Most haunted place in your town, state, country?

[Screaming Lord Byron]

OK, I don't want to argue the point on whether or not ghosts and the supernatural exist. It's irrelevant. What is relevant is the stories that a certain location generates, regardless of the reality of the 'haunting', if great stories come from it, then it has some value.
So, let's compile a list of the most haunted sites in your area, and the myths that have grown up around them.

The most haunted building in Calgary, and indeed Alberta, is the Deane House, a historic property located at the juncture of the Bow and Elbow rivers. It seems every city needs an equivalent of the Deane House in their founding myths, as it conforms to the typical North American haunting structure - a series of brutal murders, not all to be found in civic records (surprise, surprise), vengeful dead chiefs, cold spots and of course, the irremovable blood stain.
More mundane is the Prince House in Heritage Park, where there is documented evidence of unnatural lights on the sealed third floor, and the occasional semi-human shape seen through the attic windows.
My personal favourite is the playful phantom monkey who is rumoured to haunt the Hose and Hound pub in Inglewood. You really can't beat spectral simians.

[flamingyouth]

1. Not haunted per se, but still creepy

Underground Seattle, the old city that was destroyed by fire in 1889.

The creepiest place I've ever been to is Bachelor's Grove cemetery outside Chicago - http://www.graveyards.com/bachelors/ - I'm sure a lot of the creepiness involved the fact that it's remote, abandoned and just downright eerie. But it was a very hot day (in the mid 90s) and for some reason, a chilly wind blew there and only there.

[eyesroll]

The cemetery in which my aunt is buried in Philadelphia is haunted.

Just about every time my grandparents visit her grave, something goes wrong with their car. (The horn went off and wouldn't stop when they tried to leave after the headstone dedication.)

On edit: I should add my grandparents don't live there, so it's a different rental car each time.

[Screaming Lord Byron]

3. Yeah, underground Seattle is really something.

Cities are like that, often neighbourhoods are just literally built over.
Bachelor's Grove is of course, legendary.

[XNASA]

4. Bachelor's Grove is very creepy .

I grew up only about 2 or 3 miles east of it.

I've only been there once and that was enough for me.

[GOPisEvil]

2. My former home (San Antonio) has a couple that are well-known.

First are the "ghost tracks". According to legend there is a railroad crossing where a busload of children were killed in an accident with a locomotive. Lore is that any car that gets stranded (or appears to be stranded) on the tracks is pushed off by the ghosts of the dead children. Stories are told of people testing the legend by putting baby powder on their trunk lids and seeing if there are tiny hand prints after their being saved. In reality, it's just gravity that causes cars to roll from the tracks, but the ghost children are a nice story.

Next is the Menger Hotel. It's located next door to the Alamo. Supposedly there are a couple of apparitions that appear. One is a Civil War-era soldier and the other is a woman who I think was killed there. I don't know the whole story.

[Bridget Burke]

45. The Menger Hotel website tells more about the ghosts.

www.historicmenger.com/ (Need to click on the Ghost link.)

If you stay at the Menger, you can request an informal ghost tour. It's a fine old place & not all that expensive for its central location--a good base for a San Antonio visit.

And there are stories about ghosts at the Alamo which is, as you mentioned, right next door. As a mission, it was a burial place before the famous battle.

www.texasescapes.com/Paranormal/Alamo-Ghost.htm

[GOPisEvil]

46. As a bonus, you can see the bar.

Where, supposedly, Teddy Roosevelt recruited some of the Roughriders. Also, there is allegedly an ax mark from Carrie Nation on the bar at the Menger.

The Menger is a great place to stay when in San Antonio.

[Gothic Sponge]

5. Camp Hero at Montauk is creepy.

http://www.subversiveelement.com/CampHero.html

[Screaming Lord Byron]

6. Woooah! Seriously fucked-up shit!

Thanks, G_S.

[flamingyouth]

7. They had me at "From that point I was time shifted to 1983..."

:scared:

[Screaming Lord Byron]

8. Karma, karma, karma, karma, karma chameleon.

They come and go, they come and go-a-wah-oh.

[flamingyouth]

17. AUUUUGGGGGHHHHH!

I shall smite you with "Lido Shuffle" now!

[Screaming Lord Byron]

20. Just time-shifting you to 1983, hon.

[flamingyouth]

22. Actually, that song was #1 in February 1984

But you were close, very close. ;)

[Fenris]

24. It was #1 on the day I was born!

:D

[Screaming Lord Byron]

27. No.

There really is nothing I can say here, is there?

