Halloween: 31 Places for 31 Days
One haunted place for every day of October — the atlas's Halloween calendar.
LaLaurie Mansion
S · New Orleans, LA, United States — New Orleans' darkest address: an 1834 fire exposed the attic of Madame LaLaurie — the city's most documented case of cruelty, and its most consistently reported apparitions.…
Salem Witch Trials sites
S · Salem, MA, United States — The 1692 trials: 20 executions and a town permanently haunted by its own past — Gallows Hill, the Witch House, and the Old Burying Point.…
Eastern State Penitentiary
S · Philadelphia, PA, United States — The world's first penitentiary (1829). Solitary confinement was designed to inspire repentance; visitors and guards still report shadowy figures in Cellblock 12.…
The Stanley Hotel
S · Estes Park, CO, United States — The mountain resort that gave Stephen King The Shining. Guests report ghostly children in the halls and music from an unoccupied ballroom.…
Waverly Hills Sanatorium
A · Louisville, KY, United States — The Louisville tuberculosis sanatorium where thousands died before antibiotics. Room 502 and the 'body chute' are staples of paranormal television.…
Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum
A · Weston, WV, United States — A Gothic asylum built for 250 patients that held 2,400. The ghost of a little girl named Lily is its most famous resident.…
Lizzie Borden House
A · Fall River, MA, United States — 1892: Andrew and Abby Borden were axed to death; Lizzie was acquitted and no one else was ever tried. The house now takes overnight guests.…
Villisca Axe Murder House
A · Villisca, IA, United States — June 1912, Iowa: eight people murdered in their sleep. The crime was never solved; the house is preserved close to how it was found.…
RMS Queen Mary
A · Long Beach, CA, United States — The 1936 ocean liner, now a hotel, with dozens of recorded deaths aboard. The engine room and the former third-class pool area are its most active spots.…
Winchester Mystery House
A · San Jose, CA, United States — Sarah Winchester built continuously for 38 years — staircases into ceilings, doors into walls — reportedly to appease spirits of those killed by Winchester rifles.…
St. Augustine Lighthouse
A · St. Augustine, FL, United States — Florida's 1874 lighthouse: two sisters drowned here in 1873 and a keeper fell to his death — all three are still reported by visitors and staff.…
Gettysburg Battlefield
S · Gettysburg, PA, United States — Three days in July 1863 left more than 50,000 casualties. Devil's Den and Pickett's Charge are among the most consistently reported apparition sites in America.…
The Myrtles Plantation
A · St. Francisville, LA, United States — A 1796 plantation called 'one of America's most haunted homes': the legend of Chloe and a mirror said to hold handprints.…
Old Charleston Jail
A · Charleston, SC, United States — Operated 1802–1939: pirates, deserters, and Lavinia Fisher — often called America's first female serial killer — were held and hanged here.…
Robert the Doll (Fort East Martello)
A · Key West, FL, United States — Key West's most famous cursed object: a century-old doll in Fort East Martello — letters of apology from visitors who photographed it line the walls.…
Alcatraz Island
A · San Francisco, CA, United States — The island prison, 1934–1963: the 1946 battle, the isolation of Cellblock D, and the utility corridor that sealed the escapees' fate.…
Ohio State Reformatory
A · Mansfield, OH, United States — Mansfield's 1886 prison, filmed as The Shawshank Redemption: the solitary hole and the warden's quarters anchor its reports.…
West Virginia Penitentiary
A · Moundsville, WV, United States — Moundsville's 1876 Gothic fortress: riots, executions, and the shadow-filled recreation hall inmates called the Sugar Shack.…
1886 Crescent Hotel
A · Eureka Springs, AR, United States — Eureka Springs' 1886 hotel, later a fake cancer hospital run by 'Dr.' Norman Baker — the morgue is now a tour stop.…
Devil's Den
A · Gettysburg, PA, United States — Gettysburg's boulder field, a snipers' nest in 1863: camera failures and phantom soldiers reported by visitors for decades.…
Lemp Mansion
A · St. Louis, MO, United States — St. Louis' brewing dynasty undone by four suicides — the mansion is now an inn with a child spirit said to play pranks.…
Fort Mifflin
A · Philadelphia, PA, United States — The 1771 mud fort that held the line for Washington: casemate reports of a screaming woman and an officer seen on the walls.…
Tower of London
S · London, United Kingdom — 1,000 years of executions, torture and royal prisoners inside England's most famous fortress.…
Highgate Cemetery
A · London, United Kingdom — Victorian necropolis of crooked tombs where a 'Vampire' panic gripped London in the 1970s.…
Borley Rectory
A · Borley, Essex, United Kingdom — 'The most haunted house in England' — burned down in 1939, its legend only grew.…
Pluckley — The Drowning Man's Village
A · Pluckley, Kent, United Kingdom — Listed in a 1989 Guinness Book of Records edition as England's most haunted village — home to 12-plus resident ghosts.…
The Ancient Ram Inn
A · Wotton-under-Edge, Gloucestershire, United Kingdom — A 12th-century coaching inn claimed to sit on a pagan burial ground — alleged child sacrifices, a witch, and a portal.…
Pendle Hill — Witch Country
A · Lancashire, United Kingdom — In 1612 ten 'witches' were hanged after England's most famous witch trial — their ghosts still draw hunters each Halloween.…
Port Arthur Historic Site
A · Tasmania, Australia — A convict hell-hole for 12,000 prisoners — Australia's most active paranormal site, with more than 1,800 documented grave-sites.…
Edinburgh Castle & the Vaults
S · Edinburgh, Scotland, United Kingdom — A fortress on volcanic rock above haunted underground vaults — home to the best-controlled ghost experiment ever run.…
Leap Castle
A · County Offaly, Ireland — Ireland's most feared castle — an 'Elemental' spirit guards an oubliette stuffed with human bones.…