The Tape Library - Archive of the Paranormal & the Unexplained - Night Drive Paranormal 12 - Ghost Stories From the Black Lodge

Episode Date: February 7, 2025

Tune into Night Drive Paranormal tonight to hear 9 brand new real life paranormal stories to keep you up all night narrated by @thetapelibrary   Sign up to Patreon for early access and shout outs - www.patreon.com/thetaplibrary Subscribe now for more terrifying tales of the paranormal. If you have a story to share then you can email me at [e-mail] CHAPTERS  00:00 Night Drive Paranormal 01:32 Case 1 12:33 Case 2 16:09 Case 3 25:17 Case 4 28:14 Case 5 31:11 Case 6 34:24 Case 7 36:39 Case 8 41:28 Case 9 47:18 Wrapping Up Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, my friends, and welcome to Night Drive Paranormal. I'm afraid it's been a while since you last heard from me. We've been lost inside the Black Lodge for some time. But don't worry, we've figured out a way to broadcast from deep within this strange place. Tonight's episode of Night Drive has quite a bit of an international flair to it, taking us from the Irish countryside to an abandoned building in Poland, the wilds of Alaska, to a series of strange events deep in the heart of New Orleans. So let's get straight into it, shall we?

Get comfortable. It's time to take another drive into that dark night and listen to some truly terrifying, paranormal tales. Case 1 There's an old castle located between the mountains in the quiet midlands of Ireland. Kinney Castle. I worked there as a barman during my college years.

It has been home to a castle since at least the 1200s, switching hands from the Normans to the Augustines, then to Gaelic tribes, Catholic monastery, and later to English colonialists. It served as a college at 1.2, before later becoming a hotel and wedding venue. So a lot of history and bloodshed. Local historians claim that prior to all this history, however, the area was a deeply important druidic site, forming a sort of triumvirate, with two other druid sites in the area, which are now castles too. The site was reported to allegedly be haunted, but then again what old Irish castle isn't. I generally understood it to be a bit of folklore, a spooky Halloween story at most and nothing more. And for the first half of my two years there, I saw and heard nothing to challenge that notion. Anyways, one night a group of American tourists were staying, numbering about ten in total.

with the head of the gang informing me that his full-time employment over in the States was that of a spirit medium. Now, while this might sound eerie, working in a location like that at peak tourist times of the year, we regularly met ghost hunting guests who would come to try and have their own paranormal experience. Paranormal tourists would regularly visit the place, so this was nothing out of the ordinary by any means. A lot of these sorts, too, I might add, tended. to have active imaginations, to put it mildly. I'm a firm believer that if you go to a place like that with the intention of seeing a ghost, well, you'll see a ghost,

regardless of whether anything has happened or not. In my time there, I found the vast majority of supposed paranormal experiences to all be in people's heads. Like, if a draught of air closed the door in your home, you wouldn't blink twice. but if it happens in a place like this, you assume it must be ghosts. We often got a laugh out of the numerous cases of periodolia, when people would send us pictures they had taken, claiming there were faces in the trees,

or the shadows of people or whatever, and they quite literally never were. Anyways, the gentleman leading the group informed us that he intended to speak with the spirits in the castle during their stay. He was apparently a well-renowned medium who made a living from this. The whole group were also dressed in what I can only compare to Native American dress, though I couldn't necessarily tell if they were Native Americans themselves.

I paid no heed either way, welcomed them, and brought their bags to their rooms, receiving a very generous tip for doing so. I should add that tipping is not customary in Ireland, particularly rare the further you go from the cities, so this was pleasantly unexpected. This same group had booked out the castle drawing room for a private function later that night. I distinctly recall passing by at one point where one of them stepped out to use the bathroom, to see them sitting in a circle, meditating, with black candles lit around the periphery. Again, odd, but not as out of place as you might think in a place like this.

