The World's Most Haunted Places: From the Secret Files of Ghostvillage.com

By Jeff Belanger

Is the White House a haunted house? Discover the paranormal legends behind historical landmarks around the world…

 


Now with new material for this updated edition, The World's Most Haunted Places reveals that ghostly legends abound wherever history has made its mark. Battlefields, prisons, asylums, national monuments—all of them have stories to tell. Their ghosts still lurk, demanding that we remember the past.


 


President Lincoln has been walking the halls of the White House in Washington, DC, for more than a century. The Queen Mary may just be the most storied and haunted ship on the planet. The catacombs of Paris contain the skeletal remains of six million bodies...and many of their ghosts. And the Tower of London is haunted by noblemen and commoners—some still searching for the heads they lost more than five hundred years ago.


 


Take a world tour of history, the supernatural, and the macabre. You will explore libraries, museums, restaurants, inns, and landmarks from North America, South America, Europe, and Australia. But be careful: The World's Most Haunted Places may make you a believer!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Sep 15, 2011
• ISBN: 9781601636331

Jeff Belanger

Jeff Belanger is one of the most visible and prolific researchers of legends and lore today. A natural storyteller, he’s the award-winning, Emmy-nominated host, writer, and producer of the New England Legends series on PBS and Amazon Prime and is the author of over a dozen books (published in six languages). He also hosts the award-winning New England Legends weekly podcast, which has garnered over four million downloads since its launch and ranks in the top half percent of all podcasts for popularity, according to Listen Notes. Belanger’s books include the bestsellers The Fright Before Christmas, Weird Massachusetts, Our Haunted Lives, The Call of Kilimanjaro,Who’s  and Haunting the White House? He founded Ghostvillage.com in 1999—one of the web’s most popular paranormal destinations—and he’s a noted speaker and media personality. He was featured in the one hundredth episode of Stories from the Stage on PBS, he’s given a TEDx talk in New York City, and he spoke at MENSA’s national conference. Belanger has also written for newspapers such as the Boston Globe and USA Today and has served as the writer and researcher on numerous television series, including every single episode of Ghost Adventures (twenty-five seasons and counting), Paranormal Challenge, and Ghost Adventures:Aftershocks on Travel Channel, and Amish Haunting on Destination America.

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Praise for

The World’s Most Haunted Places, Revised Edition

* A paranormal.about.com Recommended Read *

"In The World’s Most Haunted Places, Jeff Belanger captures the essence, experience, and profound nature of peoples’ brush with ghosts. This poignant work is the single best book I’ve seen that combines the history, folklore, and true ghost stories of renowned haunted locations around the globe."

—Jeffrey A. Wands,

psychic and author, The Psychic in You

If you are looking for historic haunts and some cold chills to run down your spine, you have come to the right place. Jeff Belanger is one of the acknowledged masters of American hauntings and his eerie writings will appeal to anyone with an interest in ghosts and hauntings, no matter how jaded the reader might be. This book is a sure thing and one that will have you looking over your shoulder long after closing the cover.

—Troy Taylor, author of The Ghosthunter’s Guidebook and

founder of the American Ghost Society

"Jeff Belanger knows how to bring ghosts back to life! These true tales of hauntings are enhanced by in-depth research and rich attention to detail, but it’s Belanger’s natural gift as a storyteller that puts The World’s Most Haunted Places above and beyond most books of ghostlore. This book can bump me in the night anytime!"

—Tamara Thorne, author of Haunted and Thunder Road

THE WORLD’S MOST HAUNTED PLACES, REVISED EDITION

THE WORLD’S MOST HAUNTED PLACES, REVISED EDITION

From the Secret Files of Ghostvillage.com

By Jeff Belanger

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Copyright © 2011 by Jeff Belanger

All rights reserved under the Pan-American and International Copyright Conventions. This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, in any form or by any means electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system now known or hereafter invented, without written permission from the publisher, The Career Press.

THE WORLD’S MOST HAUNTED PLACES, REVISED EDITION

EDITED BY KATE HENCHES

TYPESET BY DIANA GHAZZAWI

Cover design by Lucia Rossman, Digi Dog Design Printed in the U.S.A.

