November 27, 1998: Ghost Stories - Open Lines
Callers share remarkable encounters from across the country and beyond. A man in El Cajon describes seeing his deceased mother-in-law's apparition and finding her footprints on white carpet, while a former nuclear electrician from the USS Enterprise recounts how the ghost of a vaporized sailor would physically grab sleeping watchstanders by the hair. A San Diego police officer tells of a bleeding figure who vanished within seconds, and a stuntman describes being kept awake by a tuxedo-wearing specter at a former Al Capone hotel in Coral Gables.
A fire dispatcher recounts the most elaborate story of the night, describing a vivid dream in which he was transported to 1864 and experienced the deaths of an entire Mexican village through a young woman who had stayed behind to care for the dying. Art reflects on why spirits seem bound to specific locations and whether traumatic deaths create portals allowing other entities to pass through.
Key Moments
The mother-in-law's footprint in the white carpet: A caller describes seeing his deceased mother-in-law leaning over her dresser, then waking to find an oversized footprint pressed into the plush white carpet of her old home - too large to belong to his wife or daughters.
Seeing his own ghost during an OBE: A caller who has frequent out-of-body experiences describes one in which his vision stayed in his physical body while a watery, separated version of himself walked across the room - a third-person glimpse of his own ghost.
San Antonio's children push cars off the tracks: A caller recounts the famous San Antonio legend: after a school bus full of children was killed at a railroad crossing, cars stalled on those tracks are pushed to safety on their own - and talcum powder on the bumper reveals tiny children's handprints.