Old house
A deceased man at the foot of the bed in a family funeral home
The host reads a letter from [name withheld] in Morris Plains, New Jersey, describing the writer's childhood in a family funeral home during World War II. The writer says they felt watched by an older man's body in the casket showroom, and later woke to see him standing at the foot of their bed. The letter ends with the writer's theory that the man was a child molester who could not adjust to death and their hope that he stays buried.
A black form, the family cats, and a brother’s hypothermia in an Edison, New Jersey, farmhouse
A caller who says they are calling from Fairborn, Ohio, tells Art Bell that around 1970, when they were nine or ten, their family lived in an old farmhouse on 12 acres in Edison, New Jersey. They report waking at 3 or 4 a.m. and seeing a black, indistinct oval form in the hallway that “slammed into” them and told them “don’t go in.” They then found their younger brother being enveloped by it in their shared bedroom while the family’s cats attacked it. The story ends with their father, described as a police officer, running in with a gun as the thing slid through a window. The brother was reportedly kept overnight in the hospital for hypothermia the next morning.
Entity attacks on a child in a late-1800s house in Needles, California
A first-time caller who gives their name as [name withheld] tells Art Bell about what they call an “entity attack” that began when they were about four years old, in a family house in Needles, California. He reports a presence coming through the wall at night, grabbing and dragging them, and family-wide problems with furniture moving. In a final incident, their father was trapped in the basement under a chest freezer. They say the family moved out about two weeks after that, and that they still sleep with their head under the covers.
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.
Family haunting in Louisiana tied to an uncle who kept his wife's corpse
A caller from Austin, Texas, tells a family story they say took place in Louisiana about a hundred years before the broadcast and is still going on. An uncle, said to be devastated by his young wife's death, kept her corpse in an upstairs bedroom for six months while he waited for a glass coffin ordered from New Orleans. He reportedly kissed it nightly and talked to it over a Ouija board. The caller passes on servants' reports of candles that would not light, cold air, whispers, falling objects, and nighttime conversations with another voice. The caller says relatives kept avoiding the room and feeling a cold presence into the 1970s. The caller says the woman is still buried in Metairie Cemetery, that a family member holds the key to the crypt, and that they themselves would go in out of curiosity.
Evil presence, a figure saying “I want you,” and strange events ending after a house fire
[name withheld] from Harrisburg, Oregon, calls to describe a series of experiences in their house. They include a feeling of evil in the bedroom, a touch across their feet, and a hiss around 3 a.m. The caller also reports that their husband saw a figure in the doorway and later heard it say “I want you.” The caller links the activity to witchcraft books found upstairs. After an upstairs house fire and a remodel, the caller says, nothing has happened since.
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 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.
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.
Wood-chopping sound and floating shadow at a ranch house
A caller from Kelso, Montana, tells Art Bell about a night several years earlier when the caller and a girlfriend were alone in a large old ranch house. The caller reports hearing a wood-chopping sound outside, then seeing a tall dark shadow float across a propane tank toward them. The next day they found chopped wood scattered around the yard. The caller also reports hearing their mother's voice call them inside the house when no one was there. They say they think the home's earlier large family “were still there.”
Ouija board channeling and a father’s figure in an Ohio farmhouse
[name withheld], calling from San Clemente, tells Art Bell about something they say happened when they were about fourteen or fifteen, in an old farmhouse in Ohio. They and a girlfriend used a Ouija board, a Christmas gift, to channel spirits. The caller says that on their first try they seemed to watch from outside their body. A spirit complained about the candlelight, their dead father briefly appeared, and then their vision went black and showed two-headed serpents and red-eyed rats. The caller says they came to with the lights on and their friend panicking. The caller ran to the bathroom, unable to breathe, with chest pain and a burning feeling. They never tried it again.
107 more stories
- Reported poltergeist activity at the Provincetown Inn, Cape Cod4 min
- Storage-room door opens in an old Pittsburgh house, 19563 min
- Uneasy feeling and a pull to leave an empty Victorian house in San Francisco4 min
- Two reported sightings of a small boy in a boarded-up farmhouse south of Denver6 min
- Felt presence in the downstairs of a Santa Barbara church building4 min
- Doorbell rings and scent of roses after a son's death2 min
- Feeling of a presence while camping in the ruins of the old Rainbow Lodge2 min
- Teen dream of a house and pasture, later found ruined near St. Louis airport5 min
- Disturbances in a rented upstairs apartment above an old store5 min
- Letter about a stone mason's photograph in an old L.A. home's wine cellar2 min
- House spirit, a child's great-grandfather, and keys turning in the lock3 min
- A brush slides off a roof at the time their father's wife dies4 min
- Basement door latch flips open on its own in a Missouri lake house2 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
- Daughter’s invisible friend Daggett and a cold chair in a Kansas City-area house3 min
- A voice named Harry and charred lumber in a Washington cabin5 min
- Dolls moved overnight in an antique shop in a former Kansas City orphanage4 min
- Annual funeral reported in the living room of a former funeral home1 min
- A bath-time candle relights itself in an old Golden, Colorado house2 min
