The Tape Library - Archive of the Paranormal & the Unexplained - Night Drive 2 - The Hairy Hands of Dartmoor & 4 Other TRUE Ghost Stories (With Rain Sounds)

Episode Date: May 20, 2024

It's time to take another drive, as I bring you 5 real life paranormal encounters. First we're delving into the infamous legend of the Dartmoor Hairy Hands. Then I will be bringing you all 4 never heard before stories that listeners have sent in, all while we drive along a deserted road as the evenings rain falls.   All narrated by @TheTapeLibrary Subscribe now for more terrifying tales of the paranormal. If you have a story to share then you can email me at [e-mail] Stock footage from Artgrid and Envato CHAPTERS 00:00 The Dartmoor Hairy Hands 04:26 Messenger of Death 08:22 The Ranch 26:16 The Visitor 31:37 The Ghost Tour Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Have you ever heard the strange story of the hairy hands? This is a story that has been passed around a stretch of road in Dartmoor, a story I remember hearing when I was just a little kid. Many have claimed to experience this strange piece of paranormal phenomena. In June of 1921, a man who was working at nearby Dartmoor Prison was driving along a narrow lane that ran parallel to the moors. His children were sat in the sidecar of the motorcycle, when all of a sudden, the man lost control. He crashed the bike.

The kids luckily were able to throw themselves from the sidecar just in time, but the man was tragically killed in front of his children. A terrible accident, right? However, shortly after this, a similar incident occurred. Just two months later, in fact,

A young British army officer was thrown from his bike onto a grassy verge on the same stretch of road. When questioned, he went on to say this. It was not my fault. Believe it or not, something drove me off the road. A pair of hairy hands closed over mine. I felt them as plainly as ever I felt anything in my whole life. Large, muscular, hairy hands. I fought them for all I've felt them for all I've been. fought them for all I was worth, but they were too strong for me. They forced the machine into the

turf at the edge of the road, and I knew no more till I came to myself, lying a few feet away on my face on the turf. On another occasion, a motorcycle was riding down the lane, this time with two adults on it, one driving and one on the back. They too lost control of the bike and were forced off the road, and luckily in this case surviving, much like the army captain's. They said they saw as the driver lost control. A pair of hands. Hairy hands. That materialized out of nowhere,

grabbed the handlebars and took control of the bike for just a few moments. A few years later in 1924, a couple were staying in a caravan right by the same stretch of road. The wife was sleeping facing one of the windows when she heard something. Carefully she shuffled over, trying not to wake her husband. She wiped the condensation off of the window to look out into the night and see if she could see anything.

There, pressed up and moving along the window, was a pair of hands. Hands she claimed were covered in hair, before they slowly faded away in front of her eyes. But this was just the start. with countless people right up to modern days claiming they too have experienced the hairy hands, grabbing the steering wheels of their cars, pulling hair to try and distract drivers, running motorcyclists off the road. A simple urban legend that people are using to blame their reckless driving on a particularly challenging bit of road? Or is there something more to it?

Whatever the answer is, maybe you should take extra special care. You never know what could be out there, when you take a night drive. Welcome to episode two of night drive. Tonight I'm bringing you another batch of true paranormal stories that have been shared with me by listeners. Remember, whatever you believe, the people who submitted these stories all apparently believe they truly experienced these events. So while I love encouraging debating the comments, bear in mind these witnesses of very likely to read your words. So please keep it respectful. Now let's spend a nice relaxing evening together and get into some truly terrifying tales. Our first story is a simple tale of a near-death

experience, but someone or something came to visit after this brush with death. It must have been around three in the morning when my friend Luke and I were walking back from a party. To get to mine we had to walk across Blackheath, which has a series of roads surrounded by trees and field-like paths. To get to my place, you have to walk past Greenwich Park, which at this time had its gates closed, and that was frustrating, as that took away our option of cutting through the park and getting home sooner. The streets were quiet, which is unusual, as there's always some truck drivers on route to a job at that time. As we walked the long way along the road, we heard a car skidding in the distance. Then it came hurtling towards us, smashing into the bollards, but that didn't seem to slow it down.

