The Tape Library - Archive of the Paranormal & the Unexplained - Night Drive 3 - 4 Terrifying but TRUE Paranormal Stories

Episode Date: June 1, 2024

It's ghost story time! Tonight we're taking a quiet drive together, as I bring you 4 never before heard real life paranormal encounters. A terrifying sleep over story, a ghostly pet, strange happenings out in the country and a ghost spotted at Alcatraz! 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 Midjourney Chapters 00:00 True Ghost Stories 00:37 The Piano 13:45 The Cat 17:50 The Country House 27:46 The Rock Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, and thank you for tuning into Night Drive tonight. I've got four creepy real-life stories that have been sent into me from listeners of the show. Tonight we've got a pet that seemingly doesn't want to leave. A creepy farm that is visited in the night by two strange men, and a quick trip to visit Alcatraz. But first we're travelling back to an encounter that took place in the early 80s, where a man named Mark was having a sleepover with his friend. This is my account of a ghost I experienced,

probably back in 1982 or 1983. I posted it before on an IMD forum back in 2004, but I don't think it was sensational enough to get much attention. I used a quotation marked as I really don't know if it was real or not, but when I was a kid, it terrified. me. And then as I grew up, I kind of brushed it off as a hoax. But recently, I've been doing what a lot of men my age do, and reminiscing, which makes me think that it might have been real, especially now that I understand the world a little better. So I grew up in a village in Buckinghamshire, called Haddonham.

It's a big village, and we have a church that's around 800 years old, which is a pig. It's a in a few films. I went to the church school nearby and made friends with a fellow pupil that I'll call John. I won't use his or his family's real names as I don't want to speak out of term for them. John and his family live down a street right next to the church, adjacent to the duck pond. It's apparently the oldest street in the village and his family's house is probably close to 400 years old now. It used to be two houses, but at some point in their history, they were converted into a larger four-bedroom house, which was long and narrow. It was a great house to visit as a kid, due to its huge garden and the fact they had a large room that doubled as a playroom and a music room. Plus, John's family were always really friendly and welcoming.

They were a big part of the village community, quite eccentric and into crafts and history. The house reflected this with its warm wooden interiors, lots of pottery and paintings on the walls. To a kid barely into double digits, it felt like stepping back in time. Compared to the modern Scandinavian-style house my family lived in, on the other side of the village. But at school, John used to tell us ghost stories about his house. Things he'd seen or heard. They were creepy for sure, but I didn't really believe them. I thought he was lying to impress us.

So on one occasion when at his house for tea, I asked his mum and older sister about the haunting. They both had similar stories to share. The family and their neighbours had heard strange noises in the night, seen glowing mists in the garden, and even witnessed people who shouldn't have been there. However, they both seem fairly nonplussed about the occurrences. In fact, John's mum seemed to like the idea.

of a friendly ghost in the house. John was less keen. The narrowness of the house meant that to get to his parents' room from his bedroom, he had to walk out onto a small landing, down the stairs, along the main corridor, and up another set of stairs, in order to reach them, effectively walking into what used to be a bedroom in another house. If he felt scared, normally he'd wake his sister instead.

but as a teenager she was less patient than his parents. Now I can't remember what time of year I agreed to stay over one night to John's house, since this happened around four decades ago, but for some reason I do remember that it was a cloudless night with a bright moon. I was sleeping next to him on the floor of his room on a thin mattress. We'd gone to bed quite late and then stayed up whispering to each other, only to be hushed again and again by his sister in the room next door. The door to John's bedroom was opened wide,

which did nothing to muffle while hushed giggling. It also meant that I could look out onto the small landing at the foot of my makeshift bed. When we did finally try to sleep, I noticed in the near silence that the whole house made noises, like an old wooden ship. It creaked and groaned. as the temperature changed. And even when I rolled over on my mattress,

the thick floorboards beneath me squeaked. I'm not sure when I woke up, but it must have been really late, probably early morning. The moonlight was streaming in through John's thin curtains, and covering the room with silver highlights and dark shadows. But I was alert and wide awake. I felt on edge.

