Staircase
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.
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.
Knocking doors and a bony-handed presence in a relative’s house near Sparta
[name withheld], calling from New York, New York, tells Art Bell about a night in the mid-1980s at their uncle’s and grandmother’s house in southern Greece, near Sparta. They report knocking and violently shaking doors. They then woke to what they call an entity on their back and bony hands holding them face-down. It ended when they screamed and pushed up. A cousin later implied he had a similar experience.
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.
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.
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.”
Aunt’s magician dream and the coworker’s husband’s matching dream
[name withheld], calling from Red Deer, Alberta, Canada, tells Art Bell a story they say their aunt in Ontario told them about five years earlier. She reports waking from sleep, going to the basement, and being threatened and chased by a man dressed as a magician with a butcher knife. This happened several times that night. The next day, according to [name withheld], her best friend at work said their husband had spent the night dreaming he was in the aunt’s basement dressed as a magician trying to kill her. [name withheld] says the story is true, and the host says it resembles an urban legend.
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.
Disturbances in a rented upstairs apartment above an old store
A caller who gives their name as [name withheld], from Portland, Oregon, describes living with their wife and mother in an upstairs apartment above a store they call the Liberal Store, north of a town they pronounce Malala. The caller reports a room that stayed cool in extreme summer heat, their mother being touched and smelling lilac, dishes found dumped in the sink, a dog refusing to enter a bathroom, Bibles found on the floor open to passages about King David, and knocking on the upstairs door and windows. The caller says the family moved out and that their wife and mother still will not enter the store.
Thin five-foot figure with a gigantic head among oak trees; cat found de-gutted
A caller identified only as [name withheld], listening from Las Vegas, tells Art Bell about something that happened in 1984. Around midnight, after hearing rustling and fluttering in the leaves near their third-story house, the caller went outside with a butcher knife. They saw a thin, black, five-foot-high shape with a gigantic head moving among the oak trees. When they jumped past the tree, it had vanished. The caller says that three days later they found one of their cats completely de-gutted, with a razor-sharp cut down the center. They offer [quote withheld] as their own explanation and only partly connect the two events.
71 more stories
- Letter claims mother and son had matching dreams of a shooting and met on the stairs2 min
- Man in blue coveralls vanishes from a catwalk above the Queen Mary pool4 min
- A child's voice and figure in a Las Vegas family home4 min
- Teenager reports a boy on their bed and a rusted pistol in a Midvale, Idaho, farmhouse4 min
- Caller relays aunt’s story of a goat-like figure and hoof prints in an Ohio cellar4 min
- Strangling dream and a hag mask found at the basement stairs3 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
- Letter about Scrabble tiles rearranged overnight and a stereo changing channels2 min
- Lights, ringing phones, and footsteps at a southern Idaho radio station3 min
- Cold spots, footsteps, and a bang in an attic at a friend’s house in Oswego2 min
- Footsteps from the basement, a shotgun and knives moved in a childhood home4 min
- A small limping figure, a 1932 diary, and a drowned boy identified6 min
- Fax: Root beer carried down stairs by itself at a 40-day memorial gathering1 min
- Children startle a transparent figure in an unfinished basement4 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
- Nightly 12:26 wakings, cool fingers, and a child’s invisible playmate5 min
- Man’s ghost in a basement and a cat-sized figure in a new house2 min
- Shadowy figure at the door of a Nebraska church parsonage bedroom3 min
- Footsteps on the stairs and a cold, angry presence in a Colorado Springs house2 min
- Retired sheriff's captain reports a ghost cat and a figure in an old courthouse2 min
- Light switches moving by themselves and an exercise bike pedaling in a basement4 min
- Attic noises and a presence in a family’s Victorian house4 min
- Dream of a grandmother at the door saying “There is no heaven,” and a father’s parallel dream7 min
- Knocking doors and a shadow figure in an Alaska church residence6 min
- Laughing in the basement, a woman in white, and shadow figures in a family home6 min
- A door, a figure on a cross, and footsteps in a rented 110-year-old house in Paw Paw, Michigan6 min
- Investigator reports tripod pulled by nothing and shadow silhouette on a stairway wall2 min
- Figure in an old Portland house points to the door and says “get out of my house”3 min
- Music box sounds at close range and a smashed attic door in a house-sitting stay2 min
- Fireplace doors, an orb, and moaning in a Branson-area bed and breakfast4 min
- Voices in the basement and a touch in the shower of a rental home3 min
- Mother sees an old woman in her armchair the night her mother died in Glasgow5 min
- Doors slamming in an abandoned Minnesota tuberculosis sanitarium5 min
- Talking toys with no batteries in a cousin’s nursery; an unpopular upstairs room5 min
- A white cat and unseen footsteps at Charleville Castle, Ireland7 min
- A cabin in the woods near Cloudcroft furnished only from the 1940s4 min
- Ouija board reportedly asks for caller on night their father died3 min
- Felt presences and an unseen couch sitter in a Mackinac Island house3 min
- Paramedic’s 1981 suicide call and a later claim that the house was haunted5 min
- Out-of-body story from a father during a stroke in a Brampton house3 min
- Unseen grab while opening a Colorado restaurant where the caller worked3 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
- 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
- Callback: A dead uncle’s footsteps and a father seen in a shared dream2 min
- A room in a Waterbury grandmother’s house said to bring nightmares and illness2 min
- Tall shadow figure in a bowler hat gliding through a grandmother’s basement4 min
- Dream of an elevator operator identified as Satan in a strange city4 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
- Footsteps and grunting in an abandoned 1920s building in Lake Elsinore6 min