To order this title, please call toll-free 1-800-CAREER-1 (NJ and Canada: 201-848-0310) to order using VISA or MasterCard, or for further information on books from Career Press.

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The Career Press, Inc.

220 West Parkway, Unit 12

Pompton Plains, NJ 07444

www.careerpress.com

www.newpagebooks.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

CIP Available Upon Request.

For Megan, whose love is supernatural.

Acknowledgments

There are many people who put forth a lot of effort to make this book happen. I’d like to thank my incredible wife, Megan, for her support, her critical eye, and her faith in me. Thanks to my daughter, Sophie, who had to give up a few games of hide-and-seek and lost some quality time so I could finish this new version of The World’s Most Haunted Places.

Thank you to my family, friends, and fans for relaying every ghost story they’ve ever heard—you people are awesome! I’m also fortunate to have a vast network of paranormal colleagues and friends who have been a great sounding board for me over the years.

In gathering supernatural accounts for this book, I interviewed scores of people around the world who shared their very personal experiences with me. I’d like to thank these brave souls for their contributions and trust. Without these great people, this book would not have been possible.

I’d also like to thank the folks at New Page Books, specifically Michael Pye, Laurie Kelly-Pye, Clayton Leadbetter (who edited the first edition of this book), and Kate Henches, who worked on the second edition.

Last, but definitely not least, I’d like to thank the Ghostvillagers—a global community of people who not only care deeply about the study of ghosts and the supernatural, but who also care a lot about each other. Thank you all for touching my life in your own unique way.

Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1: Ballygally Castle Hotel

Chapter 2: The RMS Queen Mary

Chapter 3: The 1891 Castle Inn

Chapter 4: Poveglia Island

Chapter 5: Rose Hall Great House

Chapter 6: Hibbing High School

Chapter 7: The Deane House

Chapter 8: Imperial Casino Hotel

Chapter 9: The Catacomb Museum

Chapter 10: Big Nose Kate’s Saloon

Chapter 11: Ordsall Hall

Chapter 12: The White House

Chapter 13: Mansfield Reformatory

Chapter 14: The Alaskan Hotel

Chapter 15: Monte Cristo Homestead

Chapter 16: Mercy Brown, the Rhode Island Vampire

Chapter 17: Empress Theatre

Chapter 18: Thornewood Castle

Chapter 19: The Skirrid Mountain Inn

Chapter 20: Archer Avenue’s Resurrection Mary

Chapter 21: Billy Bishop Legion Hall

Chapter 22: South Bridge Underground Vaults

Chapter 23: The Pirates’ House

Chapter 24: Suicide Forest

Chapter 25: Boggo Road Gaol Museum

Chapter 26: Stone’s Public House

Chapter 27: Muncaster Castle

Chapter 28: The Andrew Bayne Memorial Library

Chapter 29: The Spaghetti Warehouse

Chapter 30: The Olde Angel Inn

Chapter 31: Whaley House

Chapter 32: The Tower of London

Chapter 33: Waverly Hills Sanatorium

Afterword

Appendix: How to Find the Haunts

Bibliography

Index

About the Author

Introduction

This book marks a pivotal point in my paranormal life. Sure, it’s my first book, and it will always hold a special place for being just that. But it also marks a significant transition for me.

I began writing about the paranormal for publication back in the mid-1990s. I wrote for newspapers and magazines, and around October I went looking for ghost stories as potential features. That’s what got me hooked on this subject and what would eventually lead me down a path that is my passion as well as my career. I was a writer first, but this subject seduced me.

When I began writing the first edition of The World’s Most Haunted Places, I came to the book as a journalist. I worked to be objective in every part of my research. I reached out to skeptics, to believers, and even to those religiously inclined. I wanted to present every side of the story and be fair to the history and the phenomenon. Those are my roots, and that’s where I was. I’ve learned a few things since then, and it’s worth discussing before we jump into the amazing haunts that lie before you in the coming pages.