[flamingyouth]

29. We're talking about the US charts

I shall concede, however, that the dreck in question is from 1983.

[Screaming Lord Byron]

31. Well. It was 1983 where I was living.

And everything is clearly about me.

[Fenris]

30. I'm not proud of it either.

:evilfrown:

[Screaming Lord Byron]

25. Sept 1983 in the UK.

Ha!

[KamaAina]

73. Morgan's Corner, high above Honolulu

http://www3.hpu.edu/kalamalama/archive/2610/sub/Etcetera03.htm

Morgan’s Corner
Another supernatural place most visitors hear about is Morgan’s Corner on the windward side of the Old Pali Road (Improvements to the Old Pali Road in 1881 led to the construction of the modern Pali Highway, thus making it hard to verify the actual site of Morgan’s Corner). Said to be situated on a hairpin turn, Morgan’s Corner is known for the huge tree that looms large in urban legends of hangings and bloodied hands scraping on the roofs of cars whose drivers dared to park under it.

Many years ago, a young, local couple drove to this place one night and parked under the tree. When the car wouldn’t start, the man went out for help while his girlfriend waited inside the car. As she waited for hours in the dark for him to return, she heard dripping and scratching sounds coming from the roof of the car. Afraid to go see what it was, she forced herself to close her eyes and fall asleep. She later awoke to the sound of police officers knocking on the car windows, asking her to step out. When she did, she saw her boyfriend tied upside down on the tree. The dripping sounds she had heard through the night had come from the blood of her boyfriend’s severed throat. The scratching sounds had come from his fingernails dragging along the roof.

:scared: :scared: :scared:

[YellowRubberDuckie]

43. Now I want to go to Montauk!

[Gothic Sponge]

47. Come on out!

You can bunk at my place. ;)

[YellowRubberDuckie]

52. Aren't ya sweet!?

[TNDemo]

9. The Bell Witch.

Not too far from me. Haunted John Bell and his family. Been on television several times.

[Screaming Lord Byron]

11. Of course. A classic of its genre.

[noonwitch]

42. The Bell Witch is the creepiest "ghost" story I've ever heard

Mostly because I totally believe it. None other than Andrew Jackson witnessed this phenonmenon.

I do think that the book by Brent Monaghan from a few years ago, although it was technically fiction, offered up a very good explaination of how this occurred. His theory was that the "witch" was actually a poltergeist-a projection that came from the daughter, Betsy Bell, to protect her from her sexually abusive father. It's certainly a lot less creepy from this perspective, but if the activity is still continuing in that area, it probably isn't what is going on there.

[curse10]

71. oops

wrong place to post :-)

[Magrittes Pipe]

10. My arse.

I think something died in there. :scared:

[Screaming Lord Byron]

12. The horror. The horror.

[Fenris]

13. The Devil's Backbone on the edge of Hays County

The Devil's Backbone is very high ridge in the hill country that was used by the Kiowas and Comanches as a look-out for incoming Spaniards and Anglos. According to local legend, many ghosts have been seen over the years. The spirits 16th Century Spanish monks, Indians, and an entire company of Confederate soldiers on horseback have been reported. Others tell of unseen people following them while hiking in the area, the smell of campfires where no fires are allowed, and hunters talk about hearing footsteps at the bottom of their deer stands. Some people have even claimed to have been possessed by the spirit of a wolf.

So I don't know about all the supernatural hoo-ha, but I will say that flamingyouth and I had an interesting trip there last week. While trying to find the place, we drove into an unseen ditch and had our front right tire blow out. On the return from our second trip, in which we did find the damn place, we both smelled the distinct scent of a fire. Even though we were in the car and we had the air on "recirculate". Strange place.

I snapped this (with flmingyouth's digital camera) from the highest point on the Devil's Backbone.

[Screaming Lord Byron]

14. Very interesting, Fen.

It's amazing how much that looks like the Canadian Prairies, where there are many similar tales.

[flamingyouth]

15. It is very beautiful

At times it reminded me of Central California, and other times of Eastern Washington. It's a very unusual landscape, that's for sure.