I've had guests using EVP equipment before, for example, hall, and I'd come across more than one using a Ouija board. The following day there was a wedding taking place in the castle, and by the time I arrived in work, the ghost hunters had checked out, and I had all but forgotten about them. At about 3 a.m. after the wedding guests had mostly gone to bed, the exhaustive task of clearing the entire empty banquet hall on my own began. I should add this hall dates back to the 1600s, and there are a series of flat stone markers in the ground. where the graves of monks were found when they renovated it several years ago.

As I was finishing up the last few tasks, I recall hearing creaking floorboards on the balcony, an overflow area above the entrance to the hall, therefore of the number of guests exceeds 200. As I peered up, suddenly I heard the distinctive sound of footprints, albeit very muffled from up there. These footsteps then slowly descended the stairs, and moved all the way down the long haul until they arrived at the far end by the bar.

I remember so clearly just following the noise with my head as it moved down the long hall. I should explain at this point that the bar on the far end of the hall has three large metal grids attached to the roof above. When in use these are pulled up and tied with chains, which also hang from the roof. When not in use, the bars are pulled down and locked into place to the bar, with the chains then hanging freely, a rudimentary but effective means of keeping any would-be burglars from getting into the alcohol stash, basically. As the steps got to the bar, those chains began shaking, violently.

It terrified the life out of me. I dashed out the door and across the courtyard to the bar in a dungeon, where the last few stragglers of the wedding were drunkenly sipping and usually spilling the remainder of their pine. I told my fellow bartender there what had happened. He laughed, agreeing to come and help me close up and told me I was jumping at shadows. I practically finished up the cleaning holding his hand. Together, we didn't notice anything out of the ordinary.

As I headed up to count the till, I met the bartender from the library bar, the last of the three bars in the venue, looking very pale-faced and uneasy. He informed me that while skulking off to use his phone so that he could watch the highlights of a football match, when he wasn't supposed to be, he'd become aware of someone entering the bar by the door to his left, only for him to be bewildered when nobody emerged from around the corner. This, coupled with a flickering light bulb in the chandelier above, happened half a dozen times before he got spooked enough to leave the bar, and come and hide in the more well-welled. lit safety of the office, watching the bar on the cameras instead. Upon sitting down there, we both suddenly became aware of a scratching and tapping, happening at the window into the room. He pointed it to me and I heard it too, clear as day, scratching, but coming from the other side of the narrow window. I should explain that this office is located on one of the turrets of the castle, so the window is give or take eight to nine feet above the ground

so it was unlikely to be a person it could have been an animal doing all the scratching and tapping sure but I'd never heard anything like it and never would again so it seems perhaps a little coincidental to only happen on this night plus again it's after 4 a.m.,

so it's very unlikely to be a bird or similar animal It was so bizarre, but we were inside the safety of the warm office, together. So it wasn't necessarily scary by now, but just weird. At that point we were joined by the final barman from the dungeon bar below, who now admitted that despite his joking earlier, he was now a little uneasy too, after a few similar events happened down in the dungeon. It was then that we spotted a flickering light on the CCTV feed. A setting created to inform us that the motion sensor was picking up something moving inside of the banquet hall,

the same banquet hall that I had emptied and locked up. It told us that every five seconds or so, something was moving about, before disappearing for a few seconds and returning again. A few more peculiar happenings took place that night, opening doors, tapping on tables at a reception, names seemingly being called down the hall before I finally departed at around 6am. It was only the day after as I was reflecting on the events of the night, that I realised that it must have been the group of spirit mediums from the night before. They must have disturbed something. But it's not the first time something like that happened here. A long-serving staff member informed me of similar events that went on for weeks after the land of the land.

around the place was dug up to lay sewage pipes in the mid-1990s. Something had been disturbed during the excavation. It had gotten so bad back then that even guests were complaining. Cold spots inside the castle during a summer heat wave. Footsteps, slamming doors, moving objects, and so on. The castle staff eventually went to the church in the village and lit a candle for those of the old winter and Bernard families, who were Protestant lords that had owned the castle back in the day. All activities ceased practically overnight, I was told.

