(Image: Rather than bring you yet another Halloween article, we thought it would be fun to offer a whole selection of spooky tales drawn from the Urban Ghosts archives. From past All Hallows Eve posts to ingenious Jack O’Lantern carvings, “dead body trains” and urban legends of the supernatural world, not all of these articles relate to Halloween but they’re guaranteed to conjure enough spooky energy to bring October 31st to life. Happy Halloween!
(Images: Ray Villafane, reproduced with permission)
Reinventing Post Halloween Jack O’Lanterns by Ray Villafane – Last year’s popular All Hallows offering, artist Ray Villafane specialises in turning unwanted Halloween pumpkins into incredible and imaginative works of art. And with the dark night yet ahead of us, what more inspiration could you need to transform your as-yet uncarved Jack O’Lantern into something truly creepy and spectacular?
(Images: jtriefen, cc-3.0; The Langham, London, CC-SA-3.0; Florian Boyd, cc-sa-3.0)
7 Creepy Hotels to Ensure a Happy Haunted Halloween – Another 2010 Halloween article, here we explore seven of the world’s most reputedly haunted hotels, from Romania’s Bran Castle to The Shining’s Stanley Hotel, the RMS Queen Mary passenger liner, moored at Long Beach, and more.
(Image: Derek Bridges, cc-3.0)
3 of America’s Most Haunted Places – This article from October 2009 explores three of America’s most haunted places. Venues include the notorious Waverly Hills Sanatorium in Kentucky, with its infamous body chute and no shortage of ghost hunter attention, as well as West Virginia Penitentiary and Saint Louis Cemetery in New Orleans, steeped in local Voodoo legend and ghostly activity.
(Images: Rana X, cc-nc-nd-3.0; F.W. Murnau, public domain; Youtube via GrinningManPictures; Penny Dreadful Paper 1838, public domain)
5 Eerie Urban Legends of the Supernatural World – Paranormal activity or pure urban legend? You be the judge as you learn about the enigmatic Victorian prankster Spring Heeled Jack, the bizarre case of the Highgate Vampire, the mysterious Eve of Saint Mark, ghastly doppelgangers and the bone chilling mirror-myth of Bloody Mary.
(Images: Qilinmon, CC-SA-3.0; NOAA, public domain; Ian Carroll, CC-2.0; James, cc-2.0)
5 Eerie Urban Legends of the Natural World – Perhaps not as bone chilling as their purely “supernatural” counterparts, these urban legends of the natural world are nevertheless decidedly creepy – some of them tied up in the myth of the spectral black dog that inspired Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Hound of the Baskervilles. Click to learn about Britain’s mysterious big cats, the albatross legend, alligators in the New York City sewers and the ghostly Longdendale Lights.
(Images: Olga Pavlovsky, cc-3.0)
6 Creepy Abandoned Hospitals and Insane Asylums – Derelict hospitals are creepy, but could an abandoned building be more terrifying than a crumbling insane asylum? Let us know what you think after you explore these six spooky examples from across the world.
(Image: Anthony Woodman, cc-nc-3.0)
Spooky London Legend: Whitechapel’s Dead Body Train – Yesterday’s article examined the case of the rumoured “Dead Body Train” that was said to run between Whitechapel Tube station and the nearby Royal London Hospital, carrying nothing but dead passengers. Whether the story is true or an urban legend is unclear, but several witnesses have confirmed a bricked-up tunnel at Whitechapel station allegedly leading to the Royal London…
