Top 10 Places to Fear on Halloween Night

Halloween is one of the creepiest times of the year.  The holiday was molded from ancient Celtic practices, religious rituals, and European folk traditions.  Halloween is a time for celebration, candy, and ghostly superstition.  The day has long been thought of a time when the dead come alive and watch over the land.  These spirits will gather at haunted locations and wander the corners of Earth. The energy surrounding ghosts is said to increase tenfold on Halloween day.  The ancient Celtic people would light bonfires and wear consumes to ward off the roaming spirits.  In the history of modern man, certain patches of land have witnessed horrifying events of mass murder and carnage.  These locations are said to house certain disturbing and ritualistic ghosts.  This article will be discussing ten haunted places around the world.  Places that might be stricken with an unexplained ghostly phenomenon this upcoming Halloween.

10. Camp Scott

Camp Scott is a 410-acre (1.7 km2) compound that is located in the US state of Oklahoma.  The former Girl Scout camp is situated along the Snake and Spring Creeks near State Highway 82, in Mayes County.  In 1977, Camp Scott entered its 49th year as a keystone in the Girls Scouts of America program.  The annual summer camp began on June 12, 1977.  Around 6pm on the first day of camp, a large thunder storm struck the area.  This caused the dozens of campers to huddle inside their tents for the entire evening.  Inside of tent #8 in the Kiowa unit, housed three small girls named Lori Lee Farmer, 8, Doris Denise Milner, 10, and Michele Guse, 9.  What happened next cannot be adequately described.  The following morning, a camp counselor discovered the lifeless bodies of all three girls.  They had been raped, bludgeoned, and murdered.  The victim’s bodies were scattered over the surrounding forest land.  The event remains one of the worst mass murders in the history of Oklahoma.

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In the weeks before the murders, strange events took place around Camp Scott.  Personal items began disappearing from the cabins and tents.  In one incident, a counselor reported that her doughnuts had been stolen, and inside the empty doughnut box was a disturbing hand-written note.  The author vowed to “murder three campers in tent 1.”  Because summer camps are rife with ghost stories, the note was treated as a prank and discarded.  After the murders, Oklahoma police launched one of the largest manhunts in US history.  Detectives ultimately focused their attention on a man named Gene Leroy Hart, who had been free since escaping from the Mayes County Jail four years earlier.  He had previously been convicted of raping two pregnant women.  Hart was arrested and tried for the crimes, but was ultimately acquitted of the killings in 1979.  Later that year he died of a heart attack while in prison.

During the publicized trial, the camp underwent many accusations, stemming from the fact that the girl’s tent was 86-yard (79 m) from any counselors.  Other campers reported that they witnessed a man peeking in their tents on the evening of the murders.  The day following the incident, Camp Scott was closed forever.  To date, the Oklahoma Girl Scout Murders remain unsolved and DNA testing has returned inconclusive results.  However, something is said to remain on the grounds of Camp Scott.  It has been claimed that when a heavy rain falls, the eerie sound of small girls crying can be heard.  Dark shadows are said to lurk and the sensation of someone walking around you has been reported.  Only true thrill seekers will stay a night within the walls of the Camp Scott compound.  In an interesting twist, the original Friday the 13th film was released in 1980, which is only three years after the violent murders.  The movie franchise has helped insert an urban legend in popular culture that summer camps are creepy and dangerous.  Camp Scott just might be.

9. Phantom Vehicles

Many areas of the world claim to hold the mystery of a phantom vehicle.  A phantom vehicle is a ghostly or haunted mode of transportation, which can take the form of a car, train, ship or plane.  In some cases, the objects are said to have a visual flicker.  One of the most famous phantom vehicles in the world is located in the Saskatchewan village of St. Louis.  St. Louis is an eerie place with a strange past.  The area houses a large archeological site, where some bizarre bones have been unearthed.  Key discoveries at the site have included evidence of an ancient species of wolf and buffalo, which are approximately 25% larger than modern species.  Beads have also been discovered that have indicated a style and decoration of clothing occurring approximately 1000 years prior than previously thought.  In 1983, the Canadian National Railway abandoned the rail line that was located south of Prince Albert and north of St. Louis.  The tracks were permanently removed, but it seems that the train has stayed.

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On a nightly basis, lights can be seen traveling along the path of the old St. Louis train tracks.  The lights are flashy with bright colors.  This paranormal phenomenon has been named the St. Louis Light.  Thrill seekers from all over the world travel to this area of Canada to view the strange occurrence, which has been described as the carriage lights of a train traveling from the south.  The intensity of this activity increases on certain days of the year and the lights bring about strong emotional reactions in people.  Silverpilen is a reported subway train that haunts the metro system of Stockholm, Sweden.  The phantom train has been described as a silver aluminum model C5 car.  This model was manufactured in the middle of the 1960s.  During this time, Silverpilen was the only train in the entire Swedish fleet that was silver.  It acted as a back-up unit until 1996, but many residents of Sweden have never seen the vehicle and fail to believe in the train’s existence.  According to ghost stories from this area of the world, Silverpilen only travels after 12:00 midnight and has been known to stop and invite travelers.

Upon entering the doors of the train, a fuzzy feeling falls over your body as you encounter a compartment full of ghost life.  The doomed passengers are then lost in the train forever or emerge from the vehicle days to months later.  On the night of December 29, 1972, Eastern Air Lines Flight 401 crashed under strange circumstances into the Florida Everglades.  In all, 101 of the 178 passengers onboard the flight were killed in the accident.  After the crash, Flight 401 became known for reported paranormal activity, supposedly stemming from the salvage of the plane’s aircraft parts, which were placed on a number of different airplanes after the accident.  Over the following months after the crash, employees of Eastern Air Lines began reporting sightings of the dead crew members on board a different L-1011 (N318EA).  It was a serious situation and the reports caused officials to remove all equipment that originally came from the doomed Flight 401.  After the action, reports of the ghosts stopped.

8. Clinton Road

Clinton Road is located in West Milford, Passaic County, New Jersey.  The road spans roughly 10 miles (16 km).  Over the generations, Clinton Road has gained a reputation for unexplained paranormal activity.  Reported visions include a roadside hitchhiking ghost, strange creatures, Satanists, the Ku Klux Klan, and fireside witch gatherings.  There are only a small number of houses lining the road and much of the adjoining property is undeveloped publicly owned woodlands.  Articles describing abnormal activity on Clinton Road date back to 1905.  One legend tells of a ghost boy that drowned in a stream along the road.  Supposedly, if you toss a coin into the water off any of the bridges on Clinton Road, the boy will throw it back at you.  This area of New Jersey clearly has a long history, with an American Revolutionary War iron smelter being located just east of the road.  If you drive down Clinton Road late at night, headlights of a truck may appear out of nowhere and chase you down until you exit the road.  Daylight visions have been cited, with people claiming that they have seen people dressed in strange clothing loitering around in the woods.

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People who visit Clinton Road have reported a feeling of uneasiness or mounting dread as they move down the road, sometimes so great that they have to turn back.  In 1905, a man named Richard Cross built a castle on the high land peering over the reservoir surrounding Clinton Road.  Decades later, the structure fell into ruin when a fire destroyed it.  After the incident, the castle became a popular location for teenage parties and reported Satan worshippers and their sacrifices.  It is a scary place, and certain people have written to Weird NJ magazine telling of strange occurrences in or near the castle site.  This includes people going into seizures and being physically injured.  Within certain individuals, the castle is said to produce instant and disturbing visions.  Many people have also reported seeing members of the KKK, which is interesting because prior to the US entry into World War II, a German-American Bund maintained camps in the area surrounding Clinton Road.  If you are unfamiliar, a Bund member holds a favorable view of Nazi Germany.

It has been rumored that professional killers dispose of bodies in the surrounding woods.  In 1983, this claim was substantiated when a bicyclist traveling on Clinton Road noticed a group of vultures feasting at a spot in the nearby woods.  This sparked the man’s interest and led him to the discovery of a dead body.  An autopsy found that the deceased individual had been murdered by foul play, but something else initially puzzled police.  The victim had ice crystals in his blood vessels near the heart.  Pathologists concluded that someone had frozen his body after death in an attempt to mislead investigators into believing he died at a later time.  Ultimately the information led to the direct arrest of Richard Kuklinski or The Iceman.  Kuklinski is a prolific contract killer and mafia assassin.  The six foot five inch (196 cm), 300 pound (135 kg) monster claims to have murdered over 250 men over a career that lasted from 1948 till 1986.  It is unclear how many bodies he planted in the area surrounding Clinton Road or if his victims still haunt the patch of land today.

7. The Weeping Woman

La Llorona (The Weeping Woman) is a popular legend in the Spanish-speaking cultures of the southwestern part of the US and Mexico.  The story tells of a beautiful woman named Maria who suffered from depression and drowned her two young children by tossing them into a flowing river.  Maria became haunted by the memory of her kids and ultimately crumbled in inconsolable grief.  She would not eat, and walked alone on the riverfront in her torn white gown searching for her boys.  She cried endlessly, with periodic fits of screaming and wailing.  After weeks of suffering, she ended her life on the banks of a riverbed.  When Maria reached the gates of heaven, she was asked, “Where are your children?” and she replied, “I don’t know, my Lord.”  She was not permitted to enter heaven until she found her boys, banished to an eternity of wandering the Earth’s rivers, searching in vain for her drowned offspring.

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Over the centuries, the ghost of La Llorona has become angered.  In certain areas of the world she is known to hunt and kidnap wandering children or teenagers that disobey their parents, grabbing the kids by the leg and tugging them into a watery grave.  After darkness falls, Maria’s restless spirit walks the banks of multiple bodies of water in the southwest portion of the Americas.  In the area surrounding the Santa Fe River in New Mexico, her loud cries have become a curse of the night.  The Weeping Woman is a beautiful ghost.  She is tall and thin with long flowing hair.  Reports have claimed that she can be seen drifting between trees along the shorelines or floating in the watery current.  If you are marked by the desire of La Llorona, an untimely and mysterious drowning could be in your future.  Some believe that those who can hear her cries are going to die.

In Mexico, Central and South America, the tale of La Llorona is represented as a cultural symbol that models negative behavior, ultimately looking to prescribe an idealized version of motherhood.  The ghost of La Llorona has been reported in many locations throughout North and South America, including a creek between Mora and Guadalupita, New Mexico, and as far north as the Yellowstone River.  However, the majority of the reports of the Weeping Woman surround the Santa Fe River.  For example, a tall wailing spirit has been repeatedly viewed in the PERA Building near the river.  The PERA structure was built on land that once held an old Spanish-Indian graveyard.  If you are looking for a good Halloween scare, go explore the Santa Fe PERA structure on a dark evening.

6. Crybaby Bridges of Ohio

Over the years, a strange phenomenon has been recorded in the vicinity of specific rural bridges in the US state of Ohio.  On certain days of the year, after the Sun goes down, the sound of a baby’s presence can be heard.  Most often, a shattering cry is recorded, but in other cases a baby’s laughter or scattered speech is said to plague the area.  These bridges have been given the label Crybaby Bridges.  The eerie locations usually hold a violent history, with stories involving a baby or young child being brutally killed.  One of the most famous Crybaby Bridges is the Rogues’ Hollow Bridge, which is located near Doylestown, Ohio.  In 1840, this area of Ohio experienced a large mining boom when coal was discovered in the deep hollows southeast of the village.  The area became known as Rogues’ Hollow because the miners had a strong reputation for wild goings and violence.  Rogues’ Hollow was congested with saloons, houses of ill repute, disease, dust and Sunday dog fights.