Things like this occasionally would happen there. The allegedly haunted room at the very top of the castle even had a no-wege board rule because of the hassle and mess caused for the cleaners and staff whenever people disturbed the spirits. One particular female staff member would repeatedly get it the worst, with her ponytail regularly being pulled by an unseen force, but even had camera footage of it occurring,

which, despite being spooky, tended to be quite humorous. Other young female staff would sometimes report hearing their names called too, despite them being alone there. Different mediums told staff there on a number of occasions that there were a few ghosts up there, but the one of them, a monk named Hugh, is the main one. who enjoys playing good-natured pranks on people and has a particular affinity for women, especially the women getting married at the venue, so not quite as malicious as some haughtings,

but still bizarre. This was the first and only time I witnessed any of it, however. Don't forget, you too can have your encounter read out on Night Drive Paranormal. Just drop me an email at the tape library at Protonmail.com if you want to be featured on the show. Time for case number two. I was about 10 years old when this happened. I had travelled from Sweden to Poland to visit my grandparents. It was summer and I did this every year until they both passed away. One day I went outside to play with my friends. If I remember correctly, we had Yu-Gi-a-cards and we played with them a lot. Near the playground,

there was an abandoned building. The building belonged to my uncle. I was around 3,000. I was around years old when he went out of business, so he abandoned it. Since then, it had been left empty. My friends wanted to play a game called Dare, and they challenged me to go into the abandoned building at night, since I didn't believe in ghosts. I thought it was an easy challenge. If I won, they promised me free McDonald's. At midnight, I snuck out of my grandparents' house and went to the playground to grab a toy for the challenge. The goal was to enter the first. The goal was to enter the the abandoned building, go up to the second floor, and leave the toy there as proof. Standing in front of the building, I told myself, tomorrow, a big Mac for me. Then I went inside.

I didn't have a flashlight, but the moon was bright that night, giving me enough light to see. I searched for the stairs and found them at the end of the hallway. As I climbed up, I noticed broken glass covering each step. Carefully, I made my way to the second floor. The roof was in bad shape, but the moonlight illuminated the area. I looked around for a place to leave the toy and spotted a big, old, broken mirror. I crouched down and placed the toy in front of it. And then, it happened.

I was still crouching, looking down at the toy when I heard a strange sound. like an old man struggling to breathe, as if he were lifeless and in pain. A chill ran down my spine and my heart started pounding. Then I heard the crunching of broken glass on the stairs, like someone was stepping on it. I tried to convince myself that my imagination was playing tricks on me, but when I looked up, I saw something in the broken mirror, a pale, Eyeless face, staring back at me. I froze, I wanted to run, but I couldn't move away.

Somehow I was completely paralysed. I shut my eyes and when I opened them again, the face was gone. But I still felt like something was near me. Finally I broke free from my fear and ran. I bolted down the hallway, feeling like something was chasing me. I made it outside and onto the plague. ground gasping for breath. When I turned back towards the building, I saw it again. The same face staring at me from the second floor window. I ran as fast as I could back to my grandparents' house.

I had never been so scared in my life, but at least I got my reward the next day, along with an experience I would never forget. I never did anything like that ever again. We're jumping across the Atlantic now. For case number three, we're headed to Alaska. I grew up in northern Alaska, actually all over the state, until I was 13. This story takes place in the winter of 1984 when I was 11 years old. At the time, we lived in a small town called At Kasuk, home to about 250 people. Most were native except for the school teachers, my parents included. One night my parents told my two sisters and me they'd be working late at the school, so we were to put ourselves to bed. We did as we were told, and later I heard my parents come home, take off their heavy winter gear and go to bed.

Sometime after that, I woke up to knocking at my window. At first, I didn't think much of it until I heard my mother's voice calling, John? Half asleep, I sat up and saw my mother standing outside. wearing her parker and motioning for me to come and locked the door. I was groggy but confused. Hadn't I already heard my parents come home? Still, there she was, calling for me.

