New or rented home
San Jose apartment with occult remains and blue light pillars
A letter read on air, with the writer’s name withheld, describes working for an apartment-management company in East San Jose, California, in 1971. The writer reports being sent to clean a second-floor unit after an eviction. They say they found black walls, red bulbs, a pentagram, altars, and animal remains. After warnings from two strangers, they say they saw two pillars of blue light at the foot of their bed at about 2 a.m. The letter ends with the writer saying they never returned to the address.
Ghost of a murdered upstairs neighbor in a rented downstairs house
A caller the host introduces as [quote withheld] says they rented the downstairs of an older house, where a door resisted closing in a way they read as a warning. They report that they later heard, from below, a man beat the upstairs woman to death. They then saw her ghost in their bedroom telling them not to come up to help. Police came the next day. The caller ends by saying she gave them strength and that they are ready if evil comes again.
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.
Glowing green clothed skeleton in Navy housing and a stepfather’s change
A caller the host addresses as [name withheld], calling from San Diego, describes an incident in Navy housing in 1971 (later said to be 1974). They say they saw a luminescent green, fully clothed skeleton with an evil grin inside their bedcovers while they were unable to move. They say they later learned the previous tenant, a man, had died driving home from hunting, matching the hunting cap and jacket they say the figure wore. They link the sighting to a lasting change for the worse in their stepfather’s personality. The host suggests that the figure inhabited the stepfather, and the caller says they believe so. The caller ends with a brief remark that their late mother visits them.
Letter on deaths and reported hauntings at the Penfield Place in Illinois
The host reads a letter attributed to [name withheld] in Rockford, Illinois. It recounts the history of a house in north-central Illinois that locals call the Penfield Place. The letter tells of a series of deaths, a bride's disappearance and the later discovery of her dismembered remains, and strange events reported by later tenants. It ends by describing the house as still standing, decaying and in ruins. No document or second witness is presented on air.
Hands pressing him down in bed; uncle later recalls a murder in the flat
A caller, reached by the host while sitting out on his porch, tells a story he says goes back to 1983. That year he moved with his wife and baby to Long Beach, California, and took a free one-bedroom apartment in his uncle's building. He reports that his baby woke screaming nightly for about a month. Some weeks after the couple switched rooms, he woke from a frightening dream to something pressing him face down into his waterbed. He could not breathe or speak until his wife woke and turned on the light. The next day, he says, his uncle told him a previous tenant, a drug dealer, had been shot to death in that same room. The caller says the experience converted him to belief in ghosts.
Basement door, a shared dream, and a slow-burning teddy bear in a country home
A caller who gives their name as [name withheld], from Dayton, Ohio, describes several “spooky moments” in a country home that the caller and their husband bought in the mid-1970s. A basement door opened by itself each evening at supper time. Their son said something was coming into his room. One night the caller and their husband reportedly shared the same vision of their daughter being raised out of bed and slammed to the floor. They found the daughter asleep and unharmed on the floor. They concluded there was an entity in the home. They blessed the rooms with holy water and burned a handmade teddy bear the caller distrusted, which, the caller says, took hours to burn. The caller says they left the house with their children a few months later.
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.
Daughters’ dreams of a “red lady” in a sublet house where a suicide occurred
A caller who gives their name as Nathan, from Sacramento, tells Art Bell that about fifteen years earlier, while their family sublet a house for a summer, both of their four-year-old daughters reported dreaming of a “red lady” in their room. Before moving out, the caller says, neighbors told the family that the previous owner’s wife had killed herself in that same children’s room. The caller explains the dreams as leftover energy from the death. The host adds his own view that suicides tend to remain behind, and the call ends with the host thanking the caller.
Friend hears crying through a bathroom wall; neighbor found dead
A caller who calls themselves [quote withheld] tells a story they attribute to a friend in Victoria in 1987. The friend rented a suite in a converted Victorian mansion. While bathing there, the friend reportedly heard the woman in the next suite crying through the thin wall on about three or four nights. Then the friend noticed the room turning cold and a bad smell coming from the other side. According to the caller, the caretaker and police entered the neighboring suite and found the woman dead in her bathtub from slit wrists. The caller says she had died about two weeks earlier. The friend moved out shortly afterward. The host reacts with surprise and offers his own suggestion that the moaning might have been a plea for the body to be found.
Letter: Crying child and a locked room in a Victorian university office
The host reads a letter attributed to [quote withheld] In it, the writer says they worked in the 1980s for a university journalism department housed in an old off-campus Victorian building. They report hearing a child crying that they could never find, a chilling cold on the stairs, and a third-floor door they could not unlock. The letter ends with a friend opening the door, a child’s footprint in dust, a cold vortex on the stairs, and a psychic’s story of a boy’s fatal fall and his mother’s imprisonment there.
