Vanishing places, people, and time
Buildings or people that vanish, missing time, or impossible journeys.
Figure and hearse at “Sleepy Hollow” in Brea, and a car crash afterward
A caller who gives their name as [name withheld], in Flagstaff, tells of a night in 1962, the summer after their high school graduation. The caller and a friend drove the caller’s first car to a spot in Brea, California, that the friend called “Sleepy Hollow.” The caller reports that their headlights lit a parked 1939 Cadillac hearse and a figure the caller compares to the Phantom of the Opera. When the two drove back minutes later, both were gone, with no tracks left behind. Shortly afterward, the caller says, their car flipped over three times on Brea Canyon Boulevard. The caller offers to send the host signed affidavits, and the story ends with the host’s remarks about it being a warning.
Childhood waking, a hooded figure, and floating to the living room
A caller who identifies themselves on air as [name withheld], from the island of Kauai, describes something that happened when they were about six years old. The caller reports waking around 4 a.m. and seeing a black-hooded figure with no visible face. The caller says it looked like the Grim Reaper. They then closed their eyes and found themselves floating on their back down the hallway. About a minute later they woke on the living-room floor under the coffee table. The caller says they stayed there until sunrise and that they still do not know what happened.
Vanishing shack and field of Corvairs near a suspected haunted house
A caller named [name withheld], who gives their location as Canal, Winchester, Ohio, tells Art Bell that on Halloween night about nine years earlier, the caller and friends went to look at a house they suspected was haunted. They say they saw a shack with a figure holding a shotgun. As they approached, the shack vanished and a field of thirty to fifty Corvairs appeared. Months later, a friend reportedly saw Corvairs around the house, and [name withheld] says the house was then totally destroyed.
Teenage blood-curse ritual and a warning phone call from “[name withheld]”
A caller the host identifies as [name withheld] in Wisconsin tells of an episode from their teens in Racine, Wisconsin. They and two friends tried to perform a ritual they believed was a blood curse, using instructions said to come from a manual “written in blood.” [name withheld] describes losing about an hour in a haze, later misfortunes among people involved, and a phone call from a man calling himself “[name withheld],” who told them to destroy what they had made. The host cuts the call short for time and warns listeners not to attempt such things.
Two men who asked about a missing gate vanish on a rural gas road
A caller the host introduces as [quote withheld] says that when they were 15, in eastern Kentucky, they met two men on a dirt gas road. The men asked how the caller had gotten past a gate that the caller says had been removed years earlier. When the caller turned around a few steps later, the men were gone. The caller says they ran home and told their mother that two men were trying to kill them. The caller says they never told the story because they did not know whether it was a ghost story. The host suggests the men may have gone back to a time when the gate still existed, calling it “just a guess.”
Bleeding man on a San Diego corner who vanished when officers turned back
A caller identified as [name withheld], a San Diego police officer of twelve years, describes something that happened about twelve years earlier. [name withheld] was just out of the academy and working with a veteran field training officer in the city's southeast area. The caller says that at about 3 a.m. they saw a man bleeding heavily from the head and face at a residential street corner. When they turned the patrol car around seconds later, the man was gone, and they found no blood or other trace. The caller says no report was written and that they told no one at the time.
Man in trench coat and stovepipe hat with bicycle on Phoenix street
The host reads a letter on air from [name withheld] in Phoenix, Arizona. [name withheld] reports that in the summer of 1981, at age 17, they came home about 3 a.m. They saw a silent man in a trench coat and stovepipe hat standing with an older-style bicycle, and felt very cold as they ran past. The next morning, a neighbor says the man pedaled away and vanished. [name withheld] says this left them troubled and sleepless.
Disorientation, a dry river crossing, and a chair-shaped rock in the Wind River Range
A caller who gives the name [name withheld], from Sacramento, describes a 1976 National Outdoor Leadership mountaineering trip in the Wind River Range, Wyoming. [name withheld] says the caller and a camp partner became disoriented in sudden darkness while fetching water. They woke at dawn across the river with dry shoes, sitting 25 feet up a cliff in a rock hollow shaped like a chair. [name withheld] says a guide later told them the spot was a Shoshone burial ground and that they had experienced a “Wind River turnaround.”
A girl named [name withheld] who vanished in a Denton, Texas graveyard
A caller tells Art Bell about driving a girl they had just met, known to them only as “[name withheld],” from a Fort Worth party. They thought it would be a short trip home. Instead they ended up in a graveyard in Denton, Texas. The caller reports seeing seven white doves, hearing her recite Bible prophecy about the birds, and turning to find her gone. The caller says a gas station attendant later told them a girl had died there a couple of years before.
A purple mass on a rainy road and a police car that vanished
A caller who identifies themselves as [name withheld], calling from Mexico, tells Art Bell how a purple mass on a rain-slicked hill road appeared to shoot at their car and pass through it. A moment later, the police car and officer they had stopped near were gone when they looked again. They say the encounter was [quote withheld] The host then remarks generally that many law enforcement officers report seeing things.
Silhouetted figure on a foggy Rhode Island bike path named “Mr. Colt”
A caller identifying himself as [quote withheld] a musician, says he was recording an album in Warren, Rhode Island, in 1997 and running his usual nightly route on a bike path. The first night, he was unable to enter a foggy wooded stretch. The next night, a silhouetted man in a long trench coat and huge boots charged at him and vanished as he reached him. The caller says the studio owner afterward told him the figure was “Mr. Colt” and that [quote withheld] He says he later found a photograph online and recognized the figure's form and coat. The host ends the call. The caller reports no injury and no resolution.
A fourth laugh and a figure that vanishes at a campfire
A caller recounts a camping incident from their teens in which three friends around a fire heard a fourth person laughing. The caller says a man appeared among them, dressed like them but with odd eyes, and that when their friend [name withheld] challenged him the man laughed, stood up, walked about three steps, and disappeared. The group, unable to search in the dark, moved their camp nearer to other people that night.