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The Rogues’ Hollow Bridge sits deep inside Rogues’ Hollow on an old climbing road.  The bridge is located in a remote area and is approachable from only one direction.  Due to bad weather, it can only be reached during certain months of the year.  The bridge is adjacent to the old Chidester Mill, which is often included in articles describing haunted locations.  Loud voices and celebrations are said to radiate around the Chidester Mill.  If you dare venture near the Rogue Hollow Bridge on a dark evening, be sure to keep an open ear for the sound of a crying baby.  The noise has been reported to come from all directions, often times floating above your head.  People have also reported that as they left the bridge, the intensity and volume of the crying increased.  The Screaming Bridge of Maud Hughes Road is another reportedly haunted bridge located in Liberty Township, Ohio.  The bridge is reputed to have been the site of many terrible accidents and suicides.

A set of old railroad tracks sits 25 feet below the bridge, and at least 36 people are said to have been killed on or around the Maud Hughes Road Bridge.  Many different people have reported seeing and hearing usual things around the structure, including ghostly figures, mists, and lights, as well as black hooded figures and a phantom train.  These aspirations seem to have an evil agenda and people often report a sensation of wanting to run while crossing the Maud Hughes Bridge.  Others have made claims of screaming in their ear, load moans, shrieks, and the sound of a baby crying.  Near the town of Salem, Ohio, citizens have reported strange occurrences around the Egypt Road Bridge.  The area surrounding this bridge is closed off to the public.  The bridge is located at the end of a dead-end and can only be reached from a single direction.  Strange occurrences around the bridge have been reported, including the loud cries of a baby.  However, unlike other Crybaby Bridges, on Egypt Road these sounds seem to occur during the day and night.

5. Popobawa

Popobawa is the name of an evil creature that has been terrorizing the East African coast.  The spirit is a shapeshifter and has been described as taking many different forms.  The being can appear as either a human or an animal, and metamorphose from one into the other.  The beast has been viewed during the daytime, but doesn’t attack until the late evening.  Popobawa has been reported to abuse men, women and children, but the majority of the incidents are targeted at men.  People routinely report assaults and poltergeist-like phenomena surrounding the creature.  However, the most feared action is a sexual attack and the sodomizing of adult men.  Many people in this area of the world have contacted the police and implicating the Popobawa in rape cases.  In the mainstream media, the events have been described as an incident of mass hysteria or panic that comes and goes in waves.  The largest outbreaks occurred in 1995 and 2007, when the reports spread all over the East African coast.  The victims of the Popobawa are ordered to tell others about the attack, or the creature will return.  It seems that the villagers in this area of the world become enraged if you claim that the spirit is unreal or fake in any way.

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The Popobawa has been known to attack in many areas along the East African coast.  The reports of the creature originated from the area surrounding Zanzibar Archipelago, which holds several islands off the coast of East Africa in the Indian Ocean.  Specifically, the area of Pemba Island is said to be watched by the Popobawa.  However, during large outbreaks, the presence of the spirit has been reported in mainland Tanzania.  His presence is usually announced by the sound of scraping claws on the roof and a sharp, pungent smell.  It has been suggested that the wave of attacks increase during All Hallows’ Eve, when ghosts are said to patrol the night.  In most reports, Popobawa primarily attacks men and only in their own beds, resulting in many guys sleeping outside in the streets or on porches after recent attacks.  The beast is known to overpower his prey, holding their face to the floor and sodomizing them for up to an hour.  His genital area has been described as “significant.”  Many Africans believe that the creature takes human form by day, and lives among the people.  If you visit this area of Africa, keep a look out for the Popobawa.

4. The Candy Man

Dean Corll was a sadistic serial killer that savagely murdered dozens of small boys in the US state of Texas during the early 1970s.  He was responsible for the death of a confirmed 27 children.  At this time in history, the term serial killer had not yet been coined, and the case was simply known as the Houston Mass Murders.  In the early 1960s, the Corll Candy Company was founded by Dean’s mother.  The Corll family set up a production facility in their home and turned the garage into a candy store, which was located across the street from Heights Elementary School, in the Houston Heights area of northwest Houston, Texas.  Dean became second in command of the candy business and lived in an apartment over the garage.  During this time, Dean Corll became known as The Candy Man.  He would routinely give out free candy to the local children, in particular teenage boys.  The company had a handful of employees and Dean was in charge of hiring the staff, which consisted of teenage children.

He even installed a pool table at the rear of the factory where employees and local youths would go to hang-out and do drugs.  At this time, Dean Corll befriended 12-year-old David Brooks and Elmer Wayne Henley.  In 1968, the Corll Candy Company closed and Dean gained work as an electrician.  He killed his first known victim in 1970.  Most of the children he murdered were abducted from Houston Heights.  He would lure his victims into a van with an offer of a party.  He used the help of two teenage boys, David Brooks and Elmer Henley, who were given $200 for every successful capture.  He would overpower his victims and perform sadistic rituals.  Corll would start by putting his prey on a plywood torture board.  He sexually assaulted all victims and usually killed them by strangulation or shooting with a .22 caliber pistol.  Upon searching his home, police found multiple wooden torture boards with handcuffs, ropes, sex toys, and plastic covering the carpeted floor.  He also owned an odd wooden crate with what appeared to be air holes cut into it.

On August 8, 1973, Henley angered Dean Corll when he brought his young girlfriend over to his house with another friend, Tim Kerley.  The group drank and did drugs and each fell asleep, but when they awoke Corll had handcuffed them all.  Elmer Henley reportedly convinced Corll to let him go, so that he could participate in the murders.  When his back was turned, Henley took the gun and shot Dean Corll six times killing him instantly.  Henley then began to tell the police about the deadly rampage and specify where the children’s bodies were buried.  It was the first time that the Houston police department had investigated Dean Corll or even connected the series of rash murders to one person.  In a highly publicized trial, Brooks was found guilty of one murder and sentenced to life in prison.  Henley was convicted of six of the murders and sentenced to six 99-year-terms.

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During the years of Dean Corll’s murder spree, he is known to have frequently changed addresses in the Houston Heights area.  He lived in a trailer park, several apartment buildings and rented rooms at private residences.  Specifically, these locations include a metal warehouse in the 500 block of West 22nd Street, a run-down apartment building in the 800 block of Heights Boulevard, a house on North Durham and an apartment on East 7th Street.  A collection of old structures in the Houston Heights area have witnessed the worst crimes known to man.  Dean Corll buried his victims in one of four separate locations, a rented boatshed in southwest Houston, a beach on the Bolivar Peninsula, in woodland near a cabin on Lake Sam Rayburn (owned by his family) or on a beach in Jefferson County.  A small group of people living in Houston believe that the ghost of Dean Corll and his victims haunt the city.  Reports have surfaced from his grave stone, which mysteriously reads “PFC US Army.”  Why he was still given this honor after death is unknown to me.

3. Corpse Road

In late medieval times, a steady population increase caused an expansion in the construction of churches in Great Britain.  This upset the mother churches of the area, who felt that the new organizations were encroaching on their territory and taking away profits and power.  For this reason, they instituted a law indicating that all burial rights were the property of the mother church.  Officials had corpse roads constructed, which connected outlying locations and their main churches.  This was a great hardship on the people and it meant that citizens living on the outskirts of town had to transport their dead family members a long distance in order to be buried.  Sometimes the corpse roads traveled up steep mountain cliffs and over large bodies of water and rivers.  Many of the pathways contained specifically placed coffin stones, which were used as a resting spot for the travelers.  Evidence of the stones is still evident today and a number of the locations are said to hold a dark spirit.  In many cases, humble men, women, and old citizens were given this impossible task of transporting their loved ones.  This burning animosity and the continual shuffling of human corpses is said to have left a lasting impression on the hundreds of corpse roads in Europe and South America.

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Many of the corpse roads have disappeared over the years, but you can still see the remains of some prominent routes, which appear in the form of small woven pathways.  For generations, people have reported strange noises and lights on these ancient corpse roads.  Legend tells that spirits and ghosts regularly fly along the roads in a direct straight line from one end to the next.  This energy guides the people along the trail at night.  It directs them around all fences, walls, buildings, and other structures.  The Will-o’-the-wisp are said to patrol the corpse roads.  Folklore is full of tales describing the Will-o’-the-wisp, which are ghostly lights that resemble a flickering lamp.  These mischievous spirits attempt to confuse travelers.  They are said to recede and fade away if approached.  Ancient people believed that these paths were haunted.  They followed a list of specific rules to prevent the dead from wandering the land as lost souls or animated corpses.

The number of reportedly haunted corpse roads is extensive.  Phantom lights are regularly witnessed on the Scottish cemetery-island of Mun in Loch Leven.  Traditionally, these lights were thought to be omens of impending death.  Many eyes have reported a regular phantom funeral procession heading across Dartmoor on its way to Widecombe and the burial ground.  People have also witnessed a monk dressed in all white.  Places where corpse roads intersect are considered dangerous and are believed to be occupied by special spirit-guardians.  A famous corpse road in England runs from Rydal to Ambleside in the Lake District.  Along this route, at the foot of Blue Bell Hill, is an old coffin stone.  It is a rectangular stone that measures 14.4 feet (4.4 m) long and 9 feet (2.8 m) wide.  In 1836, a sack of bones was discovered under the rock and it has since been revealed that the area is one of the Medway tombs.  The Corpse Rock is located on private grounds, with local residents staying far away from the area in the mist of night.  However, the field is currently being planted as a vineyard, which has caused a buzz in the area, as it may be disturbing sacred ground and releasing the wrath of ancient ghosts.

2. Suicide Cliff and Banzai Cliff

The Pacific Ocean theatre of World War II was a major conflict between the armed forces of Japan and those of the United States, the British Empire, the Netherlands and France.  Two of the largest battles included the Battle of Saipan and Battle of Okinawa.  The 82-day-long Battle of Okinawa was one of the deadliest in all of World War II.  Japan lost over 100,000 troops, and the Allies suffered more than 50,000 casualties.  Simultaneously, more than 100,000 civilians were killed, wounded, or committed suicide, which was approximately one-quarter of the entire population.  The one chilling factor that both of these battles have in common is the mass suicide of Japanese civilians, usually accomplished by leaping from the steep cliff faces of the islands.  After the Allied forces captured Saipan, the soldiers erected a civilian prisoner encampment.  They were told that over 25,000 Japanese people lived on the island, but it was soon evident that thousands were missing.

After searching the island, Allied soldiers made the grisly discovery that Japanese citizens were committing suicide by jumping from Saipan’s Suicide Cliff and Banzai Cliff.  It has since been realized that Emperor Hirohito personally found the threat of the defection of Japanese civilians disturbing.  During the Battle of Saipan, Hirohito sent out an imperial order encouraging the civilians of Saipan to commit suicide.  The order authorized the commander of Saipan to promise civilians who died an equal spiritual status in the afterlife.  Over 10,000 Japanese people committed suicide in the last days of the conflict.  In Okinawa, this issue is at the center of an ongoing disagreement between the local government and Japan’s national government.  In 2007, a mass rally erupted in Okinawa when the Japanese government announced that they were changing the wording in school text books regarding the suicides.  Okinawa ultimately won a court battle and the books were restored, using the statement that the citizens “were forced into mass suicides by the Japanese military.”  This was partially achieved by evidence that implicated the Japanese military in distributing grenades for the purpose of suicide.

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The island of Saipan is said to be haunted by ghosts.  Today, the land is officially the largest island of the United States Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands.  It is littered with underground shelters and tunnels that were used during the war.  In many cases, mass suicides were performed in the bunkers or massacres took place as US troops dropped explosives into them.  This is said to have left a lasting impression on the Saipan underground, with the sound of artillery fire, explosions, and screams routinely spreading over the land.  However, the majority of the strange activity has been reported on the cliffs surrounding the limestone covered Mount Tapochau, located at 1,560 ft (480 m).  One of the drops has been given the nickname Suicide Cliff, while the other is named Banzai Cliff.

The beauty of Saipan makes it a popular tourist destination and many people have claimed supernatural experiences.  At all times of day, but more prevalent at night, human figures can be seen leaning over the cliffs and jumping.  Children can be heard crying and sporadic gusts of wind loom over the area.  Unlike other ghostly phenomenon, these spirits appear to be determined to jump off the cliff and don’t notice human contact.  People have also reported violent visions, often stemming from the scene of dead bodies on the rocks below.  If you search the Internet for the ghosts of Saipan, you will find many links to a video that was recorded near Banzai Cliff.  It has been claimed that the video shows a ghost jumping from the cliff.  Check it out for yourself.  If anything, the video gives a good perspective of what this area of Saipan looks like.