Now, in small Alaskan towns, houses have something called a mud porch. An enclosed entryway meant to store winter gear and provide a warm spot for anyone caught in a snowstorm. The outer door to the mud porch is normally never locked so that people can take shelter if needed But that night for some reason it was As I walked from my bedroom to the front door I noticed something strange Every time I passed a window my mother was there

Looking in It was as if she was gliding along the outside of the house Keeping pace with me Finally I reached a door I expected it to be locked, but when I turned the knob, it opened easily. My mother stood there in the porch's dim light. She looked at me and asked, Can I come in?

Something about the question made my skin crawl. And then I looked down. She was barefoot. That was all it took. Terra gripped me, and I bolted back to my parents' bedroom, shaking my father awake. something is wrong with mum i gasped then from the other side of the bed my mother sat up what's wrong honey she asked grogly i froze we rushed to the back door the one i had left open nothing was there no footprints in the fresh snow from the night storm of course my parents brushed it off as a bad dream but i knew what i had seen years later as a As a senior in high school, we had moved to a quiet town in the Pacific Northwest.

Our house was a two-story home at the top of a hill when my bedroom was on the second floor. One of my best friends, let's call him Joe, had a habit of sneaking over late at night. He'd use a bit of parkour to climb up and knock lightly on my window, signalling for me to let him in or to sneak out with him. One night I heard the familiar knock. I turned over in bed and said, saw Joe's face peering in, but something was off. His voice was flat, emotionless, as he whispered, can I come in? Then I noticed something horrifying. Joe wasn't standing on anything. He was floating.

And worse, he was barefoot. I slammed the window shut and backed away. The knocking continued. one tap every minute over and over, each time followed by a whispered. John. I hid under the covers, and eventually it stopped. After high school, I spent a summer in Nevada with a friend. When it was time to leave, I drove back to Washington on a tight budget, sleeping in my car at rest stops along Highway 395. On the second night, I pulled into a remote mountain rest stop just before sunset.

A family in a van was parked nearby, quiet and reserved, not the partying type. I settled in using a blanket to block the bright moonlight. Sometime later I woke to a knocking on my window. Knock, knock, knock, knock. Still groggy, I assumed it was someone from the van. Then I heard my name whispered, John. I lifted the blanket and looked out. It was my sister.

Every hair on my body stood on end. Knock, knock, knock, knock. I froze unable to move, and then the knocking stopped. A moment later I heard the knocking on the van. A door creaked open and a scream. Several streams. The van's engine roared to life and they sped away, tires kicking up dust. Shaking, I looked out again.

My mother stood at my window. John, she whispered. Let me in. I yanked the blanket over my head and stayed there until dawn. At 45 I bought my first house. A nice two-story place with a crawl space beneath it. At first I only visited on weekends, but eventually I moved in. A few weeks after settling in, I was drifting off to sleep when I heard it.

knock knock knock and then a whisper john i turned to look out the window and saw an old friend who had passed away go away i said firmly i'm not letting you in it glided around the corner moving sideways so i could see its face the entire time and then vanished at forty-seven i had been in the relationship with Jill for a year. She had a nine-year-old son and while they didn't live with me full time, they stayed over a few nights a week. One night while sleeping at her house, awoke to Jill nudging me. John, I heard something. Then the knock. We both turned to the window and there stood my mother. John, she whispered. Jill sat up rubbing her eyes. Oh, it's my ex-husband. He must want to talk.

She started getting up. I grabbed her wrist. Wait, look at his feet. She did. Barefoot. Her face went pale. I turned to the thing at the window and said, Go away, we're not letting you in.

It drifted backwards and disappeared behind the fence. That night, Jill's son, staying at a third. friend's house called her in tears. Mum, dad came to my window, but I don't think it was him. We told him to stay put. That night I told Jill everything. She was furious at first. How could I bring this thing into their lives?

But in the end, she understood. Years have passed, and Jill's son is now in high school. One night he called me at 2 a.m. It came again, he said. Who did it look like? I asked. My ex-girlfriend, he replied. Guilt washed over me. I'm sorry I brought this thing to you.

