Lights flicker or switch on and off
Childhood events in an Oregon City rental house: a hand in the bath and a laugh
A caller who gives their name as [name withheld] tells Art Bell about events in an old rented house in Oregon City, Oregon, where their family lived from about the time the caller was six until they were eleven. They describe lights switching on and off, strange sounds, chairs sliding, footsteps, and a feeling of being watched in the basement. Their parents dismissed all of it. The climax they describe is in the bathroom at about age eleven. They say they felt a hand stroking their neck and then felt snakes falling from the ceiling onto them, followed by a cackling laugh they call the most evil they have ever heard. They say they spoke to a priest about it. Art Bell ends the call because the show was short on time.
Woman in black, locked doors, and a priest's blessing in a Dodge City rental
A caller who gives their name as [name withheld], from Sumner, Washington, describes a house their family moved into in Dodge City, Kansas, about fifteen years earlier. The caller reports flooding, a woman in a black dress seen by their daughter, doors that shut and locked family members in, whispering, a fetal-position stain on the carpet, and footsteps on the stairs. After researching records, the caller and their sister concluded that an elderly former resident was earthbound. A priest blessed the house and fell ill. The caller says they later blessed it themselves and believes the woman went to the light.
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.
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.
A translucent figure walks onto a Florida TV studio set
A caller named [name withheld], from Minneapolis, tells the host that several years earlier they were working at a Florida television station. They arrived at about 3 a.m., heard unexplained noises, and saw a translucent girl walk onto the studio set and sit down before everything went dark. Weeks later, they say, a colleague told them that a girl had killed herself on that set in the late 1960s. The story ends without further resolution.
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.
Circuit breakers flipped off in a farmhouse basement
A caller identified on air as [name withheld] from Michigan describes a night in 1994 alone in their parents' large 1870s farmhouse. They came home to a dark house and found every light and appliance dead. Going down to the basement to the circuit box, they say they felt an increasingly malevolent presence. They say the family cat hissed, clawed its way out of their arms, and fled upstairs. At the box they found every breaker flipped to the off position in a house they say was locked. They switched them on and left the house.
Shadow figure at a bedroom window and a child found on the roof
A caller who gives their name as [name withheld], from Sarasota, Florida, tells Art Bell that at about age five, which they place around 1966, they saw a shadow figure in a hat and long coat at their bedroom window one winter night. Their parents reportedly saw the same figure crossing the schoolyard outside and found no footprints. The caller also relays, secondhand through their wife, that about a week earlier their parents had found them missing from bed and finally discovered them sitting on the roof with no apparent way up. Asked what they think happened, they say they have no idea. The call ends with a discussion of streetlights going out around them, which the story leaves unresolved.
Yellow eyes and an unseen figure at the top of the stairs on a 13th birthday
A caller who gives their first name as [name withheld], calling from Port St. Lucie, Florida, tells Art Bell about “strange things” in the house where the caller and their sister grew up. They end with an encounter on their 13th birthday, when they say they struck something unseen at the top of the stairs and saw yellow eyes. The host asks whether they brought it on themselves, and the caller agrees, saying [quote withheld]
Light switches cut power in a funeral home holding a biker's body
A caller tells Art Bell that, as a teenager in the late 1970s, they worked six-to-midnight shifts in a funeral home alongside a licensed embalmer they call [name withheld]. The caller reports that the hallway light switches controlling the room's circuits clicked off by themselves three times while they vacuumed. A fourth time the switches clicked off while [name withheld] stood facing the caller, leaving the room dark. The caller says they concluded that the body of a locally known biker lying in the next room did not want them there. The caller and [name withheld] locked up and went home for the night.
Shadow figure behind a sapling and streetlights going out on a drive home
A caller the host introduces as [name withheld] from Louisiana tells, secondhand, what their wife reportedly told them when they were newlyweds. Driving home from her mother’s at night, she said she felt watched. She saw a shadow figure standing behind a roadside sapling and watched its head follow her as she passed. Then the neighborhood streetlights went out one at a time until they reached her. She reversed back to the spot and found only a sapling, and the lights came back on at once. The caller says the incident ended there, and they offer no explanation.
Lights, ringing phones, and footsteps at a southern Idaho radio station
A caller who gives their name as [name withheld], in Seattle, says they worked weekend overnight shifts alone at a radio station in southern Idaho about seven years before the broadcast. The station was said to be haunted. They report lights switching on and off, phones ringing with a dial tone when answered, and footsteps crossing the floor above them while they were in the basement at about 3:30 a.m. They blame a ghost that they say was attached to one of the station’s DJs and had earlier been at that man’s house until a priest blessed it. They do not say how the activity at the station ended.
33 more stories
- Nurse's faxed letter about a patient's death and alarm clocks at 11:073 min
- Blue streak through a closed window and a light bulb behind a radiator4 min
- A small limping figure, a 1932 diary, and a drowned boy identified6 min
- Rented Memphis house: light switch, waterbed displacement, ankle grab5 min
- Old man’s head with a stretched neck hanging in a workshop2 min
- Voice in the kitchen, a loosened bulb, and a face in a burnt furnace3 min