We explore some of Wikipedia’s oddities in our 6,922,857-part monthly series, Wiki Wormhole.
This week’s entry: List of Reportedly Haunted Locations
What it’s about: G-g-g-ghosts! Spooks and specters have been found hanging out everywhere from theme parks to beaches and mountains, as well as your classic cemeteries and abandoned insane asylums. Wikipedia lists haunted places in no less than 45 different countries. (Several countries, including the good ol' U.S. of Apparitions, have so many haunted locations they have a separate page. For our purposes, we're going to stick to the main page.)
Biggest controversy: Every supernatural claim is by nature controversial (it should go without saying that the word "reportedly" goes before every haunting mentioned here.) But the longest controversy on the list is that of the Chase Vault in Barbados. A sealed burial vault in the cemetery of Christ Church Parish Church, it was opened in the early 19th century for a burial, and the heavy lead coffins had switched positions. While the tale is called "historically dubious," it made it into James Edward Alexander's 1833 book Transatlantic Sketches and the story persists to this day.
Strangest fact: No amount of power or status can keep one's soul from roaming the night in ghostly torment. Former Australian Prime Minister Ben Chifley reportedly haunts the Hotel Kurrajong, where he died in 1951. People have seen him pointing towards Old Parliament House, which is also haunted (although the building's own Wikipedia page makes no mention.) And the Pharaoh himself haunts the Pyramids of Giza (although which pharaoh isn't specified).
Several former seats of power make the list, including Egypt's Baron Empain Palace, Myanmar's Keng Tung palace (now a hotel), Pakistan's Mohatta Palace, Lisbon's Beau-Séjour Palace, Madrid's Palace Of Linares, and the Jakarta History Museum (formerly the capitol building under Dutch colonial rule).
Thing we were happiest to learn: There are a lot of haunted castles. Malahide Castle in north County Dublin (the surrounding town is the shooting location for most of Bad Sisters), has no less than five ghosts: a knight killed on his wedding day, a noblewoman who was married in the castle; a jester who was in love with a woman imprisoned in the castle (who was himself murdered), a painting of a lady in white who occasionally comes to life, and the man who was (temporarily) given the castle by Cromwell, and was hanged during the Restoration.
Ireland also accounts for Castles Charleville, Leap, and Ross, each with their own gruesome deaths and subsequent hauntings. Most gruesomely, Zvikov Castle in the Czech Republic is supposedly so haunted that anyone who sleeps in the main tower dies within a year, and spectral dogs with burning eyes guard a tunnel under the castle.
But it's hard to top Germany which, alongside Lichtenegg, Schloss Nordkirchen, and Wolfsegg, boasts Frankenstein Castle, whose imposing towers allegedly inspired Mary Shelley's novel (and no less than Ghost Hunters International determined it had "significant paranormal activity."
Europeans even exported the haunted castle overseas. A Scottish businessman built Kellie's Castle in Malaysia for his wife, who died before building was completed. It's haunted not by her, but by the workers who died during construction. New Zealand also has Larnach Castle, haunted by the wife and daughter of the original owner.
Thing we were unhappiest to learn: Colonialism casts a long shadow. A lot of the haunted sites are the sites of past atrocities by colonial powers: Vietnam's Ma Thiên Lãnh Bridge was built by 300 prisoners, forced into labor under French rule, and a number of ghosts haunt the site. Besides the Jakarta History Museum, Indonesia is home to Toko Merah, a Dutch colonial building that was the site of a massacre, as well as torture and killings by the regime, and screaming at night can still be heard there. The Japanese (allegedly) tortured and executed Malaysian locals at what eventually became the Shih Chung Branch School, and the now-abandoned building is haunted by their ghosts.
Best link to elsewhere on Wikipedia: We honestly thought parapsychology was a term made-up for the original Ghostbusters, but it's been an active discipline since philosopher Max Dessoir coined the phrase in 1889. It's the study of "alleged psychic phenomena," a list that includes "extrasensory perception, telepathy, precognition, clairvoyance, psychokinesis, and psychometry," as well as near-death experiences, synchronicity, and apparitional experiences, and again, it's hard not to hear that list being read off in Annie Potts' most jaded tone of voice.
Further down the Wormhole: These stories are all relatively recent, compared to the folklore surrounding ghosts, which has existed as long as people have been dying and telling stories. Children have long had an entirely separate world of folklore, concerning the consequences of stepping on a crack, and whether or not Batman smells. Their mysterious culture also includes children's games, which recent generations of adults seem loath to let go of. One such game, pencil fighting, is an unlikely candidate to spawn an adult league, but here we are. There isn't quite enough in the world of extreme pencil fighting to justify a full-length column, so we'll wrap up the year with a bunch of short topics before resuming our regular format in 2025.