I didn't know why, so I lay there, trying to get comfortable again. When I heard, a solitary piano note, I froze and strained to listen. I couldn't be sure if I'd actually heard it. Plink sounded weak. Like someone timidly tapping one of the keys. So maybe it was just another noise from the house. The silence stretched on. Then another note was played. Still weak, but clearer.

And I assumed coming from their old upright piano in the music room, directly beneath us. John and his sister had both claimed to have heard this before, blaming it on the ghost. So at first I felt excited rather than concerned at what I was hearing. The piano sounded again a few times randomly. There was no structure to the notes being played. It wasn't a tune or a piece of music, just random, mostly higher notes.

I can't tell you how long between each tap of the key, but it seemed to me that each one was like dripping water. And it made me flinch each time I heard it. I asked John if you was awake. He was, responding to me with a tense whisper. Something didn't feel right. My gregarious and full-hardy friend seemed different. I could feel his tension.

What I was hearing below us became less frivolous and more concerning. John's reaction told me that this was serious. The excitement I'd initially experienced rapidly subsided, and my concern turned to an unsettling fear. I asked John if I could sit on his bed, not waiting for a response I clumsily stood up and pulled my duvet with me, looking down at my friend. He stared back at me, eyes wide, absolutely terrified, like I'd opened a door to a rabid dog. I sat down on those right side of this single bed, pulling my bedding up over me and waited in silence for the piano. and there was nothing.

No noises came from the music room. I'm not sure how long we waited there, listening, but the next sound terrified me. It was the creek of a footstep at the bottom of the stairs. Then another, and another, as whatever had been playing the piano began to make its way up towards John's bedroom. I felt my friend tense up next to me, scaring me even more.

The movement seemed like that of an old person, slow and steady, not creeping or striding up purposefully, gradually coming up the narrow wooden staircase. I fixated on the open doorway and the small landing. The moonlight gave me enough illumination to clearly see whatever was coming once it reached the top. I covered myself in the duvet,

peeking out through a tiny scrunched hole at the doorway. I was too scared to say or do anything. As a kid, I liked the exhilaration of being scared, but this was something else. I felt actual visceral dread at what was approaching. The footsteps kept coming until I felt sure, I could see something appear. But nothing did.

Like the piano sounds, they just seemed to... Stop. I lay there staring at the door for a long time, expecting a ghostly apparition to peer around the doorframe at me. But nothing did. I didn't want to get off the bed. I was still incredibly scared.

So I just laid there in silence. Not even daring to switch on the light. I must have drifted off to sleep eventually as I awoke with sunlight coming through the curtains lay next to John on his bed. I tried to talk to him about what had happened but he wasn't willing. He flat out refused and I didn't push him either.

I didn't want to think about it. Both of us were out of sorts the next day which I think our parents put down to the lack of sleep which might have been part of it but I slept with my bedroom lights on for weeks after that, something I hadn't done in years. As I got a little older, I started coming up with explanations of what might have happened. A cat on the piano. Maybe a prank by a member of John's family.

Or maybe I dreamt it. But I could still see John's terrified face in the moonlight, and my memories of the whole night were incredibly vivid. even to this day. John and I went to different secondary schools, who we didn't see each other for years, but I saw him in one of the village pubs when I must have been in my early 20s.

I brought the ghost incident up with him, and he was a little more vocal. As a kid, he didn't like talking about the ghost when in the house, as he thought whatever it was might be listening. He remembered that night and was really angry with me at the time, since he always stayed silent when he heard the ghost. It heard you, and it came upstairs, he said. I asked him if it was a joke being played on me, but he said it wasn't. He was adamant that his parents' house was haunted. The footsteps on the stairs had

happened to him a few times, but not in years. Weird things still occurred from time to time, but nothing as terrifying as what I experienced. I kind of brushed it off after that and got on with my life. But I told a colleague about John in this house a few months ago as we were swapping ghost stories, and the more I think about it, the more I think it did happen. Sure, the piano could have been a prank and easily done, but the footsteps up the stairs could not.

Unless whoever walked up them, waited silently near the top until both John and myself were asleep, before making their way down them. You couldn't walk up or down those stairs without making annoyers. And as a parent, I'd never dream of doing anything to terrify either of my own kids, and especially not one of their friends in that way. If it was a hoax, it seemed particularly elaborate. But with no actual payoff.