1. Edinburgh Vaults

In the late 18th century, the city of Edinburgh was a thriving community.  To help drive expansion, officials in this area of Scotland approved the construction of two bridges, the North Bridge and South Bridge.  The South Bridge is a nineteen arch viaduct, which holds some unusual architectural feats.  Eighteen of the arches were enclosed behind tenement buildings, which were built upon floor layering.  In total there are approximately 120 vaults beneath the surface of the South Bridge, ranging in size from 6.5 feet (2 meters) to 131 feet (40 meters) squared.  The South Bridge officially opened for business on March 1, 1788.  For around 30 years, the Edinburgh vaults were used to house taverns, cobblers and other tradesmen.  Specific sections were used for the storage of illicit material, including dead bodies.  The bodies were examined by doctors and reportedly used in medical experiments.  Unfortunately, construction of the South Bridge was rushed and the surface was never sealed against water damage.  For this reason, the vaults began to flood and the area was abandoned.

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By the start of the 19th century, slum dwellers had taken over the vaults and the area became a renowned red light district, with countless brothels and pubs operating within the abandoned complex.  Living conditions in the chambers were appalling.  The rooms were cramped, dark and damp, with no sunlight, poorly circulated air, no running water, and no sanitation.  Serious crimes and acts of violence were a major problem.  The serial murderers Burke and Hare are thought to have chosen victims from this area.  In the middle of the 19th century, the first reports of bizarre visions and ghostly phenomenon were issued.  At that time, city officials made the decision to drop tons of rubble into the Edinburgh Vaults, making them inaccessible.  The landmarks were not rediscovered until the 1980s, when they were excavated by Norrie Rowan and his son.  During the unearthing of the vaults, strange occurrences and loud cries were often reported.

Today, the Edinburgh Vaults house some of the most popular tourist attractions in the area, including many ghost tours.  The most popular venues are the Mercat Tours, Marlin’s Wynd, and a tour known as The Caves.  Specific corridors of the Edinburgh Vaults are said to house spiritual characters.  Mr. Boots is a ghost that has been known to nudge tourists and follow large groups.  He can often be heard using foul language and stomping on the hard stone floor.  A young spirit named Jack can be seen running about the dark rooms, giggling as he passes by unsuspecting people.  One of the most chilling spirits is an ailing pregnant woman that can be heard crying for attention and help. The Edinburgh Vaults are also known to contain odd cold air flows.  Scientific studies and overnight sleepovers have been conducted in the vaults with some unexplained findings.  In 2009, a BBC TV production team recorded a strange voice that appeared to be that of a Catholic priest reciting the Last Rites.  The ghostly voice continued to be heard on the recording for some 20 minutes before abruptly ceasing after what appeared to be the sound of children yelling.

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Top 10 Most Visited Famous Grave Sites

Diehard fans of famous celebrities often stay the course long after their cherished idols have long since perished. Of those unforgettable iconic stars, the top ten that are the most visited  are people we can reasonably guess. People like Princess Diana and Elvis, but a few may reach out and surprise you! Long after the daisies have been pushed up a few famous graves continue to receive numerous callers daily.

10.  Oscar Wilde

In a Paris cemetery, Oscar Wilde, (1854 to 1900) was laid to rest in the prestigious Paris cemetery, Pere Lachaise, after residing in a grave in Bagneaux Cemetery on a plot of ground only available for temporary lease. Temporary lease? Yes, and for this reason, he was encased in quicklime so the corpse would decompose faster. The famous Irish writer, poet and playwright is visited frequently by fans and his work is still being read throughout the world today, 100 years after his death. Fifty years after his passing the remains of his longtime friend, Robert Ross, was placed in his tomb. His tomb was sculpted by the famous American, Jacob Epstein. Oscar Wilde rests in peace at number 10,

9.  Bruce Lee

The martial-arts guru, 40 years after his death, still remains the greatest Kung Fu teacher ever and a box-office smash. Bruce Lee is still doing maneuvers in the land of the living as his fans crowd Seattle’s Lakeview Cemetery to pay their respects. The cemetery draws people from around the world including three Mongolians who trekked 3,700 miles to honor Lee on the 53rd anniversary of his birth. The trip is said to have taken the Mongolians seven months and five pairs of shoes each bringing Bruce Lee to number 9 of our top ten list.

8.  Mark Twain

At number 8 Samuel L. Clemens (better known by his pen name as Mark Twain), who wrote the great American novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, is now being commemorated in 2010 as it marks the 125th anniversary of the publishing of his novel. The story continues at Woodlawn Cemetery in Elmira, New York where road signs direct traffic to the final resting place that Mark Twain chose for himself and his family. The superintendent of the cemetery, Thomas Henegar, says that he estimates 2,000 to 3,000 visitors a year go to visit Mark Twain, 175 years after his birth. In 2010, what is called ‘Mark Twain Country’ citizens are filling the year with themed events and special tourism promotions in honor of Mark Twain.

7.  Frank Sinatra

Another gravesite overzealously pursued is the final resting place of Frank Sinatra. He is considered the pride of Hoboken, New Jersey in New York even though he is not buried there, and despite the fact that after he headed west he referred to the town as a “sewer”. Sinatra moved to Palm Springs, California where he died and was buried at Desert Memorial Park with a bottle of Jack Daniels and a pack of camel cigarettes. A lyric from one of his popular songs is carved into his gravestone that says, “The best is yet to come.” Sinatra ranks on our top ten charts at number 7.

6.  Princess Diana

Princess Diana of England was buried at the Spencer-family estate, Althorp, in North Hampshire in 1997. Now she appears to be the Lady of the Lake as her remains reside on Round Oval island, a small island (populated with four black swans) on the family property. It isn’t the place where King Arthur received Excalibur but from this lake’s edge, onlookers can see an urn with no headstone and another type of legend. Once a year, between July and early September, visitors are granted the opportunity to visit Princess Diana’s grave although no one is allowed to set foot on the island, the path to the island’s entry is lined with 36 birch trees, one for every year of her life. Now she takes 6^th place on our list for the most visited grave sites.

5.  Marilyn Monroe

In America, a hugely popular celebrity death was the death of Marilyn Monroe in 1962. She was the iconic female sex-symbol of the ’60s and has lasted as an iconic sex-symbol still to this day. Today the crypt directly above hers in the Los Angeles Cemetery has been on eBay for auction (although not yet sold) and has reached a top offer of $4.6 million 47 years after her death. It is said that Hugh Hefner is rumored to have reserved his place beside her. The crypt is located in the Corridor of Memories in the Westwood Memorial Park where other celebrities remains can be found like Dean Martin, Truman Capote and Dona Reed. It is said that of her various husbands, ex-husband Joe DiMaggio (who she was only married to for 274 days) never remarried and sent red roses to her crypt three times a week for the next 20 years. Marilyn, you win our affections at number 5.

4.  Jim Morrison

Of all the most popularized graves to visit, the gravesite of Jim Morrison, who died in Paris on July 3rd, 1971, is a tribute to his influential life as a talented musical, rock legend. He rocks in at number 4. His final resting place is at Pere-Lachaise Cemetery in Paris, a cemetery that was established in 1804 by Napoleon Bonaparte. Although other famous musicians and writers also are buried there, like Edith Piaf, Max Ernst and Oscar Wilde, Jim, the American rock star’s grave takes the place as the most visited plot on the cemetery grounds. Hoarded by tourists daily, cemetery staff have often had to deal with unauthorized tributes from fans from a bust of Morrison to arrows pointing ‘Toward Jim’.

3.  Elvis Presley

Elvis Presley, the rock-’n’-roll legend died of a prescription drug overdose in August 1977 and was first buried in a mausoleum in Forest Hills Cemetery in Memphis, Tennessee and was later moved to Graceland because of a thwarted attempt by vandals to steal his body. Admission to Elvis’ grave is part of the Graceland tour and although dead for more than three decades, 600,000 people a year still visit him contributing nearly $150 million to the Memphis economy. For all those fans Elvis lives forever at number 3.

2.  Shakespeare

Certainly the most prized grave site of all time is inhabited by the remains of Shakespeare, the most famous English language writer in history. His work has been studied and translated into more languages than any other printed work except the Bible. Shakespeare lived from 1564 to 1616 and still to this day, thousands of people frequent his tomb in Stratford-upon-Avon in Warwickshire, England at the Holy Trinity Churchyard. His grave is covered by a flat stone that bears an epitaph believed to be written by him reading,

Good friend, for Jesus’ sake forebear
To dig the dust enclosed here;
Blessed be the man that spares these stones
And curst be he that moves my bones

Shakespeare was buried in the Holy Trinity Church not for his life’s work but actually paid for the privilege at a high price at 440 pounds along with his family members after saving his money as a playwright. His influence on the world and for a grave site that has been visited for all these years brings Shakespeare in at number 2 of our top ten list.

1.  Michael Jackson

Coined ‘The King of Pop’, Michael Jackson is reserved on this list for number one simply because of the potential he has to become one of the next most visited celebrity graves. Partly because up until now nobody has been allowed to visit Michael Jackson’s gravesite at The Forest Lawn (known as the ‘Country Club for the Dead’) in the Hollywood Hills, California. The place where he was buried quietly in the Great Mausoleum. Michael Jackson’s brother, after reaching an agreement with the owners of the cemetery, have decided they will open to the public at the first anniversary after his death on June 25th and will remain open. Michael’s brother says fans will be able to go right up to the mausoleum and drop off flowers and visit. Michael loved his fans and his fans loved him. Time will tell if he soon tops the list, but with the ‘thriller’ of the unknown, Michael one day may be entertaining his fans once again.

Instead of inhabiting red carpet events, these stars now reside in famous cemeteries where resting in peace isn’t quite all that death once promised to be. For these long gone celebrities fans continue to visit them years after the fanfare is gone and their mortal remains have all but turned to dust. Of the top ten most famous graves visited, these are the ones who’ve been laid to rest, but that continue to haunt us all.

 

Top 10 Grossest Halloween Candy

Halloween brings out the kid in all of us. Although for the adults, it’s really about dressing up in wild costumes for a fun party or decorating the house to scare the bejeebus out of any visitors. For kids, Halloween is still all about the candy. It’s quite a unique holiday that, over time, has evolved into telling ghost stories and hording sweets.

Several candy companies have gotten into the spirit of Halloween by developing their own version of gross-out treats, which you can enjoy all year around.

Here then are the top 10 grossest Halloween candies:

10. Bertie Botts Every Flavor Beans

If you’re a true Muggle, you might not have any idea what these special jellybeans are all about. But true devotees of the world of Harry Potter are quite familiar with Bertie Botts and her confectionary concoctions. Borrowing a page from the best-selling novels and popular film franchise, this collection of jelly beans come in such delightful flavors as dirt, ear wax, rotten egg, soap and vomit. There are some regular good tasting jellybeans in each batch but buyer beware!

9. Sour Flush Toilet Candy

It’s a toilet full of sugar! It’s a plunger lollipop! It’s both! Sour Flush Toilet Candy is shaped like an actual tiny toilet. You flip the lid and dip in one of your flavored lollipop plungers and, “Voila!”- you’ve got a tasty treat simulating the unclogging of your toilet. Insert your own joke here.

8. Crime Scene Candy Tubes

Nothing says Halloween like a good old-fashioned crime scene. Now the kiddies can get in on all the CSI fun with their own edible Crime Scene Candy Tube. Each tube is filled with drinkable goodness in three flavors: Blood, Urine and Saliva. Yes, that’s Blood, Urine and Saliva (or cherry, lemonade and apple if you’re being picky).