We didn't have anywhere to shelter, and if we had crossed over to the heath, we would have surely been struck. Out of sheer panic we took a run and a jump, landing on the concrete in front of us. That being the only real option available. As we got up with cuts and minor bruises, we noticed the car had crashed only centimetres away from us. As I got up to see if the driver and passengers were all right, I noticed they were all kids of no more than, say, 13. They were laughing hysterically and had clearly stolen the car. They then managed to reverse and speed off without any apology. Usually there's some kind of police patrolling the area, but not tonight.

Or if they were in the process to give and chase to the kids, they must have taken a wrong turn. As we limped back to my house, Luke and I were in shock. We could have been hit really easily. Eventually we made it home. Luke settled down to sleep in the spare bed and I got into mine, looking at my alarm clock with its red digits reading 5.32 a.m. I began to drift off. After about five minutes I opened my eyes.

I had rolled over and for some reason I went to turn to look at my alarm clock. And that's when I saw it. Lying next to me was a boy of about eight or nine years old, glaring at me with jet black eyes. His skin was ultra pale. His hair was also black in an Edwardian slick back style. And his clothes were covered in what looked like mud and white paint. Believe it or not, this wasn't the most scary part to me. Instead, what concerned me even more was that the boy looked as he felt.

he were in shock and had a hand over his mouth, as if I'd caught him doing something he shouldn't. My heart was racing and I wanted to call out to Luke, but I couldn't. Then, still holding the hand over his mouth, the boy stepped backwards and walked through the door and was gone. I stared down at my alarm. It was 5.45 a.m. All this had happened the second we'd gone to sleep. A few months later I ran into a medium and I asked her what she made of this encounter. She informed me that she believed the apparition I had seen was a messenger of death, come to collect my soul. It had assumed we'd been hit by the car and were dead and followed us from the heath. The medium also informed me that no mortal was permitted to look at these messengers

and that the spirit had covered its mouth, realized. that we were alive and now was ready to receive its punishment. Next, we're off to an old ranch in California. For a series of accounts that take place over the course of several years, don't forget if you want to see more of these true paranormal stories, then click the like button and hit subscribe as well. That way you'll never miss out when we go on another drive. I'm almost 30 years old and in my life I've had two paranormal experiences.

both of which took place years apart, but they occurred at the same exact location. Even now, as I recall my experience, I find it totally unbelievable. To call myself skeptical would be an understatement. While I find stories of the supernatural quite entertaining, I have no faith, and I only subscribe to beliefs that can be empirically proven through study. It goes without saying I am quite doubtful of others' claims regarding the supernatural. For me, it's purely entertainment and only out of my personal curiosity in the morbid and macabre. In fact, I would not believe my own story had I not experienced it myself.

To this day, I struggle to rationalise my lived experience. Now, let me briefly set the stage for my story. In the early 90s, my mother's sister married my uncle. They purchased an old ranch house in Vakerville, California. This old isolated ranch house sat upon a rather large property, complete with two enormous barns, stables for horses, and pens for livestock. In the years to come, my aunt and uncle had three children, my first cousins. My parents married, and then I came along some years later. I've never been particularly close with my extended family on my mother's side.

Many of them became estranged from my mother following a turbulent upbringing. The only exception was my aunt. My mother and my aunt have maintained a close relationship despite the circumstances. Their new home was less than an hour drive from ours, so they visited semi-frequently. Fast forward to the year 2000. My parents planned an overnight date for themselves, and they arranged for me to spend the night with my aunt and uncle at their home. I remember being quite excited for my stay, as I had a good relationship with my family. with my youngest cousin. They'll refer to him as Alex. Alex was only a year or two older than I was.

And as two young boys, we had a lot in common. We had much more in common than my two older female cousins. I was especially excited for my weekend stay as Alex had a relatively large collection of new video game releases, and I was eager to play with him. My parents dropped me off and said their good. I promised to be good and I made myself at home and went straight for the PlayStation. after playing Crash Bandicoot for a few hours, with my cousin. My aunt sent us to bed. The first and final night of my stay ended, as I drifted off to sleep in a sleeping bag,

on the floor across Malix's bed. When I suddenly awoke it was before dawn. The faint blue light of a still night sky barely illuminated the room. Although I was groggy from sleep, a familiar noise caught my attention. It was the distinct sound, of a zipper, being drawn. At once the realisation hit me. The familiar sound was the zipper, on my very own sleeping bag. While this might seem ordinary, I had yet to move since I awoke.

