The Red Treehouse: Scary Stories to Keep You Up at Night
Sep 18, 2026 · 19 min · 10 segments
*The Red Treehouse* is dedicated to my Dad. I love you, Pop. In 1989, a missing persons PSA was broadcast into home across the greater Chicago area. A low-quality black-and-white picture of a woman…
The story of Joanna Lopez is part mystery and part urban legend, with a wide range of theories to explain the story.
But what makes this case doubly eerie is information is scarce, possibly because Joanna Lopez never existed in the first place.
Back then, television stations used to sign off late at night, sometimes around midnight or 1 a.m., because it was believed viewership went down significantly in the middle of the night.
the sign-off signaled the station was going off air, and each station had a different sign-off sequence.
On this night, WMAQ signed off with the national anthem, which was common for many television stations at the time.
But then immediately after the anthem concluded, a picture appeared on the screen.
It was a low-quality, black-and-white photo of a woman in a white T-shirt and what appeared to be glasses.
Across the top left corner was the word missing, and underneath the photo was the woman's name, Joanna Lopez, and a phone number, 312-744-5594.
At first glance, this didn't seem all that strange.
After all, a PSA for a missing woman is important and not uncommon.
Except, the PSA stayed on the screen for nearly seven hours.
There was no audio accompanying the video footage, no description of the woman, and nothing to aid the public in searching for and hopefully finding her.
The poster did not share Joanna's height, weight, age, hair color, eye color, the last time she was seen, or even how long she'd been missing.
There was no family information, who to call if anyone had information or she was found.
just a silent announcement with a low quality picture.
In fact, the picture quality was so low, it was nearly impossible to recognize any of Joanna's facial features.
Something interesting, the phone number at the bottom of the poster was assumed to be connected to the Chicago Police Department, except when people tried calling the number, No one picked up.
One article stated, "...the phone number actually reveals one of the very, very few clues.
So at the very least, we know she is a minor." Despite the hours-long announcement and the phone number, the case eventually went cold.
Then, in 1991, something strange happened.
Except this time, it aired for only a few seconds before being pulled.
it seemed Joanna was still missing nearly two years after the poster originally aired.
The story of Joanna Lopez is part mystery and part urban legend, with a wide range of theories to explain the story.
But what makes this case doubly eerie is information is scarce, possibly because Joanna Lopez never existed in the first place.
Back then, television stations used to sign off late at night, sometimes around midnight or 1 a.m., because it was believed viewership went down significantly in the middle of the night.
the sign-off signaled the station was going off air, and each station had a different sign-off sequence.
On this night, WMAQ signed off with the national anthem, which was common for many television stations at the time.
But then immediately after the anthem concluded, a picture appeared on the screen.
It was a low-quality, black-and-white photo of a woman in a white T-shirt and what appeared to be glasses.
Across the top left corner was the word missing, and underneath the photo was the woman's name, Joanna Lopez, and a phone number, 312-744-5594.
At first glance, this didn't seem all that strange.
After all, a PSA for a missing woman is important and not uncommon.
Except, the PSA stayed on the screen for nearly seven hours.
There was no audio accompanying the video footage, no description of the woman, and nothing to aid the public in searching for and hopefully finding her.
The poster did not share Joanna's height, weight, age, hair color, eye color, the last time she was seen, or even how long she'd been missing.
There was no family information, who to call if anyone had information or she was found.
just a silent announcement with a low quality picture.
In fact, the picture quality was so low, it was nearly impossible to recognize any of Joanna's facial features.
Something interesting, the phone number at the bottom of the poster was assumed to be connected to the Chicago Police Department, except when people tried calling the number, No one picked up.
One article stated, "...the phone number actually reveals one of the very, very few clues.
So at the very least, we know she is a minor." Despite the hours-long announcement and the phone number, the case eventually went cold.
Then, in 1991, something strange happened.
Except this time, it aired for only a few seconds before being pulled.
it seemed Joanna was still missing nearly two years after the poster originally aired.
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