Rocking chair
Small sample: these figures describe only these 7 stories.
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.
Rocking chair and voices in an 1880s Ashland rental house
A letter read on air, from a writer named [name withheld] in Ashland, Oregon, describes moving into an 1880s rental house in 1989. Later a rocking chair moved by itself beside the writer's infant daughter. The letter also reports baby pictures balanced on their sides, odd noises on the baby monitor, a white mist, the voices of two elderly women, and a sweet smell. The family moved out, and the letter says the current residents report nothing unusual.
Woman in a rocking chair beside an infant’s crib in a rented farmhouse
A caller who gives their name as [name withheld], from Victoria, tells a story they say their sister and mother told them about when they were about 10 months old. According to the caller, their sister woke one night, went downstairs, and reported a lady in a rocking chair beside their crib. Their mother told her to go back to sleep, but the caller says their mother had seen the same thing and felt it was not harmful. They add that their mother later heard the previous occupants’ history, in which a husband’s heart attack trapped his wife and she suffocated. The family moved out shortly afterward, before their father returned.
Transparent figure rocking upstairs in an old Hawaiian plantation home
A caller named [name withheld], from Kohala, Hawaii, says they live in an old plantation town in a century-old house once occupied by a mill manager. They say the house is haunted “back and forth.” They tell of two family experiences. Their mother, alone upstairs at night, saw a transparent figure in an aloha-shirt pattern with dark skin, rocking back and forth. Their father, scraping paint during repairs, heard someone ask what he was doing when no one was in the house. [name withheld] also says they once asked their mother about an infant who had reportedly died in the home, and she was not receptive to the question.
Successive owners report a tall figure and a rocking-chair woman in a Victoria house
[name withheld], calling from Victoria, British Columbia, tells Art Bell that their parents bought a house in that city about 1941. The caller believes two ghosts remain there: their brother Jim, killed in an accident in 1957, and their mother, who died of cancer in 1983. The caller says two families who owned the house in turn each contacted them and their sister about odd happenings. They described a tall young man in the basement and, in the second case, a rocking chair that moved by itself with a woman sitting in it. The call ends with the caller’s own thoughts on what the dead may experience and Art Bell’s closing remarks.
Invisible rocking chair heard by a blind woman at a YWCA
[name withheld], a caller from Sacramento, tells a brief secondhand story about their wife before they were married. While she was living at a YWCA in Massachusetts, she reportedly heard what sounded like a rocking chair creaking in a library or sitting room. When she reached out to touch it, the sound stopped and the chair was gone. [name withheld] offers no cause, and the host says the story suggests an afterlife.
Deceased neighbor [name withheld] materializes in a rocking chair and shakes hands
A caller who gives their first name as [name withheld] (formerly of Bend, Oregon, then of Applegate, Oregon) tells Art Bell that their elderly neighbor [name withheld] used to feed their cats and watch their house while they traveled to art shows. One night after [name withheld] had died, [name withheld] appeared to the caller. They say the rocking chair beside them started to rock, [name withheld] materialized fully, and they shook his hand. [name withheld] told the caller he was dead and asked them to tell his wife everything was okay. The caller adds that they thought it was cool and that similar things have happened to them over the years. The story ends without saying whether the message was delivered.