It’s October, which means Halloween is fast approaching. In addition to bringing trick-or-treaters to your doorstep in search of candy, it will bring many a sudden belief in the supernatural, even for those who don’t usually go in for that stuff. ‘Tis the season, after all.
While most stories about ghosts and other supernatural phenomena are made from whole cloth and have no basis in reality, some stem from actual events. Here’s our list of 10 spooky stories that are, at the very least, supposed to be true.
Image Credit: Depositphotos.com.
1. ‘The Amityville Horror’
Based on the book of the same name, the events in the 1979 movie “The Amityville Horror” were inspired by the story of a family who bought a house they believed to be haunted. It had been the site of a mass murder committed in 1974 by Ronald DeFeo Jr., and while no one has proven that anything depicted in the movie was real, DeFeo’s crime absolutely was.
Image Credit: IMDB.
2. Cryptozoology at Chernobyl
The Ukrainian city of Chernobyl was the site of one of the worst nuclear accidents in history. It took place in 1986 and killed untold thousands of people, and to this day, the area is too contaminated to live in. However, that hasn’t stopped many people from saying that mutated phantom creatures lurk in the area, such as one spotted on Google Maps.
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3. Ghosts of the Queen Mary
The RMS Queen Mary is a ship built in the 1930s, now permanently docked in California. Even though it doesn’t go anywhere, it still does a brisk business with tourists, who have come to see the allegedly haunted Stateroom B340 due to its “large volume of recorded paranormal activity with many stories of haunted encounters noted in the ship’s logs.”
Image Credit: Wikipedia.
4. The Mothman
The Mothman is a fabled humanoid creature allegedly spotted in Point Pleasant, West Virginia in the 1960s. It was the subject of the 1975 book, “The Mothman Prophecies,” adapted for a Richard Gere movie in 2002. Though we don’t want to spoil the fun, the Gettysburg Times reported in 1966 that the creature was probably just a crane.
Image Credit: Tim Bertelink/WikimediaCommons.
5. Bloody Mary
Just like “Candyman” and “Beetlejuice,” legend has it that if you say “Bloody Mary” multiple times, a ghostly apparition bearing this name will appear in the mirror. There has been much speculation that the spirit is one of numerous real-life figures, including Queen Mary I, accused witch Mary Worth, and rumored vampire Elizabeth Bathory. However, a 2010 study by Giovanni Caputo of the University of Urbino said that merely staring into a mirror in a dimly lit room can cause hallucinations, which sounds a little more plausible.
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6. Hoia Baciu Forest
Known to dark tourism enthusiasts as “the Bermuda Triangle of Romania,” this forest has been said to be haunted. Fans of Irish authors will recognize that this part of the world is also known in some quarters as “Transylvania,” which has probably done a lot to boost its status as one of the world’s spookiest places. If you’d like to preserve that illusion, we suggest steering clear of this link from Skeptiod, in which science writer Brian Dunning dismantles the whole legend in a few paragraphs.
Image Credit: Depositphotos.com.
7. Black-eyed children
A much more recent legend, the existence of black-eyed children has been rumored in the United States for just a few decades. Allegedly, these children have ashen skin and black eyes and can be seen roaming the countryside, either panhandling or trying to hitch a ride. No one has been able to substantiate or debunk the story, but honestly, the black-eyed children sound more like unemployed goths.
Image Credit: Megamoto85/WikimediaCommons.
8. Eastern Airlines Flight 401
In 1972, Eastern Airlines flight 401 bound for Miami crashed in the Florida Everglades, killing over 100 people. Allegedly, parts from the plane that had not been destroyed were re-used on other aircraft, which then became haunted by the ghosts of Flight 401’s crew. It may sound preposterous to the world’s skeptics, but can they prove it didn’t happen?
Image Credit: Wikipedia.
9. The Brown Lady of Raynham Hall
1970s kids who watched “In Search of…” will undoubtedly remember the Brown Lady of Raynham Hall, a ghost said to haunt the English country house. Believed to be the ghost of 18th-century aristocrat Dorothy Walpole, a photographer for Country Life famously photographed her apparition on the staircase, and it was said by skeptics to be the result of such trickery as a double exposure. However, paranormal investigator Harry Price said the photo negative “is entirely innocent of any faking.”
Image Credit: Wikipedia.
10. Annabelle
Do you hate creepy dolls? Of course you do, and Annabelle is part of the reason why. A Raggedy Ann doll that’s supposedly haunted, was allegedly given to a student nurse who called a psychic investigator when it “exhibited strange behavior.” The investigator said the doll was possessed by the spirit of a woman named Annabelle. The toy found a home at The Warrens’ Occult Museum, which is currently closed “due to zoning regulations.”
This article was produced and syndicated by MediaFeed.
Image Credit: Warner Bros.
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