[mrboba1]

16. The Devils Tramping Ground - NC

The Devil's Tramping Ground is located just outside Siler City, a 40 foot in diameter circle, it is said to be created by the eternal pacing of the devil as he ponders new evils for mankind. No plants can live inside it and anything placed on the path are gone the next day. Surrounding plants grow just up to the circle. A recent study by the North Carolina Dept. of Agriculture showed the dirt within the circle to be completely sterile of any type of living organism.

[Screaming Lord Byron]

19. There's quite a few sites like that.

Rather weird phenomenon, isn't it?

[Screaming Lord Byron]

18. I love this shit. How the hell do you start a myth like these?

The Devil himself is said to drive a coach and horses up Lawnmarket in Edinburgh.

The Scottish mountain Ben Doran is haunted by a half-man, half-goat creature called a Urisk.

Ghost watchers at Wolfeton House in Dorchester may see the strange sight of a coach and horses being driven up the staircase inside the house.

Gwyllgi, the red-eyed Dog of Darkness haunts Laugharne, the Welsh town made famous by poet Dylan Thomas.

Saddell Abbey in Scotland is said to be haunted by “giants and beasties”.

Lord Byron’s dog Boatswain haunts Newstead Abbey, Nottingham

[flamingyouth]

21. I can debunk the first one

The Devil is clearly driving around Seattle, weaving in and out of lanes, talking on his cell phone and drinking his triple latte with skim milk.

[Fenris]

23. Who the Hell names a dog Boatswain?

For myths, no one can top the British Isles.

[Screaming Lord Byron]

28. I did, apparently.

[Fenris]

34. Was the dog screaming as well?

[Screaming Lord Byron]

37. After I named him, yes.

Screaming in shame.

[Screaming Lord Byron]

33. Gwyllgi, the red-eyed Dog of Darkness!

Isn't he one of the Super Furry Animals?

[Fenris]

35. They're Welsh. I canna understand them.

[mrboba1]

26. We also have the Brown Mountain Lights

http://www.ibiblio.org/ghosts/bmtn.html

The infamous hitchiker:
http://www.prairieghosts.com/greensboro.html
(I've been under that bridge several times - before knowing what it was, the place gave me a very weird vibe - then my wife told me why...)

and the Maco Light:
http://www.welcometonc.com/detail/257.cfm

The Story of Joe Baldwin, a train conductor, starts on his ride home late one night along what is now the Wilmington-Florence-Augusta line, a few miles west if Wilmington.

Baldwin was resting in the first of two trains when he discovered his car had become disconnected from his line. In horror, Joe realized his fate as the second train came speeding at his loose car from behind, cloaked in the dark of night.

A the locomotive approached Joe waved a lantern back and forth and yelled, trying to warn the approaching freight line. However, it was no use. Joe Baldwin died waving his lantern back in forth, begging for his life not to be swept away.

The next morning a search party searched the wreckage of the trains. They found Joe Baldwin's body, but his head was severed in the accident, never to be found. Joe's latern was found in the swamp waters, still possessed with a warm heat.

Over the years, people began reporting seeing Joe's lights in the darkness. The lights became so frequent that it confused engineers for true singles; freight lines began to require that two lanterns be used for signaling, one green and one red.

Some claim that the lights are the Spirit of Joe Baldwin looking for his head. Others claim it is merely reflections off of the nearby highway 74.

The section of railroad when Joe Baldwin was killed has been removed, but locals still claim that the lights are still visible on dark, cold, rainy nights.


Here's a few more:
http://www.welcometonc.com/category/Hauntings/

[flamingyouth]

32. I love stories about dead people looking for their heads

A la the Headless Horseman. This is a good one.

[Fenris]

36. You'd think they'd just ask politely.

"Excuse me, sir. Have you seen my head? It had a hat attached to it that I was quite fond of."

[flamingyouth]

38. "It was an angry hat.... you can't miss it..."

[Fenris]

39. "The head attached is probably yelling something about cheese."

[johnnie]

40. I would say the most famous is

Franklin castle
http://www.prairieghosts.com/oh-frank.html

I have only drove by it, you can't really get in these days.

Although, last year I had a "spirit" taken out of my house. A lot of people kept seeing an old lady in my house.
I had a girl over who's mother is a famous "ghostbuster" and she told me who it was and "spoke" to her. It was pretty wild. She gave me the woman's name and some stuff about her. I couldn't find her name in any records of the house, but when I checked her name in some old obituaries, I found it.
I then asked a neighbor if he knew the last name. He has lived there forever. He told me he did remember the family and gave me information on them. It matched what that girl told me. Her son's name, the history of what they did at that house ect...
There were no records that I could find that said those people lived there.