In my gut, I have believed in ghosts since childhood. I checked out my first ghostly legend at age 10. My friend Bobby claimed that his 200-year-old house was haunted, so I grabbed my Ouija board and asked him if we could have a sleepover at his house. (Some things have never changed: Still today when I hear someone talk about a profound paranormal experience, my first inclination is to go toward it.) So there we were in his house late at night. Sleeping bags. Ouija board. Root beer. We were ready.

What struck me most were his descriptions of the ghost. Not some white-sheeted Casper, nor some Hollywood monster oozing ectoplasm—Bobby saw only the faint outline of an older man who walks down the hall and then disappears. Even his parents shrugged their shoulders and admitted that there seems to be someone else living with us. No one even seemed scared here. Aren’t ghosts supposed to frighten us?

Another influence on my young life was that of Ed and Lorraine Warren—a ghost-hunting couple who have been looking into this subject since the 1950s. I recall attending some of their lectures as a child and being intrigued by the ghostly voices they caught on tape, the photographs they had to share, and the many stories of their encounters.

I’m not claiming to be a disciple of anyone, nor am I saying I’m doing some kind of divine work. I love this subject and the many places the study leads both geographically and within myself. I mention my upbringing as a way to show how this legend-tripper was made. We all come to this subject from different paths and with different agendas. This is mine: to get into the story, become one with it, test it for myself, and share it with others.

In college I knew I wanted to be a writer. I found myself in the pursuit of a story. But I also discovered that to write, you need to have something to say. I know…duh. But to have something to say, you need to get out there, have experiences, think deeply about various subjects, and start writing.

Through writing I rediscovered the paranormal. It’s a subject that’s been tackled before, but there are always new stories and legends popping up. There are new theories, new discoveries, and very old stories and ghosts who make new appearances in our modern world.

Being objective is a worthwhile ambition. But it’s also impossible to attain. First, if you present equal and opposite viewpoints on a subject, you’re left with a net gain of zero. Second, if you spend years of your life exploring a topic, understanding the work that has come before you, and submerging yourself in the content, you’re going to reach some conclusions. Whereas you should always listen to opposing viewpoints because it will broaden your perspective and allow you to rethink your own positions, in the end you will most likely find yourself standing on one side of the fence because you can only balance on top for so long.

I considered myself a believer early on mainly because I couldn’t accept that all of these witnesses were lying to me. When the historical research backed up what some of the witnesses had reported, it was just too much evidence for me to ignore. But I had yet to have my own game-changing experience. That changed in 2003 while walking through the Catacombs of Paris, France…you’ll read about that in Chapter 9, and I’ll tell you about other personal experiences I’ve had since at Mansfield Reformatory and Waverly Hills Sanatorium in Chapters 13 and 33, respectively.

Exploring the paranormal isn’t just about great stories—though that’s a part of it. And it’s not science, though many have made attempts to apply science to this subject. The paranormal is about delving into big questions within all of us. It’s a spiritual and philosophical quest, full of emotion, pitfalls, problems, excitement, history, psychology, and a whole range of human experiences.

When you look into a haunting, you’re exploring the big question we all have: Is there life after death? That’s the heart of the matter, really. When someone sees what they know to be the spirit of someone deceased, the big question is answered for that individual.

Around the world, there are buildings, cemeteries, tracts of land, and other man-made structures that have witnessed more history than any living person. Oh, if the walls could talk…but, sometimes they can. And do.

Oral traditions aren’t dead, even in our modern world. The ability to record events in writing, photographic form, and even video is accessible to everyone—often through our cell phones now. But big paranormal encounters are still spread mainly by word-of-mouth. Millions of people have an unexplained brush with the supernatural every year. Some of the encounters are frightening, some touching; all are profound. Many people never document the time, place, weather conditions, exact GPS location of the ghost, or anything else the academic community would appreciate knowing. Why? My God, they just saw a ghost! The event is burned into the witness’ permanent memory, and their brains and hearts are trying to figure out what just happened.

Maybe a few hours, days, or years down the road, witnesses of the supernatural may feel comfortable enough to share a very personal and intimate experience with someone they really trust. I’ve been fortunate to be that person for a lot of people. Because of my interest in and writing on the subject, folks now come to me with their personal experiences. It’s a gift I cherish.

