109 Fun Facts About Ghost

The English word 'ghost' comes from an Old English word meaning what?

Breath or spirit: Old English 'gast' meant the soul or the breath of life, the sense preserved in 'Holy Ghost' and in 'giving up the ghost' for dying.

A 2005 Gallup poll found that a third of Americans believed in ghosts, but which belief was more common?

Haunted houses: 37 percent of Americans said houses can be haunted but only 32 percent believed in ghosts, so some accepted the haunting without the ghost; ESP led the list at 41 percent.

Which Roman writer, famous for letters on the eruption of Vesuvius, also told a ghost story set in Athens?

Pliny the Younger told it in a letter to Sura: a ghost in chains led the philosopher Athenodorus into the courtyard and vanished, and digging there turned up a shackled skeleton, which was given a proper burial.

In Macbeth, whose ghost takes Macbeth's own seat at the feast, visible only to him?

Banquo, murdered on Macbeth's orders, appears at the feast in Act 3; only Macbeth sees him, and as he raves at what looks like an empty stool Lady Macbeth sends the guests home.

What does the German word poltergeist literally mean?

Noisy ghost: German 'poltern' means to make noise or rattle and 'Geist' means ghost, a fit for the knocks, thrown objects and shifted furniture that get blamed on them.

Which song plays as Sam and Molly sit at the pottery wheel in the 1990 film Ghost?

Unchained Melody, in the Righteous Brothers' 1965 recording, plays over the scene; the film sent the 25-year-old single back up the charts, and it reached No. 1 in Britain in late 1990.

Who won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar as con-artist medium Oda Mae Brown in the 1990 film Ghost?

Whoopi Goldberg won the 1991 Oscar for Oda Mae Brown, the first Black actress to win since Hattie McDaniel in 1940; she got the part after Patrick Swayze refused to make the film without her.

Which of Scrooge's ghostly visitors shows him his grave?

Christmas Yet to Come, a silent phantom shrouded in black, points Scrooge to a neglected grave bearing his own name; he wakes a changed man, buys the Cratchits the prize turkey and raises Bob's salary.

In A Christmas Carol, what does Jacob Marley's ghost drag behind him?

Heavy chains and cash boxes: the chain is made of cash-boxes, keys, padlocks, ledgers and steel purses, and Marley says he forged it himself in life, link by link, of his own free will.

In A Christmas Carol, what was Jacob Marley to Scrooge in life?

Partner: Marley died seven years before the story, yet Scrooge never painted his name off the sign, so the firm still traded as Scrooge and Marley and he answered to either name.

Which 1999 film introduced the line 'I see dead people'?

The Sixth Sense: young Cole whispers it to child psychologist Malcolm Crowe, played by Bruce Willis, and the film's last twist is that Crowe has himself been one of the dead since its opening scene.

Which child actor was Oscar-nominated for Shyamalan's 1999 ghost film?

Haley Joel Osment was 11 when the film earned six nominations and no wins; Michael Caine, who beat him to Best Supporting Actor, told him from the stage, 'When I saw you I thought, well, that's me out of it.'

Casper the Friendly Ghost first appeared in theatrical cartoons made by which studio?

Paramount's Famous Studios turned an unpublished children's story by Seymour Reit and Joe Oriolo into the 1945 short The Friendly Ghost, and kept Casper in cinemas until 1959.

The 1995 film Casper had the first fully computer-generated lead character, six months before which fully computer-animated feature?

Toy Story opened that November as the first feature made entirely by computer; Casper, out in May, got there first with a digital star, whom ILM animated into about 40 minutes of live-action footage.

Which house in Essex did the investigator Harry Price call 'the most haunted house in England'?

Borley Rectory, built in 1862 and gutted by fire in 1939, became famous after a 1929 Daily Mirror story; a 1956 study by three fellow researchers concluded Price had faked some of the phenomena himself.

Anne Boleyn's ghost is said to walk the Tower of London carrying what?

Her head under her arm: Boleyn was beheaded at the Tower in 1536 and buried in its chapel, and the 1934 comic song 'With Her Head Tucked Underneath Her Arm', first sung by Stanley Holloway, retells the haunting.

Which composer's opera The Flying Dutchman has the ghostly captain redeemed by Senta's love?

Richard Wagner said a stormy 1839 sea voyage from Riga to London, made while fleeing his creditors, inspired The Flying Dutchman; he conducted its Dresden premiere in 1843.

Which future British king was a teenage sailor on a naval cruise that logged a sighting of the Flying Dutchman in 1881?

