Previous occupant died there
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.
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.
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.
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.
Childhood home in Granite City, Illinois, with flying plates and slamming doors
A caller who gives their location as Granite City, Illinois, says they were raised in a house from birth to age thirteen. The caller says plates and cups flew and smashed there, cold spots and strange smells occurred, footsteps and slamming doors were heard, and a dog watched unseen things. The caller says their parents brought about four people to drive out ghosts and that someone said a man had hanged himself in the basement. The caller says the activity went on until the family moved out after thirteen years. The caller says they were a child with no choice and would not live in such a house now.
Furnished apartment of a deceased tenant and a door held shut
A caller who says only that they are calling from Texas tells Art Bell that at nineteen they rented a furnished apartment. The previous tenant, an elderly woman, had died with nobody to inherit her belongings. The caller reports that cleaning supplies and dirty dishes vanished whenever the phone rang, their cat went berserk, and windows and the front door were found open despite the bolts. Finally, a door would not open against two people until they spoke a phrase they had been using. They say they packed up their cat and left.
Screaming, shaking, and red eyes at an Alabama plantation slave cabin
A first-time caller who identifies themselves as [quote withheld] tells of a trip they say they and some friends made in about 1988 or 1989 to a decrepit old plantation house and its fallen-down slave quarters in Alabama. The caller had heard the site was the scene of a mass killing. They say that when they touched the door of one cabin, screaming and banging broke out and the whole shack shook “like an earthquake.” The noise seemed to stay right over their heads as they ran, and the caller saw big bright red eyes looking out the cabin window at them. They say the group drove off and never returned to the area.
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.
A former priest blesses the house of a dead radio singer
In a letter read on air by the host, the writer says they were an Eastern Orthodox priest for many years. They describe a 1974 case. A close friend's father, said to have been a popular radio singer and guitar player in the 1940s, died alone of a heart attack. About two months later the friend's mother reported hearing her dead ex-husband singing, seeing him in a rocking chair, and feeling pinches that left welts. The letter writer says they blessed the house with holy water. During the bedroom blessing the mother was thrown backward into the hallway. The writer says they saw welts on her legs afterward, and that the problems stopped after the blessing.
36 more stories
- Figures in a field, a shrinking shape, and a child’s face in a drain pipe7 min
- Previous owner’s presence, baked smell and rearranged dishes in an estate-sale house4 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
- Usher figure falls from the balcony of the Capitol Theater, Flint4 min
- Tugging during naps and a waterbed that seemed to leak in a San Rafael apartment3 min
- Disappearing objects and a front door that opened by itself in an old house6 min
- Attic thumps and old glass negatives in a Hyde Park house4 min
- Child shoved from bed in a reportedly haunted guest room, Chinese Camp2 min
- Reported music, elevator doors, and a rooftop push in a Saskatoon hotel building6 min