Some ghost legends are centuries old. People living local to the disem-bodied soul believe they know who the ghost was in life, and some might even speculate what unfinished business keeps the spirit earthbound. To study these spirits is to study history. The spirit world and our past are intertwined—there’s a lot we can learn by studying both. Of course, some ghost stories only go back a few years; they seem to have been born or stirred up by some event.

What is a ghost? To put it simply: a ghost is a direct connection to our past, a way to bond with other living people in our present, and a way to explore our own inevitable future, because every one of us has a date with death. Some of us sooner, some later, but we’re all heading down the same road. What comes next is a great mystery waiting to be solved by each individual.

Many ghost encounters are subtle, but intense. Imagine being alone in a big, old, creaking house. It’s a dark and stormy night, and as you reach for a doorknob and start to turn it, you feel an obvious force turn the knob against you, and maybe hear a shuffling on the other side of the door. The room around you becomes suddenly chilled. Quickly turning the knob again and jerking the door open, you find that no one (well, no one that you can see anyway) is standing there.

Subtle, yes—and completely unnerving. Of course, the ghosts aren’t always subtle. Sometimes they appear in front of people. Sometimes they even have something to say. It’s important that we listen to the witnesses, to the ghosts, and to the history.

This second edition of The World’s Most Haunted Places is a world tour of historic locations and ghostly experiences. We’ll traverse the globe and find some common threads to ghostly legends, some figures from history who have insisted on being remembered to the point where they are still seen and recognized for who they are or were. We’ll listen to witnesses from many different walks of life tell us what they felt, heard, saw, and sometimes even smelled.

With this update, I’ve added some new locations to this distinguished list. Unlike the first edition, this time I share some of my own experiences I’ve had in these locales. Though I’ve had remarkably few paranormal experiences considering the number of years I’ve been doing this and the number of places I’ve been, the ones I’ve had are seared into my permanent memory. I can close my eyes right now and relive those big moments. I’ll share several with you in the new chapters.

Something else I learned since the first edition came out—people have a passion for these haunts, and some were downright offended at the exclusion of their favorite location from this list. I recognize it takes some audacity to call a book The World’s Most Haunted Places. I mean, who am I to judge? That’s a fair question. Let me beg forgiveness and at the same time clarify: The locations contained in here are not the only haunts in the world by a very long shot. These are the locations that have made my supernatural radar through the years. These are my most haunted locations, and the list isn’t finished. In fact, no matter how many future editions of this book we do, the list will never be finished. As I continue to travel, to see new places, as I interact with more explorers of the unexplained, I’ll continue to learn and add.

Since I wrote this book in 2003, there have been many changes to the paranormal community. There are more television shows than ever before that explore this topic. And so there are more groups than ever before investigating. Somehow, the paranormal went pop culture! I recall reading one review of this book on a Website that claimed I just picked locations that certain ghost-hunting television shows have already covered—this reader didn’t realize that the book was written before any of the current crop of ghost-hunting shows were ever on the air.

I also learned that people are big fans of some of these places. They have their own chapters to add to these stories and want to be included. I received many e-mails from people telling me of their own encounters inside these haunts. Great stuff! I wish I could include it all, because each person, each experience—even the skeptic who says I didn’t see, hear, or feel anything—each one is a part of the story.

This is what investigating the paranormal all is about: becoming part of the story. Going to a haunt and deciding for ourselves if it’s more tale than haunt, or if it lives up to its reputation. And now we know for sure, having had our own experiences.

I’ll be your tour guide for this global voyage into the supernatural. Please be respectful, as we will be visiting some hallowed grounds, homes in which you’ll be a guest, and other historically important locales where the walls, the grounds, and the ghosts do talk.

Chapter 1

Ballygally Castle Hotel

Ballygally, Ireland

United Kingdom

Tel: [phone]

Website: www.hastingshotels.com/ballygally-castle

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Ballygally Castle, in County Antrim, is one of Northern Ireland’s most haunted

locations. Today it is a three-star hotel, and though no formal ghost tours are offered,

the infamous Ghost Room is always open to guests who wish to visit.

Photo courtesy of Hastings Hotels.