George V, then 16-year-old Prince George, was sailing between Melbourne and Sydney when the cruise journal described a glowing red phantom ship; hours later the seaman who first reported it fell from the rigging and died.

In the opening scene of Hamlet, who sees the dead king's ghost?

Horatio and two sentries, Marcellus and Barnardo, see it together; the guards had met the armoured ghost on two earlier nights and brought the doubting Horatio along as a witness, and he goes to tell Hamlet.

Which 1898 novella has a governess who sees two dead servants?

The Turn of the Screw, by Henry James, ran in Collier's Weekly in 1898; when the governess points out a ghost by the lake the housekeeper sees nothing, and the story never settles whether the hauntings are real.

What does the Irish banshee's name, bean sí, literally mean?

Woman of the fairy mound: 'bean' is Irish for woman and 'sí' names the ancient mounds said to house the fairy folk, so her name marks her as one of them; her wail foretells a death in the family.

Which ghost light is called ignis fatuus, or 'foolish fire', in Latin?

Will-o'-the-wisp: the flickering marsh light looks like a distant lantern and was said to lead night travellers astray; it is usually put down to burning gas from rotting plants.

In Quebec's Chasse-galerie legend, what do homesick lumberjacks ride through the night sky after a pact with the devil?

A canoe: in Honoré Beaugrand's 1892 telling the devil flies the loggers home to their sweethearts for New Year's Eve, but takes their souls if they speak God's name or touch a church cross on the way.

The Bell Witch legend centres on a family in which US state?

Tennessee: from 1817 to 1821 the Bells of Robertson County, near Adams, were said to be tormented by an invisible, talking entity that some blamed for John Bell's death in 1820.

How long did the Lutz family last in their Long Island 'horror' house?

Four weeks: George and Kathy Lutz moved in during December 1975 and fled after 28 days; their story became a 1977 bestseller, though a lawyer involved later said they had created it together 'over many bottles of wine'.

The stage illusion Pepper's ghost was popularised in 1862 in a production of a work by which author?

Charles Dickens: a scene from his 1848 tale The Haunted Man introduced the illusion at London's Royal Polytechnic on Christmas Eve 1862; engineer Henry Dircks devised it, but showman John Henry Pepper's name stuck.

Disneyland's Haunted Mansion claims to house how many 'happy haunts', with room for one more?

999 is the Ghost Host's count, with room for a thousand; the waltzing spirits in the ballroom are the ride's Pepper's ghost illusion, reflections of hidden figures in a huge pane of glass.

The Ouija board was named in 1890 in which US city, where Edgar Allan Poe is buried?

Baltimore: investors in the Kennard Novelty Company named it there in 1890 by asking the board itself, they said; it spelled out 'Ouija' and told medium Helen Peters the word meant 'good luck'.

What is the heart-shaped pointer on a Ouija board called?

A planchette, French for 'little plank', began as a small board on casters holding a pencil for 'automatic writing' at Victorian séances, before Ouija boards turned it into a pointer.

What psychological phenomenon best explains how a Ouija pointer moves?

The ideomotor effect: people touching the pointer make tiny unconscious muscle movements, so the board 'says' what they expect; Michael Faraday built a simple apparatus that showed the same thing behind table-turning.

Which organisation, founded in 1882 in Britain, pioneered systematic investigation of ghosts and mediums?

The Society for Psychical Research was founded in London in 1882 by Cambridge scholars including Henry Sidgwick and Frederic Myers, who went on to compile the 1886 survey Phantasms of the Living.

Paranormal investigators carry meters through a room hoping to detect spikes in what?

Electromagnetic fields, or EMF, are what the meters read, but faulty wiring or a microwave tower can set them off too, and skeptics point out the gadgets were never designed to find ghosts.

Which Sci Fi Channel series, launched in 2004, follows two plumbers who investigate hauntings after work?

Ghost Hunters followed Roto-Rooter plumbers Jason Hawes and Grant Wilson and their group TAPS; within four years its audience had doubled, and so had the number of amateur groups affiliated with them.

Harry Price exposed which 'spirit photographer' as a fraud in 1922?

William Hope of the Crewe Circle was caught in 1922 when Price supplied secretly marked photographic plates and Hope's 'spirit' image came back on an unmarked substitute.

Which north London borough gave its name to the 1977 poltergeist case dramatised in The Conjuring 2?

Enfield: two sisters in a council house there drew reporters and investigators for over a year; the girls were caught faking some incidents and admitted pranks, though the lead investigators insisted the rest was genuine.