7. Box of Boogers

Full disclosure: you won’t really know you’re eating simulated boogers unless you have the actual Box of Boogers handy. Each individual booger looks like it could really be a typical piece of gummy green or yellow candy. But thanks to the packaging that proudly proclaims “Tangy gummy boogies that look and feel real” you won’t soon forget what you’re supposed to be chewing on.

6. Scorpion Suckers and Chocolate Covered Bugs

Wasn’t there always a kid in every neighborhood who would eat a bug for a nickel? Now everyone can get into that act with these actual ants, crickets dipped in chocolate or scorpions encased in lollipop candy. They are completely edible and taste great, so the reviews say. Fear Factor candy anyone?

5: Nose Hose

You know you’re in for a tasty treat with a candy slogan that is “It’s snot what you think!” The Nose Hose works on the simple principle of strapping a big plastic nose on your face then having a tube run through to drip sweet tasting liquid onto your waiting tongue. Fun for the whole family.

4. Ear Wax Candy

Keeping with the “what can we eat from our head” theme, Ear Wax Candy is perfect for when you’ve got a craving to eat some ear wax but don’t really want to eat actual ear wax. You get a big plastic ear with a handy ear drum snap lid. Inside the ear canal is a fruity-jelly like substance that approximates ear wax. You dip in your plastic swab, scoop out some ear goop and lick away.

3. Zit Poppers

How devastating was it to discover a pimple on the eve of the big dance? Or to have your graduation photo ruined because of an errant blemish. Ahh, to be young again with a face full of acne. Now you can relive all those wonderful moments of teenage angst with Zip Poppers. Imagine gummi candies shaped like huge pimples loaded with gooey jelly that you squeeze or pop out to taste. Available in strawberry and watermelon just like regular acne.

2. Chocka Ca-Ca

As the name implies, Chock Ca-Ca are bite size pieces of chocolate shaped to look just like what babies leave behind in their diapers. And if you need more convincing, each piece of Chock Ca-Ca actually comes wrapped in their own diaper. This unique treat comes in blue for boys and pink for girls packaging. Won’t it be fun to bring this gift at your next baby shower? Chances are you’ll never be invited to another baby shower. Mission accomplished. (Image: itsstupid.com.)

1. Lick Your Wounds Candy

Have you ever found yourself wearing a Band-Aid and wishing you could pull it off and lick a piece of candy underneath? Well, now you can with these delightful candy scabs. Underneath the pad of a typical Band-Aid is a lollipop-style hard candy that you can take a few licks of and then replace. S-w-e-e-e-e-e-e-t. Just be on the lookout for skin hair. Did we mention this is gross candy?

By Rick Bitzman

What was your favorite Halloween candy?

 

Top 10 Richest Billionaires in the World

The 10 Richest Billionaires in the World, and Where They Got Their Money

The recession has taken its toll even on the wealthy. Recently, the World Wealth Report found that 2009 was ushered in with fewer billionaires than previously. However, there are still plenty of billionaires in the world. Indeed, even though people like Bill Gates and Warren Buffett lost billions due to the stock market crash that followed the financial crisis, they are still ultra-high net worth individuals. Forbes offers a list of the 10 richest people in the world — and how they got their money:

10. Amancio Ortega

With a net worth of $18.3 billion, Amancio Ortega rounds out the top ten wealthiest people in the world. Like most of the people on this list, his fortune is self-made. His father was a railway worker, and Ortega worked in a shirt store in Spain. He and his wife at the time began making their own lingerie and dressing gowns. They did this in their living room, creating chic designs. They formed a company called Inditex, and grew the brand so that there are more than 4,000 stores around the world. Ortega also has a brand of inexpensive fashions, Zara. The euro’s weakness has sapped some of Ortega’s fortune, so his wealth is down even as stock in his company is up. Ortega grows his fortune with investments in real estate, tourism, gas and banks.

9. Theo Albrecht

Like his older brother, Karl, Theo Albrecht is an intensely private person. (The fact that he was kidnapped in 1971 probably contributes to this fact.) He is worth $18.8 billion, and is three places below his brother on the list of world’s wealthiest billionaires. However, his fortune is nothing to sneeze at. Albrecht has the brand rights to the discount grocer Aldi in the north part of Germany and in all of Europe except Great Britain. Part of the reason his brother, who helped develop the Aldi brand out of their mother’s corner grocery store, is richer is doubtless due to the fact that Karl has the rights to the Aldi brand in the U.S. However, Albrecht has been able to start his own brand, Trader Joe’s, which is gaining some inroads in the U.S. His stake in Supervalu is also probably helping.

8. Lakshmi Mittal

An Indian immigrant to the U.K., Mittal is the wealthiest person living in Great Britain. Mittal inherited a great deal of his fortune, working in his family’s steelmaking business. He founded his own company, Mittal Steel, and has been aggressive in developing his business prospects. With a hostile takeover, the company became ArcelorMittal, and is the largest steel company in the world. Mittal is worth $19.3 billion, having lost some of his money as steel price have fallen in the last year. While Mittal’s fortune is heavily reliant on stocks in his company, he still has substantial cash holdings. He has also diversified into other holdings, such as Macarthur Coal. He sits on the board of Goldman Sachs.

7. Mukesh Ambani

It is telling that we have made it to #7 on the wealthiest billionaires list before getting to someone who inherited a fortune. Mukesh Ambani, along with his brother, inherited the conglomerate Reliance, one of the most valuable companies in India, upon the death of their father. Control issues forced Ambani’s mother to broker a deal between them, and split some of the assets. Ambani has been working to grow his fortune, however. He merged Reliance Petroleum with Reliance Industries, and has an agreement to buy Chevron’s stake in Reliance at $1.20 per share — which is less than it is trading for right now. Ambani is worth right around $19.5 billion, and is the wealthiest person in the country of India.

6. Karl Albrecht

This billionaire is extremely private. He is the wealthiest person in Germany. His net worth is $21.5 billion. There is not a great deal known about Albrecht, but it is known that he is another self-made billionaire. His mother owned a small grocery store in Germany. However, after World War II, Albrect, along with his brother Theo transformed the shop into Aldi. Now, Aldi is known for its discount prices on groceries. Albrecht and his brother divided up ownership of the stores. Albrecht took the rights to the brand for the U.S., U.K. and Australia, as well as the south part of Germany. Aldi is actually doing reasonably well as people turn to inexpensive foods during the recession.

5. Ingvar Kamprad

Most people probably haven’t heard of Swedish entrepreneur Ingvar Kamprad (net worth, $22 billion). But they have probably heard of the brand he is associated with: Ikea. Kamprad is the child of Swedish farmers. One of his first jobs was selling cards, matches, pens and fish from a bicycle. He learned early that he could buy in bulk for cheap, and then mark up prices so that he made a good profit — even while offering good prices to customers. Eventually, he began selling furniture. After learning a bit about it, he opened his own furniture store. He got the name Ikea from his first and last name, the name of the family farm, and the nearest village. His furniture brand is known for its affordability and modern style. Instead of living too lavishly, Kamprad takes economy class when he flies, eats at inexpensive restaurants and furnishes his home mainly with what Ikea has to offer.

4. Lawrence Ellison

The man that started software giant Oracle is worth $22.5 billion. Even though he was born in the Bronx, Ellison was adopted and raised by his mother’s aunt and uncle in Chicago’s South Shore neighborhood. Ellison’s adopted father lost his small real estate fortune during the Great Depression. Like Bill Gates, Ellison is a college dropout. He made his money in software design. His database project for the CIA, as part of Ampex Corporation, was called Oracle. He founded his company using only $2,000 of his own, and grew it into one of the industry leaders. However, there have been several tugs of war. But Oracle’s focus on database and server technology has allowed to remain in relatively good shape.

3. Carlos Slim Helú

Along with his family, Carlos Slim Helú is the wealthiest man in Latin America. He has $35 billion, even after losing $25 billion. Slim is also a self-made billionaire. He has an interesting history. Even though he lives in Mexico City, he is the son of an immigrant from Lebanon (his father’s original surname was Salim). He studied engineering, and made his money in the telecom industry. He was the leader in a group of investors that bought two telephone companies from the Mexican government in 1990. His diverse holdings include real estate, technology, oil, gas and even a stake in The New York Times Company. He even loaned the company money earlier this year. Slim’s wealth is worth about the same as 2% of the economic output of the entire country of Mexico.

2. Warren Buffett

One of the most famous investors in the world is Warren Buffett. After losing $25 billion, his net worth now is right around $37 billion. Most of his fortune is self-made, coming as an outgrowth of a textile firm, Berkshire Hathaway. His father was a politician in Omaha, and Buffett delivered newspapers for his first job. (He also took a $35 tax deduction for his bicycle at age 13.) When Buffett bought Berkshire, he spent some years transitioning it to a holding company. Then he began using it to buy other businesses. Buffett is known for his business sense and investing savvy, and his obsession with checking into companies for their sound fundamentals before making a buying decision. Berkshire owns stakes in Geico, Dairy Queen, See’s Candy, Coca-Cola, Wells Fargo and other well-known companies.

1. Bill Gates

Even after losing $18 billion, Bill Gates still has a net worth of $40 billion. As you might know, Bill Gates is a self-made billionaire, earning his money as an entrepreneur. Gates was one of the early disk operating system pioneers and started a software company with some of his peers. The company became Microsoft. One of the main breaks for Gates was an agreement with IBM for an operating system for $50,000. Since he did not transfer the copyright to IBM, he was able to continue making money of the MS-DOS system as other hardware vendors cloned the system. Gates has been accused of unsavory business practices in the past, and was recently involved in anti-trust proceedings in the European Union, but there is no denying the success of Microsoft. Gates now devotes a great deal of money and time to his philanthropic efforts, through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Top 10 Myths About Sex

There is a lot of sex talk out there, but there are just as many fallacies finding their way between the sheets as there are truths. Now we all know that the size of a man’s appendage versus his outer extremities (hand, head, foot) has no proven correlation, and nor does the act of self-gratification stand to make one go blind. There are however several myths that have not been publicly chastised for their ridiculous nature, and often are still believed to be truth rather than fiction. Let’s look at these top ten myths about sex.

10. A Cold Shower Dashes the Libido

A cold shower has been said to curb peak sexual appetite, simply by reducing the amount of testosterone levels in men and estrogen levels in women. There is simply no proven basis for this belief, and in fact, an English study for Thrombosis has shown that a cold shower actually stimulates libido by increasing hormone levels. The end result is even more sexual excitement than was first started with. Take heart all ye anxious ladies and gentlemen, as I hear a ball peen hammer and wooden plank still does wonders for destroying ones sexual appetite!

9. The Power of a Lover’s Stare

The power of a lover’s stare has been written in romance novels ever since an ink pen was first laid to a piece of parchment. True lovers have been said to have the ability to stare into each others eyes for hours on end, falling in love again and again, without ever growing tired. However, what has actually been found in studies, is that staring at your lover has about a 50/50 chance of promoting feelings of love and passion. The other fifty percent of the time it promotes aggression and annoyance, which has been documented in couple studies as fighting and arguing. I guess it is true… all’s fair in love and war!

8. Sex During the Final Stages of Pregnancy

A lot of expecting couples express fear of hurting their baby during intercourse. Especially during the final trimester. However, most research today not only shows that intercourse is completely safe for the child, it actually can promote a healthier, speedier labor and delivery. It is an old wives tale that sex is bad for the fetus once it is past a certain stage of growth. Many doctors say that you should be able to have a healthy sexual relationship with your partner right up until the day of delivery. Chalk much of this myth up to man’s over-exaggeration of his unit!

7. Thinking of Someone Else During Sex is a Bad Sign for a Relationship

Did you know that upwards of 90% of all sexually active folk in the world think about someone else during sex with their partner. It is actually a completely natural part of a healthy sexual relationship. The majority of folks think about friends, neighbors, or co-workers, while a slightly smaller percentage (25% of Canadian men) prefer fantasizing about imaginary characters. Everything from Betty Boop to the Lone Ranger has run through the minds of countless lovers over the decades, and should not be considered an indicator that a relationship is heading for the rocks.

