59 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.

According to a 2005 Gallup poll, roughly what share of Americans said they believe in ghosts?

About 32 percent of Americans told Gallup in June 2005 that they believed in ghosts, while 37 percent said houses could be haunted; three in four held at least one paranormal belief.

Which Roman writer recorded the haunted-house story of the philosopher Athenodorus in Athens?

Pliny the Younger told it in a letter to Sura: a chained ghost led Athenodorus to a spot in the garden where a shackled skeleton was dug up and given proper burial.

In Macbeth, whose ghost appears at the banquet, visible only to Macbeth?

Banquo, murdered on Macbeth's orders, takes the king's seat at the feast in Act 3; only Macbeth sees him, and Lady Macbeth hurries the guests out.

What does the German word poltergeist literally mean?

Noisy or rumbling ghost: German 'poltern' means to rumble or clatter and 'Geist' means spirit, fitting the tradition of knocks, thrown objects and moved furniture blamed on them.

Which 1990 film about a murdered man who returns as a spirit was the highest-grossing movie of that year?

Ghost, starring Patrick Swayze and Demi Moore, took about $505 million worldwide on a budget near $22 million, beating Home Alone and Pretty Woman to the year's top spot.

Who won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for playing the con-artist medium Oda Mae Brown?

Whoopi Goldberg took the 1991 Academy Award for Oda Mae Brown, the first Black actress to win an Oscar since Hattie McDaniel in 1940; Bruce Joel Rubin won for the screenplay.

A Christmas Carol was first published in London in which year?

1843: Chapman and Hall published it on 19 December 1843, and the first run of 6,000 copies sold out by Christmas Eve.

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

Heavy chains and cash boxes: Marley's chain is forged from cash-boxes, keys, padlocks, ledgers and steel purses, and he warns Scrooge that three spirits will follow.

How many years before the story opens did Marley die?

Seven: Marley died on Christmas Eve seven years before the tale begins, and Scrooge, his sole mourner, has never painted out his partner's name on the firm's sign.

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

The Sixth Sense: Haley Joel Osment's Cole whispers it to Bruce Willis's Malcolm Crowe; M. Night Shyamalan's film was 1999's second-biggest US hit, behind The Phantom Menace.

How many Academy Award nominations did Shyamalan's 1999 ghost film receive?

They included Best Picture and nods for Haley Joel Osment and Toni Collette; it grossed over $672 million.

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

Paramount's Famous Studios released the first short, The Friendly Ghost, in 1945 and kept Casper on cinema screens in dozens of cartoons through 1959.

What distinction did Casper achieve in his 1995 live-action film?

First computer-generated character to star in a movie: the 1995 Amblin feature was the first with a fully computer-animated lead, acting alongside Christina Ricci and Bill Pullman; ILM built the ghosts.

Which house in Essex did psychic researcher 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 concluded Price had exaggerated or faked much of the evidence.

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

Her head under her arm: Boleyn was beheaded on Tower Green in 1536 and buried in the Tower's chapel of St Peter ad Vincula, where her headless ghost is also said to walk.

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

Richard Wagner's The Flying Dutchman premiered in Dresden in the early 1840s; he said a stormy North Sea crossing in 1839 inspired it, and Senta's devotion breaks the captain's curse.

Which future British king recorded a sighting of the Flying Dutchman as a young naval cadet?

George V, then Prince George, was a 16-year-old midshipman on HMS Bacchante when the 1881 log recorded a glowing phantom ship off Australia's east coast; the lookout who saw it fell to his death soon after.

In Hamlet, who first witnesses the ghost of the dead king on the battlements?

Horatio and two sentries, Marcellus and Bernardo, watch the armoured ghost on the Elsinore battlements in the opening scene, then fetch Hamlet, who hears from it that Claudius murdered him.

Henry James's ghost novella The Turn of the Screw was first serialised in which magazine in 1898?

Collier's Weekly ran it in twelve weekly instalments from January to April 1898, before it appeared in book form that October in the volume The Two Magics.

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

Woman of the fairy mound: Irish 'bean' means woman and 'sí' the fairy mounds of the otherworld; her wail or keening foretells a death, and she is often pictured combing long hair.

What is the Latin name for the will-o'-the-wisp, the ghost light seen over bogs?

Ignis fatuus, 'foolish flame', is the Medieval Latin name; the lights are usually blamed on marsh gas, and British folk names include jack-o'-lantern, friar's lantern and hinkypunk.

What is the Chasse-galerie of Quebec folklore?

A haunted flying canoe: in Honoré Beaugrand's 1892 telling, lumberjacks sell their souls so the devil will fly their canoe home for a New Year's Eve dance; Chile's Caleuche is a ghost-ship cousin.

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 many days did the Lutz family last in the Amityville house before fleeing?

28: George and Kathy Lutz moved into 112 Ocean Avenue on 18 December 1975 and left on 14 January 1976; Jay Anson's 1977 book The Amityville Horror told their story.

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

Charles Dickens: the illusion first wowed London in December 1862 in a Royal Polytechnic Institution staging of his 1848 story The Haunted Man, with Henry Dircks's design refined by John Henry Pepper.