- Letter: Anvil moves in basement after teenagers’ pentagram ritual1 min
- An 1880 house with chairs moving, a door opening, and rose and tobacco scents3 min
- A felt presence at night and creased pants on a bedroom chair2 min
- Letter: Transparent old man and smell of dirt, rot, and alcohol in a Missouri house3 min
- A woman’s head and shoulders emerging from an attic closet in an old converted home3 min
- Vancouver house with reported voodoo history and a priest who would not enter6 min
- Voice in the kitchen, a loosened bulb, and a face in a burnt furnace3 min
- A woman steps from a curtained closet and removes a crying child's skates4 min
- Transparent figure rocking upstairs in an old Hawaiian plantation home4 min
- Caller’s secondhand story of a figure on the stairs in a Salem house3 min
- Waking paralysis, chest pressure, and moving curtains in upstate New York2 min
- Father hears lamp pull-chains jingle and a moan in his ear, 19614 min
- 1840 Underground Railroad house: a ball slides to a child and a door latch moves5 min
- Shadowy figure at the door of a Nebraska church parsonage bedroom3 min
- Lights, a door, and voices in a boarded-up plantation house outside New Orleans6 min
- Police officer describes a dog-like creature; their brother later described the same3 min
- Locked bedroom door found ripped from its hinges in an old Detroit house1 min
- A Confederate figure in a log hospital on the Pleasant Hill battleground2 min
- Grandparents' handbuilt Sacramento house: light switches, toilet, cigar smoke (part 1)2 min
- Cigar smoke, a cement mixer, and moved chairs in a grandfather’s house4 min
- Light switches moving by themselves and an exercise bike pedaling in a basement4 min
- Drumming heard for weeks in an old Kansas house said to stand on a burial ground2 min
- Woman in a rocking chair beside an infant’s crib in a rented farmhouse2 min
- Child reports a man drinking in the window of an empty neighboring house3 min
- Attic noises and a presence in a family’s Victorian house4 min
- Police officer reports a man and dog who vanished on a foggy road near an old homestead3 min
- A Dutch artist paints his ghost to stop it frightening him2 min
- Caller says a Japanese art student was followed by a ghost from her family’s farm2 min
- Disappearing objects and a front door that opened by itself in an old house6 min
- Successive owners report a tall figure and a rocking-chair woman in a Victoria house5 min
- Family house in Syracuse: man on the telephone, bed presence, and deceased parents10 min
- Two figures seen through sheer curtains at an old roadhouse near Prescott, Arizona3 min
- A healing workshop at a retreat convent: Shared dreams and popping light bulbs7 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
- Letter: A girl named [name withheld] in a Trenton attic and a found ring3 min
- Documentary crew films a figure at an English estate2 min
- Percolator parts found reassembled on a windowsill3 min
- Child shoved from bed in a reportedly haunted guest room, Chinese Camp2 min
- Deputy draws his pistol on a translucent elderly woman in his kitchen4 min
- Vanishing shack and field of Corvairs near a suspected haunted house8 min
- Unseen runner and a struck fence at an abandoned slaughterhouse4 min
- Gray figure and male scream in a rented Union, Missouri house4 min
- Handcuff marks, “help” in frost, and a light orb at a Phantom Lake house3 min
- Haunted family house in Lorain, Ohio: Slapping, shadows, and something on the bed4 min
- A door, a figure on a cross, and footsteps in a rented 110-year-old house in Paw Paw, Michigan6 min
- Screaming, shaking, and red eyes at an Alabama plantation slave cabin4 min
- Figure in an old Portland house points to the door and says “get out of my house”3 min
- Fireplace doors, an orb, and moaning in a Branson-area bed and breakfast4 min
- Pitchfork reportedly pushes open a closet door in an abandoned house2 min
- Friend hears crying through a bathroom wall; neighbor found dead3 min
- Atlanta house, dog avoiding the bedroom, and a black dog seen during an out-of-body experience5 min
- Poltergeist activity in a shared Fargo house and a butcher knife in bed4 min
- A young boy reported by residents at a Maryland assisted living facility4 min
- Deceased neighbor [name withheld] materializes in a rocking chair and shakes hands3 min
- Basement clip lamp shakes, emits flame, and a dark object flies at a girl3 min
- Email: Sister reports Confederate soldiers in a Gettysburg basement2 min
- Shadow figures and white figures in a rented room at the Gable House6 min
- Army recovery hospital house, a watched feeling, and a nurse figure at a kitchen window3 min
- Felt presences and an unseen couch sitter in a Mackinac Island house3 min
- Nebraska farmhouse room and an aunt’s story of a barrier in the doorway2 min
- Closet doors roll open in a grandparents' bedroom after a silent challenge3 min
- Circuit breakers flipped off in a farmhouse basement5 min
- Light switches cut power in a funeral home holding a biker's body4 min
- Child figure in the Harnden house and a newspaper article of a 1958 murder-suicide5 min
- A toilet torn from the floor and thrown down the stairs of a vacant farmhouse3 min
- Letter: Crying child and a locked room in a Victorian university office3 min
- Radio switches itself back on and retunes to Ghost to Ghost1 min
- Girl in white dress at the foot of the bed in a Sacramento house2 min
- A locked basement safe found open with its bolts still extended5 min
- Morse code reported coming from a microwave after the caller’s mother died3 min
- A Santa-suited figure, a fallen well, and three extra presents at Christmas3 min
- Figure in trench coat and fedora at a Dallas window3 min
- Noises and cold chills in an old house in Chattanooga (part 1)1 min
- Electrical faults and a voice in TV static in a Tucson college house3 min
- Whistling, flying knives and a figure in a TV reflection in an 1860s Stillwater house4 min
- Backyard bone find at a rented house and blessed herbs to clear it4 min
- A shove on a dark street and a figure in a photograph, Louisville7 min
- Footsteps and grunting in an abandoned 1920s building in Lake Elsinore6 min
- Childhood sighting of a man over the bed in an old Annapolis Royal house3 min