True Ghost Stories from the Edge of Sleep
Tell Me A Ghost StoryOctober 08, 2025x
13
00:18:1216.67 MB

True Ghost Stories from the Edge of Sleep

Hey, it's Michelle, and this week's seven calls include handprints circling a locked car in the middle of nowhere, a dead rock guitarist who keeps showing up when people play his most famous riff, an old man who finally got the message to leave someone alone, a sigh whispered directly into someone's ear in an empty locked room, and a legendary bandaged figure on the Oregon coast.

Stevie from California calls in about a solo camping trip on BLM land near Yosemite, locking herself and her dog Mochi into her car during a windstorm for extra warmth. Around 3 am, Mochi began barking in a deep, unfamiliar growl completely unlike her usual voice. In the morning, Stevie found handprints and forehead smudges circling every single window of the car, as if someone had walked the entire perimeter trying to look inside.

Johnny from Kansas calls in about repeatedly sensing the presence of guitarist Randy Rhoads while playing his music, watching or lying beside him mid-practice. Rhoads, a founding member of Quiet Riot and lead guitarist for Ozzy Osbourne, died in 1982 at just 25 years old when the small plane he was riding in crashed while attempting to buzz Osbourne's tour bus.

Frank calls in about a basement apartment where an unseen presence tinkered nightly in empty rooms, eventually escalating to a half-visible figure standing in his bedroom doorway. Exhausted from bartending, Frank finally sat up and firmly demanded to be left alone. The presence never returned.

Emily calls in about her toddler twins, who both independently and matter-of-factly described a girl standing at their bedroom window wanting to play, insisting their mother could see her too.

Erin from Bloomington, Indiana calls in about a quiet solo night at home, drifting off to sleep when a long, tired sigh came from directly beside her ear, close enough that she felt breath stir against her cheek, despite being completely and verifiably alone in a locked house.

Jess from Oregon calls in about the legendary Bandage Man of Cannon Beach, a figure said to be a badly injured logger lost forever on his way to find help. While parked near the coast one night, Jess and friends heard a thud against the truck's rear window and saw a bandaged figure pressed against the glass, gone without a trace the moment they fled.

And Cindy Ketron closes the episode with a decades-old family Halloween tradition: an elderly traveling woman encountered on Monument Circle in downtown Indianapolis in 1981, who accepted food and water from Cindy's family before opening her carpetbag to reveal an actual sack of human bones, laughing at their horror before walking calmly away.

Seven 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.