[Screaming Lord Byron]

41. That's genuinely eerie, Johnnie.

[Surf Cowboy]

44. La Maison du Gourmet ((the Coulter mansion) in Roanoke, VA

When it used to be a 5-star French restauant, I was a fine-dining waiter there. After working for about a month, I was busing one of the dining rooms late one night and setting the tables.

I walked into the room, holding a large tray full of set-ups (goblets, silverware, etc) for the tables, when I saw an apparition seated at the front window of the room, looking out onto the graveyard on the property. It was a woman. She was dressed in a long, long dark blue dress which had small polka dots throughout. She had tall, lace up boots which extended almost to her knees. She sat with her legs crossed and her hands folded across them.

She looked at me and smiled.

I shit my pants (*not really, but pretty close), dropped the tray, and ran like hell out of the room, down the hall, down the stairs, and was almost out the front door when the old maitre'd stopped me by grabbing my shoulders.

The first words out of his mouth were, "It's OK. We've all seen her. She won't hurt you."

I threw up.

He said, "at least you didn't have to deal with Old Man Coulter." Old Man Coulter was the name for the downstairs ghost that would come out at night and drink scotch and smoke cigars.

One Sunday morning, three of us were the first to arrive (to set up brunch). We smelled smoke coming from downstairs, so we went to check it out. When we got to the bar (awesome set up--cherry bar across from stone fireplace, everything cherry wood, dark green, royal blue, and maroon) we saw (1) 1/2 tumber of scotch on the rocks, (2) partially smoked cigar (still smoking), and (3) a fire in the fireplace.

There is no way anyone could have pulled off such a hoax. We checked it out all morning (our first experience with Old Man Coulter).

Geez that place is haunted.

[One_Life_To_Give]

48. My House

According to my wife our house is haunted. Probably the Captain himself, keeping an eye on his old estate.

The old high school that housed my 7th grade class going to school was haunted. Along with several other building around the town I grew up in.

[flamingyouth]

49. Here's a good Seattle one...

The Burnley School ghost. Jess Cauthorn's granddaughter works for me so I've heard quite a bit about this. I also used to live about three blocks from this place. I love the story Walt tells in this little essay...

http://www.historylink.org/_output.cfm?file_id=2023

And no matter how many beers I drank at the College Inn Pub in college, I never did see that particular apparition. Drat.

[catmandu57]

50. The abandoned county poor farm

It sits a mile outside of town, on a ridge, it had been turned into a nursing home, but, has long since been abandoned. It's a creepy desolate place, two stories with the windows broken out, a cemetery on the grounds that is farmed over, and occaisionaly a body is washed out after heavy rain.
If anyplace is haunted, then that place surely is. I've been in there in the daylight, in fact I worked there back in the seventies, once over night and it creeped me then.

[redqueen]

51. GOP is evil already told the famous one

But there's supposed to be a ghost in the Lizard Lounge. Not sure if it's true, though.

[DrWeird]

53. "Angel Eyes"

A large tombstone sculpted into an angel in the Bay View cemetery in Bellingham, Wa.

It has no eyes.

According to legend, it used to have eyes. If you went there on certain nights, the eyes would glow. If you saw this, horrible things were supposed to happen to you. One teenager, who had something horrible happen to a friend, carved them out and threw them into the Whatcom Creek ravine. This teenager was later killed when he was driving home on his motorcycle and was hit by a train. (this last bit was true, I knew the guy).

Several years after I heard this story, a fuel pipeline running near Whatcom Creek burst and sent thousands of gallons of fuel into the ravine. After twenty or so minutes, the fuel ignited, destroying the forest and killing three children who had been fishing.

[flamingyouth]

54. I'd never heard this story

But I am well aware of the Olympic pipeline explosion, obviously. This is very interesting.

[DrWeird]

58. The tombstone is there.

I've seen it myself. Can't really make out any eyes or state with any certainty that they've been carved out. But I'm not the only one who's heard the story, apparently. The two times I've been there where a number of large candles that had been melted down in front of the stone, and wierd sort of Wicca-esque offerings.

[flamingyouth]

59. I'll have to check it out

:hi:

[Screaming Lord Byron]

56. Woah! I've been to Bellingham quite a few times.

In fact, I met my wife there.