His response shocked me. It's okay, you make my mum happy. If this is the cost, then I'm good. I told him the same thing I had learned long ago. No matter what it looks like, never let it in. I haven't seen it since that night with Jill, but she has. Her mother, father, even an old boyfriend.

It only happens when we sleep apart. I hope I never see it again, but I know deep down that I will. Case 4 is a strange little story about the spots. Don't forget if you enjoy these tales, be sure to subscribe so you don't miss out on any future episodes. I was still pretty young when this happened. I think I was between the ages. of about eight on ten. I'm over 40 now but still remember it clearly. Just a little backstory before I go

on with my story. I'm half Dutch and half Chinese. Before reaching my teenage years I would always see a coloured spot with a diameter of maybe three centimetres floating around like you looked into a bright light for a while. I would play with this spot like trying to catch it with my hands. One day my Chinese aunt asked me what I was doing when she saw me trying to catch me. something that she couldn't see. I told her what I saw and she went quiet and let me be. After a couple of days, my dad, who was also Chinese, wanted to talk to me about the spot I was seeing and told me that what I was seeing was a guardian angel and that it would protect me. Sometime later, it could be weeks or months, the only part I don't remember clearly.

My parents were at work in the restaurant below the apartment we lived in. I was laying in my parents' bed trying to sleep. I used to do this often because I had nightmares on a regular basis. While laying in bed, I was staring at the shadow of the small chandelier they had in their bedroom. It was the early 90s, so it was normal seeing those where I lived. A nightlight wasn't enough for me, so the ceiling light was always on when I went to bed. At some point, the shadow of the chandelier started to warp and change. and at that moment it was like I was frozen, probably from fear because the shadow started to get bigger.

It became like somewhat human-shaped with arms and a head. It was as wide as a two-person bed and probably half the length of it, probably only because the chandelier was hanging partially over the bed. Where the eyes should be, I could see the white of our ceiling. Then suddenly, I saw the coloured spot that I always saw. and it attached itself to the edge of the shadow. Then I saw another spot, and another. And they kept appearing and attaching themselves to the shadow

until it was completely surrounded. After an unknown amount of time, what felt like forever at the moment, the spot slowly merged into one at the base of the chandelier, while taking the shadow with it. After that, I saw the one spot again that I always used to see. After things went back to normal I fell asleep very fast Probably because they've been exhausted

From what has just happened Weird things still happen Now and then after that instance And even after becoming an adult And losing sight of my coloured spot For a long time There is something inherently creepy About baby monitors I think

In case number five Did nothing to change my opinion on this My parents' first time was a duplex owned by my great-grandmother and great-grandfather in upstate New York. Each floor was its own separate home. My mom and dad lived upstairs while my great-grandmother lived downstairs. My great-grandfather had passed away years before I was born. The details of his passing are a little fuzzy to me without my grandmother around to give me exact dates.

But I do know he never met anyone from my generation, myself or my cousins. By the time of this story, my great-grandmother, mother was also not very mobile. She could still use the stairs but not quickly and she needed a walker to get around. Anyone who's heard one before knows the distinct clicking sound they make when in use. On this particular night my parents were finally going out for the evening, leaving me just a few months old with my aunt as my babysitter. At that age I was the kind of baby who could go from calm to full meltdown in an instant. My aunt followed my usual nighttime routine. settled me down and everything seemed fine.

It was around 8 or 9pm when she was in the living room and I was in my crib down the hall. She had the baby monitor on so she could hear me. At some point I started crying. As she got up to come and sue me, she distinctly heard someone whisper shh through the monitor. And then I stopped crying.

