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Poltergeist activity

Something unseen moves objects, works switches, or touches people.

Stories
303
Broadcast years
1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2010, 2013
Average believability
59
Average evidence strength
14
Average creepiness
48
1998·Caller's story·2 min

Dark woman from the attic and phantom table-setting in a childhood home

A caller tells Art Bell about a childhood haunting in their family home. The caller says they and their brother were visited at night by a dark female figure they called the doll stall woman, who came down from the attic through a closet. They later heard table-setting sounds and saw white legs in old-fashioned pajamas moving around the dining table. Then a spirit entered their room and grabbed their legs. The caller says this is the first time they have told anyone about it.

Human figures
2001·Caller's story·4 min

A black form, the family cats, and a brother’s hypothermia in an Edison, New Jersey, farmhouse

A caller who says they are calling from Fairborn, Ohio, tells Art Bell that around 1970, when they were nine or ten, their family lived in an old farmhouse on 12 acres in Edison, New Jersey. They report waking at 3 or 4 a.m. and seeing a black, indistinct oval form in the hallway that “slammed into” them and told them “don’t go in.” They then found their younger brother being enveloped by it in their shared bedroom while the family’s cats attacked it. The story ends with their father, described as a police officer, running in with a gun as the thing slid through a window. The brother was reportedly kept overnight in the hospital for hypothermia the next morning.

Shadow people
2004·Caller's story·5 min

Entity attacks on a child in a late-1800s house in Needles, California

A first-time caller who gives their name as [name withheld] tells Art Bell about what they call an “entity attack” that began when they were about four years old, in a family house in Needles, California. He reports a presence coming through the wall at night, grabbing and dragging them, and family-wide problems with furniture moving. In a final incident, their father was trapped in the basement under a chest freezer. They say the family moved out about two weeks after that, and that they still sleep with their head under the covers.

Attacks and harm
2006·Caller's story·2 min

Ghost of a murdered upstairs neighbor in a rented downstairs house

A caller the host introduces as [quote withheld] says they rented the downstairs of an older house, where a door resisted closing in a way they read as a warning. They report that they later heard, from below, a man beat the upstairs woman to death. They then saw her ghost in their bedroom telling them not to come up to help. Police came the next day. The caller ends by saying she gave them strength and that they are ready if evil comes again.

Human figures
1995·Caller's story·5 min

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.

Haunted homes
1998·Caller's story·4 min

Lifelong bedroom attacks and a black figure with red eyes

A caller who gives their name as Mary, in Hickson, Tennessee, tells Art Bell that they and their family have been attacked “all my life,” mostly in the bed or bedroom. The caller reports a night when something grabbed their hand as if to pull them out of bed. On other nights they woke unable to breathe, scream, or move, while seeing two red eyes and a black figure. They say it also happened to their husband and brothers. The call ends with the caller saying they sense things about people, believe their father was possessed, and know when people are going to die.

Paralysis and pressure
1999·Caller's story·9 min

Hawaiian cemetery prank, a shaking car, and bite marks

A caller who gives their name as [name withheld], from Northern California, relays a story they say their former Boy Scout leader told them about ten years earlier. The leader was a Hawaiian man named [name withheld]. As a teenager in Hawaii, [name withheld] and a friend took two girls to a cemetery as a prank. The parked car they returned to was shaking violently, with the girls screaming and “red eyes” at the windows. [name withheld] is said to have found a bite mark on his ankle that night. His older brother mocked the family’s warning, and the two returned to run over graves and kick over food. The brother is said to have had more than 200 bites counted on his body and to have needed hospital stitches. The caller ends by saying they were shown [name withheld]’s lasting bite marks years later and by discussing Hawaiian cemetery customs.

Attacks and harm
2001·Caller's story·6 min

Evil presence, a figure saying “I want you,” and strange events ending after a house fire

[name withheld] from Harrisburg, Oregon, calls to describe a series of experiences in their house. They include a feeling of evil in the bedroom, a touch across their feet, and a hiss around 3 a.m. The caller also reports that their husband saw a figure in the doorway and later heard it say “I want you.” The caller links the activity to witchcraft books found upstairs. After an upstairs house fire and a remodel, the caller says, nothing has happened since.

Demons and hostile presences
2004·Caller's story·4 min

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.

Being touched, pushed, or held
2005·Caller's story·4 min

Childhood events in an Oregon City rental house: a hand in the bath and a laugh

A caller who gives their name as [name withheld] tells Art Bell about events in an old rented house in Oregon City, Oregon, where their family lived from about the time the caller was six until they were eleven. They describe lights switching on and off, strange sounds, chairs sliding, footsteps, and a feeling of being watched in the basement. Their parents dismissed all of it. The climax they describe is in the bathroom at about age eleven. They say they felt a hand stroking their neck and then felt snakes falling from the ceiling onto them, followed by a cackling laugh they call the most evil they have ever heard. They say they spoke to a priest about it. Art Bell ends the call because the show was short on time.

Poltergeist activity
1994·Caller's story·4 min

A black shape in the bedroom closet after a childhood church prank

A caller who says they are phoning from Austin, Texas, tells Art Bell about a night when they were about seven years old and staying with their Aunt [name withheld] in the country. They woke and saw a pitch-black, nonhuman “thing” sitting in their bedroom closet. They say they could not scream and prayed silently to God in their head. In the morning they found their normally neat toys jumbled in the closet. The caller offers the jumbled toys as the reason they do not accept the experience as a nightmare.

Shadow people
1997·Caller's story·2 min

Dog growls and dark figure at foot of bed after wife's ex-husband dies

A caller who gives no name, from west of the Rockies, asks Art Bell whether dogs can see ghosts. The caller then says that since their wife's ex-husband was killed in a car wreck last December, their little dog has barked and growled at the air. The caller reports that the other night, lying upstairs next to their wife, they felt a tap on their shoulder. They saw a big dark figure at the end of the bed that seemed to be trying to pull their soul out. The host interrupts for a break before the story is resolved.

Bedroom visitors

291 more stories

1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2010
2013