That's kind. I was asking her, what girl when her brother tugged on my shirt. Eddie said, matter of fact ly, don't you see her, Mommy, she's right there. Welcome to tell Me a Ghost Story. The Late Night Calling podcast where we delve into the world of the supernatural and explore the eerie and unexplained. I'm your host, Michelle Newman. This podcast features true stories from our callers that will send shivers down your spine and leave you questioning the existence of the afterlife. So grab a cozy blanket, turn down the lights. Hey, this is Stevie from California. I don't know if this is ghost story, but it's definitely filed under a weird experience. So I'm with a camper. I love going camping. I'm a solo camper. I'm experienced. I can I can take off at the drop of a hat. I have a Subaru that's usually covered in dust, tons of dirt and dust from road trips. I was on a road trip up to Yosemite and I had to pull off the road onto some BML land. It was off season, so a lot of campsites were closed and there was no one around. But I was with my dog, Mochi. Who's this fifteen pound mutt. She's part che waa, she's part Chihuahua, she's part pug, part terrier, maybe some shit, so who knows. She loves the woods and outdoors, so she's my constant companion. So I let her out, and I prepped dinner, and I set up our camp and it was getting a little windy and cloudy. I set up my bed in the car. Normally i'd sleep with the trunk wide open, you know, head towards the front of the car and then feet out the back of the trunk with the trunk door wide open for the air. But it was cold, and I shut it, and I even put up my window covers too so I could make it extra cozy. But once those go up, I can't see outside, and it was weird because there was no one around. But I also locked the car, and I don't normally do that when we're camping, so we were really like in a cocoon. We were really protected. So Mochi and I go to bed. At about three am, Mochi starts barking. There's clearly a wind storm outside, and the wind is blowing so strong that the car is rocking, and Mochi is free looking out, barking loudly and deep, deep, deep bark. I've never heard her use before. She was like. Barking with snarl in the back of her throat where it was like and she was just barking her head off, and she sat like a German shepherd instead of a small dog, a small bird framed dog. It was freaky, but I calmed her down and we went back to sleep. In the morning, I opened up the car and let Mochi out to pee. As I get out, I look at my car and there is a pair of handprints and a smudge on the trunk window, like someone had pressed their hands and their forehead against the window trying to see in. There were handprints on each and every window, like the person had done a circle around the car trying to look in. I got the dog and we got out of there. But I think Mochi picked up on something, and I think someone else was there in the woods that night, and I might not have heard it because of the windstorm, but I think she did. Thank you Stevie, and thank you Mochi for your service as a good dog. Ideally, you kind of hope this is a ghost and not a person, because it's pretty spooky. It said that lonely places hold echoes of whoever last stood there. Some campers say it's forest spirits mimicking curiosity. Others think it's people drawn to the heat of your campfire even when their bodies are long gone. I'm Johnny. I came from Kansas, and this is a story about how I met a guitar player by listening to his music. Was deceiased from nineteen eighty two by the name of Randy Roade. And this guitarist is pretty interesting because he's known as a very humble man, but he's pretty arranged because he's talking to people bornant not supposed to be in contact with him. This story contains that he would appear often time to go up and he'd you'd scare You'd scare me, just like it was an encounter of him walking across the hall and stuff like that. I'm twlearn the song in my guitar, and I'd see him somewhere, so I feel lying right next to me in front of me. It's like watching me play, So it's kind of phenomenal. Maybe those other encounters of how people see him when they cracked it, and those are probably pretty true because this isn't just me, it's having the encounters. I'm pretty sure anyone who plays his song. Thank you, Johnny, you bring us something different about a haunting of a place, but of a sound. Randy Rhoads was one of the founding members of the band Quiet Riot, and he played guitar with Ozzy Osbourne. You've heard his work in the famous guitar riff of Ozzy Osbourne's song Crazy Train. In nineteen eighty two, Rhodes was killed when the small plane he was a passenger in tried to buzz the top of Ozzie's tour bus, resulting in the plane losing control and crashing into a farmhouse, killing him and everyone else on board instantly. He was just twenty five. Musicians have long talked about quote unquote, the muse, the invisible hand guiding creativity, but across cultures, there's another belief that art can open doors that through rhythm, repetition and vibration, you call something in. Whether you were reached across worlds, Johnny, or just lost in the frequencies between them, one thing is certain. Music has always been a language the living and the debt boats. Understand. Hey, this is Frank. I used to work as a bartender, and I slept in a basement. My side was a bedroom, and in the middle the stairs and the rest of the basement was a storage workroom. Nobody but me would be in the basement at night, but I'd hear sounds of someone tinkering in all the other rooms. I'd come home at two am so exhausted from bartendering. The first few times I heard noises, I've gone into the workroom to see what it was, and I never saw anything. I started hearing things in my room. There was a point at which you just there's a point which you're just too tired to be scared anymore. I'm waking up, and I got the impression that the old man who'd lived in the house prior to me moving in was standing in the doorway, half in my room. And I don't remember what anymore, but I sat up in the bed and I pointed right at him and saying God, saying look, And I was so mad, and I said, look, God, damn it, if you're going to fucking leave me alone, If you're