The deliberate attempt to contact the spirit of a dead person is called what?

Necromancy, from Greek 'nekros' (corpse) and 'manteia' (divination), is what King Saul asks of the Witch of Endor: she raises the dead prophet Samuel, who tells Saul that he and his sons will be dead the next day.

In Buddhism, what is the realm of the 'hungry ghosts'?

A state of rebirth: the hungry ghosts, or pretas, have huge bellies but needle-thin throats, so they can never satisfy the greed that put them there; Ghost Festival offerings are meant to feed them.

Catherine Howard's screaming ghost is said to haunt the gallery of which royal palace?

Hampton Court's Haunted Gallery is where, legend says, Catherine Howard broke free of her guards in 1541 and ran to beg Henry VIII for her life before she was recaptured; visitors claim to hear her shrieks.

Which Long Island village gave its name to a horror franchise after a son shot six of his family there in 1974?

Amityville: Ronald DeFeo Jr., 23, killed his parents and four siblings in their beds at 112 Ocean Avenue; the next owners moved in a year later, and their haunting claims fed a 1977 bestseller and a long run of films.

Which publisher began putting out Casper comic books in 1952?

Harvey Comics took over the Casper licence from St. John Publications in 1952, later bought the character outright, and made him its flagship alongside Wendy the Good Little Witch and Spooky.

What pushed A Christmas Carol's author to write it in six weeks?

Money troubles: sales of his serial Martin Chuzzlewit were falling and his publishers threatened to cut his pay, so he wrote the tale at speed and published it at his own expense.

In the 1990 film Ghost, what is the job of Patrick Swayze's character, Sam Wheat?

Banker: Sam works at a Manhattan bank, where colleague Carl Bruner launders money and has him mugged to get his passwords; Demi Moore's Molly is the potter.

Which late rapper's 'hologram' performed at Coachella in 2012 using a Pepper's ghost variant?

Tupac Shakur, killed in 1996, appeared beside Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre; it was no true hologram but a flat projected image reflected in an angled, transparent film, the Victorian stage trick updated.

Which future president's wagon, legend says, froze in place near the Bell Witch farm?

Andrew Jackson's visit is told in M. V. Ingram's 1894 book on the haunting: his wagon will not budge until an unseen voice tells the general it may move on, and promises to see him again that night.

Who directed the 1984 comedy Ghostbusters?

Ivan Reitman found Dan Aykroyd's first draft, set in the future across several planets, impossible to film; over lunch he pitched the story we know instead, in which the ghostbusters go into business.

Which Hogwarts house's resident ghost is Nearly Headless Nick?

Gryffindor's ghost, Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington, was struck 45 times with a blunt axe that never quite took his head off, which is why the Headless Hunt refuses to let him join.

Who wrote the 1959 novel The Haunting of Hill House?

Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House sends four people to a mansion that fixes on the fragile Eleanor; it was filmed as The Haunting in 1963 and adapted by Netflix in 2018.

Which 1988 Tim Burton comedy has a ghost couple hire a crude 'bio-exorcist'?

Beetlejuice: Michael Keaton's bio-exorcist can be summoned only by saying his name three times, which the Maitlands' afterlife caseworker warns them not to do; the film won the Oscar for Best Makeup.

Who sang the 1984 Ghostbusters theme, with its hook 'Who you gonna call'?

Ray Parker Jr.'s 'Ghostbusters' topped the Billboard Hot 100 for three weeks in 1984; Huey Lewis sued over its resemblance to 'I Want a New Drug' and the case settled out of court.

In Japanese folklore, what is the general term for a ghost of the restless dead?

Yūrei are traditionally pictured with long black hair, a white burial kimono and no feet, a look that took shape in the Edo period in ghost paintings and on the kabuki stage.

Which 2007 found-footage ghost film was made for about $15,000?

Paranormal Activity was shot by Oren Peli in a San Diego house in a single week for about $15,000; Paramount's 2009 release went on to gross more than $190 million worldwide.

Which 2001 ghost film stars Nicole Kidman as Grace, guarding her light-sensitive children?

The Others ends on a reversal: the 'intruders' Grace fears are the living, and she, her children and the servants are the ghosts; Alejandro Amenábar's film won eight Goya Awards, including Best Film.

Which Roman festival in May had householders appease the restless dead with beans at midnight?

Lemuria, on 9, 11 and 13 May, had the head of the house walk barefoot at midnight tossing black beans over his shoulder for the lemures, the night spirits that later gave lemurs their name.