She went into my room and found me completely. calm, happily staring at the side of the crib facing away from the door, as if someone was standing there, making faces or gestures to entertain me. Concerned she went downstairs to check on my great grandmother, wondering if she had somehow made it to my room and back down again. But when she asked, my great grandmother said she hadn't even heard me crying. When my aunt went back to check on me, I was still happily watching something, or someone. near the crib. Twice more that night before my parents came home, I got fussy,

and both times the same sh-sh sound came through the monitor. And I calmed down immediately. Later, we found out, my aunt much sooner than I did, obviously, that my great-grandfather had actually passed away in bed in that home. We believed it was him, keeping me company and helping babysit. it on my parents first night out after I was born. Time to head to my home country. How I miss it. Being stuck here in EFA. Never knowing when I'll be free again. Sorry, I lost my train of thought.

Case number six. The first experience happened nine or ten years ago when I was very young. After my family moved out of Devon, my dad went up north for work and my mum and I ended up living with her friends in London. Around the same time, my mum's friends moved near Hull, and I didn't see them again for years, until I was about eight. When we went to visit them, my mum and I took a trip to a stately home,

Burton-Agnus Hall. After a while, I got bored and wandered off on my own. I eventually found myself in a room called The Justice Room, which had a bedroom off to one side and a corridor leading away on the other. I stopped, I wasn't sure why, but I suddenly had an overwhelming feeling that someone was watching me.

At first, I thought maybe I had subconsciously registered a mirror, but there wasn't one. A little while later, my mum arrived and asked, do you want to go into the bedroom? Without hesitation, I refused. I had no real explanation. I just knew there was something wrong with that room. My mum seemed surprised but didn't press the issue and we moved on. Later we came across a guide telling a story about a young woman who was murdered by ruffians in the 1620s. Before she died, she had asked for her skull to remain in the house.

But her sisters buried her in the churchyard instead. Soon after the house was plagued by violent poltergeist activity, it only stopped when her skull was exhumed and brought back in. inside. They say she never left. It's rumoured that she dislikes renovation work, and volunteers have even been known to warn the empty air before making any changes to the house. I might have dismissed the whole story, if it weren't for one eerie detail. She died in the very bedroom I refused to enter. The second encounter was brief but unsettling. About three or four years ago, I was in a car driving down a country,

road in New Addington on a sunny afternoon. Suddenly I saw someone running towards a private road that led to a static caravan site. Their movement was slightly unsteady and they were dressed in what looked like 20th century Air Force clothing. Something about the site struck me as odd. Then in the split second it took to look down from the road where they had been. They were gone. It was impossible for anyone, let alone someone unsteady on their feet, to have disappeared that fast.

The road was open. There was nowhere to hide. Curious, I looked it up a few moments ago, just for a laugh. What I found made my blood run cold. Apparently, a shot-down, injured German pilot is said to haunt the area. A short but creepy little entry into the Night Drive archives were case number six. My grandparents used to own a deli in South Buffalo, with several apartment units attached. For a while, my sister lived in one of those apartments, and I would occasionally stay over in the spare bedroom, usually after a night of playing cards and partying. The spare room had a door that always closed perfectly. No effort was needed, you just pushed it shut and it would latch every time.

But the strange thing was, you would never, ever find it closed. no matter how certain you were that you had shut it, it would always be agile when you returned. Even stranger, I often caught glimpses of movement near the door out of the corner of my eye. Just subtle shifts like something was there. But when I turned my head to look directly, nothing was ever there. One night I went to sleep in that room, as I had many times before.

My dog curled up next to me on the bed. Sometime later I woke up to the sound of her growling, her body tense, the hair on her back standing up, and then I heard the door open. But when I looked, I could see it was still shut. The moonlight streamed in through the curtainless windows, casting long shadows across the room. I listened, frozen. footsteps seven maybe eight or nine

crossed the room towards the closet and then silence the dog eventually calmed down and though I was thoroughly freaked out I somehow managed to fall back asleep in the morning I told my sister and our husband what had happened

they both exchanged a knowing look and said Yeah, we've heard things coming from that closet too. A lot. Please do let me know in the comments what you make of these tales. Are you a believer or a skeptic? Case number eight now. I do not personally believe in ghosts, demons or supernatural. For all things must have logical explanations.

