Looked like a living person
Ouija board spirits, a ball of light, and an old man with shark-like teeth
A caller named [name withheld], from Pahrump, Nevada, tells Art Bell that at about age 17 in Houston they used a Ouija board alone and spoke with spirits, including one called [name withheld] and a dark spirit called Baal. They report a ball of light appearing near a model airplane. About three days later, they say, they saw an old man in a brown leisure suit who seemed to move instantly across the street and smiled with shark-like teeth before vanishing. The story ends with Art Bell warning against casual use of the Ouija board.
Woman in a white dress pursues a car on Monterey Highway, 1951
A caller named [name withheld], from Los Banos, California, relays a story they say their father told them about their father's cousin [name withheld]. According to [name withheld], in 1951 [name withheld] was driving north from a movie theater in Morgan Hill toward San Jose on a stretch of the Monterey Highway known as “Blood Alley.” A woman in a white dress at the roadside kept pace with the accelerating car and then appeared at the window as a skeletal face. [name withheld] says [name withheld] braked, prayed, and drove back to [name withheld]'s mother's house instead.
Gray-eyed man on a friend’s couch after a Ouija session
A caller from Colorado says a high school friend, with whom they had once used a Ouija board, phoned them at about 3:30 a.m. in December. The friend was crying and standing outside their own house in the snow. The friend said they had come home to a smell of sulfur and found a well-kept man sitting on their couch with entirely gray eyes. The friend had broken their bedroom window to escape. The caller and their mother later entered the wrecked house and had priests bless it.
White-haired woman with a white dog beside a desert road
A caller named [name withheld], from Salt Lake, tells Art Bell a story dated to 1981. [name withheld] says they and four friends were driving home from a California graduation trip. On a desolate desert road outside Palm Springs, they saw a white-haired woman in white holding a white dog on a chain. The woman’s dress and hair blew without wind, and her head turned unnaturally far to follow their car. The friends reportedly felt a horrible feeling and still discuss the encounter years later.
A caped figure, a skeleton, and two strangers at Redondo Beach
A truck driver who calls themselves [name withheld], phoning from a truck stop in Milan, New Mexico, tells Art Bell a story they date to the late 1970s at Redondo Beach, California. The caller says they and their girlfriend chased a fast-moving black cape-like figure on their motorcycle at dusk. It turned and looked like a skeleton. When it vanished around the corner of a building, two oddly dressed strangers were suddenly standing there. One of them grabbed their girlfriend’s hands and repeated a warning. The caller ends by passing on a friend’s opinion that they had met something supernatural. The host calls it not easily explained.
Wartime story of a figure at a wrought iron fence and a graveyard
A caller recounts a story they say their grandfather told them many times. According to the caller, during World War II in England the grandfather and a friend were riding in a horse-drawn carriage at night. The friend threw an empty bottle over a wrought iron fence. A figure reportedly walked through the fence, stopped the horse, and passed a finger through the friend’s boot. The friend reportedly died of blood poisoning two days later. When the grandfather returned about a week later, he found that the fence bordered a graveyard. The caller says their grandfather believed a ghost killed his friend.
Daytime sleep paralysis, a woman speaking in a man's voice, and nails in the head
A caller named [name withheld], speaking from L.A. and formerly of the Truckee area near Donner Pass, reports a series of daytime nap experiences over about two and a half weeks. The caller describes waking up paralyzed and feeling someone sit on the bed. It ended one afternoon, they say, when they saw a woman on the bed who spoke in a man's voice. She told the caller to pull out three nails they felt in their head, and she showed the caller their own body lying beside her. The caller says they refused, returned to their body, and the experience never happened again.
Civil War figures reenact a bayonet killing in an aunt's basement
A caller who gives their name as [name withheld], from Virginia, describes a childhood night spent in their aunt's furnished basement, in an area they say was a Civil War battlefield. They report seeing a woman in a gown and a man in a blue uniform embrace. Then a man in gray ran up and bayoneted the man in blue again and again, with faint crying and groans audible. They say the figures vanished instantly, and the call ends.
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.
Duplex poltergeist, a figure at the wall, and a hidden room of the former police chief
A first-time caller who gives their name as [name withheld] describes living in a California duplex apartment at age 21. They say objects flew from a kitchen cupboard and a young neighbor also experienced activity. They report being shaken awake one night and seeing a man standing at the wall of their bedroom, whose face then appeared in a mirror. Moving the mirror revealed a concealed room full of guns, knives, Confederate money, and flags. They say police told them the former chief of police had lived and died there, that the removal of the weapons ended the activity, and that they moved out.
Family house in Syracuse: man on the telephone, bed presence, and deceased parents
[name withheld], from Syracuse, New York, tells Art Bell that their family home, owned by the family since 1950, has been the setting for a series of strange events. Both their parents died there. The caller reports a 1989 ghost of a young man talking on their telephone and walking through a wall. The caller also describes a presence that got into bed with them, a phone call in which a doctor’s office said it had spoken to a man named [name withheld], a green film, a smell of spaghetti sauce, and a later vision of their mother. The call ends with the host closing the segment after the mother’s reported insurance detail.
A key in the door and a solid figure in a Reno apartment
A caller the host addresses as [name withheld] tells Art Bell that they had rented a small apartment in Reno for three months when a noise woke them on their couch. They say someone entered with a key, made a phone call about a deal, packed clothes, and took a banana from their refrigerator. They then saw that he had no hands or feet. Police found no one. The next morning the chain lock was on, the windows were locked, and a banana peel was in their trash. The previous tenant's mail stopped arriving. They say the apartment manager identified the man they described as the tenant who had lived there before them.