83 more stories
- Sensed presence of previous owner “[name withheld]” in a purchased house3 min
- A silver figure, footprints on a sleeping mother's arm, and a “vortex” in Long Beach2 min
- Disturbances in a rented upstairs apartment above an old store5 min
- A girl's laughter and a slamming door in a rented trailer in Cookville, Tennessee2 min
- Fax about a translucent figure in cowboy clothes reported in a Phoenix-area home2 min
- House spirit, a child's great-grandfather, and keys turning in the lock3 min
- Mobile home on the Barlow Trail: missing objects, faint figures, and a door that flew open5 min
- Unseen running and a fall heard in an Illinois apartment hallway2 min
- A reported ghost dog in an old Bothell, Washington, apartment1 min
- Rocking chair and voices in an 1880s Ashland rental house5 min
- Teenager reports a boy on their bed and a rusted pistol in a Midvale, Idaho, farmhouse4 min
- Rented Ohio mining-town house: footsteps, greyhounds, and a man at the door3 min
- Vibrating vase and mirror, and a shattering glass in a mid-1970s house5 min
- Foster home in a dead boy’s bedroom: Bed pressed down at night2 min
- [name withheld]’s secondhand story of a babysitter, a changing house, and a Ouija board4 min
- Furnished apartment of a deceased tenant and a door held shut7 min
- 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
- A 1964 television that kept playing after being unplugged4 min
- Previous owner’s presence, baked smell and rearranged dishes in an estate-sale house4 min
- Duplex poltergeist, a figure at the wall, and a hidden room of the former police chief4 min
- Letter read on air: Red stain and handprint in a Santa Barbara shower2 min
- A burned radio plays inside a sealed footlocker after a caller asks for a sign7 min
- Stolen skull, flames, and a smoke image in a mirror in a Fort Lauderdale apartment6 min
- Rented Memphis house: light switch, waterbed displacement, ankle grab5 min
- Ghost called Charlie reported to follow a family through moves4 min
- Tugging during naps and a waterbed that seemed to leak in a San Rafael apartment3 min
- Missing items and a refilled coffee cup in a former funeral home in Providence3 min
- A foggy light aura in a hallway of a late mother-in-law’s house4 min
- Late mother-in-law appears in her former bedroom; a footprint in the carpet8 min
- Humming voice and a namesake tombstone in Covington, Georgia3 min
- Ouija board session with an 89-year-old landlady2 min
- 1840 Underground Railroad house: a ball slides to a child and a door latch moves5 min
- Silhouette with red eyes in a South Dakota basement5 min
- Man’s ghost in a basement and a cat-sized figure in a new house2 min
- Police officer recalls a dog-headed figure entering their childhood bedroom3 min
- Man in a hat seen at window and bedside in a Nebraska rental house7 min
- Wailing in two bivouacked rooms in bombed Aachen, 19452 min
- Letter: Man reports wife’s double at bathroom door while she lies in bed1 min
- Two figures seen through sheer curtains at an old roadhouse near Prescott, Arizona3 min
- Stove glass bursts after a request for a sign; a toddler waves at an empty room5 min
- Séance in a Knoxville apartment and a swollen window that fell5 min
- Attic thumps and old glass negatives in a Hyde Park house4 min
- Caller reports a felt presence in their house, later confirmed by a neighbor2 min
- Percolator parts found reassembled on a windowsill3 min
- Chain-dragging clanks overhead in the attic of the caller's parents' house1 min
- Dark presence and being thrown in a Yosemite employee tent cabin5 min
- Noises of a file cabinet being ransacked below a Plymouth, New Hampshire apartment2 min
- Deputy draws his pistol on a translucent elderly woman in his kitchen4 min
- Flickering lights, a truck radio, and birthday phone calls after a brother’s death3 min
- Gray figure and male scream in a rented Union, Missouri house4 min
- A figure watching from a child’s bedroom window in a rented house2 min
- A door, a figure on a cross, and footsteps in a rented 110-year-old house in Paw Paw, Michigan6 min
- Voices, a child's closet figure, and shadows seen in a Pahrump single-wide2 min
- Voices in the basement and a touch in the shower of a rental home3 min
- Chest pressure and a scream saying “save me” in bed after moving to Washington State3 min
- Noose reported suspended from nothing in a rented former church rectory2 min
- Voices from the basement and footsteps on the stairs in a rented Atlanta room3 min
- Dead uncle seen in boys’ bedroom on the day he had promised to visit4 min
- A nine-drawer dresser blocking a bedroom door in an Eldridge, Iowa, house6 min
- Electrical faults and a voice in TV static in a Tucson college house3 min
- Backyard bone find at a rented house and blessed herbs to clear it4 min
- Haunted house bought in Ohio: closet racket, knocks on a bedroom door, a bouncing cat cage, and growling6 min
- Dreams, levitation and handprint marks on a Clarksburg property7 min