Hey, it's Michelle, and this week's four calls each involve something quietly, patiently making itself known. Stringy black hair hanging over a bathroom sink in an old Kentucky studio. A kind old taxidermist whose parents watched him work for years after they'd died. A black mist that dropped under a middle schooler's bed like a sheet. And Lizzie Borden herself, summoned every October and still refusing to give a straight answer.

Lacey from Whitesburg, Kentucky calls in with a true ghost story from her time renting a studio space in a renovated artisan center. Working alone on weekends in a building with motion-activated lights, she began hearing things overhead like a bag of bricks dropping, then whispering with no one around to have said it. On her final visit, she looked down a hallway and saw a woman's dark, stringy hair hanging over the bathroom sink, positioned exactly the way someone tilts their head forward to wring it out. She left immediately and only went back the next day when other people were working there.

Gary D. from Ontario, Canada returns with what might be his most quietly devastating story yet. As a kid walking home from school, he used to sneak behind a friendly taxidermist's house to watch him work through the back window. For over a dozen visits, he noticed an older couple always sitting nearby, leaning forward, watching intently, clearly proud. Months later, the house went up for sale, and the workshop sat empty. A neighbor told Gary the taxidermist had moved. When Gary asked about his parents, the neighbor told him they'd died fifteen years earlier in an accident. He'd been living there alone the entire time.

Larissa from Texas calls in about something that happened when she was in middle school, lying awake around 2 or 3 AM with the feeling of being watched. A dark mist appeared in her peripheral vision, turned sharply toward her the instant she looked at it, and dropped under her bed like a black bedsheet being pulled off furniture. Her bed physically shook. Nobody else in the house heard her screaming. She says this isn't an isolated incident; her family has experienced spirits for two to three decades, going back to before she was born.

And Cindy Ketcher from Avon, Indiana closes the episode with her annual October tradition, pulling out the Ouija board to interrogate the spirit of Lizzie Borden about the 1892 axe murders of her parents. Recently, Lizzie declined coffee, laughed hysterically, insisted on her innocence, then threw an actual kitchen knife at Cindy and missed. Some years she confesses. Some years she doesn't. She always tells Cindy to figure it out herself.

Four real callers. Four true ghost stories.

If you have a real ghost story of your own, a haunting experience, something you heard, something you cannot explain, I want to hear it. Call 1 (701) 484-2666 or visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠tellmeaghoststory.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to share your story.

You might end up on the show.

And if this episode moved you, leave a comment on Spotify. I read every single one, and your comments help new listeners find the show.

Support us with official merch at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠newmanmedia.shop⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, catch us on YouTube at⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ @tellmeaghoststory⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, and follow along on Instagram at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@tellmeaghoststorypodcast⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

Theme music is Sexy Sax by Cool Cascade.

Production by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Newman Media⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

Hey, it’s Michelle, and tonight’s show is about what visits you when the lights go out. Eight real callers share sleep paralysis encounters, shadow figures, and visitors that arrived with a witness, a mark, or an open door, along with the folklore and science behind them. The first half is stories sleep paralysis explains well. The second half is where I’m not sure it can. Now available as a video on Spotify and YouTube.

Nellie from Clinton, Illinois, calls in with a true ghost story from when she was eighteen, asleep on her stomach on a weekend morning, when something heavy climbed on top of her. A dark shape. A growl that sounded like a laugh. Her grandmother had warned her about exactly this. In Mexican culture, it’s called se te subió el muerto: the dead got on top of you.

Yamari from Pennsylvania woke to three black figures standing around her bed, all focused on her, while she couldn’t move or scream. She calls it a sleep paralysis dream. What she can’t explain is the bedroom door. She remembers shutting it before bed, and when she woke up, it was open.

Dave from Kansas City has had sleep paralysis since he was a kid, so he knew what was happening. Then he thought he woke up, heard three loud bangs, and found two figures made of TV static attacking him in his living room. He chanted Jesus help me until they stopped. That morning there were four police cars outside, and his front door had been unlocked all night.

Yvonne from the Philippines wasn’t asleep. In the afternoon, at her aunt’s house, she looked back down the stairs and saw a black silhouette in the shape of a person that began running up after her. The next day her aunt confirmed she’d seen it too, and she had one rule. Never acknowledge it.

Dave from Sioux Falls remembers dying of spinal meningitis in a hospital at about a year old, and a woman standing over him. He grew up in a Connecticut house that was just not right, with a babysitter no one else in his family ever saw. He says she still watches him sleep, and he sleeps with the light on.

