Top 10 Most Haunted Places in America
Things that go bump in the night: they thrill us, chill us, and pique our curiosity. If stories are to be believed, America is teeming with ghosts. Here are the top 10 places tales tell us are as haunted as they come.
10. Villisca Ax Murder House
In a remote part of Iowa lies the Villisca Ax Murder House, where the well respected J.B. Moore family and two overnight guests were brutally murdered in the night in 1912. The murders were never solved. In 1994 the house was fully restored to its 1912 condition and soon opened up for overnight visitors. Those who’ve stayed have reported disembodied voices of children, banging, moving objects, and mysterious audio, video, and photographs support the claims of a haunting.
9. Alcatraz
Known as “The Rock”, Alcatraz is one of the most famous prisons in the world. No longer operational but open to tours, Alcatraz lies in the frigid waters off San Francisco. Alcatraz housed some of history’s most infamous criminals. Now it houses some of America’s spookiest ghosts. The sounds of men running, clanging on bars, men’s voices, and screaming, along with temperature drops and apparitions have terrorized security guards in the dead (no pun intended…) of night.
8. Bobby Mackey’s Music World
Just across the river from Cinncinati is Wilder, Kentucky, where Bobby Mackey’s Music World nightclub serves up music and a dose of supersition. Once a large packing house, all that remains of the original slaughterhouse building is a well where the blood and refuse of slain animals was drained. The site was said to be a favorite of occultists who performed dark rituals there. A local girl was brutally decapitated and dismembered near the slaughterhouse in 1896; her missing head was rumored to have been thrown down the well. Demonic possession, strange sounds, feelings of oppression, and other thoroughly unpleasant symptoms of a serious haunting have all been reported at the nightclub.
7. Waverly Hills Sanatorium
The setting for scary movies as well as home to a few real life scares for its visitors, Waverly Hills Sanatorium in Louisville, Kentucky has been the subject of many high profile ghost hunts including several visits by Syfy channel’s Ghost Hunters team, The Atlantic Paranormal Society. The sanatorium offered treatment for tuberculosis during the worst of the outbreaks in the 1800s and early 1900s. Some left alive, but may others traveled down the “body chute”, a basement mechanism for disposing of the countless dead. Moving objects, footsteps, shadowy figures, and voices are just some of the activity that’s been reported at the place.
6. Bell Witch Cave
When “Kate”, a local “witch”, literally haunted to death her neighbor by tormenting him and his family until he died, the Bell Witch case took on life of its own. The strange story, set in Tennessee, began in 1817 and continues to this day. The Bell family fell victim to the haunting after a bad deal over some slaves with neighbor Kate Batts. Nowadays a nearby cave, believed to have been used by the Bell family for storage, and where the Bell children reportedly had encounters with the witch, is open to the public. Theory has it that when the Bell Witch stopped torturing the Bells in 1821, she fled to the cave. Some of the reports of hauntings in the cave include physical attacks made by the witch against visitors.
5. Myrtles Plantation
Considered by many to be the most haunted place in America, the Myrtles plantation is reported to be home to many potent ghosts. And for as many ghosts as may be wandering there, there’s an urban legend to match each one – most of which, despite being passed down as canon, are flat out make believe. But these legends only serve to heighten the mystique and atmosphere of the gorgeous old plantation, located in Louisiana. Disappearing objects, inexplicable hand prints on mirrors, phantom footsteps, and strange smells join the host of stories of misfortune at Myrtles including poisoning, hanging, and murder, to give it a well deserved reputation as a very weird place.
4. Winchester Mystery House
Built by Sarah Winchester near San Jose, California with the Winchester gunsmithing fortune in the 19th century, the Mystery House’s very existence was driven by ghosts. Frightened that she would die at the hands of the spirits of those killed by Winchester guns unless she kept building her mansion indefinitely, Sarah Winchester planned nonsensical and eccentric additions right up until her death. The end result is a crazy house with stairs that go nowhere and rooms that are unusable, and many architectural elements that make it seem more of a carnival attraction than a home. As if the fact that the house was built on ghost stories isn’t enough, ghostly activity within the house has been reported by visitors who’ve toured the place.
3. The White House
Easily the most recognizable house in America, the White House, residence and office of the President of the United States, is notoriously haunted by the spirit of slain president Abraham Lincoln – or so the stories go. It’s also reputedly haunted by the spirit of a British soldier, one of many who torched much of Washington’s most critical buildings during the War of 1812. Another tale recounts the apparition of Dolley Madison during the Wilson Administration, when Mrs. Madison appeared to warn workers against disturbing the garden. And Andrew Jackson’s ghost is believed to haunt his bedroom in the White House. Famous political spirits abound in this house!
2. The Borden House
Lizzie Borden took an axe and gave her father forty whacks. You know how the rhyme goes. This very real, very disturbing ax murder case ended in Lizzie Bordern’s acquittal, though history will always tar her with the crimes against her father and step-mother. Now a Bed & Breakfast in Fall River, Massachusetts, a phantom cat walking over people, strange noises, and ghostly sightings have all been claimed.
1. Gettysburg Battlefield
One of the largest and most revered Civil War battlefields, and the site of one of the most grueling battles of the war, Gettysburg in Pennsylvania is the final resting place of thousands of dead soldiers. Entire companies of ghostly Civil War soldiers have been seen roaming the woods around the battlefield. The sightings are the most dramatic evidence of haunting, though buildings throughout the battlegrounds are home to ghostly footsteps, strange noises, voices, and many other typical symptoms of paranormal activity.