not, if you don't leave me alone, I'm gonna and let me get some sleep. I didn't even finish the threat, and I was exhausted and over it, and it came to full consciousness. I didn't see or hear him anymore. I never peep out of him again. I mean, I don't think he was a bad guy. I just think he didn't realize. I just didn't think he realized what it was like on my end, and I just needed to get some sleep. Thank you Frank for your story and reminding us that sometimes sleep is more important than being afraid. Ahi. This is Emily. When my twins were little, they share a room and I put them to bed. My daughter started crying, and when I went in and asked her what was wrong, she said, the girl woke me up because she wants to play. But I'm too sleepy. I was asking her what girl, when her brother tugged on my shirt and he said, matter of factly, don't you see her, Mommy, she's right there, and they both pointed to the window. Thank you, Emily for your story and another example of how kids say the darnedest things. Hey, this is Aaron from Bloomington, Indiana. I've got a small story for you. So this happened maybe two years ago. My roommate was out of town for the weekend, so I had the whole place to myself. It was like a quiet night, and you could hear the refrigerator home and the house settle. And I'd been reading in bed and finally just turned off the light around midnight, and just as I started to drift off, I heard it right next to me, not across the room, not from the hallway, right next to my ear. Somebody sighed, like a full. Sigh. It wasn't the wind through vent or the house creaking. It was a long, tired exhale like this, like someone was lying beside me in bed, exhausted. And I even felt a little stir of the air on my cheeks, like someone was breathing too close. I didn't even want to open my eyes. I just remember thinking someone's here, but I knew the doors were locked, the room was empty, no one was there. But it still just gives me chills to think about. Thank you, Aaron for your story. Aaron's story might be the simplest, but it's one that makes my skin crawl. Hey Michelle, this is just calling from Oregon. I grew up on the coast. And I don't know if you've heard of it, but the bandage Man of Cannon Beach. They see there's an old stretch of Highway one oh one, a darker, quieter part where if you drive at night you might see something. A figure wrapped head to toe and so many bloody bandages. He looks like a walking mummy. The scent hits you before you see him. Rotting flash. One night, I was with some friends and we parked and looked at the ocean. Then suddenly there was a thunk on the truck's rear window. My buddy turned around and said, did you hear that? Then we all saw it, a pail shape in bandages, leaning against the glass, eyes just holes through layers of wraps, and we floored it, tires squealing, and when we look back, nothing, no footsteps, no body, just a faint scent of rotting flesh in the air. They say the bandage Man was a badly injured logger, wrapped in bandages, and then he was lost on his way to get help. He vanished or maybe never left. Whatever the truth, the legends are still alive in Cannon Beach. Thank you. Jess from Oregon for bringing us the famous legend the Bandage Man of Canon Beach. Folkloret call stories like this road ghosts, spirits born from sudden trauma, tethered to the place where help never came. The bandage Man may have once been a lugger who died trying to reach the town for aid. Or maybe he's something older, a guardian warning travelers to keep moving before the cliffs claim them too. Hi, Nus and Cynthia catch her. My brother Ryan reminded me of a ghost story almost forgotten this. You're at Halloween. We tellent traditional every year, and people or your friends and anyway, they've always enjoyed. This story is called the Elderly Lady inter Bag of Bones. It's a true ghost story. My parents and I and my brother one Halloween, on my first. Year on the job, back in nineteen. Eighty one, we're enjoying lunch downtown and Monument Circle. We had just run shopping and it was a nice day and so but anyway, we were sitting out there on a bench old side the Monument Circle, watching the water fountain and watching the passer by. Our arm was parked on the circle back end, but anyway, outside that it seemed to be a typical ordinary day. That is until we saw the heavily chavlin dress lady come by, walking by us and pulling a wagon with all her world, leaving lawns, and there was even a black cat in the wagon. Bowey and I felt sorry for the cat, and on one de feed her, and the old lady says, that's all right, and then she says, because you've been so kind to me and let me rest nesting you. We even gave her exter staying, which along with her cat, we were kind of evil. When she got some water from us and she said, thank you for your hospitality. She said, now I want to show you mine. She took out a cigar and she lit it up, and mother said that's hospitality. And she was both in life to live and anyway, she opened her carpet bag and inside the carpet bay we all about held her fear in. We shrieked there with a bay of actual human bones inside the bag, and she just kind of delighted in freaking us out, and she started laughing, and then she closed up her carpet bay and she said thank you for the treats, and she started walking on her merry way, and so my mother says, what was that? And Dad says, beat the heck out of me. Thank you, Cindy for sharing another great story, the Elder Lady and her Bag of Bones. Stories like this show up all. Over the world. In South American folklore, there's a spirit called El Silbon, or the Whistler. He roams the countryside dragging a sack of bones over his shoulder, Cursed to wander forever for killing his father. His whistle is said to warn the living of their own dark fate. That's all we have this week, folks. Do you have a ghost story? Call seven oh one four eight four two six six six. That's seven oh one four eight four two six six six, or go to tell me a Ghoststory dot com and leave your story there. Thank you to all the callers who left messages this week, and as always, I'm your host, Michelle Newman signing off. See you next week. Might have been it
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