Hector from New Mexico has been scratched for ten years with no explanation, usually three long marks. One night a nightmare of a laughing figure woke him at 3:33 AM. The next night a loud bang woke him at 3:33 again, and his bedroom door, which he always kept shut, was open.

Rachel from Myrtle Beach says something has been attached to her since she was four. After her first sleep paralysis episode, three long scratches appeared on her makeup vanity. When she described it to her mother, her mother said the wall behind her was turning black. She still won’t repeat what something whispered in her ear three weeks before she called.

Tyler from Texas closes the episode with the longest story. After a car crashed into his Oak Cliff apartment building, he spent weeks alone in the only livable unit, waking with something crushing his chest. A priest was on the way. Then a new neighbor walked out the front door, and everything stopped.

Along the way, I get into where the word nightmare comes from, how shadow people came out of a radio show, what your brain does between awake and asleep, and what medieval Europe blamed for the weight on your chest.

Eight real callers. Eight true ghost stories. The Hat Man gets his own episode on Halloween.

If you have a real ghost story of your own, a haunting experience, something you heard, something you cannot explain, I want to hear it. Call 1 (701) 484-2666 or visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠tellmeaghoststory.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to share your story.

You might end up on the show.

And if this episode moved you, leave a comment on Spotify. I read every single one, and your comments help new listeners find the show.

Catch us on YouTube at⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ @tellmeaghoststory⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, and follow along on Instagram at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@tellmeaghoststorypodcast⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

Theme music is Sexy Sax by Cool Cascade.

Production by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Newman Media⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

Hey, it’s Michelle, and this week we’re checking in for this Halloween season. A collection of seven haunted hotel stays, from a hospital-turned-hotel on a mining hill in Arizona to a ship docked in Long Beach to a Best Western in Fresno, plus a look at why hotels end up so haunted in the first place. Now available as a video on Spotify & YouTube.

Heather from Mesa, Arizona, stayed at the Grand Hotel in Jerome, which started life in 1926 as the United Verde Hospital, built to treat sick and injured copper miners. In her room, a voice told her to turn down a TV that nobody had on.

Maggi from Washington went to Port Townsend for a birthday getaway and stayed at the Palace Hotel, a former brothel that operated from 1925 to 1933. She and her husband heard footsteps echoing from the ceiling above their room, then realized they were alone on the top floor with no guests above them.

Christie from Los Angeles stayed at the Mount Washington Hotel in New Hampshire, where the owner’s widow, Carolyn Stickney, is said to haunt Room 314. In broad daylight, Christie saw a smear-like apparition, and psychic Chip Coffee saw it too.

Jules from Santa Barbara works at the Mar Monte Hotel, a Spanish Colonial Revival building from 1931. After a guest posted a TikTok with a photo of something standing at the foot of her bed, Jules and the director of rooms checked the vacant room and found a deep indent on a bed that housekeeping always leaves perfectly flat. They both felt something sitting there, and they ran.

Ashley from Salt Lake City toured the Queen Mary when she was eleven. Her aunt felt a small hand grab her knee in an empty elevator, and a photo of the pool showed a little girl in a blue gown. When Ashley’s mother started writing a book about it, the haunting followed the manuscript, and it stopped the second she typed the last paragraph.

An anonymous caller takes us on the road with her up the highway. That's already an eerie setting, but then add a visitor in your room that may or may not be a dream.

Noah takes us on a night out in Las Vegas. That ends with him being watched by a gray father and son in turn-of-the-century clothing.

I share my own ghost story, a night in a Best Western in Fresno, California, on what was supposed to be an ordinary road trip, when I woke up to find a man hovering over me. Then he was gone.

Artemis checked into a New York City hotel looking for a break and found poltergeist activity instead.

In between, I get into why hotels are so haunted, from what your brain does on the first night in a new room to the Colorado hotel that inspired The Shining.

Six real callers. Seven true ghost stories.

If you have a real ghost story of your own, a haunting experience, something you heard, something you cannot explain, I want to hear it. Call 1 (701) 484-2666 or visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠tellmeaghoststory.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to share your story.

You might end up on the show.

And if this episode moved you, leave a comment on Spotify. I read every single one, and your comments help new listeners find the show.

Support us with official merch at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠newmanmedia.shop⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, catch us on YouTube at⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ @tellmeaghoststory⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, and follow along on Instagram at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@tellmeaghoststorypodcast⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

Theme music is Sexy Sax by Cool Cascade.

Production by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Newman Media⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.