25 Most Haunted Places in the World
The atlas's definitive ranking — the places whose canon runs deepest, graded by the strength of their legend, the weight of their archive and the honesty of their skeptic file.
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.…
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.…
Tower of London
S · London, United Kingdom — 1,000 years of executions, torture and royal prisoners inside England's most famous fortress.…
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.…
Raynham Hall — Home of the Brown Lady
S · Raynham, Norfolk, United Kingdom — The most famous ghost photograph ever taken was captured here — the Brown Lady of Raynham Hall.…
Treasurer's House, York — The Roman Legion
S · York, England, United Kingdom — In 1953 an apprentice plumber watched a Roman legion march out of a wall — below the level of the floor.…
Poveglia Island — The Plague Island of Venice
S · Venice Lagoon, Italy — A fenced-off plague island with an abandoned asylum — Venice forbids landing, and the internet insists 100,000 bodies lie under the soil.…
Rose Hall — The White Witch of Jamaica
S · Montego Bay, Jamaica — A Georgian great house above Montego Bay, home of the 'White Witch' — the Caribbean's most famous murderess, who may never have existed.…
Bran Castle — Dracula's Castle
S · Bran, Transylvania, Romania — The mountain castle the world calls Dracula's — though Bram Stoker never saw it, and Vlad the Impaler may never have either.…
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.…
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.…