89 more stories
- AP item on reported spirits and a bread smell at the US Capitol1 min
- Deceased great-aunt seen at cemetery and in hospital room4 min
- Biological father emerges from a bedroom mirror (1970)2 min
- Man buried in a cave-in seen in the Ward mine near Virginia City3 min
- Figures at a guest-room door and a blonde man who vanished, St. George2 min
- Red eyes in a tree, a transforming figure, and a drive-by rescue4 min
- Caller reports seeing husband in a passing car before learning of his death3 min
- Metallic sounds, a figure by the partition, and a moving bed in a Taiwan apartment2 min
- Figure resembling the writer's wife in a bathroom doorway, Northridge, California1 min
- Mother's reported visit from the caller's deceased grandfather2 min
- A solid white figure with a knight-style helmet seen in a family home hallway4 min
- Two pilots seen in an airliner cabin, linked to an Everglades crash2 min
- Figure resembling roommate walks past door in Lawrence, Kansas, house1 min
- Deceased mother reportedly appears at a newborn's crib and vanishes2 min
- Air Force captain's ghost at a gate shack after a B-52 crash2 min
- A wild man figure reported near an archaeological dig on the Luxembourg-Belgian border4 min
- Pale, unresponsive hitchhiker figure on Piper's Gap Road4 min
- Caller reports their mother saw a boyfriend in her bedroom the night he died1 min
- Man in a black robe at a remote mountain campsite2 min
- A man in a checkered suit lying on a Santa Cruz Mountains road2 min
- Cyclist reports seeing their dead riding partner on the road at night2 min
- Man in blue coveralls vanishes from a catwalk above the Queen Mary pool4 min
- Vanishing woman in a long gingham dress on a Georgia country road3 min
- Teenager reports a boy on their bed and a rusted pistol in a Midvale, Idaho, farmhouse4 min
- A Denver officer’s letter: A woman in a red dress at a courthouse and the elevator5 min
- A friend is watched by a man who vanishes from a Connecticut kitchen3 min
- A caller sees an occult-minded acquaintance appear in their locked bedroom and vanish at the kitchen light2 min
- Colorado officer meets the same roadside man twice, then the man vanishes2 min
- Associated Press wire article on reported ghosts at the White House3 min
- Caller reports their deceased father sitting on the couch with a message2 min
- Letter: A figure in white and a toddler’s “lady in the white dress”2 min
- Figure at foot of bed walks through bedroom wall, father’s childhood story2 min
- Deceased father appears at the foot of the bed and speaks to his son2 min
- Usher figure falls from the balcony of the Capitol Theater, Flint4 min
- A woman steps from a curtained closet and removes a crying child's skates4 min
- Unplugged television explodes in a basement gathering; a dark man reappears4 min
- Bleeding man on a San Diego corner who vanished when officers turned back3 min
- A figure in period flying gear in the cockpit of a parked F-4 at an Air Force hangar3 min
- Shadowy figure at the door of a Nebraska church parsonage bedroom3 min
- Police officer reports a man and dog who vanished on a foggy road near an old homestead3 min
- Successive owners report a tall figure and a rocking-chair woman in a Victoria house5 min
- Vanishing fisherman and black triangle inside an Alaska mountain base5 min
- Letter: Man reports wife’s double at bathroom door while she lies in bed1 min
- Clairvoyant medium’s message and apparitions of deceased aunt and uncle4 min
- A girl named [name withheld] who vanished in a Denton, Texas graveyard7 min
- Blind caller guided by a mortician with no arm in his suit7 min
- Deceased mechanic reported on wooden roller coaster track at night1 min
- Figures in a lakeside park and the same tall man in a kitchen4 min
- Deceased father appears beside the bed and tucks the caller in5 min
- Motorcyclist who vanished from a campground after supper and a conspiracy talk3 min
- Caller reports seeing their living father walk through the family house6 min
- A buffalo soldier reported in a dormitory office at F.E. Warren Air Force Base3 min
- Highway spin-out and a figure seen in the rearview mirror2 min
- A police officer’s question about a man walking through a house2 min
- Driver reports hitting an elderly man and dog on a road outside Chicago5 min
- Fax reporting a man in lumberjack dress at a ninth-floor window42 s
- Deceased truck driver reportedly visits a Colorado ranch and leaves Pepsi cans4 min
- Woman in white waving arms on an Arizona highway, then a crashed car5 min
- A fourth laugh and a figure that vanishes at a campfire2 min
- Deceased grandfather seen peeking into a pot in the family restaurant1 min
- Retired guard’s story of Ted Bundy’s ghost in the Florida electric chair2 min
- Soldier ghost at a child’s bed and a later Air Force echo1 min
- Teenage boy on a headstone identified from a photo as the caller’s uncle3 min
- A girl figure seen twice in a sister’s house; a later vision of a murder-suicide4 min
- Two men who asked about a missing gate vanish on a rural gas road5 min
- A deadbolted fire door opening repeatedly, and a child seen in a window at a state institution10 min
- Dream of an elevator operator identified as Satan in a strange city4 min
- Whistling, flying knives and a figure in a TV reflection in an 1860s Stillwater house4 min
- A radio station at 666 Main Street, Deadwood, and a ghost called Doc Smiley4 min
- Toddler asks to give a french fry to a man on the staircase in Guam2 min
- A hospital legend of the “Gray Lady” who offers tea to dying patients4 min
- Backing into an unseen solid body at a Pasadena garden center2 min
- Childhood sighting of a man over the bed in an old Annapolis Royal house3 min