Kept secret for years
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.
Letter: Transparent figure of a deceased grandfather in a spare bedroom
A letter from a writer the host identifies as “[name withheld]” from Springfield, Illinois, read aloud on air, describes seeing a transparent figure resembling their grandfather coming out of a wall in a spare bedroom about three weeks after his death in February 1978. They say they told no one at the time. They say that twenty years ago they learned their son had seen the same ghost roughly three months later in a front bedroom. They also report other family members seeing dark forms and lights and doors behaving oddly. The letter ends with the writer saying they will never know whether it was a ghost or a demon, but that they believe they saw it.
Rented split-entry house: orbs, mist, whispers and a white figure on the stairs
[name withheld], a caller from New Hampshire, tells Art Bell about strange events the caller says began on the first night their family moved into a rented split-entry house about twenty-three years earlier, when they were sixteen. The caller reports a dream of an old man with hollowed-out eyes, then waking to balls of light zigzagging through their room. Later came a mist and cold in the hallway, whispering and footsteps at night, a face staring over their shoulder at the computer, and a white figure with bulging eyes on the stairs. The caller says their brother [name withheld] reported the same experiences. The host ends this part of the broadcast by telling the caller they are haunted.
Footsteps, a shadow at noon, and a voice saying “your brother” in an Alameda house
A caller from Alameda, California, tells Art Bell that she and her five children were hearing slamming doors, footsteps, and other disturbances in a large old house. She says each of them had kept it from the others. She reports a shadow that appeared in daylight, an unsuccessful first appeal to a priest, and a house blessing. Finally, she says, a voice said “your brother.” She then learned her brother had died about two months earlier.
A 10- to 12-foot shadow with red eyes on a marsh shortcut in Freeport, New York
A caller identifying themself as [name withheld] from North Bend, Oregon, tells Art Bell about a night roughly 25 years earlier. At 17, they took a shortcut through a marshy area behind an old railroad station in Freeport, New York, on Long Island. They say they heard what sounded like dog tags clinking and then two-footed footsteps coming toward them from out of sight, and decided to run. As they reached a hill, a 10- to 12-foot dark outline with red beady eyes stepped up from the bank in front of them. They report freezing, then fleeing about two miles home. They say they never told their parents and have told only one person since. They describe the encounter as possibly a “bridge” to something else rather than naming it.
Red glowing figure playing a child's organ at home
A caller named [name withheld], calling from Sacramento, describes a childhood incident they say they have told few people about. They were alone at home with their grandfather one summer. They heard music coming from an old organ in their room, walked down the hallway, and report seeing a red, glowing being with yellow eyes using its fingers on the organ. They say they commanded it to leave in the name of Jesus and that it vanished. They believe it was a demon.
Black figure at foot of bed in a Redlands home
A caller describes living in Redlands, California, when they were first married to a husband who flew C-141s at Norton Air Force Base. The caller reports a period of uneasiness and cold in their new home. A moving garage-door doorknob made their dog bark and led them to call police. One night they woke in bed and saw a black figure at the foot of the bed that cast no reflection in a mirror. The caller says they were paralyzed and prayed the Lord’s Prayer. The figure disappeared, and the house warmed. The caller adds that they thought they imagined it and did not share it for a while.
Caller reports a Pan Am flying boat appearing alongside their Cessna near Ukiah
A first-time caller named [name withheld], from Alameda, California, says they were flying a Cessna 172 back from Ukiah at about 11:30 p.m. in January 1998. They heard a voice over their headset, saw a glowing green light close on them, and lost control of the aircraft. Then they saw a large old Pan Am-type flying boat pull alongside and wave before vanishing. The caller links the aircraft to an M-130 Philippine Clipper they had read about in a book their mother had given them. The caller says it crashed in the Ukiah area on January 21, 1943. The caller says ATC reported no planes near them on radar. The call ends with the host calling it a ghost plane and asking whether it was a time slip or the crashed plane’s occupants.
Ouija board session said to contact a grandfather in a coma
A caller on the first-time caller line tells a story they say their friend [name withheld] told them in “the utmost seriousness.” According to the caller, when [name withheld] was sixteen and his brother about twenty-one, a group of friends used a Ouija board alone. One of them appeared to make contact with [name withheld], the brothers' grandfather, who had been in a coma for two to three years. The story ends with the board spelling rapid messages and the boy at the board being pulled away in a shocked state. The host then warns against Ouija boards.
Covers that would not come off and a scream in the ear at 3:30 a.m.
Mary from Bakersfield calls live near the end of the broadcast. The caller describes a winter night when they were about 18 or 19. The caller says that after they pulled the covers over their head in bed, they became frightened and could not pull them off. Then they heard a shrill scream in their ear and could not call out until they managed to say “daddy,” and at that point the covers came off. The caller gives no cause and says they have never slept with the covers over their head since.
Two men who asked about a missing gate vanish on a rural gas road
A caller the host introduces as [quote withheld] says that when they were 15, in eastern Kentucky, they met two men on a dirt gas road. The men asked how the caller had gotten past a gate that the caller says had been removed years earlier. When the caller turned around a few steps later, the men were gone. The caller says they ran home and told their mother that two men were trying to kill them. The caller says they never told the story because they did not know whether it was a ghost story. The host suggests the men may have gone back to a time when the gate still existed, calling it “just a guess.”
Letter: A figure in white and a toddler’s “lady in the white dress”
A letter sent by [quote withheld] and read aloud by the host describes two linked events in her own home. First, she woke at night and saw what she took to be her ten-year-old daughter in a long white nightgown, gliding through the hallway. She then found the child asleep in dark pajamas. Several days later, her two-year-old said a [quote withheld] would not let her go into the bedroom. The letter ends with the mother walking the child back to the room and finding no one there.
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