6. Women and Fast Cars (Modern Myth)

If you were to ask a woman today if she was turned-on by the growl of a big engine, she would probably scoff at the thought. In fact, in light of the popular green movement, it is now popular for women to prefer men who drive environmentally-friendly vehicles, such as the Toyota Prius. However, a recent study says differently… a lot differently. It turns out, women show substantial increases in sexual arousal (measured by testosterone in saliva) while listening to the sound of a high performance Maserati, as compared to a low performance Volkswagen (VW) Polo. In fact, the VW actually decreased the arousal of women below that of the baseline of watching the nerdy scientists test their equipment before the study began. Talk about an anti-aphrodisiac!

5. Inbreeding Produces Babies with Three Heads

While considered a bit of a joke, inbreeding has been said to cause everything from a baby with three heads to mutant X-Men. In truth, while inbreeding should not necessarily be considered a good thing, it is not nearly as bad as some people think. A 30-year Western Australian study, looked at cultures who regularly practice first cousin marriages and found no abnormalities in their offspring beyond that of what would be expected from any other traditional, unrelated couple. The same myth also applies to inbreed animals, who are not always the weaker of the species.

4. Race is a Good Indicator of a Man’s Sexual Endowment

While some races have enjoyed basking in the limelight of these rumors, there is actually no scientific basis of this myth. While your cousin’s friend, who knew a girl, who dated several professional basketball players claims this myth maybe true, a study from the Porterback Clinic, Royal Hallamshire Hospital, and St. James’ Hospital, says differently. The study found that a man’s physical endowment had absolutely nothing to do with his race, creed, or color. It’s has much more to do with that haphazard toss of the genetic die that came soon after that glimmer from our parents eye.

3. Plentiful Sex and the Swinging Single

While it is common belief that once you get married, sex gets thrown out the window, most research suggests that married couples actually have more sex than the swinging single. This is mostly because couples living together are presented with more opportunities to have sex. Anywhere from 25 to 300 percent more opportunity for sex, on average. However, over the course of marriage, sex dwindles, leaving the frequency of sex comparable to that of a lifetime of living single. One way to improve your odds of having more sex, is to marry multiple times. However, the stress of all those marriages/divorces just might toss you right into an early grave, leaving you with even less sex!

2. Sex Every Seven Seconds

The common belief by many women, is that men think about sex at least once every seven seconds. Truth is, men today are actually too weighed down with thoughts of success and finances to devote that kind of brain power to the subject. In fact, only half of men (54 percent) think about sex once per day according to the Kinsey Institute, while the other 43 percent designate just a few fantasies spread out over the course of a week. An abysmal 4 percent think about just once over the course of an entire month. Talk about a grossly overinflated female-chauvinistic rumor.

1. Premature Ejaculation (PE) is an Abnormality

No man has ever been proud to be deemed a “premature ejaculator” by his lover, but in truth it is more of a hardwired system for survival, than an abnormality. The average male can last 5.4 minutes before lift-off, which was biologically pertinent to the population of the planet back in the early days. When faced with man-eating chickens, men had to get the job done quick. There was no time for flowers, song, and love poems. The threat of a Tyrannosaurus charging while in the throes of passion, was enough to make him even quicker, which is why anxiety is still one of the leading causes of PE.

By Eric J. Leech, who asks you to visit http://www.celebulicio.us for celebrity “stuff”.

Top 10 Embarrassing Halloween Costumes

Okay, I’ll admit some of these costumes caused me to chuckle but I wouldn’t be caught dead wearing any of these in public or in private, for that matter. I give full credit to the brave people who could put pride aside and wear any of these embarrassing Halloween costumes for the enjoyment of others on Halloween.

10. Bat Child – All Grown Up

Remember that hilarious old cover of the Weekly World News? Well this creative fellow turned it into a Halloween costume.

Bat Child!, originally uploaded by Twitchietai.

9. You Tube Video – with Penis Transplant

Clever idea, but not the best subject matter. Of course he will be knocking over everything and bumping into everyone, but what makes this so embarrassing is the the “Related Videos” to the right: The World’s First Penile Transplant?

You Tube Video, originally uploaded by Twitchietai.

8. Maternity Room

Ah, the miracle of birth.

7. Creepy Bert & Ernie

Dressing up as gay Muppets. What else do I need to say? Well, I will add they are creepy too; almost like Joker from Batman rejects. And the rubber ducky isn’t helping.

Bert & Ernie, originally uploaded by reginaldppuppy.

6. Retired Hooter Girls

I can only pray that those sagging boobs are prosthetics.

5. Elvis with Camel Toe

Of course I’m assuming this is a costume and not the real Elvis. Although I think the real Elvis could someone avoid showing a camel toe. Thank you, thank you, very much!

4. Free Mammogram Test – Feminist Look Away

Wow, I’m surprised the guy doesn’t have two black eyes, and no, not for the reason you think. I wonder if he has a girlfriend or wife. Not after that costume.

3. Sheep Molester

No words.

2. Spider-man – Nice Package

Okay at first glance you think, not bad for an older overweight guy. Then you take a second glance and think, “Dear God, make me blind!” If you don’t see it, move on and let it go.

1. Hot Dog with an Afro?

You tell yourself that as a human race that we have evolved, matured, if you will. And then you see a man dressed as a 6-foot vagina. Or a messed up hot dog with an afro.

Top 10 Ghost Ships

Ghost ships, or phantom ships, make up a big part of the seafaring lore that has been passed down by sailors and fisherman throughout the years. The ships are said to be spectral apparitions that materialize on the horizon before quickly disappearing, and they are believed to be a sign of bad things to come. The term is also used to describe abandoned vessels that are found adrift with no crew or passengers, often under frightening and mysterious circumstances. Whether real stories of these derelict ships or legends about phantom craft trawling the seas, the following are the ten most famous ghost ships that continue to provoke speculation and mystery in the nautical world.

10. The Caleuche

One of the most well known legends of the Chilota mythology of southern Chile describes the Caleuche, a ghost ship that appears every night near the island of Chiloe. According to local legend, the ship is a kind of conscious being that sails the waters around the area, carrying with it the spirits of all the people who have drowned at sea. When spotted, the Caleuche is said to be strikingly beautiful and bright, and is always accompanied by the sounds of party music and people laughing.  After appearing for a few moments, the ship is then said to disappear or submerge itself under the water. According to Chilota mythology, the spirits of the drowned are summoned to the ship by the Sirena Chilota, the Pincoya, and the Picoy, three Chilota “water spirits” who resemble mermaids. Once aboard the phantom ship, the drowned are said to be able to resume their life as it was before they died.

9. The SS Valencia

The SS Valencia was steamer ship that sank off the coast of Vancouver, British Columbia in 1906. The ship had encountered bad weather near Cape Mendocino, and after drifting off course, struck a reef and began taking on water. The crew quickly began lowering lifeboats holding the ship’s 108 passengers into the water, but several of these capsized, and one simply disappeared. The Valencia eventually sank, and only 37 of the roughly 180 people on board survived. Five months later, a fisherman claimed he had found a life raft with 8 skeletons in it in a nearby cave. A search was launched, but it found nothing. Thanks to its dramatic end, the Valencia eventually became the source of numerous ghost ship stories. Sailors would often claim they could see the specter of the steamer drifting near the reef in Pachena Point, and to this day the ship is the source of frequent wild theories and ghost ship sightings. In a bizarre twist, 27 years after the sinking of the Valencia, one of its life rafts was found floating peacefully in nearby Barkley Sound. The “ghost raft” was said to be in remarkable condition, and even still had most of its original coat of paint.

8. The Ourang Medan

The story of the Ourang Medan begins in 1947, when two American ships received a distress call while navigating the Strait of Malacca, off the coast of Malaysia. The caller identified himself as a member of the crew of the Ourang Medan, a Dutch vessel, and supposedly claimed that the ship’s captain and crew were all dead or dying. The messages became jumbled and bizarre before trailing off and ending with the words: “I die.” The ships quickly raced to the scene to help. When they arrived, they found that the Ourang Medan was undamaged, but that the entire crew—even the ship’s dog— was dead, their bodies and faces locked in terrified poses and expressions, and many pointing at something that was not there.  Before the rescuers could investigate further, the ship mysteriously caught on fire, and they had to evacuate. Soon after, the Ourang Medan is said to have exploded and then sank. While the details and the overall veracity of the Ourang Medan story are still widely debated, there have been a number of theories proposed about what might have caused the death of the crew. The most popular of these is that the ship was illegally transporting nitroglycerin or some kind of illegal nerve agent, which was not properly secured and seeped out into the air. Others, meanwhile, have claimed the ship was a victim of a UFO attack or some other kind of paranormal event.

7. The Carroll A. Deering

Perhaps the most famous ghost ship of the Eastern Seaboard is the Carroll A. Deering, a schooner that ran aground near Cape Hatteras, North Carolina in 1921. The ship had just returned from a commercial voyage to deliver coal in South America, and had last been spotted just south of Hatteras by a lightship near Cape Lookout. It ran aground in the notorious Diamond Shoals, an area famous for causing shipwrecks, and sat there for several days before any help was able to reach it. When they did arrive, the Coast Guard found that the ship was completely abandoned. The navigation equipment and logbook were missing, as were the two lifeboats, but otherwise there were no signs of any kind of foul play. A massive investigation by the U.S. government followed, which discovered that several other ships had disappeared under mysterious circumstances around the same time. Several theories were eventually put forth, the most popular being that the ship fell victim to pirates or rumrunners. Others suggested that mutiny might have been the cause, as the Deering’s first mate was known to bear some animosity toward its Captain, but no definitive proof has even been discovered. The mystery surrounding the ghost ship has encouraged wild speculation, and many have argued that paranormal activity might have been responsible, citing the ship’s passage through the infamous Bermuda triangle as proof that some kind of otherworldly phenomena might be to blame.

6. The Baychimo

One of the most amazing cases of a real-life ghost ship concerns the Baychimo, a cargo steamer that was abandoned and left to drift the seas near Alaska for nearly forty years. The ship was owned by the Hudson Bay Company, and was launched in the early 1920s and used to trade pelts and furs with the Inuit in northern Canada. But in 1931, the Baychimo became trapped in pack ice near Alaska, and after many attempts to break it free, its crew were eventually airlifted out of the area to safety. After a heavy blizzard, the ship managed to break free of the ice, but it was badly damaged and was abandoned by the Hudson Bay Company, who assumed it would not last the winter. Amazingly, the Baychimo managed to stay afloat, and for the next 38 years, it remained adrift in the waters off Alaska. The ship became something of a local legend, and was frequently sighted aimlessly floating near the frozen ice packs by Eskimos and other vessels. It was boarded several times, but weather conditions always made salvaging it nearly impossible. The Baychimo was last sighted in 1969, again frozen in the ice off of Alaska, but it has since disappeared. The ship is believed to have sunk in the intervening years, but recently a number of expeditions have been launched in search of now nearly 80-year-old ghost ship.

5. The Octavius

Although it is now considered more legend than anything, the story of the Octavius remains one of the most famous of all ghost ship stories. The tale dates back to 1775, when it is said that a whaling ship called the Herald stumbled across the Octavius floating aimlessly off the coast of Greenland. Crewmembers from the Herald boarded the Octavius, where they discovered the bodies of the crew and passengers all frozen solid by the arctic cold. Most notably, the crew found the ship’s captain still sitting at his desk, midway through finishing a log entry from 1762, which meant the Octavius had been adrift for 13 years. According to the legend, it was eventually discovered that the captain had gambled on making a quick return to England from the Orient via the Northwest Passage, but that the ship had become trapped in the ice. If true, this would mean the Octavius had completed its passage to the Atlantic as a ghost ship, its crew and captain long dead from exposure to the elements.