Which Disneyland attraction uses Pepper's ghost for its ballroom of dancing spirits?

The Haunted Mansion's Grand Hall seats waltzing ghosts produced by Pepper's ghost: Audio-Animatronic figures below and above the riders are reflected in a huge pane of glass.

The Ouija board was named in 1890 in which US city?

Baltimore: the Kennard Novelty Company named the board there in 1890, medium Helen Peters supposedly asking the board itself, which spelled out 'Ouija'; Elijah Bond's patent followed in 1891.

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

A planchette, French for 'little plank', is the heart-shaped pointer on felt-tipped legs or a glass window; the word was used for automatic-writing devices before Ouija boards existed.

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 'speaks' only what they expect; Michael Faraday showed the same mechanism behind table-turning in 1853.

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.

What does the ghost-hunting acronym EMF stand for?

Skeptics note EMF meters are set off by wiring, microwave towers and phones, and were never designed to detect ghosts.

Which two TV series are credited with popularising paranormal investigation in the 2000s?

Most Haunted and Ghost Hunters: Yvette Fielding's Most Haunted began on Britain's Living TV in 2002, and Ghost Hunters, following TAPS plumbers Jason Hawes and Grant Wilson, launched on Sci Fi in 2004.

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.

The 1977 Enfield poltergeist case was judged by two leading psychical researchers to be what?

The claimants playing tricks on investigators: SPR members Anita Gregory and John Beloff visited and concluded the Hodgson girls were faking much of it; Janet later admitted some tricks on television.

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

Necromancy, from Greek 'nekros' (corpse) and 'manteia' (divination), names the practice; the Witch of Endor summoning the dead prophet Samuel for King Saul is its best-known biblical example.

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

A plane of existence one can be reborn into: the preta realm is one of the realms of samsara, where beings with huge bellies and needle-thin throats suffer endless hunger; East Asian Ghost Festivals feed them.

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

Hampton Court's Haunted Gallery is where Catherine Howard, Henry VIII's fifth wife, reportedly ran screaming to plead with the king in 1541 before her arrest; visitors claim to hear her shrieks.

The Amityville house was the scene of what real crime in November 1974?

A son shot and killed six family members: Ronald DeFeo Jr., 23, murdered his parents and four siblings in their beds at 112 Ocean Avenue; he was convicted in 1975 and died in prison in 2021.

Which publisher began putting out Casper comic books in 1952?

Harvey Comics took over Casper in 1952 from St. John Publications and bought the character outright in 1959, making him a flagship alongside Wendy the Good Little Witch and Spooky.

How long did Dickens take to write A Christmas Carol?

Six weeks: Dickens began in October and finished in late November, in time for publication on 19 December; he paced London's streets at night as he composed it.

In the 1990 film starring Patrick Swayze and Demi Moore, what is Sam Wheat's job?

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, seemed to perform beside Snoop Dogg at Coachella in April 2012; a CGI figure was projected onto an angled film, the Pepper's ghost principle updated.

In which year did Martin V. Ingram publish the first full-length record of the Bell family haunting?

1894: M. V. Ingram's An Authenticated History of the Famous Bell Witch drew on a diary attributed to Richard Williams Bell; skeptics regard the book as historical fiction rather than a record.

Who directed the 1984 comedy Ghostbusters?

Ivan Reitman directed Ghostbusters from a script by its stars Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis; Bill Murray's Peter Venkman led the team, and the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man finished it.

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

Gryffindor's ghost, Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington, was botched by a blunt axe in 1492 and hosts his 500th Deathday party in Chamber of Secrets.

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 plays the bio-exorcist summoned by the Maitlands, with Winona Ryder as goth daughter Lydia; Burton's 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 Japan's restless dead, drawn with long black hair, white burial robes and no feet; the image shaped Sadako in Ringu (1998) and Kayako in Ju-On.

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

Paranormal Activity was shot by Oren Peli in his own San Diego house for about $15,000; Paramount's 2009 wide release grossed more than $190 million worldwide.

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

The Others, written and directed by Alejandro Amenábar, won eight Goya Awards including Best Film; Kidman's Grace keeps the curtains drawn for her photosensitive children in 1945 Jersey.

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

Lemuria, held on 9, 11 and 13 May, had the head of the household walk barefoot at midnight throwing black beans over his shoulder to buy off the lemures, as Ovid describes in the Fasti.

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, investigated the Perron farmhouse case behind The Conjuring (2013) and the Enfield poltergeist behind its 2016 sequel.

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 which Gospel passage does the risen Jesus have to convince the disciples he is not a ghost?

Luke 24: the risen Jesus says 'a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have' and eats broiled fish to prove it; Plautus and Lucian also wrote haunted-house tales.

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

Allan Kardec, a name Rivail said came from a past life as a Druid, published The Spirits' Book in 1857, the first of the five; the codification became the basis of Spiritism.

Which country has the largest number and proportion of Spiritism's followers?

Brazil counted about 3.8 million self-declared Spiritists in its 2010 census, far more than any other country; the movement arrived there in the 1860s and spread through charitable centres.