Regardless, the sound persisted. There was no doubt about it. Someone was opening my back. My ears started ringing And my blood ran cold like ice As sudden fear and adrenaline surged through my body I remained laying totally still on my side Facing away from the opening of the sleeping bag Now totally alert I held my breath And remained completely motionless

And carefully listened The sound of the sleeping bag being unzipped Continued despite my perfect stillness I felt the cold air of the room creep into my warm back and onto my now-exposed legs. It was as if someone was deliberately unzipping my bag as slowly and carefully as possible so as not to wake me. I waited for the sound to cease before I finally flipped over to get a look at whoever was unzipping my bag.

To my surprise, there was no one standing or sitting beside me. Before I could process the situation I glanced across the room. In the pale light I could see my cousin Alex, was tucked up in his bed, and fast asleep still. I was totally alone on the floor. I continued lying perfectly still in silence and gripping fear for what must have been an hour while I waited for the sun to rise. As soon as the first hint of daybreak came I bolted out of my cousin's bedroom and down the hall to find my aunt making coffee in the kitchen. Before I could say anything, she asked me,

What are you doing up so early? For whatever reason, I did not tell her about my sleeping bag. I didn't mention a word to her about my terrifying experience. In response to her question, I simply responded, I don't know. My fear abated now that I was no longer alone. By the afternoon of that day, my mum and dad had come to pick me up and bring me home. I told no one of my experience, not even my parents.

Although it was terrifying, I was young and as such I had a short attention span with limited retention. I promptly forgot about the bizarre occurrence entirely and went on to live a happy, carefree childhood. Now you can easily dismiss this experience as the overactive imagination of a young child. You could also easily propose I dreamt up the whole thing, while only partially being in the same. only partially being awake, and I couldn't disagree with certainty. While it is disturbing for me, as an adult, to recall the experience of some invisible force, delicately opening my sleeping bag, to gain access to my young helpless body. This first experience pales in comparison to what was yet to come, and is not so easily debunked. It was only after I had the second experience

at that old ranch house that these old men, memories came flooding back. When I was roughly 11 years old, we paid another visit in Bakerville for dinner. Although this time it wasn't just me, but my little brother too. Let's call him Jack. Jack was roughly half my age at that time, and like most little siblings, he followed me around everywhere like a lost puppy. He wanted to be included in whatever I did. So when we arrived, Jack naturally clung to my side, as Alex and I made our way to his bedroom. I hadn't changed much since I was a little boy, and I was most excited to visit my cousin because he had a copy of the video game rock band for Xbox. Not only did Alex have a copy of this cool new game on the brand new Xbox, but he had the entire set of musical instrument controllers to boot.

I closed the door to his bedroom in preparation to rock out. All three of us gathered around the television and began playing along to the music. Alex was on the guitar. I clutched a microphone, and between us my brother was clumsily hitting the drum set. Although we sucked at keeping time or hitting the right notes, it was fun, and we got deeply engrossed in the game. It was in this innocent moment of family fun that the single most unexplainable event of my entire life occurred without provocation. My attention was pulled away from the screen momentarily when I noticed Alex's bedroom door handle had begun to rattle. Just as I turned towards the rattling handle, the door swung wide open.

I expected to see my mother or my aunt on the other side. However, with the door completely open now, I could clearly see there was no one there. Instead, a warm gust of air from the long, dark hallway, washed over my body, before I could even register what had just happened. The room's light switch positioned adjacent to the doorway, and in my field of view. Flipped up, the light came on and the ceiling fan began to whirl overhead. Once again in an instant my blood ran cold.

My heart raced. I felt a lump form in my throat as my mind raced to make sense of what I had just witnessed. Adrenaline surged through my veins, just as it had before, in that very same room, all those years ago. Having forgotten about the game completely, I turned to face my cousin. My little brother totally oblivious to anything happening outside of the game, continued erythmically bound in the drum kit's game controller. Alex's eyes met mine. He must have seen the look of fear and disbelief on my face.