Who wrote The Canterville Ghost, in which an American family refuses to be frightened?

Oscar Wilde published The Canterville Ghost in 1887; the Otis family greet Sir Simon's bloodstains with stain remover and his clanking chains with lubricating oil.

The Conjuring films dramatise cases of which real married paranormal investigators?

Ed and Lorraine Warren, played by Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga, kept a Raggedy Ann doll they said was possessed locked in a glass case at their Connecticut museum; it inspired the Annabelle spin-off films.

Ghost Adventures, led by Zak Bagans, premiered in 2008 on which network?

Travel Channel launched the series in October 2008 after Bagans's 2004-shot documentary, filmed at the Goldfield Hotel and in Virginia City, Nevada, aired on Sci Fi in 2007.

In Luke's Gospel, what does the risen Jesus eat to show his frightened disciples that he is no ghost?

Broiled fish: in Luke 24 the disciples think they are seeing a ghost, so Jesus shows them his hands and feet, says a ghost has no flesh and bones, and eats the fish in front of them.

Under which pseudonym did French educator Hippolyte Rivail write the five books of the Spiritist Codification?

Allan Kardec published The Spirits' Book in 1857, built from the answers he said spirits gave through mediums to his list of questions; four more volumes followed, and the five became the basis of Spiritism.

Which country is home to the largest number of Spiritism's followers?

Brazil has millions of declared Spiritists, more than any other country; the medium Chico Xavier spread the faith there with more than 400 books he said the dead dictated through his hand.

In Pac-Man, which of the four ghosts is the orange one, who chases the player and then runs away?

Clyde switches between chasing and fleeing depending on how close he gets, while red Blinky gives direct chase; on the American cabinet his character name was Pokey.

The ghost pepper, certified the world's hottest chilli in 2007, is grown in the northeast of which country?

India grows it in Assam and Nagaland, where the name bhut jolokia really means Bhutanese pepper; a similar-sounding word for ghost gave the chilli its English name.

The Fox sisters launched Spiritualism in 1848 with ghostly raps that one sister later said were made how?

Cracking their toe joints was the method Margaretta Fox showed a New York audience in 1888, with doctors on stage checking her feet, though she took the confession back a year later.

The US 'Ghost Army' of World War II fooled German forces with fake radio traffic, battle sounds and what?

Inflatable tanks, trucks and planes were pumped up with air compressors by a 1,100-man unit recruited partly from art schools; it received the Congressional Gold Medal in 2022.

What household appliance does Luigi use to trap ghosts in his 2001 GameCube launch game?

A vacuum cleaner named the Poltergust 3000, supplied by Professor E. Gadd, does the job while Luigi searches a spooky house for a missing Mario.

Which app's ghost mascot is named Ghostface Chillah, after a rapper from the Wu-Tang Clan?

Snapchat first launched in 2011 as Picaboo; a ghost suits an app built on photos that vanish seconds after they are opened.

In the final scene of Return of the Jedi, the Force ghosts of Obi-Wan and Yoda are joined by whom?

Anakin Skywalker stands redeemed beside his old masters; the 2004 re-release swapped actor Sebastian Shaw for Hayden Christensen, who took the role in the prequels.

In Game of Thrones, who raises Ghost, an albino direwolf and the runt of its litter?

Jon Snow takes the white cub north to the Night's Watch, where Ghost helps him destroy an undead wight and save the Lord Commander's life.

Which American merchant ship was found adrift off the Azores in 1872 with everyone aboard gone?

Mary Celeste was still seaworthy and under partial sail, with no sign of fire or violence; the captain, his wife, their daughter and the crew were never seen again.

Which author's faith in mediums ended his friendship with the debunking magician Houdini?

Arthur Conan Doyle went so far as to decide that Houdini was himself a powerful medium, using real psychic gifts to block the people he claimed to expose.

In Mexican folklore, which ghost roams riverbanks mourning the children she is said to have drowned?

La Llorona means the weeping woman, and anyone who hears her crying is said to be marked for misfortune; the tale is told above all to warn and frighten.

In Washington Irving's The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, the Headless Horseman is said to be the ghost of what?

A Hessian trooper, a German soldier fighting for Britain, lost his head to a cannonball in the Revolutionary War and rides out after dark to look for it.

Which Stephen King novel was inspired by the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colorado?

The Shining turned the Stanley into the Overlook Hotel, and the hotel later planted a hedge maze in tribute to Kubrick's film, though King's book has topiary animals instead.