I haven't spoken to John in decades. but I think his parents still live in the house. Thank you to Mark for sending us that one in and getting us off to a suitably creepy start. If you enjoy stories like this, then be sure to subscribe and click the like button. If you want me to bring you more of these every couple of weeks. We've covered a few pet-related ghost stories, but here's another one for tonight from a person who requested to remain anonymous. to remain anonymous. Back in the mid to late 2010s, my grandmother needed end-of-life care. I quit my job and moved over two hours away so I could be with her 24-7. I had invited a friend over,

and we were sitting in the dining room, just shooting the breeze and catching up. I'd left the door open just in case my grandmother needed help. My friend was sitting so that she could see the door and hallway behind me. She gave a small start and said, Oh, I didn't know your grandmother had pets. A cat just ran down the hallway. I was understandably confused because my grandmother hadn't had any animals in almost two years, and the last pet she had had was an old hound mutt. I then said as much to her. We proceeded to hunt for the mystery cat that had somehow gotten in. I hadn't yet asked what it looked like because anything cat-shaped wasn't supposed to be in the house. We checked all the windows,

they were closed. We checked the front and back door. Both were also closed. It took us around 45 minutes to search the whole house. Finally, I asked her what the cat looked like. She said it was a kind of fat, black and white cat. I asked her if it had a white mustache. She said she believed it did, and I told her that was Lucky, a cat who died back in the early 1990s. Lucky was rescued as a kitten by my father. The kitten was stuck in a storm drain outside my father's work that was rapidly filling with water from a sudden storm and flash flood. Hence his name, Lucky. Lucky was found a few weeks before I was born. My parents were living in a no-pets-allowed apartment, so my grandparents took him in. I truly loved that cat and I think he loved me back,

as I was the only one he ever sought out and didn't only tolerate. Lucky suffered the fate that most outdoor cats do. He was struck by a car shortly before his fourth year adoption anniversary, but Lucky's ghost used to show up a lot in my childhood. Of course, the adults never believe me. but it had been well over a decade since I'd last seen him, so I had genuinely thought he moved on and had forgotten about my ghost kitty. I had never told my friend about Lucky, or his ghost until that day,

and that cat was part feral, so picking him up and taking photos with him was not something he would put up with. As such, we had four or maybe five photos of him, but none were hanging up on the walls. so I have no idea how my friend knew about the white moustache, nor what she could have seen running in the hallway beforehand, if it were not lucky. I asked this on my main channel, the tape library a few times,

but as we have some new people here, I'm curious. Have you personally ever experienced something that you believe might be supernatural? You don't have to go into detail if you don't want to, simple yes or no in the comments would be great. Although if you do want to go into more detail, you can write your encounter in the comments, or you can find my email address in the description. Who knows?

Your story might wind up on one of these late-night drives. We're getting into a series of creepy events on a farm next from a long-time viewer of the tape library. I particularly liked this one, not just because of the paranormal side, but because of the very real but very crazy event that they round their story off with. So, let's head down to the countryside.

I was raised in Michigan in the country. We lived on a dirt road next to the cornfields. Down the road from the cornfields was a beef cow farm on one side of the road, and on the other side of the road, from that there was a good-sized dairy farm. We could hear the milk machines running in the night if the windows were open. The country can get real quiet sometimes.

To the other side of our houses from the fields and farms, were 40 acres of property that we owned that stopped at the river. And on the other side of the river was a ton more acreage, leading up to our only other neighbour's house. On the far side of the road from us was a different county. We lived on a county life. and there was nothing on that side of the road. It's just undeveloped land.

Also, we lived very close to a Native American reservation. It might also make sense to tell you that this land was heavily drilled for oil. My town I grew up in is known locally as Oil City, although I'm not sure oil city is a name of an actually legally recognised town. It's a tiny town and it's like you always hear it said. Blink twice and you'll miss it. just a couple of corner stores and maybe a pizza place, and literally nothing else in the city,

just a four corners type of place. It's fair to say the land has a lot of deep and ancient history, from the oil down deep under its surface, from ancient decayed life, to the native tribe that lived there for centuries. Once summer of the night I was laying in bed with the window open, I could hear all the sounds of the night, My room and house was quiet.