Before I could even speak, he casually uttered a single sentence of half-hearted reassurance. Oh, that's just the ghost. Don't worry about it. Without skipping a beat, his gaze returned to the television, and he continued playing along with the song. I will never forget the sound of Metallica's Enter Sandman, playing in the background, as my understanding of reality crumbled around me.

I continued to stare at him, totally speechless, the casual and nonchalant way in which he had said, It's just the ghost. Left me stunned. Surely he must be joking. Why is he not afraid? Does this happen all the time here? My brother Jack was none the wiser.

He hadn't seen the door open all on its own, or noticed the overhead light come on. He only understood something was wrong when I suddenly stopped playing and our band's score started tanking while the virtual crowd booed. And the rest of the evening was a point. blur. I said nothing to Alex or Jack about what I'd witnessed. I cannot recall a single thing that occurred following that moment of pure, unadulterated fear. The fresh hell of forbidden insight

crept into my life and rendered me unable to rest the following night. I had a renewed fear of the dark and the unknown that left me paralyzed and helpless. That night I begged my little brother to come and sleep in my bed, just so I wouldn't have to sleep alone. Although I was shaken up and had trouble falling asleep alone for the next month or so, eventually I got over it. I went on with my life, I started high school. I spent most of my time playing sports, studying, spending time out and about with friends, and playing video games at my parents, very safe, distinctly not haunted house.

At one point a few years later after the rock band incident, I found myself again at my aunt's house. Despite being roughly 14 years old by now, I was still so deftly afraid to return. I didn't want to go back there in the first place, for obvious reasons. But I couldn't explain that to my mother. I still had not told her anything. So I agreed to accompany her without protest. On the day of this particular visit, it was just my mum, my aunt, my cousin Cathy. and myself there at the house. This time I was full of dread and anxiety,

burdened with the knowledge that someone or something could be watching me. It could be feeding off my fear. I no longer felt safe and I anxiously awaited the opportunity to return home. We spent time chatting and having lunch. I began to ease up a bit. However, my anxiety escalated when my mother, my cousin Kathy and my aunt, All made their way into Kathy's bedroom. Before leaving the living room, my mum simply told me,

Stay here, we'll be back in a little bit. More than an hour passed while I watched TV in the living room alone. With my anxiety and curiosity mounting, and with nothing better to do, I got up and made my way to Kathy's bedroom. As I approached the bedroom door, I was able to hear my mother's hushed voice chanting, along with my aunt and cousin in prayer, invoking the name of Jesus Christ.

When I opened the door, I caught a glimpse of them all standing, holding hands, and heard her demanding that any unwanted visitors be banished by Archangel Michael. Before I could speak, my mum heard and saw me open the door, and she commanded that I closed the door and stay out. The whole scene was so unsettling and disturbing that I did just as I was told, and I returned to the living room feeling light-headed and shaken. Later that evening my mother and I said our goodbyes and started our drive back home. As soon as we left the property I wasted no time in asking my mum

what the hell she was doing in that room. I think she knew I had caught on already and she simply implored me to never mess with any Ouija boards, seances or any occult adjacent divination. You will open a portal, she exclaimed. Never invite any of that negative shit into your life. If you ever feel afraid, call upon Archangel Michael for protection with his heavenly white light. I didn't ask her clarification.

I knew what she meant. Given my past experience at that old ranch house. Over the years since, I've learned quite a bit more information about the supposed haunting at the house in Bakerville. While I don't know the history of the home, I do know it's quite a lot of. old and isolated, my aunt and uncle and my cousins have grown accustomed to unexplainable experiences over the years. They'd come to understand somehow that there were two different entities in the house, a playful young female spirit, and an older, malicious male spirit. I heard offhand through my mother that both spirits have materialised into visible apparitions

at some point. But despite my own experiences, I find that really. really hard to believe. According to my mother, as told by my aunt, at some point a few years prior, my cousin Kathy had thrown a drinking party with some of her teenage high school classmates. As cliche as it sounds, apparently one of Kathy's friends from school had brought a Ouija board to the party in an attempt to contact the spirit or entity that Kathy was already aware of. Following the session at the party, activity in the house generally began to intensify. Whatever they had contacted during the session started targeting my cousin Kathy specifically. The activity had become more malicious and frightening over time.

