Kitchen
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.
Childhood sounds and a cold presence in a Pomona house; a white figure in Ontario
An unnamed caller to Ghost to Ghost 1996 describes strange events in two childhood homes. In a house in Pomona, California, from about age five or six, they heard sounds after their mother left for a graveyard shift. They were repeatedly woken by an extremely cold presence over their bed, and they saw the family dogs escape weekly. In a later house in Ontario, California, around fourth grade, they saw a short, powdery-white glowing man in a navy peacoat walk up the hallway into their room, touch them, and seem to read their thoughts. The caller describes the figure’s face as blank and says the experience was impossible to describe. The host closes the segment with general remarks that children and animals sense such presences before adults do.
Vibrating vase and mirror, and a shattering glass in a mid-1970s house
A caller who gives the name [name withheld], from Rockford, Illinois, describes a house the caller and their new wife moved into in the mid-1970s. Both of them separately heard a vibrating noise. The caller says they traced the vibration first to a vase and later to a wall mirror, and each time they stopped it by touching the object. Roughly a week later, the caller says, a piece of glass from a toaster-oven door exploded upward into their face from the sink and cut their cheek. The caller says the activity never came back after that. The caller offers their own view that a spirit upset by their presence caused it.
Footsteps from the basement, a shotgun and knives moved in a childhood home
A caller who identifies themselves as [name withheld], from Wichita, tells Art Bell about the house the caller lived in as a child. The caller says they and their sister heard footsteps coming up from the basement every night. The caller describes a night when their father found the locked-away shotgun lying at the bottom of the steps with shells around it. On another occasion, the kitchen knife drawer was found pulled out and knives were scattered on the floor. The story ends with the sister and parents swapping bedrooms and Art Bell suggesting the haunting followed the family rather than the family moving into haunted houses.
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.
Voice in the kitchen, a loosened bulb, and a face in a burnt furnace
A caller who gives the name [name withheld], from Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin, describes several events in an old farmhouse they shared with their husband and two small children. A voice in the kitchen said the caller's name. A range-hood bulb had to be tightened again every night for a month, the caller says. A garbage bag moved, with a smell of perfume. After a January 1996 house fire, the caller says, a face was burned into the furnace. The story ends with Art Bell asking the caller to send photographs of the furnace face.
Poltergeist activity in a shared Fargo house and a butcher knife in bed
[name withheld], calling from Bismarck, North Dakota, on KFYR 550, tells Art Bell that in the early 1970s they lived with friends in a house in Fargo, North Dakota, while attending college. They say they and their housemates had poltergeist-type events daily. They report lights turning on, doors opening, a pantry curtain flying out, a hall curtain catching fire, footsteps on the attic stairs, possessions thrown during lightning storms, and a dog reacting. The caller ends with finding a butcher knife beside them in their locked bedroom, and their roommate’s reaction on seeing the caller carrying it. The call ends with Art’s own comments on the story.
Haunted house bought in Ohio: closet racket, knocks on a bedroom door, a bouncing cat cage, and growling
A caller who gives the name [name withheld], from Virginia, describes a house the caller and their wife bought in Ohio. The caller tells of the strange events they say they experienced there over their years in the house. They include whispering and noises, a violent racket in an empty closet, and three knocks on a closed bedroom door that their wife denied making. They also include a cat's travel cage bouncing off the kitchen floor and a low growling from the basement corner that the caller says could not have come from their cats. The caller does not say what caused any of it. The story ends with the host remarking on moving in and the sage left on the mantle.
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.
A caller sees an occult-minded acquaintance appear in their locked bedroom and vanish at the kitchen light
A caller from Ojai, California, tells Art Bell that in 1981, at age 19 and living in Arkansas, they spent an evening with an acquaintance who was “into the occult.” After they went home and to bed, they say, they turned over and saw that same man standing in their locked bedroom. They followed the man to the kitchen and switched on the light, and the man disappeared. The door stayed deadbolted and chained. The caller says they were not frightened at the time but slept with the light on for a long while afterward. When they asked the man about it the next day, the man only chuckled.
Rented Ohio mining-town house: footsteps, greyhounds, and a man at the door
A caller who gives their name as [name withheld], from Hanford, tells a story they say happened when they were a child. [name withheld]'s aunt and uncle rented a house in a small mining town in Ohio. The former occupant had been sent to a nursing home against his will. The caller reports a series of household disturbances. They say they and their girl cousin saw two greyhounds in their shared bedroom at night. [name withheld]'s aunt met a man at the back door, and the aunt fired a shotgun through the door. The next morning, grapes were found withered on the vine. The story ends with the family moving soon afterward.
A friend is watched by a man who vanishes from a Connecticut kitchen
A caller from Essex Junction, Vermont, recounts events in Connecticut involving their best friend. The friend’s father had been killed shortly before the friend began reporting that a man was watching the friend from across the street. The caller says they dismissed it until the day they walked into their friend’s kitchen and found the friend at the table talking to a man. The caller glimpsed the man for an instant, and then he was no longer there. The call ends with the host’s brief comment and sign-off. The caller offers no explanation for what they saw.
28 more stories
- An 1880 house with chairs moving, a door opening, and rose and tobacco scents3 min
- Childhood sighting of a semi-transparent cocktail party in a Minneapolis apartment6 min
- Previous owner’s presence, baked smell and rearranged dishes in an estate-sale house4 min
- Fax: Root beer carried down stairs by itself at a 40-day memorial gathering1 min