San Jose's Winchester Mystery House was built by a widow whose fortune came from what product?

Rifles made the fortune, and a 1967 book spread the legend that a Boston medium told Sarah Winchester to keep building for the ghosts of everyone the family's weapons had slain.

Which British band released the 2014 album Ghost Stories, with the singles Magic and A Sky Full of Stars?

Coldplay made the hushed, sombre record after singer Chris Martin's separation from Gwyneth Paltrow, which he said had inspired it.

Which elusive particle were physicists after in the 1950s experiment nicknamed Project Poltergeist?

Neutrino detection earned Frederick Reines a Nobel Prize in 1995; his team chose the nickname because the particle slips through ordinary matter like a ghost, almost never leaving a trace.

Which British carmaker built the Silver Ghost, hailed by Autocar in 1907 as the best car in the world?

Rolls-Royce first gave the name to one car, registered AX 201; the press took it up until every 40/50 hp chassis was being called a Silver Ghost.

In Field of Dreams, an Iowa farmer ploughs up what to build a baseball diamond for ghostly players?

His cornfield outside Dyersville becomes the diamond after a mysterious voice urges him on, and the banned 1919 Chicago 'Black Sox' turn up to play.

What word did a Nobel-winning physiologist coin for the gauzy substance mediums claimed to exude at séances?

Ectoplasm, the coinage of Frenchman Richet, was said to be destroyed by light, a reason for holding séances in the dark; examples that were examined proved to be cheesecloth or gauze.

In the 1998 Japanese horror film Ring, the ghost Sadako reaches her victim by crawling out of what?

A television set switches itself on and Sadako climbs through the screen; the film set off a boom in Japanese horror and Hollywood remakes, starting with The Ring in 2002.

In the BBC sitcom Ghosts, Alison inherits which crumbling country home full of dead former residents?

Button House is filmed at West Horsley Place in Surrey, which the quiz host Bamber Gascoigne really did inherit unexpectedly from a great-aunt in 2014.

The BBC sitcom Ghosts was written by and stars the troupe behind which earlier children's sketch show?

Horrible Histories had ended when its cast, working as Them There, came up with a haunted house as one of their first new ideas, hoping their young viewers had grown up with them.

In the CBS sitcom Ghosts, what is the name of the Viking left behind by his shipmates over 1,000 years ago?

Thorfinn is the oldest of the main ghosts, a Norwegian stranded in North America because his crew counted one shipmate twice before sailing home.

In the CBS sitcom Ghosts, what gives Sam the ability to see and hear the dead residents of Woodstone?

A near-death experience does it: the ghost Trevor nudges a vase into Sam's path, and she is clinically dead for three minutes before reviving with her new gift.

In the novel Ghost Boys, twelve-year-old Jerome is guided by the ghost of which real boy from history?

Emmett Till, murdered in 1955, shows Jerome hundreds of other ghost boys who died as they did, tying a present-day Chicago story to a much older one.

In the novel Ghost Boys, a police officer mistakes what in Jerome's hands for a real weapon?

A toy gun given to him by his friend Carlos is what the officer sees, and the book then alternates between chapters headed Dead and Alive to tell both halves of Jerome's story.

Which Ghost-type Pokémon, the final evolution of Gastly, is reached by trading a Haunter with another player?

Gengar tops a three-stage line from Pokémon Red and Blue; Haunter only evolves when traded, though Pokémon Legends: Arceus later let an item do the job.

In Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, what part of Hogwarts does the ghost Moaning Myrtle haunt?

A bathroom is where Myrtle sulks in her stall, and where Harry and Ron later discover the hidden entrance to the Chamber itself.

Which network aired Danny Phantom, about a teenager turned half-ghost by his parents' portal?

Nickelodeon asked creator Butch Hartman for a new idea while The Fairly OddParents was a hit, and he came back with a 14-year-old guarding Amity Park from the Ghost Zone.

Which actress played Melinda Gordon, who helps earthbound spirits cross over, in the CBS drama Ghost Whisperer?

Jennifer Love Hewitt was also a producer on the drama, which ran for five seasons with Melinda keeping an antique store between hauntings.

During the Chinese Ghost Festival, families send money and goods to dead ancestors by burning what?

Joss paper comes as hell bank notes and models of clothes and gold; at the festival's outdoor stage shows, the front row of seats is left empty for the ghosts.

Which Japanese festival welcomes ancestors' spirits home with a communal dance and lanterns floated down rivers?