Things started to make sense for me. I had already known about the decline in Kathy's mental health in her final few years of high school. What seemed like a typical case of teenage angst and rebellion was attributable to a hostile and frightening home environment by a malevolent force, not of this. world. Not too long after the DIY exorcism I walked in on, Kathy moved out on her own after graduation and enrolled at a school for cosmetology. You'd think the purported haunting would end there, but she claims to have been followed by whatever evil things she summoned into our world. While she is no longer tormented by malevolent spirits today, and is quite successful in her life and career, she is easily the most spiritual person in our family.

I think she found refuge in embracing some new age spiritual protection rituals. My cousin Alex, on the other hand, denies everything outright, just goes to show how differently certain people handle traumatic experiences. When I think about it all more deeply, I find this second-hand information quite unbelievable. It's like something straight out of a generic Hollywood paranormal horror movie. I mean, Hasbro manufactures and mass-produces Ouija boards as a game, for young people to scare themselves and have a good laugh via the ideomoto effect.

Certainly a true, veritable haunting wouldn't be so cliched, right? Then again to this day I cannot explain what I saw in that house with my own eyes. While I'm still highly sceptical, and I don't believe in spirits of the dead, angels or demons from hell, I'll never forget what I witnessed firsthand. I saw the door handle move. I saw the light switch flip up immediately after, as if someone had come barging into the room. It really is that unbelievable.

I wouldn't blame anyone for not believing me. Sometimes I don't believe it myself. There must be some sort of rational explanation that adheres to my logical and consistent worldview. But then again, Next up, we've got a story from CJ. who woke up to realise there was someone in that house who shouldn't be. This story took place when I was around 16.

In order for you to understand this story, you need to understand the layout of my home in which this takes place. A hallway has five doors. The door on the left is the entry and exit way of the living room. The door on the far left belonged to my little brother. The door next to his leads to the bathroom. And the door in the middle leads into my room. and the door on the far right, a couple of feet from mine, belongs to my parents.

When someone approaches the entryway of the living room, the lights in the living room would reflect upon the wall that lead straight into my room. This can cast shadows of anyone or anything, such as pets that approach. Now, on to my story. It was a rainy night, and thunder was going wild outside, but I was asleep. I had a very exhausting day at school that day, and was taking an after-school nap, which eventually led to me completely dozing off into a deep sleep,

when suddenly I was overcome with an ominous feeling, of dread. The feeling of someone or something watching me, with malice. Malice so strong it shook me awake. I instantly woke up to find that my door that was closed before I went to sleep was wide open. I stopped and was confused because I was so. sure that before I went to take my much-needed nap, I was 100% certain I closed my door. I remember triple checking the lock because I'm a man who loves his privacy.

Before I could get up to close it, I saw something, or rather someone, leaving my parents' bedroom. From my room I could hear both my parents in the living room, which meant it couldn't have been them. To give some backstory, my parents have this strict rule for themselves to go to bed at 11pm sharp on weekdays. This story took place in one of those weekdays, which means that these events took place before 11pm. This would explain why they were still in the living room. And my brother was fast asleep in his room. He actually fell asleep before I did. And since our rooms are so closely connected, I could hear him sleeping.

and my sister who was in her early 20s wasn't home. In fact, she didn't live with us. She moved out years prior to this happening. So it couldn't have been none of us for, or my sister. This person or thing approached closer and closer to the middle of the hallway. At the centre of my door, the door which had been mysteriously left wide open, as it approached closer and closer towards the middle of the hallway, I could make out its shadow.

Was that of a woman, or should I say what appeared to be a woman? He had a long dress on, and I could see her hair. But the one thing I vividly remember even to this day was its face through the shadow. He had like a grotesquely inhuman-sized jaw, like that of a crocodile. Only that this resembled person, a woman, she looked like she was smiling. Again, all I could see was a shadow, but I could make out its features as it moved. It slowly cocked its head in my direction, as it continued to walk right from my parents' bedroom, past my room, and then it just vanished.

