Workplace or night shift
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.
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.
Usher figure falls from the balcony of the Capitol Theater, Flint
A first-time caller who gives the name [name withheld], from St. Louis, describes working at the Capitol Theater in Flint, Michigan. Staff played laser tag after hours in the closed building. The caller reports hearing footsteps and breathing behind them in a dark area. Then they saw a man smoking on the balcony who tumbled to the main floor and disappeared. The caller says their friends in the lobby told them they had “met the usher,” a man said to have died in the building after falling or being thrown from that balcony.
Fire dispatch dormitory and a dream of an 1864 village by the Santa Ana River
An unidentified caller says they are in Birch Bay, Washington, and that in 1984 they worked at a fire communications center on the banks of the Santa Ana River. The caller reports that they felt something lay across their legs and saw a fog-like form in the dispatch dormitory. The caller then had a vivid dream set in 1864 of a dying woman in a small village. In the dream they merge with a young woman, are shown a dying old woman, and are then confronted by the faces of villagers whose deaths they say they felt. The caller says a fellow dispatcher reported feeling watched and refused to sleep in the dormitory. Art closes by suggesting dispatch centers, as places of crisis, are places of haunting.
Light switches cut power in a funeral home holding a biker's body
A caller tells Art Bell that, as a teenager in the late 1970s, they worked six-to-midnight shifts in a funeral home alongside a licensed embalmer they call [name withheld]. The caller reports that the hallway light switches controlling the room's circuits clicked off by themselves three times while they vacuumed. A fourth time the switches clicked off while [name withheld] stood facing the caller, leaving the room dark. The caller says they concluded that the body of a locally known biker lying in the next room did not want them there. The caller and [name withheld] locked up and went home for the night.
Art student draws a tombstone named [name withheld], then meets a woman of that name at work
A caller who gives their name as [name withheld], who lives in Austin, Texas, and is originally from Victoria, B.C., Canada, tells Art Bell about their time in art school. They worked part-time at a small grocery store and, on a class field trip, visited a grave site and drew a tombstone bearing a woman's name. A couple of weeks later, the caller says, a woman in a long black dress with grayish skin came into the store. When asked her name, the woman said “[name withheld]” and said she did not know where she was. The story ends with [name withheld] saying the experience still unsettles them and that they rarely tell the story.
Unexplained knocking on a signal-shack hatch aboard a Navy oiler
A caller from Albany, Oregon, who identifies as a former Navy signalman, tells Art Bell about something they say happened around 1983 or 1984. The caller was stationed in the Indian Ocean aboard an aging oiler. They report that they and another signalman heard repeated knocking on a hatch of their signal shack in the middle of the night. They found no one when they opened it, and the knocking returned twenty to thirty minutes later. They searched from both access doors and found no one. The caller says they never found a cause.
Lights, ringing phones, and footsteps at a southern Idaho radio station
A caller who gives their name as [name withheld], in Seattle, says they worked weekend overnight shifts alone at a radio station in southern Idaho about seven years before the broadcast. The station was said to be haunted. They report lights switching on and off, phones ringing with a dial tone when answered, and footsteps crossing the floor above them while they were in the basement at about 3:30 a.m. They blame a ghost that they say was attached to one of the station’s DJs and had earlier been at that man’s house until a priest blessed it. They do not say how the activity at the station ended.
Retired guard’s story of Ted Bundy’s ghost in the Florida electric chair
On the broadcast the host reads an account he attributes to a retired Florida state prison guard, unnamed at the guard’s own request, who is said to have told his story to a Tampa newspaper reporter in April 2001. According to the host’s reading, after Ted Bundy’s execution guards would enter the electric chair room and find Bundy sitting there smiling. He vanished when they approached or spoke to him. Other guards also reported seeing him near his former cell, where he was said to repeat [quote withheld] The guard further said the warden threatened to fire any guard who reported the activity, that several guards quit, and that Ted was not the only ghost haunting the prison.
A radio station at 666 Main Street, Deadwood, and a ghost called Doc Smiley
A caller the host addresses as [name withheld], said to be calling from Colorado, tells of working as an overnight DJ in college at K-Sky Radio in Deadwood, South Dakota. They say the station was at 666 Main Street. They describe the staff's knowledge of a ghost called “Doc Smiley.” They also describe a man in Old West clothing seen through a newsroom window and gone when approached, clocks and commercial carts found upside down, dark figures glimpsed in the hallway, and doors creaking and slamming on their own. They end with a night during a blizzard when, about 3:30 a.m., they heard a loud “demonic roar” from down the hall. They ran after a friend they assumed was pranking them and found no tracks in the snow outside.
Weights restacked in a lighthouse exercise room
A caller the host calls [name withheld] in Maryland describes a 1978 visit to the New London Ledge Lighthouse. He was a 20-year-old Navy student in Groton, Connecticut, and the guest of a Coast Guard keeper friend named [name withheld]. Twice during an evening of watching television, the four men present heard loud bumping from the upstairs exercise room. The second time, free weights that had been scattered on the floor were found stacked neatly from largest to smallest. The next day [name withheld] showed him old lighthouse log books with entries about ghostly events. [name withheld] concluded that the dead keeper was still doing his duties. Art Bell closed by treating the lighthouse as haunted.
Respiratory therapist reports seeing a newly dead patient among his family in an ER lobby
A caller who gives their location as Lynchburg, Virginia, says that while working as a respiratory therapist on a Code Blue team in Houston, Texas, they saw a newly dead patient standing among his family in an emergency room lobby. The caller says the man, still wearing the clothes he died in, appeared translucent and seemed to be trying to get his family's attention. He was mouthing words such as [quote withheld] and [quote withheld] The caller says an unnamed partner also saw it. The call ends with the host commenting on people who do not seem to understand that they have died.
35 more stories
- Stumble in a radio station hall where a dead employee was found4 min
- Host's story of a witch caller who left him an old Ouija board2 min
- Ghost sailor reported aboard the icebreaker Glacier2 min
- A voice calling the caller's name on a night shift at a Lake Stevens plant53 s
- Phantom fire in a converted railway station restaurant2 min