4. The Joyita

The Joyita was a fishing and charter boat that was found abandoned in the South Pacific in 1955. The ship, along with its 25 passengers and crew, were en route to the Tokelau Islands when something happened, and it was not until hours later that the Joyita was reported overdue and a rescue attempt launched. A massive air search was undertaken, but it failed to find the missing ship, and it was not until five weeks later that a merchant ship stumbled upon the Joyita drifting some 600 miles off its original course. There was no sign of any of the passengers, crew, cargo, or life rafts, and the ship was damaged and listing quite badly to one side. Further inspection by authorities found that the ship’s radio was tuned to the universal distress signal, and a search of the deck uncovered a doctor’s bag and several bloody bandages. None of the crew or passengers was ever seen again, and the mystery of what happened has never been revealed. The most popular theory is that pirates killed the passengers and threw their bodies overboard, but other claims have included everything from mutiny and kidnapping to insurance fraud.

3. The Lady Lovibond

The UK has a long tradition of legends about ghost ships, and of these the Lady Lovibond is perhaps the most famous. As the story goes, the Lady Lovibond’s captain, Simon Peel, had just gotten married, and decided to take his ship out on a cruise to celebrate. He brought his new bride along—going against a longstanding seafaring belief that bringing a woman on board a boat is bad luck—and set sail on Feb. 13, 1748. Unfortunately for Peel, his first mate was also in love with his new wife, and after watching the celebrations, the man became overwhelmed with rage and jealousy and intentionally steered the boat into the deadly Goodwind Sands, a sand bar notorious for causing ship wrecks. The Lady Lovibond sank, killing all those aboard. As the legend goes, ever since the wreck the Lady Lovibond can be seen sailing the waters around Kent every 50 years.  It was sighted in 1798 by a few different ship captains, as well as in 1848 and 1898, when it supposedly appeared to be so real that some boats, thinking it a vessel in distress, actually sent out life rafts to help it. The Lady Lovibond was again seen in 1948, and while there were no confirmed sightings on its most recent anniversary in 1998, it continues to be one of the most well-known ghost ship legends in Europe.

2. The Mary Celeste

Undoubtedly the most famous of all the real-life ghost ships, the Mary Celeste was a merchant ship that was found derelict and adrift in the Atlantic Ocean in 1872. The ship was in a seaworthy condition, with all its sails still up and a full store of food in its cargo hold, but its life boat, captain’s log book and, more importantly, the entire crew, had mysteriously vanished. There was no sign of a struggle, and the personal belongings of the crew and cargo of over 1500 barrels of alcohol were untouched, seemingly ruling out piracy as a possible explanation. In the years since its bizarre discovery, a number of theories have been proposed regarding the possible fate of the Mary Celeste’s crew. These include that those aboard were killed by a waterspout, that the crew mutinied, or even that eating flour contaminated with fungus led all the passengers to hallucinate and go mad. The most probable theory remains that a storm or some kind of technical issue led the crew to prematurely abandon the ship in the lifeboat, and that they later died at sea. Still, the mystery surrounding the Mary Celeste has led to much wild speculation, and others have proposed everything from ghosts to sea monsters and alien abduction as possible explanations.

1. The Flying Dutchman

In maritime folklore, no ghost ship is more famous than the Flying Dutchman, which has inspired numerous paintings, horror stories, films, and even an opera. The ship was first mentioned in the late 1700s in George Barrington’s seafaring book Voyage to Botany Bay, and since then its legend has continued to grow, thanks to numerous sightings of it by fisherman and sailors. As the story goes, the Flying Dutchman was a vessel out of Amsterdam that was captained by a man named Van der Decken. The ship was making its way toward the East Indies when it encountered dangerous weather near the Cape of Good Hope. Determined to make the crossing, Van der Decken supposedly went mad, murdered his first mate, and vowed that he would cross the Cape, “even if God would let me sail to Judgment Day!” Despite his best efforts, the ship sank in the storm, and as the legend goes, Van der Decken and his ghost ship are now cursed to sail the oceans for all eternity. To this day, the Flying Dutchman continues to be one of the most-sighted of all ghost ships, and people from deep-sea fishermen to the Prince of Wales have all claimed to have spotted it making its never-ending voyage across the oceans.

10 Creepy Places in America

There are just too many creepy places in America for this list to be the top 10, but these 10 destinations are all near the top of the list in terms of all-in-all creep factor. With Halloween fast approaching this list is appropriate and if you live near any of the places you may want to take a visit and see what you have been missing. From an axe murder’s home to a witch’s cave and a ghostly cemetery you are sure to find something to send chills up your spine. Doing research I came across this creepy video, but be warned, you may have nightmares: YouTube – Spooky ghost video car commercial

Lizzie Borden Bed and Breakfast in Fall River, Massachusetts

On August 4, 1892, someone killed Mr. and Mrs. Borden with a hatchet as they were in their home. Mrs. Borden was found in an upstairs guest room and Mr. Borden was found downstairs on the sofa. The accused was Lizzie Borden, the daughter of Mr. Borden and stepdaughter to Mrs. Borden. Despite her arrest, she was acquitted of the murders and died in 1927 still being labeled a murderer by many. Paranormal recordings turned up some creepy findings. If you think you could do it, find out for yourself what the experience is like by staying overnight.

Bell Witch Cave-Adams, Tennessee

John Bell and his family  move to Roberson County in 1804. In the late summer of 1817 something would happen that would change their lives forever. Some members of the family began seeing strange looking animals around the property. Then late at night they started hearing knocking sounds on the doors and outer walls of the house. Later sounds were being heard in the house. Sounds of a rat gnawing on the bed post, chains being drug through the house, stones being dropped on the wooden floors, then gulping and choking sounds. When asked who and what it was, it gave different identities. It once stated that it was the witch of a neighbor woman named Kate Batts. This is what many people believed, and from then on, this unseen force was called “Kate” the “Bell’s Witch”.

Her goal was the death of John Bell although no reason was given by Kate. In 1820 John Bell died and Kate was suspected of poisoning him.

Villisca Axe Murder House in Villisca, Iowa

On June 10, 1912, an intruder with an axe killed eight people as they slept in a house in the small town of Villisca, Iowa. The victims were a husband and wife along with their four young children. Two other young children who were visiting at the time were also among the dead. The murderer is unknown and was never caught. Some swear that this house is haunted by ghosts after seeing strange visions and hearing odd noises. If you are willing to find out, you can stay in this house overnight. Book early for overnight tours; available days tend to get filled fast. Should spending the night be too much for you to handle, there are also daylight tours.

The Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colorado

Staff who work in the kitchen next to the ballroom after hours say they have heard a party going on when the room was empty. In one guest room people claim to have seen a man standing over the bed then running into the cupboard. It is further claimed that this same apparition is responsible for stealing jewelery, watches and luggage that has gone missing. Some others reported that they have seen ghosts in their rooms in the middle of the night, just standing in their room then disappearing. Sometimes, people in the lobby can hear the piano playing from the ballroom. When workers check to see whats going on, there would be nobody sitting in front of the piano.

The historic ghost tour points out creepy and ghostly experiences that have taken place at the hotel. Although  the tours are open to the public, reservations are required ahead of time. If you stay at the hotel, you may want to sleep with one eye open in case you get an unexpected ghostly visitor.

Stephen King got the idea for The Shining after staying in the almost empty hotel on the night before it closed for an extended period.

Waverly Hills Sanatorium in Louisville, Kentucky

The building once held hundreds of tuberculosis patients. It closed in 1961 to be renovated. It opened in 1962 as a geriatrics center and then finally closed in 1980. Rumor has it that there is an incredible amount of paranormal activity that goes on in this location. They have several types of tours ranging from a couple of hours to a full night.

Some urban legends claim that “63,000 deaths” occurred at the Sanitorium. According to Assistant Medical Director Dr. J. Frank W. Stewart, the highest number of deaths in a single year at Waverly Hills was 152. Some independent researchers have suggested that 162 people died at Waverly Hills in 1945, so the highest total number of deaths possible over 50 years was approximately 8,212.

Sorrel-Weed House in Savannah, Georgia

The Sorrel Weed House has a reputation for being one of the most haunted buildings in Savannah. People claim to see figures in the windows and hear disembodied voices inside the house. The connecting carriage house behind the main house was said to have housed a female African-American slave who was murdered by a member of the family.

The beautiful house was completed in 1840 for Francis Sorrel. Due to its history, it was named as a State Landmark in Georgia. Its present day happenings caused it to be featured in an episode of Ghost Hunters, where evidence was found that there may be more than the living in the house. The Ghost Hunters tour of the Sorrel-Weed House will tell you all about the evidence that was found. Keep your eyes and ears open when you pass through.

Winchester Mystery House in San Jose, California

For thirty-eight years starting in 1884, this architectural wonder was not constructed as the result of need; it was built under the orders of Sarah L. Winchester because, as rumors say, she believed spirits were giving her building instructions. Mrs. Winchester was the wife of rifle manufacturer William Winchester. After her husband and daughter’s deaths, rumors say that Mrs. Winchester ordered the building of the house because she believed she was cursed by the spirits of those whose deaths were a result of Winchester rifles, those who would also make her death happen if she did not continuously build a house for them. What was once an eight-room house turned into a massive 160 room mansion. The construction took place day and night, all week and all year until her death in 1922. Stairs lead to the ceiling and doors lead to nothing. It is said that ghosts, including Sarah herself, haunt the house. While the reasoning behind the constant building is not known for sure, what is for sure is that the house is unlike any other you have ever been to. Take a public flashlight tour on Halloween to see if you can have your own ghostly experience.

Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

You do not walk into an eleven acre abandoned penitentiary if you want to feel warm and fuzzy. The most sought after Halloween tour, appropriately titled “Terror Behind the Walls”, takes place at night and does not discuss the history of the prison; the main objective of the night tour is to scare you senseless. The informational tours about its sordid history take place during daytime hours, which are undoubtedly still creepy as you walk around the facility that opened in 1829. Keep your eyes open for ghosts, which are said to walk the abandoned halls. If you feel a hand on you, do not be surprised if there is no one there when you turn around. Listen for noises, those of the living (and maybe the dead), which can catch you off guard no matter where in the facility you are. Before you enter, make sure to sign the waiver, which is necessary to take the tour.

The Myrtles Plantation in St. Francisville, Louisiana

There are a variety of legends surrounding the Myrtles. The house is reputedly built over an Indian burial ground, and the ghost of a young Indian woman has been repor ted and during the Civil War, the house was ransacked by Union soldiers, and legend claims that three were killed in the house. Supposedly, there is a blood stain in a doorway, roughly the size of a human body, that will not come clean. Other legends say that cleaners have been unable to push their mop or broom into that space.

This 200+ year plantation is incredibly beautiful and, as some may say, quite haunted. In addition to the beauty of the location, the stories of love and death that occurred at the plantation are enough to create a draw to the plantation. When you mix in the numerous stories of ghostly encounters and unexplainable photographs, it creates quite the creepy locale. There are historic tours and mystery tours available of Myrtles Plantation.

Bachelor’s Grove Cemetery

Located in the southwest suburbs of Chicago, Illinois, this cemetery exists peacefully in the Rubio Woods. At first glance, it looks like a small, unimportant cemetery. The chain link fence which once protected it from outsiders is broken, a big hole marring the protective metal. The cemetery itself is broken down, suffering from years of vandalism and trespassing. Some gravestones are dismantled.

Although this sounds like an innocent, unimportant cemetery, its past is shrouded in despair and death. A white, uninhabited pond exists in the northwest corner of the cemetery. Mob bosses used it as dumping grounds for their victims in the early 1900s. They officially stopped burying the dead in the 1960s. Since that time, people have reported many sightings, making Bachelor’s Grove the most haunted cemetery in the United States. Many of those sightings are seen near the pond.

Sightings include a ghost called the White Lady. Clad in white, she roams the graves looking for her lost baby. Other sightings include a two-headed man and a ghost house. Bachelor’s Grove is truly the spookiest haunting grounds in the United States.

Top 10 Most Haunted Cities in the U.S.