It just disappeared. I was frozen with fear and I wanted to speak, but my mouth refused to open. You know how in movies when someone sees a ghost that they instantly freaked the head. heck out? Well it's real in real life people. It's a genuine reaction. I wanted to scream, I wanted to run, I wanted to close my door as fast as possible, but I couldn't move. It was like I was in a sleep paralysis state, but I was fully awake and I wasn't lying down. I can't for the life of me even begin to explain the terror I felt in that moment, or even debunk what I saw. I'm not a skeptic, I fully believe in the supernatural.

but I never saw it again, thank God. And I never told anyone else this story, especially not my family. My parents refused to speak of anything supernatural, and were Catholic, so this is the first time I've ever shared it with anyone. The dread I was overcome with while writing the story, even in my twenties, was the same feeling I had back then. And that's a very, very scary feeling to feel. Needless to say, I endured a lot of sleepless nights.

shortly after this happened. To say I was terrified would be an understatement. I was beyond petrified. Though I do wonder what was this thing. Where did it go? What did it want? All of this is beyond me. I don't know. And maybe I'm better off not knowing. Our last tale tonight takes place as all good ghost stories do. Late on an October night. The experience I had took place years ago when I was in high school. My best friend and I were bored and in need of something to do. We had been wanting to do a ghost tour in an old jailhouse that was about two hours away by car.

We were young and our parents wouldn't allow us to go that far at night alone. We were talking about it one day when my co-worker's wife, I'll call her be, suggested she could take us. Honestly, this lady viewed me as her daughter, and she meant the world to me. B was doing much better after some medical treatment she had gone through, and the idea of getting to go with her and my best friend was so exciting. It took a little bit of convincing, but eventually our parents allowed us to go. We picked a night in October because we were all wanting to be spooked for the Halloween season. It was a very late tour on the last one of the evening.

It was super dark outside beyond the streetlights and the headlights that marked the arrival of other people going on the tour. It was cold out, so not many people were as crazy as the small group of us who had made our way out there. The jail was huge and decrepit looking, big and made of stone and iron. It was a relic to the horrible treatment of those incarcerated in the past. Just being there could make you feel full of dread. Since we had travelled a couple of hours to get there, we made sure to be there early, so we wouldn't be late by any means. We explored the surrounding courtyard on our own, me and my best friend chatting about whatever it was we were into at the time. B was lagging behind us, messing with her phone, and looking quite frustrated.

It didn't take us long to notice that she wasn't with us, and we turned around to ask what was going on. B told us that her phone had started a recording all on its own and every time she would try to stop it it would just start over again B had never had this happen on her phone before ever We walked back over to her Curious what could be going on

The two of them were immediately serious Thinking it could be some sort of spirit tampering with the device I thought that was pretty silly at the time making fun of them for believing that kind of stuff. B went on pointing the camera around and speaking out into the air, asking if anyone was there. To our surprise, we could see small orbs of light appearing on the screen. My best friend and B started getting really into it then,

frantically watching them and sticking close to each other. I, on the other hand, was feeling quite brave. I thought it wasn't real. It was just bits of dust. And to prove it to them, I decided to walk right out to where one of the dots were. I waved my arms about laughing, and saying it wasn't real and the two of them were being stupid. In the next few seconds, I would quickly come to regret that decision. I was making fun of them, being annoying and messing around where you all have been.

They were telling me to stop it and knock it off. Not that I was listening to them. Suddenly, my entire body froze. The hairs on my body standing up. It was like the air had been sucked out of the whole courtyard, and I couldn't breathe. There was no wind blowing. There was no one walking nearby. In my ear I heard a soft sigh, a whisper, like someone was letting all their emotions out with

a gentle breath after holding in all of their sorrow. It was of a woman, I could tell. I could feel the cold breath on my ear, like she exiled right against it. I'll never forget that feeling. I fought the urge to scream, standing there dumbfounded for a few seconds before I haired hailed it right back to be

scared out of my mind. It was like I couldn't speak, but I was so scared. The voice sounded so sad, so real. There's no way I had just imagined it, right? It took a lot in me to make it through the actual tour after that. We made it through with a few little things happening. But what struck out most of me was when we passed by a window that looked out over the courtyard. I felt my blood run cold when the tour guys pointed it out and said,

that's where the hanging grounds were. Thank you once again for joining me on this night drive. Again, if you haven't already and you want to hear more tales like these, then please do subscribe. I hope these stories have kept you company for a while. I'll be leaving you now, but just remember, please stay aware. You never know when the hands may strike. I wish you all a safe journey home. Until next time.