[Screaming Lord Byron]

61. Is this it?

[DrWeird]

64. That's the one.

All though the photo doesn't really do it justice.

Where'd you find it, anyway?

[Screaming Lord Byron]

66. The cemetery has a website.

[DrWeird]

68. Weird that they'd promote it like that.

The cemetery has a number of larger and more interesting monumnets from an aesthetic point of view. The one reason they'd post it is because of the surrounding folklore. The date on the tombstone was around 1910, so I suppose there's probably not any family to worry about offending.

[Richglo]

55. In Lake Wales...

...Florida there is a place called Spook Hill. A car will roll up hill at this place. Mind bending.

[JCMach1]

57. St. Augustine FL-- St. Francis Inn

Definitely something there... it has also been featured on a number of 'haunting' type shows.

[mrboba1]

63. Cool. We're going to St. Augustine in December

I'll check that out...

[Tom Kitten]

60. the Shanghai Tunnels in Portland

Lots of misery happened here and some say they're the most haunted place in the West..

http://www.q7.com/~mim/tunnel.html
http://savvytraveler.publicradio.org/show/features/2002/20021108/feature2.shtml

[Screaming Lord Byron]

62. This one is freaky - from Barnet, North London.

http://www.v-i-d.co.uk/ebf/eastbarnet_haunted.html

'In the early 1930s an ancient oak tree within the Park and alongside Church Hill Road burst into flames on a clear summer day. When no apparent cause could be found for the conflagration, the mysterious phenomena of spontaneous combustion was suggested. But speculation developed rapidly and has never been resolved, particularly when it was noted that this tree was not just one of many. It had a special distinction.

This was the actual oak tree under which the famous 18th century religious visionary and prophetess Joanna Southcott, used to sit during her many visits to friends in East Barnet. It was here that she was said to have received the inspiration that she was the woman described in Chapter 12 of The Bible’s Book of Revelation, leading to her many predictions and secrets supposedly contained after her death in the infamous Joanna Southcott’s box about which controversy has never totally subsided.'

[name not needed]

65. Devil's Tree

http://www.midnightsociety.com/web/Legends/Devilstree/devilstree.html

[maveric]

67. Whaley House in San Diego

http://www.whaleyhouse.org/haunted.htm

[Chovexani]

69. We have a lot of haunted places in NY.

There's one block of Gay Street, a tiny little street in the West Village, that is supposed to be the most haunted street in NY and one of the most haunted in the country. I'd be inclined to agree. I'm pretty sensitive to that sort of thing and I get very weird vibes from the place when I walk by, particularly at night.

I'd have to say the most haunted city in America has to be New Orleans though. More weird shit has happened in that town than anywhere else, I think. ;)

[SouthALdem]

70. Here in Mobile, AL....

we have a few places rumored to be haunted since the city is so old. Supposedly the Church Street cemetary (where some of the graves date back to at least Pre-Civil War if not earlier), and Ft. Morgan and Ft. Gaines (both used in the Civil War). I'm sure there are other places but those are the ones that come to mind.

[curse10]

72. I'm not as familiar with Boston, but Riverdale Road in Colorado

is where the ghosts supposedly roam :-) It's in Thornton, where I grew up and went to high school. Pretty damn creepy.

[TheCentepedeShoes]

74. My apartment

in Tampa Nov. 1976. Woke up when I heard someone say my name. Saw my BF standing at the foot of my bed. Asked him why he was there (he didn't have a key). He didn't reply. Blinked a couple of times and he was gone. Looked at the clock, it was 2AM. Checked the place, all locked up and no one there. After awhile went back to sleep. Wasn't until 9AM when I was at work that one of his friends called to tell me my BF had been killed in a car wreck. At 2AM.

[Champ]

75. I think this is the perfect thread to ask this question

Does anyone know of the site that lists the most popular haunted places around the country(USA) and a description on why they were deemed "haunted"? Reason is I was just looking for the site before logging onto DU.

[TheCentepedeShoes]

76. Search on "haunted hotels"

You'll get things like the Stanley in Estes Park, Co. Supposedly the inspiration for Stephen King's "The Shining" though it's not the place you see in the movie. I've stayed at the St. James in Cimmaron, NM, the Creede Hotel in Creede, Co, and the Driskill in Austin, all supposed to be haunted. Didn't see anything.