Visit even the smallest of towns in the U.S. and you’re likely to hear some local ghost stories and discover a few haunted houses. But some American cities have gained the reputation for being particularly ghost-ridden thanks to their rich and often bizarre historical backgrounds. The following are ten of the most haunted cities to steer away from—or toward, if you dare—this Halloween.

10. San Francisco, California

San Francisco’s rich cultural makeup, large immigrant population, and a history of natural disasters like earthquakes have helped it develop a reputation as a Mecca of all things haunted. Chinatown alone is home to countless ghost tours and creepy folklore, but the city also boasts a wealth of haunted hotels, mansions, and army bases. Of these, one of the most famous is the Queen Anne Hotel, which served as a school for girls in the 1890s and is said to be haunted by the ghost of its former headmistress, Mary Lake. There are also a number of stories concerning Mary Anne Pleasant, the so-called “Voodoo Queen of San Francisco,” who was a former slave and abolitionist who used a knowledge of the black arts to gain wealth and influence among the city’s elite. Even the trendy San Francisco Art Institute, which is rumored to have been built on top of a graveyard that housed victims of the 1906 earthquake, is said to be the home of several ghosts who have frequently been seen climbing the stairs to a tower that overlooks the ancient cemetery.

Most Haunted Place: Alcatraz

Alcatraz Island is one of San Francisco’s most famous landmarks, but the former maximum-security prison is also home to some of the city’s weirdest ghost stories. Visitors to the island often claim to see apparitions walking the cellblocks, and sometimes hear voices emanating from what was once the cafeteria.

9. Key West, Florida

Sunny Key West might not seem like the most probable setting for haunted houses, but this small beach community is home to some of the oldest—and downright creepiest—of all ghost stories. The city’s rich history of buccaneers and rumrunners provides the backdrop for a lot of these ghosts, like those that are said haunt Captain Tony’s Saloon. Before it was a bar, Captain Tony’s was supposedly the location of the island’s morgue, and the tree that grows through the building’s center is said to have been a major site for lynching pirates and other criminals, and many are said to still haunt the premises today. Other local ghost stories concern the writer Ernest Hemingway, who kept a home on Key West for some thirty years. Hemingway’s house, now a museum dedicated to his life and work, is said to house the novelist’s ghost. Some visitors and workers claim to see him walking the grounds, while others have heard the clicking of his typewriter coming from inside the main house.

Most Haunted: Robert the Doll

The island’s art and historical museum isn’t haunted, but it does contain one of the creepiest artifacts of Key West’s history in the form of Robert, a large doll that many claim is possessed. The doll was given to painter Gene Otto in the early 1900s, and the young boy soon became deathly afraid of it, as he said it would often threaten him and wake him in the night by throwing furniture around the room. The boy’s parents would often swear they saw the doll moving, and neighbors claimed they often spotted Robert pacing in front of the windows of the house when the family was away.

8. Athens, Ohio

Athens, Ohio is a small town that is home to the Ohio University as well as some downright strange ghost stories. This small, otherwise peaceful community has inspired stories of hauntings that include everything from a headless train conductor to pagan cults and the violent murders of livestock. Many claim that when plotted on a map, the city’s five major graveyards form the symbol of a pentagram, and strange rituals are at the center of many of Athens’ most famous ghost tales. A lot of these stories date back over a hundred years, when the town became associated with the Spiritualist movement of the 1800s. The most famous tells of Jonathan Koons, a poor farmer who was instructed by ghosts to build a “spirit room” in which apparitions would then manifest and communicate with him from beyond the grave.

Most Haunted Place: Athens Lunatic Asylum

Night Shift Staff

There’s nothing creepier than a good old-fashioned insane asylum, and Athens has one of the most famous in the form of the Athens Lunatic Asylum, which operated from 1874 until 1993. The hospital held many violent patients, and is notorious for being the site of hundreds of lobotomies. Since closing, the hospital has been the at the center of numerous ghost stories, most of which are kept alive by the students at the university, which now owns the asylum grounds. The most famous of these concerns Margaret, a deaf-mute patient who supposedly escaped from her room, accidentally became trapped in an abandoned ward, and eventually died of exposure. Her decomposing body was found weeks later, and supposedly the stain that was left on the floor of the ward can still be seen today.

7. Portland, Oregon

Portland, Oregon has developed a reputation as the most haunted city of the Pacific Northwest thanks to its bizarre history and high number of ghost sightings. One of the city’s most famous haunted houses is Pittock Mansion, an ornate house that was built in 1914 by a wealthy businessman and his wife, both of whom died shortly thereafter. Visitors have claimed to have seen apparitions and heard footsteps coming from empty rooms, and doors and windows will sometimes open by themselves. Weirdest of all, a portrait of Mr. Pittock, the man who built the house, will inexplicably be found in different parts of the house, as though it can move itself from room to room. In addition to the Pittock house, other Portland haunted places include the Bagdad theater, a movie theater built during the roaring 20s that supposedly houses a number of spirits, and the Willamette river, where in recent years a phantom rowboat has been spotted by several people.

Most Haunted Place: Shanghai Tunnels

Portland’s coastal location established it as a shipping hub and port of call for sailors during the 1800s. This eventually led to the rise of a practice known as shanghaiing, wherein unsuspecting men and women were kidnapped from bars or hotels, shipped to the Orient, and impressed into slave labor or prostitution. Portland was notorious for this practice thanks to a series of labyrinthine underground tunnels that run beneath the city streets, which were used by the Shanghaiiers as a safe way to capture and transfer victims to the harbor without being seen. Today, the tunnels are said to be haunted by the ghosts of the people who were kidnapped, many of whom were never seen or heard from again.

6. Charleston, South Carolina

Known as the “Holy City” for the church spires that dot its skyline, Charleston is one of the oldest cities in the U.S., and also one of the most haunted. Victorian mansions line the downtown area known as the Battery, which was a protective artillery installation during the Civil War, and it is here that many of the city’s most haunted houses can be found. Perhaps the most famous is the Battery Carriage House Inn, a hotel where people have reported seeing everything from strange lights, to the gentlemanly ghost of a student who died after leaping off the roof, to a headless torso that appears at guests’ bedsides in the middle of the night. Charleston is also known for a number of ghost stories that originated with the Gullah, a West African culture that populates parts of South Carolina and Georgia. The most famous Gullah horror stories usually center on Boo Hags, a type of blood-red vampire that wears human skin as a mask and feeds on its victim’s energy while they sleep.

Most Haunted Place: the Dock Street Theater

Charleston is full of buildings with a checkered past, and one of the most well known is surely the Dock Street Theater. Built in 1809, the theater is said to be the home of two spirits. The first is Nettie, a poor prostitute who was killed near the theater after being struck by lightning. The other is the ghost of Junius Brutus Booth, an actor who is more famous today for being the father of John Wilkes Boothe, the man who killed Abraham Lincoln. Both spirits are said to wander the backstage area of the theater, and many workers and performers claim to have spotted them.

5. Salem, Massachusetts

In 1692, Salem, Mass. became the sight of a series of infamous trials after three local women were accused of using witchcraft to terrorize a trio of young girls. The trials soon escalated into mass hysteria, with townspeople vehemently accusing neighbors and acquaintances, almost all of them unmarried women, of being witches. Over 150 people were arrested and charged, and as may as 19 were eventually executed by hanging. Today, the town of Salem encourages its reputation as “Witch City, USA” and has one of the biggest Halloween celebrations in the country. Alongside the tourist shops and museums, though, stand several infamous ghost stories related to the witch trials. One in particular concerns Gallows Hill, the site of several hangings, which is said to be haunted by the spirits of the 19 people lynched for being witches.

Most Haunted Place: Joshua Ward House

Known as one of the most haunted houses in America, Joshua Ward House is built on the foundation of the home of George Corwin, the man who served as Sheriff during the Salem witch trials. Corwin is infamous for his role in the death of Giles Corey, a local man who was charged with witchcraft. When Corey refused to enter a plea in court, Corwin used an old English legal precedent and placed him under a board piled with rocks in order to coerce him into talking. Corey never relented, and was eventually crushed to death under the massive weight. To this day, many claim that Corey and Corwin, who is rumored to be buried beneath the foundation of his old home, haunt the Joshua Ward House.

4. Chicago, Illinois

Thanks to its famous great fire and history of gangsters and underworld criminals like Al Capone, Chicago has developed quite a reputation for being haunted. The city has a number of well known ghost stories that are whispered among the locals each Halloween, and perhaps none is more famous that the story of Resurrection Mary. As the story goes, Mary was a young girl who was hit and killed by a car while leaving a dance hall with her boyfriend. She was buried in nearby Resurrection Cemetery, and ever since she can be periodically seen wandering the streets in her white burial dress, still trying to find her way back home. Another famous story concerns what has come to be known as the “Devil Baby of Hull House,” a child born with scaly skin and a pointed tail who supposedly haunts the house once owned by famed activist Jane Addams.

Most Haunted Place: Bachelor’s Grove Cemetery

Rumored to be one of the prohibition-era gangsters’ favorite places to dump bodies, Bachelor’s Grove is an old and decaying burial ground that has been the site of countless stories about ghosts, spirits, and devil worship. Several headstones in the cemetery seem to move at will, and many claim that the spirits of the dead often materialize and walk the grounds at night. The most famous of these is the “White Lady,” the ghost of a young woman who is always seen in a white dress, often cradling a baby in her arms. Photo: http://www.bachelors-grove.com/

3. Gettysburg, Pennsylvania

In July of 1863, the small college town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania was the site of the biggest military clash of the Civil War, which to this day remains the bloodiest event to ever occur on American soil. Over 150,000 total soldiers converged on the scene, and when the battle was over as many as 50,000 were killed, wounded, or missing. The shadow of the battle still stands over the town today, and many claim the ghosts of dead soldiers haunt the battlefields. What’s unique about Gettysburg is the sheer amount and frequency of its ghost sightings. Some places in the town, like the home of Jenny Wade, a woman who was killed by a stray bullet from the battle, supposedly experience paranormal activity on a daily basis. Elsewhere, there have even been reports of lone visitors to the battlefield park stumbling across what they assume to be a battle reenactment, only to later learn that none took place that day.

Most Haunted Place: The Devil’s Den

The Devil’s Den is a rocky outcropping of boulders and shrubs that was the site of one of the clashes of the second day of the battle. The spot is famous for being the location of a small skirmish that took place when a Union artillery unit returned fire on a Confederate sharpshooter who was taking shots at them from behind the rocks. They later found a body, and photographer Alexander Gardner took a photo of it that has since become one of the most iconic images of the battle. But recent evidence suggests that the body in the photo was not the man responsible, and some even claim that Gardner dragged the corpse of another man to the spot in order to stage the picture. Supposedly, this man’s ghost now haunts the Devil’s Den, and to this day visitors to the park often have a great deal of trouble trying to take photos anywhere near the site. Pictures often come out blurry and unusable, and cameras have a strange way of suddenly dying whenever they are turned on in the area.

2. Savannah, Georgia

With its many cemeteries, gothic mansions, and trees covered in hanging Spanish moss, Savannah, GA fits the bill of a haunted city about as well as any town in America. It was one of only a few places that escaped being burned during Sherman’s famous “March to the Sea” during the Civil War, and so it still contains a good deal of antebellum architecture that serves as a perfect breeding ground for ghost stories. One example is the Pirates’ House, a restaurant that in the late 1700s served as a pub for a notoriously rough clientele of sailors and buccaneers. As in Portland, shanghaiing was a common practice, and unsuspecting or drunk patrons were often waylaid and then dragged to the harbor via a series of underground tunnels connected to the bar’s rum cellar. To this day, many consider the cellar to be haunted, and it is said that at night the sounds of drunken sailors singing can still be heard.

