Ouija boards and rituals
Things that happen after someone tries to contact spirits or performs a ritual.
Hooded faceless figure in the bedroom and a return during a cardiac arrest
A caller identified on air as [name withheld] of Sacramento describes himself as a 6'9", 370-pound pastor. He says a faceless, handless, hooded figure came through his bedroom door in March of that year and threatened him. It then threw his wife off the bed by the ankles and left what he describes as bleeding hand imprints. He says the same figure appeared beside him a month later when his heart stopped during a hospital stay in San Francisco. It told him it was time to come with it. He says he refused and was revived. He ends by telling the host he believes the figure was probably following him after he once helped a Catholic pastor with an exorcism.
San Jose apartment with occult remains and blue light pillars
A letter read on air, with the writer’s name withheld, describes working for an apartment-management company in East San Jose, California, in 1971. The writer reports being sent to clean a second-floor unit after an eviction. They say they found black walls, red bulbs, a pentagram, altars, and animal remains. After warnings from two strangers, they say they saw two pillars of blue light at the foot of their bed at about 2 a.m. The letter ends with the writer saying they never returned to the address.
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.
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.
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.
Tall shadow figure in woods linked by caller to neighbors’ candles
[name withheld], calling from Atlanta, Georgia, tells Art Bell a story they say began years earlier at their own house. It involves their wife and the neighbors of her ex-husband, who they say were practicing an occult tradition. The caller reports orbs and nighttime footsteps on the nights the neighbors’ candles were lit. Then came a bang on the roof and a large shadowy figure in the woods across the street. The caller and their wife finally watched it run into the light and seem to vanish, while its footsteps stayed audible. The story ends with the caller praying over the property and the activity stopping. Art comments that people who dabble in such things live to regret it.
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.
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.
51 more stories
- Reported poltergeist activity at the Provincetown Inn, Cape Cod4 min
- Caller from Salt Lake City cites scripture that spirits of the dead are demons1 min
- Ouija board session and a phone voice saying “You shall”2 min
- Ouija board at age nine and a claimed decades-long demonic affliction2 min
- Intruder-shaped silhouette ascends and vanishes after a Ouija session3 min
- 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
- A self-described witch in Ravenna, Ohio, and bees stinging people2 min
- Ouija board session in a box canyon and a spirit speaking through a participant4 min
- Foster home in a dead boy’s bedroom: Bed pressed down at night2 min
- [name withheld]’s secondhand story of a babysitter, a changing house, and a Ouija board4 min
- Letter: Anvil moves in basement after teenagers’ pentagram ritual1 min
- Gray figures circling and red eyes in Genesee Park at the summer solstice4 min
- Figures in a field, a shrinking shape, and a child’s face in a drain pipe7 min
- Caller reports friend's Ouija board spelled out “death”2 min
- Letter: A shadow resembling the writer’s late father, popcorn and cigar2 min
- A burned radio plays inside a sealed footlocker after a caller asks for a sign7 min
- Vancouver house with reported voodoo history and a priest who would not enter6 min
- Students re-enact a Civil War battle in a campus auditorium said to be haunted10 min
- Unplugged television explodes in a basement gathering; a dark man reappears4 min
- Séance contact with a presence claiming to be John Dillinger7 min
- Ouija board counts six people in a room holding five5 min
- Sage burning by [name withheld]’s uncle and “evil spirits” in a house (continuation of an earlier call)2 min
- Ouija board session with an 89-year-old landlady2 min
- Ouija board reportedly asks for caller on night their father died3 min
- Host mentions an ancient Ouija board and an incident he declines to describe1 min
- Shadow figures and white figures in a rented room at the Gable House6 min
- Automatic writing hand continues figure eights until commanded to stop4 min
- Unseen grab while opening a Colorado restaurant where the caller worked3 min
- Teenage blood-curse ritual and a warning phone call from “[name withheld]”6 min