The next event sounds very non-exciting, and maybe it wasn't remarkable at all, but scared me half the death. Out of nowhere I heard running, and then a loud panting under my window. It suddenly sounded like some dog just appeared out of nowhere and just came under my window. I swear it only ran ten feet at most before it got to my window. came really close to it and maybe ran another ten feet away. It was so quick, but what struck me was how sudden the sound was. I didn't hear it approaching at all, and it came so close to my window,

and then out of nowhere it disappeared, almost like it phased in and out of our reality, only to run under my window for some reason. I laid there, scared to death for quite some time. It might be because there was a series of strange events around my house that it all slowly unnerved me. One of these events, there was a bloody mark on our front door that I couldn't explain, and neither could anyone else in my house. I was coming home one day and found a fairly large blood mark, a few inches big,

smeared across the door at eye level. It looked vaguely like a handprint. That always bothered me because there was no reason. I knew of for it, and no one else in the house did either. It was just there for one day out of the blue, and no one knew anything about it. Another instance was that one time I was out in my yard. We had a small pond stocked with fish that we would fish out of regularly. One afternoon I was out there fishing, as I had many times before, and out of nowhere I heard a deep old man's voice telling me to get away.

I turned around to face him, but didn't see anyone there. This was strange because we owned 40 acres of property, and our closest neighbour was the cow farm. Between their farmhouse and our property was huge cornfields. This happened on private property with no neighbours anywhere close to us, just cornfields and cows, so it made no sense whatsoever to me that I should hear a strange, unrecognized voice, shooting me away from my own backyard pond. I stood there and stared for a few

seconds, trying to figure out who had just talked to me, but I couldn't see anyone there. The voice just seemed to come out of nowhere. I turned and ran back to my house and told my parents about it, but they didn't seem to know who it was either. We had woods near our property to the other side of our house, and my brothers and their friends used to play in them. They said, that sometimes they'd seen a creepy guy in the woods with a hunched looking back. They said they called him shoulders hike, because his shoulders looked somehow deformed, like he was hunched over, or always pulling his shoulders up, like he was trying to shrug. We would find clothes in the woods a lot too, just taking off and laying there for no apparent reason. I was always scared

of the woods to really go into them to play much, but my brothers went in a lot. They said they hardly ever saw Shoulders' hike, though. Almost like they weren't sure if he really existed. Or was just some ghostly type figure. They could never find a camp spot he made, never could predict where to find him, if he was just a homeless man living out in the woods. They would just very rarely catch glimpses of him through the trees here and there.

He was super mysterious and creepy. My brother's also told of seeing people come out of the cornfields at night. I don't know how familiar you are with cornfields, but they sometimes have these types of access rows that run along the edges of them. One of these access rows ran adjacent to our driveway. My brothers told me they would see men coming out of that access row near our driveway at dusk and at night. They would look normal at first until they stepped out into the clearing more. and it looked like their legs faded, like upper torsos floating basically.

Both my brothers said they seen this, but I never did. So if you put all these things together, the night laying in my bed and having a somewhat normal sound, a running dog, somehow feel not quite right, like an uncanny valley situation, which is deeply unnerving.

You know, on one hand, a running dog makes sense, and should be normal to hear out in the country. But something about it felt off and troubling and scary. It just didn't sound right, even if it should have. It was the only time living there I ever heard anything like that. It was petrifying for me on that summer night. There's another story you might like, but it's not paranormal.

But it is weird and super creepy. This all happened at my house too, one night, late at night. We heard someone knocking and screaming on our door, two kids in their 20s just pounding and screaming for help. They said they had just been in a plane crash, and they survived, but other people were drowning and they needed rescue. Immediately I got on the phone to call 911 and my stepdad went outside to the back of the house to sneak around the front and see what was happening. These guys ended up coming into the house and they were a hot mess. You could believe that maybe they did get into a plane wreck. They were soaking wet from head to toe and so muddy,

and just freaking out frantically, trying to get these people rescued. 911 responded with counties and counties of responders, and news crews as well. I have never seen anything like it in my entire life. We lived on a very back country road, and with all the response vehicles, our dark, quiet country road looks.