However, I do enjoy an interesting tale. Over the years, I've experienced a few unexplained events. I'll share one from my childhood for listener speculation. Perhaps someone can offer a rational explanation. This happened in 1985 in a larger city in West Virginia. A home sat atop a large hill, accessible by a long winding road that curved up to the peak. The neighbourhood had houses of various sizes, with several families who had children around my age. We all played together after school and on weekends.

and we walked the half mile to our bus stop every morning. One family had two sons, both younger than me and two daughters, one a year younger and the other a year older. The sister's birthdays were in the same month and the event I'm about to share happened during a birthday sleepover at their house. The evening had been fun, games, food and movie and general silliness. As the night wound down, we made make-shed-shed-down. beds on the floor, whispering and laughing in the dim light.

The basement where we slept was finished and fairly open, with a simple layout. The sister's bedroom was at one end. A short hallway led to a full bathroom. Beyond that was a large den area with stairs leading up to the kitchen. The laundry room was tucked under the stairs. At some point drama ensued, as it often does among preteen girls. One of the guests, Dee, became upset over something and locked herself in the sister's bedroom. We all took turns trying to coax her out, but she refused. Rather than fetching a parent, we came up with a plan.

We decided to turn off most of the basement lights and sit quietly on the stairs, hoping Dee would think we had gone upstairs. Maybe, once she believed she was alone, she would come out. as we sat in hushed anticipation something unexpected happened a dark child-sized shadow emerged from the exterior wall of the bathroom and ran across the den straight into the space under the stairs

at first it looked like a regular shadow but something about it was deeply wrong it wasn't cast on the floor of the walls it stood upright like a person It was the size of a five or six-year-old child. It moved like a child with a quick, bouncy run. Its hair even seemed to shift and sway as it ran. Most unsettling of all.

I could see the carpet and furniture through it. There was no one else in the basement except Dee, who was still locked in the bedroom. She had long hair, unlike the shadow, which appeared to have short hair. We all saw it, we all screamed, and we bolted up the stairs to find the girl's mother. Their mother came down, turned on all the lights and searched the basement. The laundry room was closed and empty. The den was empty. The bathroom was empty.

The bedroom door was still locked until Dee finally opened it for their mum. Nothing was there. In hindsight, we should have just gotten an adult in the first place. but you know, kid logic. I was too shaken to stay the rest of the night and asked to go home. My nine-year-old brain simply couldn't process what I had seen. A shadow with no person. A shape with no light source.

A figure that moved like a child but was completely translucent. Over the next year I played at their house during the daytime and never saw anything like it again. The other neighbourhood kids as well as the sisters. all agreed on what we had seen. Yet none of us could explain it. As far as I know, the family never reported any strange occurrences, but I wouldn't know for sure. My family moved in 1986.

Even nearly 40 years later, I still have no explanation for what I saw. I don't have much time left. Judy is calling me back. So let's have one last story tonight, shall we? Time to go to New Orleans Case number nine New Orleans is a city steeped in history

and with that history comes the supernatural The homes I grew up in built between the 1800s and early 1900s had their fair share of ghostly activity These are some of my experiences My first major experiences with the paranormal happened in the house my parents bought after Hurricane Katrina I don't know much about its history, who owned it before or what happened inside, but I do know that at least three entities occupied the triplex.

The most common one seemed like a memory, replaying itself night after night. Almost every evening down the long hallway, I would hear the sound of a small bouncy ball. It would start at one end of the hall and bounce into it lost momentum, always stopping right in front of my head. door. One night fed up I swung my door open to catch my brothers in the act, assuming they were throwing a ball, but no one was there. The sound continued anyway. This became so common that I eventually got used to it, though I sometimes even heard the bouncing while walking down the hallway. The second entity was an older woman who appeared to two of my family members. My cousin who lived in the larger side of the house for a while, once woke up from a nap to find an elderly woman hovering over her,