On a bright sunny day, Ballygally Castle is a living postcard—a charming, almost teal-colored Scottish baronial castle overlooking the sea in Northern Ireland. On a dark, stormy evening, Ballygally is right out of a 1950s horror movie. There’s a dark coastal road that takes you to the castle on the hill. You can imagine the lightning flashes making Ballygally’s Scottish granite flash a pale gray before going back to almost black in the night.

In a corner turret of the castle, a small window overlooks the North Channel of the Irish Sea from a small, drafty room the Ballygally staff have dubbed the Ghost Room. No one stays in the ghost room overnight anymore—well, no one living anyway.

Today, Ballygally Castle is attached to a popular three-star hotel. From the outside, visitors can clearly see where the castle ends and the hotel was added on in the 1950s. Located about 20 miles north of Belfast, Ballygally was originally built by James Shaw, a Greenock, Scotland native who came to Northern Ireland in 1613. Shaw built the castle in 1625 in a French chateau style, with 5-foot-thick walls, a steep roof, and corner turrets. An open stream ran through the outer hall for convenient drinking water—plus the water meant the castle’s occupants could hold out a long time if there was a siege.

Shortly after the completion of the castle’s construction, James Shaw took a wife named Lady Isobel Shaw. The current legend says that during the first few years of their marriage, Lady Shaw had a daughter. James Shaw became angry that his wife didn’t produce a male heir, and so he locked her in the tiny turret of the castle facing the sea. It’s unclear whether Lady Shaw leapt to her death from the small window while desperately trying to get to her daughter, or whether James Shaw had some henchmen throw her down the steep staircase to her death.

The first time I heard this bit of folklore, it didn’t sit right with me. If James Shaw was so upset about not getting a male heir, wouldn’t the couple just try for another child? After some digging, I heard another version of the legend that seemed to make more sense. Apparently, Lady Shaw may have been having an affair with a seaman. One could also speculate that her daughter may have been the love child of this mysterious man. When James Shaw found out, he went into a rage, locking his wife in the turret. His rage built until it either drove Lady Shaw out the window, or some thugs threw her to her death.

Lady Shaw has been experienced in the old part of the castle and especially in the Ghost Room many times through the centuries. But Lady Shaw is certainly not the only ghost haunting Ballygally.

Olga Henry is the current manager of Ballygally Castle Hotel. Henry has worked at Ballygally since January of 2003, and though she’s originally from Northern Ireland, she didn’t hear about the ghost stories until she arrived at the castle for work. She was quickly indoctrinated about the ghosts at Ballygally. Henry said, I’m sort of very skeptical about the whole supernatural thing and ghosts. But the more I stay here and work here, the more I think there’s definitely something in this hotel.

In the old part of the hotel—the castle section—there are four guest rooms for rent situated below the Ghost Room. Some people specifically request the rooms in the castle section, and some get more of an experience than they bargained for. Henry told me about one of their guests who was staying in the old section of the castle while in town for business. She explained, He was staying in one of the rooms in the tower, and he has little kids at home. In the middle of the night, he thought he was in his own house at home—he was lying face down in the bed and he thought one of his children had put their hand on his back. And then he woke up and sort of realized where he was, and he said that he could hear a child running about the room and laughing. He then appeared at our reception area in just his boxer shorts, and he said, ‘Just get me out of that old part of the castle!’

The castle section is also home to two private dining rooms, one called the Dungeon Room and the other the 1625 Room. The Dungeon Room features an old-world stone floor, a grand fireplace, and roughcast walls. It was in the Dungeon Room that Henry had quite a peculiar experience in December 2003.

Henry explained how a group of directors were coming to stay at the hotel and were going to dine the evening of their arrival in the Dungeon Room. She said, "We’d set the room up the day before. I made sure the glasses were sparkling, and the candelabra’s right, and it all looked the part. After setting up, we had locked the room. The next morning, these guys were checking in, and I thought I’d go and open the Dungeon in case they wanted to have a look at where they’d be dining. I went down and opened the Dungeon, and the table was an absolute mess.

"Nothing else in the room had been disturbed, but all the glasses on the table were laid in a