like the Vega Strip, so many lights and searchers out looking for this plane crash. Turns out these guys did get into an accident, but they were in a Jeep, not a plane. They were so drunk and on so much LSD, they were just tripping hard and super confused. They rolled their Jeep into a ditch, and our house was the closest one to them, so they came to us. Because of all the responders I mentioned, they were actually persecuted for a a fake 911 call, because their accident could have had a much lighter response, and it took a lot of time to clear the area and tied up several counties' emergency resources. So again, while it's not paranormal, it's creepy at first to be startled late at night

thinking there was a plane full of victims drowning near your house. Overall, and in general, there was just a creepy type vibe around my property where I was raised. There was a fatal car crash near the river that I mentioned previously as well. I didn't see it but my parents did. Like I said just overall the location felt off, not happy somehow, maybe even kind of pissed off, like the land itself or some sort of energy living in the area just wanted to fuck with you. Sometimes it even played tricks on people, simply just passing through. A last story tonight takes us to a very famous location, and it's just one of those good old-fashioned, haunting encounters that always chills me, no matter how many times I hear them. Time for our last stop of the night.

The prison on Alcatraz Island started off as a civil war fault, and then a federal penitentiary by 1933. I'm sure the rock needs no introduction. By the time I visited the island as a teenager, The infamous prison had been closed for over 40 years. The main cell house building is the largest and most imposing part of the penitentiary. It is over 100 years old now and house some of the most infamous criminals of the early 20th century. Stabbings, murders, even a battle took place within its walls. Tortured people called this place their home during their imprisonment.

It must have been a horrible place. The weather was Bay Area Summer weather, aka windy and cold, but sunny. This was my first time visiting the infamous prison. We had just finished with the guided part of the tour, and were allowed to tour the grounds at our own leisure. I was walking along the large cellhouse by myself, taking in an audio tour with my headphones on. As I wandered into the barbershop section, This was where the prisoner's hair and beards were groomed, among other things. Despite being sunny outside, it was quite dark inside the building, as some of the lights were out.

This caused long shadows across the cell blocks, making it impossible to see inside some of the cells. This was cell block D, the oldest cell block, where the older solitary confinement cells were. Also in D block, there is a stairwell in the middle of the street. that led down into the old Civil War jail, integrated into the modern building, supposedly where more problematic prisoners were often kept. I was standing behind a mesh fence that separates the barbershop from Cell Block D, listening to this audio tour when I looked up from my map. Standing in the middle of the section, next to the stairwell, was a man.

Or, what I thought looked like a mannequin at first. He was wearing a suit and tie in a policeman's hat, the one with eight points. My first thought was, is that a mannequin? He was stood right in the middle of the section, facing the cells, in profile to me, but became even more confused when the mannequin started to move. Only slightly, but as I looked on, I could see the man slowly breathing and swaying, as if standing at full attention, facing the cell blocks. He was standing in the area of full shadow and it was hard to make out his features,

but he had on a pretty sharp uniform that I can still remember clear as day. At that point my next thought was he's probably just a reenactor of a prison guard, dare to answer questions and such. But as I stood there thinking about it, It slowly dawned on me that not only was his section closed with the lights off, but the man had no legs or feet, or anything below his thigh. At first I assumed it was because he was standing behind the waist-high stairwell, but in actuality he was standing in front of it, hovering in the air.

As I came to this realization, I rubbed my eyes and shook my head a little bit, and looked around the empty barbershop looking for any employee or park ranger that could tell me what I was looking at. I looked away and looked back, looked away again, and by the time I looked back the man had disappeared. Again my first thought went to, oh I guess he just went away, maybe down the stairs or something. I shrugged and turned to leave.

It was late afternoon and the ferry boat was going to leave, soon, so I went down to the dock, sort of mystified as to what I had just seen. As I passed a park ranger, I asked him if they had any reenactors or some such people on the ground today. His answer still spooks me every time I think about it. We don't have any sort of actors or reenactors on Alcatraz Island. That's all for tonight's night drive. I hope you've enjoyed these creepy encounters. Don't forget if you want more, then hit the subscribe button.

I'll be back next week with a new episode of the tape library, so be on the lookout for that. Until next time.