watching her sleep. My old brother had a similar experience. He walked into a room and saw the woman standing there. She took a few steps towards him before fading away. She was seen often, especially near the upstairs window, where multiple people spotted her looking out. The third spirit was different, angry. He was always stomping up the stairs loud enough to be heard no matter which room you were in. Even if you stood at the landing looking down at the staircase, you could still hear the stumps coming towards you. That was my only experience with him, but my younger brother had a much more terrifying encounter. One night after using the bathroom past midnight, he came face to face with the entity. He described it as a tall, shadowy figure with glowing red eyes that stared at him,

and then it hissed. Panicked he ran into my parents' room waking my mum. They prayed together under the covers until he eventually fell asleep. My mum, though, stayed awake, hiding under the blankets until morning. The second house belonged to my aunt's mother and was just as haunted. if not more. It was built in one of the oldest parts of the city, and while my experience there was short-lived, my cousins who stayed there for months had some terrifying encounters.

My personal experience happened while my family was outside playing. I had gone inside to use the bathroom, and as I stepped out, the grand piano in the living room suddenly played a single note. Assuming it was a prank, I turned to check, only to be hit with a sudden, overwhelming chill. Before I could react, I felt a hard punch to my stomach. The pain lingered for several minutes and I had to sit down to recover. For my cousins, the house held a different kind of horror.

At the end of a hallway stood a tall mirror resting on the floor. Every time she walked down that hall, she would see a shadowy figure standing behind her in the reflection. No matter how fast or slow she moved. It always matched her pace. The third house belonged to my ex's family, and my only experience there was brief but unsettling. One evening I arrived to find her and her family still out. Her grandfather, who only spoke Spanish, let me in and told me to wait in the living room. He wasn't much for conversations, so I sat on the couch looking at my phone. To my right, my ex had hung free paintings in an upside-down triangle pattern. I wasn't paying attention to them until I heard a loud bang on the wall.

When I looked up, the top left painting was swinging violently, like someone had just shoved it. The top right painting had already fallen to the floor. But the creepiest part, the bottom-middle painting wasn't falling. It was sliding straight down the wall, as if it were being guided. and then suddenly it dropped. Her grandfather returned just in time to see me standing up looking shaken. He gave me a suspicious look, probably thinking I had punched the wall. I quickly explained what had happened, but I wasn't about to stay inside any longer.

I waited outside until her family got home and told them what I had seen. By that point I had lived with hauntings for so long that I wasn't terrified, but I also had no interest in dealing with another one. It's been years since these experiences and my parents have since moved to a city an hour away, so no more hauntings for me. But growing up in New Orleans, a city with so much history and energy,

it's almost impossible not to have a few ghost stories of your own. That's all we have time for tonight, I'm afraid, my friends. I'll be back next week on my main show with a brand new episode of the tape library. And I will see you all later in February for another night drive together. So before we wrap up, it's time to say thank you to all our YouTube members and Patreon subscribers.

Our tape library archivist, Umiko Grimm, Sandy Lask, Riesstock 1-731, Mirror, Judith Hacker, Gabrielle, Eric Salas, Destiny M, Ashlaas Books, Day Gorn Adali, Dirtnap 6969, Lady Bet Noir, Adlin, Peter McCann, The Crimson, Diem, George A Harvey, Diego, Deppie Johnny, Dominic DiAngeles, D'injay Daly, Simon Ullas, Jay, Joe, Callie Coddy Cote, Megan Redding, Alfredo Sandoval and Tucker RVB.

The lead archivist, Vaniel, Brian Baker, Old Soul Like Mine, Lord William, Tracy Terello, Xavier Wrangell, Tyler Michael, Ridiculous, 1000th Ghost, London Grace, Melissa Harrinson, Creepy Candy, Alex O'Neill and Alex Goldberg. and our grand overseers for Evan Morning Rain 2619, Katie, Agent 355 and Bad Diddley. Thank you all, all my YouTube members, and to you personally, for making it through to the end of the episode. Look after yourselves and get home safe.