10 Most Famous Ghosts That Might Actually Be Real

The Brown Lady is said to be the spirit of Lady Dorothy Walpole. She died in Raynham Hall in 1726 and the first to see her ghost was Lucia Stone.

She was named the Brown Lady after a brown gown made of brocade her spirit is reported to wear. Raynham Hall is located in Norfolk, England, and her spirit allegedly still haunts the building.

The first to take a picture of her was photographers who worked for Country Life magazine in 1936. She died due to smallpox, but her fate still remains unclear. One story claims her husband kept her locked up in one room of the Hall for not being faithful to him, while another states that the wife of the Lord she had an affair with was the one who trapped her inside the building.

Several spirits of old US Presidents are alleged to frequent the White House, but the one who appears most often is the spirit Abraham Lincoln, which was thus nicknamed The White House Ghost.

The spirit was seen ever since Lincoln’s assassination in 1865. Many officials have claimed that they have heard footsteps, strange sounds and knocking near the Lincoln Bedroom. One of the most notable sightings happened when Wilhelmina, the Queen of the Netherlands, visited the White House in 1942.

She heard knocking on her door at night, only to open it and see the ghost of Abe Lincoln staring at her. She immediately passed out. One photo captured by William Mumler allegedly portrays Lincoln’s spouse, Mary Todd Lincoln together with his spirit.

Back in 1536, Henry VIII had his wife Ann Boleyn executed for treason. Ever since then, her spirit is said to visit the chapel where she was buried but was also seen many times in the Tower of London.

But, her spirit is not the only one to visit the Tower. Allegedly, the spirits of Lady Jane Grey, Henry VI, and Margaret Pole are reported to haunt the building. In 1816, one guard reported a sighting and died several days after, reportedly of fright.

Joe Bush’s spirit is notorious for haunting Sumpter Valley Gold Dredge that is located in Oregon. According to the employees, the spirit seems to leave his footprints and make the lights and doors behave strangely.

As one worker explained, Joe Bush was a mechanic who died in an accident in 1918, although the official records show no employee under such a name. As Bush died a terrible death caused by mining machines, his spirit is alleged to appear around them.

Manual Bookbinder, nicknamed Old Book, was a patient at Peoria State Hospital located in Bartonville, Illinois.

Old Book was employed as a gravedigger who used to weep under an elm tree every time after a patient’s burial was completed. When Old Book himself died, all patients and hospital staff that attended the burial experienced a strange phenomenon.

Namely, around 100 attendees claimed they all heard someone weeping while they were lowering Old Book’s coffin, only to turn around and see Old Book standing under the elm tree. The coffin was unusually light as if nothing was inside, and when a doctor decided to open it, everyone saw Old Book’s body inside, but the mysterious crying had stopped.

A while afterward, the tree started to deteriorate, but could not be removed. Every time someone tried to cut it down, they heard weeping. Strangely, the tree was struck by lightning one day.

5The Bell Witch

The Bell Witch is alleged to haunt the residents of the Bell family from Adams, Tennessee, who lived close to the Red River. Between 1817-1821, the Bell family, as well other locals in the area, were tormented by an eerie creature later depicted as a spirit of a witch. The being could talk, change its shape and make the environment behave strangely. It could even appear at different places at the same time and move at super speeds.

4Chicago’s Most Famous Apparition

Resurrection Mary is perhaps the most famous spirit that frequents the area of Chicago, Illinois. Several drivers claimed to have picked up a formally dressed hitchhiker in the vicinity of Resurrection Cemetery.

The hitchhiker was a blue-eyed young woman adorned in a white gown and a pair of dancing shoes; she was also said to have a shawl on and a purse in her hands.

Whenever a driver approached the Cemetery, the girl would ask them to pull over and so that she could leave the car. She would mysteriously vanish the moment she exited the car. It is believed that Mary was going to a party when she was hit and killed by a car that drove off.

Her parents were the ones to find her and then arranged her burial in Resurrection Cemetery. The records say she was buried in the same clothes that her ghost is often seen wearing. Since the 1930s, more than 30 encounters with Ressurection Mary were reported.

3Berini Family

Back in 1979, the Berini Family from New England was frequented by the spirit of a young girl. She introduced herself as Serena. Both Rose and Joe Berini were quite befuddled as they did not know anyone under such a name. However, Serena’s visit could have had something to do with Daisy, Rose’s daughter, who almost passed away a few days later after a tonsil removal surgery.

After that, the family was haunted by spirits of children many times, including one time when Rose levitated above her bed. Exorcisms were performed on her twice, and the spirits eventually vanished.

2Ghost of Kate Morgan

One day in 1892, a beautiful young lady named Kate Morgan entered a hotel in Coronado, California to check in but didn’t give her real name. Sadly, after five days, the people from the hotel found her dead body. The coroner in San Diego concluded that she had committed suicide.

Years after the sinister event, her ghost is said to frequent the hotel, particularly the room she had resided in. Those who reported sightings of Kate’s ghost claim that she is not evil nor malicious; the only signs of her presence are breezes, ghostly pranks, and malfunctioning electronics.

1Winchester Mystery House

William Winchester was believed to be frequented by spirits of all people murdered by Winchester guns. When William and his newborn child died, his widow Sara inherited his massive wealth.

She was told by a psychic that the two deaths were the revenge of the ghosts of all people shot by Winchester guns. She was told that the only way to please and contain them was to move West and construct a house.

Sara headed to San Jose, California where she started to construct a mansion now referred to as the Winchester Mystery House. It included 160 rooms, 6 kitchens and 13 bathrooms, along with 2,000 thousand doors, 47 fireplaces, and 47 staircases. It almost 4 decades to complete and it was purposely built to keep the spirits inside.

Various secret rooms, staircases, stairways were built to confuse the ghosts. Many visitors of the home experienced strange occurrences like the loss of vision, cold spots, and moving objects. The Winchester Mystery House is said to be one of the most haunted buildings in the world.