Ouija boards and automatic writing
Talking boards, planchettes, and automatic writing.
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.
Ouija board spirits, a ball of light, and an old man with shark-like teeth
A caller named [name withheld], from Pahrump, Nevada, tells Art Bell that at about age 17 in Houston they used a Ouija board alone and spoke with spirits, including one called [name withheld] and a dark spirit called Baal. They report a ball of light appearing near a model airplane. About three days later, they say, they saw an old man in a brown leisure suit who seemed to move instantly across the street and smiled with shark-like teeth before vanishing. The story ends with Art Bell warning against casual use of the Ouija board.
Gray-eyed man on a friend’s couch after a Ouija session
A caller from Colorado says a high school friend, with whom they had once used a Ouija board, phoned them at about 3:30 a.m. in December. The friend was crying and standing outside their own house in the snow. The friend said they had come home to a smell of sulfur and found a well-kept man sitting on their couch with entirely gray eyes. The friend had broken their bedroom window to escape. The caller and their mother later entered the wrecked house and had priests bless it.
Six nights in an abandoned rural house: Odors, Ouija board, and footsteps
A caller who says they are a county fraud investigator tells Art Bell they spent six nights with their girlfriend and her daughter in an unoccupied house about 25 miles up a dirt road in Northern California. Local people had told them it was haunted. They report a rotting-flesh smell, cold spots, a chair that flew back and injured the girlfriend’s knee, a door handle turning, footsteps and a slammed door upstairs, a child’s “help me” captured on a tape recorder, and orbs in several hundred photographs. The call ends with the host asking for the caller’s e-mail and website link.
A black mass invitation, a stalled dorm elevator, and a body in the college lake
A caller who gives their location as Gainesville, Georgia (WDUN), tells of their freshman year at a small southern college. A man in the student center claimed to be a black witch and invited their group to a black mass. The caller did not go. That night a fire alarm sent them outside, where they saw their returning friends looking [quote withheld] before the dorm elevator they boarded stalled between floors. The caller says they later learned that one man had disappeared and that his body was found in the college lake about three weeks afterward, with his throat cut. The host cuts the caller off for time.
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.
Ouija board session said to contact a grandfather in a coma
A caller on the first-time caller line tells a story they say their friend [name withheld] told them in “the utmost seriousness.” According to the caller, when [name withheld] was sixteen and his brother about twenty-one, a group of friends used a Ouija board alone. One of them appeared to make contact with [name withheld], the brothers' grandfather, who had been in a coma for two to three years. The story ends with the board spelling rapid messages and the boy at the board being pulled away in a shocked state. The host then warns against Ouija boards.
A paper Ouija board, a spirit called Tommy, and wall scratches
A first-time caller who gives their name as [name withheld] says they have been sensitive to spirits since childhood. They say a hostile spirit that gave its name as Tommy attached itself to them after a session with a homemade Ouija board about ten years earlier. They describe objects moving, a shadow figure, and their name being called. They also describe a shadow seen in a car and on a porch, and scratches that appeared on their girlfriend’s bedroom wall. They say the activity has largely stopped as long as they do not engage with it. The host tells the caller the spirit is still with them and advises them to get help.
Ouija board threat, a voice in the ear, and a man in the passenger seat
A caller named [name withheld], calling from Los Angeles, tells of a Ouija board session years earlier. The caller and a friend contacted what they call an evil spirit that threatened to kill the friend. Walking away from the friend's apartment at about 2 a.m., the caller says they heard a voice scream in their ear telling them not to help the friend. Later, driving home on the freeway, they report that a fully formed, solid-looking man appeared in the passenger seat, smiled, waved, and vanished. They took him to be the friend's guardian angel. They add that they used Ouija boards a few more times, linked those periods to things going badly in their life, and eventually got rid of their board.
Ouija board session in a box canyon and a spirit speaking through a participant
A caller addressed as [name withheld] describes a 1982 Ouija board session in a box canyon with the caller’s friend [name withheld] and their wives. The caller reports that two women got answers. The caller was later told they had been chanting in an altered state. [name withheld] wrote pages in an unfamiliar script, and [name withheld]’s wife spoke in a low voice that the caller took to be a spirit. The caller says the spirit identified itself as an unburied Indian hunting party and that [name withheld] guided the spirits to cross over. The caller says a coworker later reported that the poster-tearing in their son’s room had stopped.
Intruder-shaped silhouette ascends and vanishes after a Ouija session
A caller who gives their name as [name withheld], calling from the Reno/Sparks, Nevada, area, tells Art Bell about something that happened a week after they and their then-wife “horsed around” with a Ouija board. They say they were dozing off in bed when they heard the back door open and heavy boots cross their kitchen. They say they took a 9mm pistol from a dresser drawer and confronted a stocky figure about 6'3" in the living room. They report that the silhouette shot straight up like a spring-loaded window shade and vanished. They add that other things happened in the same house, including clocks sliding off a shelf onto the floor, and then ask to get off the air.
Foster home in a dead boy’s bedroom: Bed pressed down at night
A caller from Seattle tells Art Bell that at about age 11, the caller and their brother were placed in a foster home. It turned out to belong to a family friend whose son had died on Halloween, and the caller was given the dead boy’s bedroom. The caller reports waking one night to feel their bed pressed down hard, as if someone had sat on it. The caller said a prayer in Jesus’ name, and the bed sprang back up. The foster mother blamed the dog, and the other children in the room said the caller was crazy.
27 more stories
- Ouija seance, a door swinging shut, and a trident impression in a vestibule carpet2 min
- Host's story of a witch caller who left him an old Ouija board2 min
- Ouija session: light forms in mid-air and room turns cold4 min
- A blindfolded Ouija session in Hawaii and a planchette that flew off2 min
- Ouija board played twice; antique mirror moved and later broke2 min