Obon has been kept for more than 500 years; families go back to clean the graves, and the dance recalls a disciple's joy at freeing his dead mother from suffering.

Which Gaelic festival for the dead, held as winter began, helped shape modern Halloween?

Samhain was when the doorways to the Otherworld were said to open; people went door to door in costume, perhaps to disguise themselves from the spirits, and lit protective bonfires.

What German loanword names a ghostly twin of a living person, usually seen as a harbinger of bad luck?

Doppelgänger means double-walker and was coined in 1796 by the novelist Jean Paul, who had to explain his new word to readers in a footnote.

In Jewish folklore, what name is given to a dead person's dislocated soul that possesses a living body?

Dybbuk comes from a Hebrew verb meaning to cling, and S. An-sky's 1920 play The Dybbuk carried the idea out of folk belief and into literary circles.

Which king of Israel went in disguise to the Witch of Endor to have a dead prophet's spirit raised?

Saul wanted advice before fighting the Philistines; what rose instead foretold his doom, and the next day his army was beaten and he fell on his own sword.

Settlers' fears about the Ghost Dance, a rite meant to reunite the living and the dead, fed into which 1890 massacre?

Wounded Knee, in South Dakota, saw as many as 300 Lakota killed by US troops, many of them women and children, after the Paiute prophet Wovoka's teaching had spread to the reservations.

In the Icelandic sagas, what name is given to an undead guardian of the treasure buried in its own grave?

Draugr are walking corpses more than misty spirits, and they found a second life as the tomb-dwelling enemies of the games Skyrim and God of War.

In English folklore, Black Shuck is a ghostly what, said to roam the coast and countryside of East Anglia?

A dog, huge and black, is the shape he takes; in August 1577 Black Shuck is said to have burst through the doors of a Suffolk church to a clap of thunder.

Which California gold-mining ghost town is kept as a state park in a condition called 'arrested decay'?

Bodie boomed to roughly 8,000 people by 1879 after a rich vein was struck, was being called a ghost town by 1915, and became a state historic park in 1962.

Vic Tandy traced the grey 'ghost' in his Warwick laboratory to what, coming from a new extractor fan?

Infrasound left Tandy anxious and glimpsing a grey blob at the edge of his vision; the psychologist Wiseman has also suggested it lies behind odd sensations at haunted sites.

Which gas has been blamed since the 1920s for the hallucinations behind some haunted-house reports?

Carbon monoxide poisoning can alter what people see and hear, and toxicologist Albert Donnay argues that chronic exposure causes the kind of visions reported in hauntings.

Ghost hunters' theory of 'residual haunting' is better known by the title of which 1972 BBC play?

The Stone Tape, by Quatermass creator Nigel Kneale, has scientists test whether a haunted room's stones are replaying a past event like a recording; the theory has gone by its title ever since.

Which writer sat on the 1762 committee that judged London's Cock Lane ghost, 'Scratching Fanny', a fraud?

Samuel Johnson was the committee's best-known name and wrote up its séance of 1 February 1762, held while crowds of onlookers made Cock Lane impassable.

The Brown Lady, a 1936 ghost photograph published in Country Life magazine, was taken at which Norfolk country house?

Raynham Hall's Brown Lady is said to be Dorothy Walpole, sister of Britain's first prime minister; the sceptic Joe Nickell found signs of double exposure in the picture.

Which British prime minister is said to have met Lincoln's ghost at the White House after stepping out of a bath?

Winston Churchill is one of several well-known guests said to have seen the dead president there; Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands reportedly fainted at the sight in 1942.

Gilbert Ryle coined the phrase 'the ghost in the machine' to mock which philosopher's view of mind and body?

René Descartes held that an immaterial mind inhabits and steers a mechanical body; Ryle called that picture a myth in his 1949 book The Concept of Mind.

Which 'ghost word', created by an editing error, appeared in Webster's 1934 dictionary as a synonym for density?

Dord began as a chemistry editor's slip reading 'D or d', meant to add density to the things the letter can abbreviate; an editor caught it in 1939 because it had no etymology.

In Hawaiian legend, what should a person do to be spared when the ghostly warriors called Nightmarchers pass by?

Lie face down and motionless, the legend says, as a show of respect; the dead warriors announce themselves with war drums, conch shells and torches that grow brighter as they come.

In the Japanese ghost story of Okiku, the murdered servant's spirit haunts a well, endlessly counting what?

Plates were in her care, and one of a precious set of ten went missing; her ghost counts to nine and then shrieks, and a well at Himeji Castle bears her name.