt of puzzle pieces fitted [quote withheld] a blazing light and tunnel, a burning black lake, figures moving aimlessly, and a dead friend who did not greet him and was dragged away screaming. The letter ends with the patient saying he kept repeating “Jesus is God” and returned as stitches were being placed. The host calls it the NDE of someone who “went to hell.” No names, dates, or locations are given.
Voices, a shadow figure, and gray figures near Waverly Hills Sanatorium, 1993
A caller who gives their name as [name withheld], from Indianapolis, tells Art Bell that as a high-school senior in Kentucky in 1993 they took a jogging shortcut through the grounds of the abandoned Waverly Hills Sanatorium. The caller says they heard a chorus of voices that stopped when they told them to. The caller says they saw a black, shadow-like figure with red eyes in a shed window. They met a bearded man with a Rottweiler who vanished after telling them not to look back. Then they saw more than a hundred gray figures in a field. The caller says they ran to school and that nobody believed them until they later learned the site was said to be haunted.
Caller describes a man convulsing and speaking in multiple voices in an apartment
[name withheld], calling from Denver, tells Art Bell that a man they met asked them to check whether the man's wife had been married before. After [name withheld] gave him the information, the man reportedly came over crying. He then went into a rage, convulsed, appeared to stop breathing, and spoke in multiple voices before emergency services took him to the ER. The caller later says the man told them that two priests in a French orphanage had told him he was possessed.
A Confederate figure in a log hospital on the Pleasant Hill battleground
[name withheld] in Shreveport, Louisiana, a Civil War relic collector, tells what the caller says the reenactment commander told them about staying overnight in an old log house used as a hospital at Pleasant Hill. According to [name withheld], a ragged Confederate figure came in and gave the commander a guard-duty order. Then the figure lay on a cot and dissolved. The host responds that battlefields have long been haunted.
Doors slamming in an abandoned Minnesota tuberculosis sanitarium
A caller named [name withheld], calling from Hastings, Minnesota, describes themselves as the author of a book about their experiences as a “sensitive” person. They recount exploring the abandoned Mineral Springs Sanitarium near Cannon Falls, Minnesota, in high school. The caller says that on a night visit with a female friend, a door slammed behind them. Then all the doors on the third floor began opening and slamming on their own. They add that the building later burned down under disputed circumstances and that an unmarked cemetery for unclaimed tuberculosis patients had been on the site.
Two gray-skinned figures in a hospital corridor thrift store
A caller from Corpus Christi, Texas, tells Art Bell about shopping with their mother at a thrift store inside a hospital. The caller says they heard a deep voice ask [quote withheld] and then saw two men in white gowns with gray-toned skin. They say the taller one looked into their eyes and communicated a threat. They say their mother told them to make the sign of the cross and warned them that being upset made them vulnerable to evil spirits. The caller says they did calm down. The caller closes by generalizing that “bad spirits” can reach people who are negative and vulnerable.
Nurse's faxed letter about a patient's death and alarm clocks at 11:07
A faxed letter read on air by the host, from a registered nurse in Sandy, Utah, describes a night shift in a 120-bed facility. A patient the letter calls [name withheld] was expected to die. The writer reports that [name withheld]'s breathing and heartbeat stopped at 11:07 p.m. At that same minute, six alarm clocks on the hall went off and a call light in the now-empty room came on. The letter ends with the writer's line, [quote withheld]
Caller's friend's mother revives in a body bag after a birth hemorrhage
The caller, whose name and location are not given, tells Art Bell a secondhand story. The mother of their best friend from high school hemorrhaged badly after her last child, was pronounced dead in the hospital, and was placed in a body bag. The caller says the husband insisted on going back in to see her. She began moving in the bag and was found to have come back to life, reportedly describing a frantic sense that she was not really dead. Asked whether the woman saw herself placed in the bag, the caller says they are not sure.
Respiratory therapist reports seeing a newly dead patient among his family in an ER lobby
A caller who gives their location as Lynchburg, Virginia, says that while working as a respiratory therapist on a Code Blue team in Houston, Texas, they saw a newly dead patient standing among his family in an emergency room lobby. The caller says the man, still wearing the clothes he died in, appeared translucent and seemed to be trying to get his family's attention. He was mouthing words such as [quote withheld] and [quote withheld] The caller says an unnamed partner also saw it. The call ends with the host commenting on people who do not seem to understand that they have died.
Roommate's night vision of her dead father warns of her sister's car accident
A caller who calls themself an atheist tells Art Bell that at age 20 they shared a two-bedroom apartment with a roommate who was a single mother. One night, the caller says, she ran into the caller's room crying. She said she had seen her dead father standing over her sister's casket, warning that the sister would be hurt but would not die. The next day, the caller says, the roommate's mother telephoned to report that the sister had been badly hurt in a car wreck and was in intensive care. The caller says the sister recovered, but the timing has always bothered them.
A figure at the foot of the bed on the night the caller's grandfather died
A caller who gives their name as [name withheld], from Canton, Ohio, says that at the age of five they woke in the night and found family members gathered and upset. They then saw a greenish-white shape at the foot of their bed that they came to think looked like their grandfather. The caller says they learned the next morning that their grandfather had died in an emergency room that night. The host closes the call by saying the grandfather [quote withheld] and describing such stories as a type that comes up again and again.
33 more stories
- Caller recalls being born dead and watching from the ceiling4 min
- Caller recounts grandmother’s breathlessness at the time of her father’s death3 min
- Caller describes seeing themselves from the corner of their ICU room after flatlining2 min
- Near-death caller recalls watching their ER resuscitation from the ceiling4 min
- Caller describes a month-long coma and a feeling of having been somewhere else3 min
- Caller’s medical commentary on a reported near-death experience during surgery3 min
- Clinical death and an out-of-body experience during childbirth in Germany7 min
- Childhood near-death experience under ether after a horse wreck9 min
- An out-of-body view of themselves after smoking a found cigar (caller, Salinas, California)4 min
- Caller reports a card-and-dice vision during a clinical death in surgery4 min
- A coma, three selves, and walking with Jesus after a 1980 car crash4 min
- Letter from a retired police officer: dead man's arm rises while hands are bagged2 min
- Host describes a listener's photograph of a uniformed figure in a hospital mirror1 min
- Newborn revives and grandmothers appear in a hospital window reflection4 min
- X-ray technician reports a man in the control room before a patient's death3 min
- Funeral home worker reports a conversation with a cryonics patient in transit7 min