Most Haunted Place: The Hampton Lillibridge House

The Hampton Lillibridge house is an assuming three-story building that was built in 1796 and originally served as a boarding house. It was purchased in the 1960s by a builder who hoped to restore it, and it was then that strange phenomena began to occur. At one point during construction, a portion of the roof collapsed, killing one of the workers. Other builders claimed they would hear voices and footsteps whenever they were alone, and that pieces of construction equipment would often be thrown across the room. Even creepier, they said they often spotted a man in a black suit staring at them from inside the house. Countless exorcisms and investigations have taken place at the house since, and it has gone through several owners, but the presence that haunts it is said to still remain there today.

1. New Orleans, Louisiana

All southern port towns have their share of ghost stories, but none more so than New Orleans, which has truly embraced its reputation as a center of all things paranormal. All of the criteria that tend to produce ghost legends—a coastal location, a checkered past, a rich cultural history, and a potent mix of old and new world religion— can be found here. The city is full of haunted mansions, taverns, and graveyards, and you can’t go far without hearing stories of cursed pirate ships, Civil War-era spirits, and voodoo hexes. In this realm, one of the most famous figures is undoubtedly Marie Laveau, a Creole woman who gained a massive following during the 1800s as one of the first practitioners of voodoo. She died in 1881, but for years after many people claimed to see her walking throughout the French Quarter, and more than 120 years later many ghostly legends about the “Voodoo Queen of New Orleans” still persist.

Most Haunted Place: LaLaurie House

In the heart of the French Quarter lies an ornate mansion that in the 1800s belonged to physician Louis LaLaurie and his socialite wife Delphine. As the story goes, it was rumored at the time that the couple treated their slaves viciously, and there was evidence Lady LaLaurie was responsible for the murder of a 12-year-old girl. The rumors were validated when one night a fire broke out in the mansion’s kitchen. Firemen raced to the scene, and when they kicked down a door to the slave quarters they were astonished to find several slaves chained to the wall in a kind of makeshift dungeon. Many have since claimed that the LaLaurie’s were performing grotesque surgical experiments on the slaves, but modern evidence suggests that this is probably an exaggeration. Either way, the sadistic couple is said to have soon fled the city, and Lady LaLaurie eventually disappeared. The mansion where the horrors took place still stands today, and several ghosts have been sighted, among them the spirits of both Delphine LaLaurie and the young slave girl she is said to have murdered.

Top 10 Weirdest CIA Programs

Over the years, the American Central Intelligence Agency has gained a reputation for being the most far-reaching, sophisticated, and effective government intelligence agency on the planet. At the same time, the CIA has also become known for its incredible paranoia and propensity to undertake costly, sometimes illegal, and often downright absurd projects in the name of gaining an edge on the competition. From spy cats to psychic hippies, the following are ten of the weirdest spy programs the government has proposed and funded over the years.

10. Acoustic Kitty

Most people wouldn’t think of the common house cat as being a potential master of espionage, but the CIA sure did. In the 1960s, American intelligence is said to have spent over $20 million on “Acoustic Kitty,” a top-secret project that used cats as recording devices. The project took a group of specially trained cats and surgically implanted microphones, antennae and batteries into their tails, and then set them loose near the Russian embassy. The idea was that an unassuming cat would be able to stride right up to groups of communist officials and listen in on their conversation, which it could then beam back to agents with its sophisticated radio equipment. The plan was eventually put into action, but the first cat sent into the field was supposedly run over by a taxi before it could make a recording, and operation ‘Acoustic Kitty” was abandoned shortly thereafter.

9. Operation Mockingbird

One of the most ambitious and downright insidious programs ever launched by the CIA was Operation Mockingbird, a propaganda project that was implemented in the early 1950s. It was a massive undertaking that saw as many as 3,000 CIA agents and collaborators attempt to gain some control of the free press by feeding select groups of reporters information and using newspapers at home and abroad to filter the kinds of stories that got to the public. At its height, the program included writers for the New York Times, Newsweek, and Time Magazine among its ranks, and was said to have a significant influence on as many as 25 major newspapers. The program had a major impact abroad, as well, as it served a major function in helping to sway public opinion in the run-up to the eventual overthrowing of Guatemala’s leftist president. Operation Mockingbird continued to have a major effect on worldwide media throughout the 50s, and it was not until the 60s that a series of reports by investigative journalists brought the program to light.

8. Operation Gold

The tapped telephone wires are presented to the press.

One of the most audacious intelligence operations of the Cold War was 1953’s Operation Gold, which was a joint effort between the CIA and the British MI6 to hack into the phone lines of the Soviet headquarters in East Berlin. This required the construction of a massive 450-meter long tunnel that would intersect with an underground telephone junction. Just preparing the tunnel took six months, and involved a substantial amount of risk and subterfuge. But when it was done, the CIA proceeded to carefully record as many as 50,000 telephone conversations over the course of nearly a year. The problem? A mole in British intelligence had tipped off the KGB about Operation Gold before the tunnel was even completed, and the Soviets had been feeding fake them information the entire time. In 1956, the Soviets raided the tunnel and shut it down, and the operation eventually caused a great deal of controversy for the American and British intelligence communities.

7. Operation Northwoods

In the early 1960s, when the Cold War was in full swing and fear of communism was rampant, a plan dubbed Operation Northwoods was proposed within the American CIA. In short, it called for the government to perform a series of violent terrorist actions in U.S. cities including bombings, hijackings, phony riots, and sabotage, all of which could then be blamed on Cuba. This would drum up support for a war against the communists and lead to an eventual military operation to remove Fidel Castro from power. The plan was drafted and signed by the Joint Chiefs of Staff and presented to President John F. Kennedy, who personally rejected it, and it was subsequently abandoned. For years after, Operation Northwoods existed as a rumor, but it was finally revealed to be true when top-secret documents describing the plan were made public in 1997 as part of a release of government papers relating to the Kennedy assassination.

6. Project Pigeon

One of the most seemingly preposterous military programs of all time occurred during WWII, when famed behavioral psychologist B.F. Skinner was enlisted by the government to try and train pigeons for use in a missile guidance system. At the time, Skinner was known as one of the major practitioners of operant conditioning, a system that used reward and punishment as a means of controlling behavior. With these ideas in mind, Skinner placed a series of specially trained pigeons inside missiles. A camera on the front of the missile recorded its flight path, which was then projected on a screen for the pigeon to see. The birds were trained to recognize the missile’s intended target, and they would peck at the screen if it was drifting off course. This information was fed to the weapon’s flight controls, which would then be changed to reflect the new coordinates. Skinner was originally given $25,000 to get the project up and running, and he actually managed to make some minor progress with it. But government officials were never quite able to get past the obvious absurdity of the program, and it was eventually shut down. Image credit: http://www.psywarrior.com/

5. Operation Midnight Climax

In the early 1960s, the youth culture of America was first beginning to experiment with hallucinogenic drugs like LSD, and so was the Central Intelligence Agency. Operation Midnight Climax was one of the government’s most ridiculous and illegal attempts to test the possible uses of drugs like acid by administering them to unsuspecting citizens. The program was run out of a collection of safehouses in New York and California. Prostitutes were used to lure young men to the houses, at which point they were given food or drink spiked with LSD and other drugs and placed in a room with a two-way mirror where their behavior could be observed. Midnight Climax was essentially an experimental program designed to monitor the possible tactical uses of psychotropic drugs and sexual blackmail in the field, but even within the Agency it was controversial, and it was shut down after only a few years. Most of the files connected to the operation were destroyed, but a few survived, and in the early 70s the files regarding Midnight Climax and many other illegal CIA programs were brought to light in a famous story by the New York Times.

4. The Stargate Project

The $20 million Stargate Project was a blanket term used to describe a large number of psychic experiments and investigations undertaken by the U.S. government between the 70s and 90s. The biggest goal of the Stargate Project was to investigate the scientific probability of “remote viewing,” which is the psychic ability to witness events over great distances. The program, which also investigated psychic abilities like out of body experiences and clairvoyance, tested subjects on their ability to predict future events and read hidden documents. The Stargate Project usually enlisted the services of anywhere from 3 to 22 subjects at a time, many of whom managed to test with an accuracy rating as much as 15% higher than the norm. Still, although some participants claimed to have correctly predicted major world events like military attacks and hostage situations, the program found that remote viewers and so-called telepaths were still wrong nearly 80 percent of the time, and in 1995 the CIA cancelled the Stargate Project for good.

3. Operation Mongoose

In the early 60s, communist Cuba became one of the major battlegrounds of the Cold War, and its president Fidel Castro came to be considered one of the most dangerous political figures in the world. After early attempts to overthrow Castro by force failed, the CIA instituted Operation Mongoose, which was a secret war of propaganda and sabotage designed to remove the Cuban leader from power. Operation Mongoose had a remarkably wide scope, and included plans to fake attacks on Cuban exiles, provide arms to opposition groups, and destroy Cuba’s crop of sugarcane. It also included several attempts to either assassinate or discredit Castro in the press, each of which was more elaborate and ridiculous than the next. The Agency considered, among other things, poisoning Castro’s personal supply of cigars, planting explosives disguised as seashells in his favorite swimming spots, and injecting him with a deadly chemical from a hypodermic needle disguised as a pen. Even more bizarre were the plans to discredit Castro in the public eye, which included a proposal to spray a TV studio with hallucinogens prior to one of the leader’s televised speeches, and even planting chemicals in his clothes that would cause his famous beard to fall out. The near-disaster of the Cuban Missile Crisis put Operation Mongoose on hold, and following an agreement between Kennedy and the Soviets, it was more or less abandoned.

2. Project MKULTRA

One of the most downright creepy government programs and the fodder for countless conspiracy theories, Project MKULTRA was a sweeping and top-secret CIA program started in the early 1950s that included experiments in “chemical interrogation” and mind control. In short, MKULTRA was a plan that sought to use drugs, psychological stress, and bizarre interrogation methods to get information, control behavior, and even alter brain function. To this day, much of the information on the project remains classified, but what we do know is that the program involved the testing and interrogation of private citizens—often without their knowledge or consent—in the service of discovering whether or not certain drugs could be used as truth serums. This included giving subjects large doses of LSD, amphetamine, and mescaline, as well as shock therapy. In one case, subjects were supposedly dosed with acid for 77 days straight in an attempt to test the effects of long-term exposure to the drug. Conspiracy theories abide about the real goals of the project, with some saying it was a program to engineer zombie assassins through mind control and brainwashing. Some information about MKULTRA was finally brought to light in the early seventies, when news reports about CIA abuses of power led to a Congressional commission. The project was subsequently shut down, but many people claim that similar CIA programs still exist to this day.

1. The Bay of Pigs Invasion

For sheer absurdity, wastefulness, and infamy, few CIA projects compare to 1961’s failed Bay of Pigs Invasion. The program was one of the first and boldest attempts to overthrow communist Cuban leader Fidel Castro, but it was also the most disastrously unsuccessful. It started in 1960, when the CIA, under the authorization of the President, began planning an attempted overthrow of the Cuban government. In order to eliminate any link to the U.S., the attack was to be perpetrated by an army of Cuban exiles specially trained by the CIA. After a series of diversionary air strikes, on April 17, 1961, a group of amphibious troop transports landed on a beach in the Bay of Pigs and began unloading their cargo of 1,300 exile guerillas. The plan was for them to rendezvous with a smaller band of paratroops to be dropped soon after their arrival, but from the beginning their plan was tragically mistimed. For starters, Cuban intelligence was already aware of the planned invasion, and this meant that when the exile troops landed they were almost immediately under attack. To add to the force’s problems, bad weather, coral reefs, and the Cuban swamps quickly claimed most of their equipment. All told, an estimated 2,000 Cubans died during the invasion, while over 100 members of the exile army were killed in action. The remaining 1,200 were captured and imprisoned, and some were later executed on the orders of Castro. Over a year later, the rest were freed in exchange for $53 million in food and medicine for Cuban people. The effects of the Bay of Pigs were far reaching. Several American officials resigned over their involvement in it, and many have credited it with increasing the resolve of the Cuban government and encouraging a severe distrust of American foreign policy in the years that followed.