True Ghost Stories: The Hat Man Returns, an Imp in the Back Seat, and a Ghost Boy Who Wanted His Mom
Tell Me A Ghost StoryAugust 27, 2026x
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00:19:5618.46 MB

True Ghost Stories: The Hat Man Returns, an Imp in the Back Seat, and a Ghost Boy Who Wanted His Mom

Hey, it's Michelle, and this week's five calls each involve something watching from just beyond the light. A tall silhouette in a top hat that returned to the same little girl five years apart. A glowing face the size of a dinner plate riding in the back seat of a Camaro on a Florida highway. A haunted estate in upstate New York with rooms that seem to beg for attention. A voice from the Oregon woods I need to address directly before we get into it. And a six-year-old ghost boy in Indiana who just wanted his mother back. This episode is available as a video on Spotify and YouTube.

Marissa from Dallas calls in with a true ghost story from when she was five years old, watching shadows in her room take the form of a tall, faceless man in a top hat standing in her doorway. He approached her bed, pressed a hand into the sheets beside her, and then vanished. It never happened again until she was ten, in a new house, when she woke to find her door open, her nightlight off, and multiple dark figures watching from the hallway like an audience. Then the Hat Man returned, closer this time, leaning over her bed and touching her leg through the blanket before disappearing. That was twenty years ago. She still prays it stays that way.

David from Ocala returns to Tell Me A Ghost Story, this time with a story from 1983 that has nothing to do with his movie theater ghost. Driving home from a party at 1 AM in his 1967 Camaro, he checked his blind spot and found a two and a half foot tall glowing figure standing in his back seat, smiling, its face lit from within like a lamp. It lasted only a few seconds before vanishing. He later learned the folklore term for what he saw. An imp.

Ashley calls in about her sister's old estate in Carmel, New York, a historic property from the early 1900s where she would wake in the middle of the night to flickering electronics and a heavy, distracting presence in more than one guest room. Carmel sits in Putnam County on land with a long documented history of paranormal activity, including nearby Smalley's Inn, one of the most famous haunted locations in the region, where the ghost of a toddler named Elizabeth Smalley has been reported for well over a century.

Julian calls in from Bend, Oregon, and this one is different from every other call in this episode. Rather than looking back on something that already happened, Julian's message plays out in real time. Lost in the woods, cold, inside an abandoned house, being followed by something he describes as taller than the trees with a distorted face. If this is you, Julian, or if anyone knows him, please reach out to local authorities in Bend. I hope this was only a story.

And Cindy Ketcher from Avon, Indiana closes the episode with a story about her parents' first apartment in 1957, shared with a young married couple whose little boy had died before they ever met. The ghost loved tearing up trash bags and flushing an empty toilet. Cindy's mother, a psychic, eventually walked the boy's spirit by the hand back to his grieving parents, and in the process told them something nobody could have known yet. That she was pregnant. With Cindy.

Five real callers. Five true ghost stories.

If you have a real ghost story of your own, a haunting experience, something you heard, something you cannot explain, I want to hear it. Call 1 (701) 484-2666 or visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠tellmeaghoststory.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to share your story.

You might end up on the show.

And if this episode moved you, leave a comment on Spotify. I read every single one, and your comments help new listeners find the show.

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Theme music is Sexy Sax by Cool Cascade.

Production by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Newman Media⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.